idiom (n.)

A term used in GRAMMAR and LEXICOLOGY to refer to a SEQUENCE of WORDS which is SEMANTICALLY and often SYNTACTICALLY restricted, so that they function as a single UNIT. From a semantic viewpoint, the MEANINGS of the individual words cannot be summed to produce the meaning of the idiomatic expression as a whole. From a syntactic viewpoint, the words often do not permit the usual variability they display in other CONTEXTS, e.g. it’s raining cats and dogs does not permit *it’s raining a cat and a dog/dogs and cats, etc. Because of their lack of internal CONTRASTIVITY, some linguists refer to idioms as ‘ready-made UTTERANCES’. An alternative terminology refers to idioms as ‘habitual COLLOCATIONS’. A point which has attracted considerable discussion is the extent to which degrees and kinds of idiomaticness can be established: some idioms do permit a degree of internal change, and are somewhat more literal in meaning than others (e.g. it’s worth her while/the job will be worth my while, etc.). In GENERATIVE GRAMMAR, idiomatic constructions are used for testing hypotheses about structure: if idioms are units whose parts stay together in DEEP STRUCTURE, then one can test whether a particular syntactic construction involves MOVEMENT by seeing whether the parts of the idiom can be separated in that construction. In this approach, also, the term idiom chunk is used for one part of an idiom which has been separated from the remainder through some syntactic operation, such as the basket in That’s the basket into which I’ve put all my eggs (cf. I’ve put all my eggs into one basket).