Cover not available
Part of
Producing Figurative Expression: Theoretical, experimental and practical perspectives
Edited by John Barnden and Andrew Gargett
[Figurative Thought and Language 10] 2020
► pp. 237–262

Producing figurative meanings

The case of idioms

| Macquarie University, Australia
This paper explores the hypothesis that definiteness marking can be used as a tool for the speaker to trigger idiomaticity. In an experiment, we asked participants to produce the content of newly created figurative expressions. The results showed that the manipulation of a single parameter, definiteness marking, gave rise to a difference in the type of content participants produced for the novel figurative expressions. In particular, figurative expressions that contained a pragmatically unlicensed definite article gave rise to greater idiomaticity than expressions that contained a (licensed) indefinite article. Violating the felicity conditions on the use of a definite article is therefore one way for the speaker to produce figuration.
Keywords: figurative expressions, idiomaticity, definiteness marking, Dutch
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Definiteness and idiomaticity
  • 3.Producing figurative meanings
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials and design
    • 3.3 Procedure
    • 3.4Results
      • 3.4.1Types of meanings for non-existing idioms
      • 3.4.2Transparency rating
      • 3.4.3Discussion of experimental findings
  • 4.General discussion and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 December 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.10.09kor
References (55)
References
Abbott, B. (2006). Definite and indefinite. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 3, 392–399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Abeillé, A (1995). The Flexibility of French Idioms: A Representation with Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar. In M. Everaert E. van der Linden A. Schenk R. Schreuder (Eds.), Idioms: Structural and Psychological Perspectives (pp. 15–42). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Aguilar-Guevara, A., & Zwarts, J.. (2010). Weak definites and reference to kinds. In Proceedings of SALT (pp. 179–196).
Bobrow, S. A., & Bell, S. M. (1973). On catching on to idiomatic expressions. Memory & Cognition, 1(3), 343–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J. (1982). The mental representation of grammatical relations. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cacciari, C., & Tabossi, P. (1988). The comprehension of idioms. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 668–683. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlson, G., & Sussman, R.. (2005). Seemingly indefinite definites. In S. Kepsar, & M. Reis (Eds.), Linguistic evidence: Empirical, theoretical, and computational perspectives (pp. 26–30). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carlson, G., Sussman, R., Klein, N., & Tanenhaus, M. (2006). Weak definite noun phrases. In C. Davis, A. R. Deal, & Y. Zabbal (Eds.), Proceedings of NELS 36 (pp. 179–196). Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1964). Degrees of grammaticalness. In J. A. Fodor, & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The structure of language. Readings in the philosophy of language (pp. 384–389). Eaglewoord Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
(1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
(1985). The logical structure of linguistic theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Corver, N. (2015). Emotion in the build of Dutch: Deviation and augmentation. Ms. UiL-OTS, Utrecht University.
Cronk, B. C., Lima, S. D., & Schweigert, W. A. (1993). Idioms in sentences: Effects of frequency, literalness, and familiarity. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 22, 59–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cronk, B. C., & Schweigert, W. A. (1992). The comprehension of idioms: The effects of familiarity, literalness, and usage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 13, 131–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cutting, J. C., & Bock, K. (1997). That’s the way the cookie bounces: Syntactic and semantic components of experimentally elicited idiom blends. Memory & Cognition, 25, 57–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diesing, M., & Jelinek, E. (1995). Distributing arguments. Natural Language Semantics, 3(2), 123–176. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DiSciullo, A. M., & Williams, E. (1987). On the definition of word. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., & Nayak, N. (). Psycholinguistic studies on the syntactic behavior of idioms. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 100–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.W., & Nayak, N., & Cutting, C. (1989). How to kick the bucket and not decompose: Analyzability and idiom processing. Journal of Memory and Language, 28(5), 576–593. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Everaert, M. (1996). The encoding of the lexical semantic structure of verbs: The case of auxiliary selection in idioms. In E. Weigand, & F. Hundsnurscher (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Lexicology and Lexical Semantics Münster (pp. 27–37). Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.Google Scholar
(2010). The lexical encoding of idioms. In Lexical semantics, syntax, and event structure (pp. 76–98). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fellbaum, C. (1993). The determiner in English idioms. In C. Cacciari, & P. Tabossi (Eds.), Idioms: Processing, structure and interpretation (pp. 271–296). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
(2019). How flexible are idioms? A corpus-based study. Linguistics, 57(4), 735–767. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. (1980). Spilling the beans on understanding memory for idioms in conversation. Memory and Cognition, 8, 149 – 156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1993). Why idioms are not dead metaphors. In Idioms: Processing, structure, and interpretation (pp. 55–77).Google Scholar
Giora, R. (1988). On the Informativeness Requirement. Journal of Pragmatics 12(5/6), 547–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grégoire, N. (2009). Untangling multiword expressions: A study on the representation and variation of Dutch multiword expressions . Doctoral Dissertation. University of Utrecht
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan (Eds.), Speech acts: Syntax and semantics (Vol. 3, pp. 41–58). New York, NY: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heim, I. (1982). The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases . Doctoral Dissertation. University of Massachusetts.
Holsinger, E. (2013). Representing idioms: Syntactic and contextual effects on idiom processing. Language and speech, 56(3), 373–394. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1997). The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Katz, J. (1964). Semi-sentences. In A. Fodor, & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The Structure of Language. Readings in the philosophy of language (pp. 400–416). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Klein, N. M., Gegg-Harrison, W. M., Carlson, G. N., & Tanenhaus, M. K. (2013). Experimental investigations of weak definite and weak indefinite noun phrases. Cognition, 128(2), 187–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Konopka, A. E., & Bock, K. (2009). Lexical or syntactic control of sentence formulation? Structural generalizations from idiom production. Cognitive Psychology, 58, 68–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGinnis, M. (2002). On the systematic aspect of idioms. Linguistic Inquiry, 33(4), 665–672. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGlone, M. S., Glucksberg, S., & Cacciari, C. (1994). Semantic productivity and idiom comprehension. Discourse Processes, 17, 167–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nunberg, G., Sag, I., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3), 491–538. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
O’Grady, W. (1998). The syntax of idioms. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 16(2), 279–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortony, A., Schallert, D. L., Reynolds, R. E., & Antos, S. J. (1978). Interpreting metaphors and idioms: Some effects of context on comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 17, 465–477. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peterson, R. R., Burgess, C., Dell, G. S., & Eberhard, K. M. (2001). Dissociation between syntactic and semantic processing during idiom comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 27, 1223–1237.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1905). On denoting. Mind, 14, 479–493. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sanders, E. (2017, August 24). Jantje Contantje, een domme Joris en een hele Hans. Retrieved from [URL]
Schwarz, F. (2014). How weak and how definite are weak definites? In A. Aguilar-Guevara B. Le Bruyn & J. Zwarts (Eds.), Weak referentiality (pp. 213–235). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sprenger, S., Levelt, W., & Kempen, G. (2006). Lexical access during the production of idiomatic phrases. Journal of Memory and Language, 54, 161–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Svenonius, P. (2005). Extending the Extension Condition to discontinuous idioms. Linguistic Variation Yearbook, 5, 227–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swinney, D. A., & Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 18(5), 523–534. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1950). On referring. Mind, 59, 320–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tabossi, P., Fanari, R., & Wolf, K. (2008). Processing idiomatic expressions: Effects of semantic compositionality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 34, 313–327.Google Scholar
Tabossi, P., Wolf, K., & Koterle, S. (2009). Idiom syntax: Idiosyncratic or principled. Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 77–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Titone, D. A., & Connine, C. M. (1999). On the compositional and noncompositional nature of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Pragmatics, 31, 1655–1674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weinreich, U. (1969). Problems in the analysis of idioms. In J. Puhvel (Ed.), Substance and structure of language (pp. 23–81). Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wulff, S. (2010). Rethinking Idiomaticity: A Usage-Based Approach. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Ziff, P. (1964). On understanding “Understanding Utterances”. In A. Fodor, & J. J. Katz (Eds.), The structure of language. Readings in the philosophy of language (pp. 390–399). Englewoord Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Zwarts, J. (2014). Functional frames in the interpretation of weak nominals. Advances in Weak Referentiality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar