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The Syntactic Structure Of Idioms In Literature

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In comparison to the other definition by scholars in the study of Idioms, they are fixed phrases that mean something other than what a literal interpretation of their individual words would indicate (Fraser, 1970; Katz & Postal, 1963; Weinreich, 1969). The skilfulness of writers can be seen when idioms have been used in various syntactic arguments, some routinely repeated in introductory textbooks (Nunberg, Sag, & Wasow, 1994). Lennon (1998) mentions that richness of language and the liveliness of a literature happened when idioms are included as they take the existing words, combine them into a new sense and creating new meaning. Idioms are often viewed as fixed or frozen in form and meaning, thus changes to the structure and meaning are forbidden. However, there is a degree of allowance that an idiom can be changed to vary from the original idiom in order to convey a specific meaning in which the user of the idiom intend to convey in their spoken or written works. And these changes can be seen in the syntactic structure of the idioms. This paper aims to study the variations of idioms in term of cognitive factors in the use of idioms and the syntactical features that are …show more content…

As we all know, the function of language is to convey a message, thought and idea as well as to express emotion and feeling. The user of a language tends to manipulate the receivers of the message to believe in the users’ opinions, view of the world and knowledge. But in the practical world the receiver may interpret the meaning of the message differently from one individual to another compared to what the user of language had intended to convey in the first place. This is due to the fact of the receiver 's different prior knowledge and expectation and social background as well as their proficiency of the particular …show more content…

We have come to the interpretation that the agreement between an element of variation and syntax helps user to understand and analyze idioms efficiently. Attempts have been made to discover the relation between form and meaning as well as defined the possible idiomatic variable at the syntactic level and the syntactical analysis are carried out to view the level of frozenness of form and meaning in idioms. There are many idioms that have undergone changes in modification of adjectives, adverbs, verbs and the addition of words into the original idioms that still hold the same idiomatic expression, but in a more specific context with regards to what the users wish to deliver. In this study, a few commonly used idioms are categorized into the different types of variation that might happen to an idiom and is still possible to maintain the idiomatic expression of the original idiom. For the categorization of the idiom, the Transformational approach by Fraser (1970) is applied in this analysis. As what Fraser proposed in his article “Idioms within a Transformational Grammar”, he lays out seven degrees of hierarchy model to categorize the flexibility of the syntactical structures of idioms, which at the highest level, it is categorized as unrestricted and free, whereby it undergoes all lexical transformation while the lowest level is

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