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Idiom storage and the lexicon1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2017

TAL SILONI ,
JULIA HORVATH ,
HADAR KLUNOVER  and
KEN WEXLER
TAL SILONI*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
JULIA HORVATH*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
HADAR KLUNOVER*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
KEN WEXLER*
Affiliation:
MIT
*
Author’s address: Department of Linguistics, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israelsiloni@post.tau.ac.il
Author’s address: horvath@post.tau.ac.il
Author’s address: hadarklu@gmail.com
Author’s address: MIT Linguistics and Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 32-D808, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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Abstract

Using a new methodology, the paper reports experimental work that sheds light on the organization of the lexicon, the storage technique of phrasal idioms, and the derivation of various diatheses. We conducted an experiment to examine the pattern of distribution of phrasal idioms across several diatheses. Native speakers of Hebrew were taught invented Hebrew idioms inspired by French idioms. The idioms were headed by predicates of three diatheses: a verbal passive, an adjectival passive, and an unaccusative verb. After learning the idioms, the participants evaluated for each idiom how likely it was that it shared its idiomatic meaning with its transitive version. The results show that the distribution of phrasal idioms depends on the diathesis of their head. Subjects perceived the likelihood of the verbal passive to share idiomatic meanings with its transitive counterpart as significantly higher than that of both the adjectival passive and the unaccusative. The findings provide support for the claim that phrasal idioms are stored in the lexicon, not in an extra-grammatical component, since their perception by speakers turned out to be dependent on a grammatical property, the diathesis. This dependency can be explained if phrasal idioms are stored as subentries of their head. The findings also reinforce the view that adjectival passives and unaccusatives are listed in the lexicon, but not verbal passives. Finally, they support the existence of an active lexicon, where thematic operations can apply.

Keywords

adjectival passivelexiconphrasal idiomunaccusativeverbal passive
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , 01 February 2018 , pp. 189 - 215
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

[1]

This research was supported by Grant No 2009269 from the United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF). We are grateful to Julie Fadlon for the statistical analysis. We would also like to thank Julie Fadlon, Aya Meltzer-Asscher and three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees for their helpful comments.

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