A phraseme, also called a set phrase, fixed expression, multiword expression (in computational linguistics), or more specifically idiom, is a multi-word or multi-morphemic utterance whose components include at least one that is selectionally constrained or restricted by linguistic convention such that it is not freely chosen. In the most extreme cases, there are expressions such as kicked the bucket (to express with flippancy that a person has died) where the unit is selected as a whole to express a meaning that bears little or no relation to the meanings of its parts. Someone unfamiliar with the expression would not know its meaning. At the other extreme, there are cliches such as in the wrong place at the wrong time, how old are you?, and will you marry me? where meaning is transparent, but the word choices and contexts of use are constrained by the conventions of the English language (hence, *in the bad place at the bad time, *how many years are you?, *do you wish to marry me?). Both kinds of expression are phrasemes, and can be contrasted with free phrases, expressions where all of the members (barring grammatical elements whose choice is forced by the morphosyntax of the language) are chosen freely, based exclusively on their meaning and the message that the speaker wishes to communicate.
Major types of phraseme Phrasemes can be broken down into groups based on their compositionality (whether or not the meaning they express is the sum of the meaning of their parts) and the type of selectional restrictions that are placed on their non-freely chosen members. Non-compositional phrasemes are what are commonly known as idioms, while compositional phrasemes can be further divided into collocations, clichés, and pragmatemes. Marta Dynel also treats conventional metaphors as potential phrasemes.
Non-compositional phrasemes: Idioms A phraseme is an idiom if its meaning is not the predictable sum of the meanings of its component—that is, if it is non-compositional. Generally speaking, idioms will not be intelligible to people hearing them for the first time without having learned them. Consider the following examples (an idiom is indicated by elevated half-brackets: ˹ … ˺):
˹rock and roll˺ ‘a Western music genre characterised by a strong beat with sounds generated by guitar, piano, and vocalists’ ˹cheek by jowl˺ ‘in close association’ ˹the game is up˺ ‘your deceit is exposed’ ˹[X] comes to [NX’s] senses˺ ‘X becomes conscious or rational again’ ˹put [NY] on the map˺ ‘make the place Y well-known’ ˹bull session˺ ‘long informal talk on a subject by a group of people’ In none of these cases are the meanings of any of the component parts of the idiom included in the meaning of the expression as a whole. An idiom can be further characterized by its transparency, the degree to which its meaning includes the meanings of its components. Three types of idioms can be distinguished in this way—full idioms, semi-idioms, and quasi-idioms.
Full idioms An idiom AB (that is, composed of the elements A ‘A’ and B ‘B’) is a full idiom if its meaning does not include the meaning of any of its lexical components: ‘AB’ ⊅ ‘A’ and ‘AB’ ⊅ ‘B’.
˹put [NY] through its paces˺ ‘to test Y thoroughly’ ˹go ballistic˺ ‘suddenly become very angry’ ˹by heart˺ ‘remembering verbatim’ ˹bone of contention˺ ‘reason for quarrels or fights’
Semi-idioms An idiom AB is a semi-idiom if its meaning
1) includes the meaning of one of its lexical components, but not as its semantic pivot (see below), 2) does not include the meaning of the other component and 3) includes an additional meaning ‘C’ as its semantic pivot: ‘AB’ ⊃ ‘A’, and ‘AB’ ⊅ ‘B’, and ‘AB’ ⊃ ‘C’.
˹private eye (I)˺ ‘private investigator’ ˹sea anemone˺ ‘predatory polyp dwelling in the sea’
The semantic pivot of an idiom is, roughly speaking, the part of the meaning that defines what sort of referent the idiom has (person, place, thing, event, etc.) and is shown in the examples in italic. More precisely, the semantic pivot is defined, for an expression AB meaning ‘S’, as that part ‘S1’ of AB’s meaning ‘S’, such that ‘S’ [= ‘S1’ ⊕ ‘S2’] can be represented as a predicate ‘S2’ bearing on ‘S1’—i.e., ‘S’ = ‘S2’(‘S1’) (Mel’čuk 2006: 277).
Quasi-idiom or weak idiom An idiom AB is a quasi-idiom, or weak idiom if its meaning
1) includes the meaning of its lexical components, neither as the semantic pivot, and 2) includes an additional meaning ‘C’ as its semantic pivot: ‘AB’ ⊃ ‘A’, and ‘AB’ ⊃ ‘B’, and ‘AB’ ⊃ ‘C’.
Fr. ˹donner le sein à Y˺ ‘feed the baby Y by putting one teat into the mouth of Y’ ˹start a family˺ ‘conceive a first child with one’s spouse, starting a family’ ˹barbed wire˺ ‘[artifact designed to make obstacles with and constituted by] wire with barbs [fixed on it in small regular intervals]’
Compositional phrasemes A phraseme AB is said to be compositional if the meaning ‘AB’ = ‘A’ ⊕ ‘B’ and the form/AB/ = /A/ ⊕ /B/ (“⊕” here means ‘combined in accordance with the rules of the language’). Compositional phrasemes are generally broken down into two groups—collocations and clichés.
Collocations A collocation is generally said to consist of a base (shown in Small caps), a lexical unit chosen freely by the speaker, and of a collocate, a lexical unit chosen as a function of the base.
heavy Accent ‘strong accent’ sound Asleep ‘asleep such that one is hard to awaken’ Armed to the teeth ‘armed with many or with powerful weapons’ leap Year ‘year in which February has 29 days’ In American English, you make a decision, and in British English, you can also take it. For the same thing, French says prendre [= ‘take’] une décision, German—eine Entscheidung treffen/fällen [= ‘meet/fell’], Russian—prinjat´ [= ‘accept’] rešenie, Turkish—karar vermek [= ‘give’], Polish—podjąć [= ‘take up’] decyzję, Serbian—doneti [= ‘bring’] odluku, Korean—gyeoljeongeul hada 〈naerida〉 [= ‘do 〈take/put down〉’], and Swedish—fatta [= ‘grab’]. This clearly shows that boldfaced verbs are selected as a function of the noun meaning ‘decision’. If instead of DÉCISION a French speaker uses CHOIX ‘choice’ (Jean a pris la décision de rester ‘Jean has taken the decision to stay’ ≅ Jean a … le choix de rester ‘Jean has ... the choice to stay’), he has to say FAIRE ‘make’ rather than PRENDRE ‘take’: Jean a fait 〈*a pris〉 le choix de rester ‘Jean has made the choice to stay’.
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