IDIOMS, METAPHOR, METONYMY
In this chapter, figurative or non-literal meaning will be discussed. In particular, idiomatic or fixed expressions, metaphor, metonymy. The study of this kind of meaning has not traditoionally been the focus of linguistic semantics, partially because it is often diffiuclt to distinguish it precisely from literal meaning, and also because non-literal meaning has sometimes been regarded as largerly idisncratic and therefore,as less principled and ruled govern than literal meaning. But the study of non-literal meaning, especially methapor, has become much more important in recent years, partly because semantics have begun to discover that much, if not all, all of its use is not totally haphazard or idiosyncratic, but subject to certain rules and principles that can be discovered and described.
A. Idioms
Definition :
IDIOMATIC EXPRESSION (IDIOMS) are multi-word phrases whose overall meanings are idiosyncratic and largerly unpredictable, reflecting speaker meanings that are not derivable by combining phrase the literal sense of the individual words since each phrase according to the regular semantic rules typically of the language.
Example :
Expression such as let the cat out of the bag and take the bull by the horns commonly used idioms whose usual meanings are not fully compositional, but have to be learned as a whole. Any speaker of English knows, for example, that let the cat out of the bag is usually used to mean something like "reveal secret", though it also has possible, though rarely intende, literal compositional meaning meaning something like 'release a small feline animal from a sack.' Similarly, take the bull by horns typically evokes the idea that someone takes charge of a situation', though it could also have the moriteral compositional meaning 'grab a (real) bull by its horns.
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