Extended idioms as metaphors

Jamie Y. Findlay1, Sascha Bargmann2, Manfred Sailer2

1University of Oxford, 2Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

jamie.findlay@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk, {bargmann,sailer}@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Direct access theoriese.g. Kay et al. (2015), Bargmann & Sailer (2018), Findlay (2019)

Sascha Bargmann & Manfred Sailer. 2018. The syntactic flexibility of semantically non-decomposable idioms. In Manfred Sailer & Stella Markantonatou (eds.), Multiword expressions: insights from a multi-lingual perspective, 1–29. Berlin: Language Science Press. • Gareth Carrol & Kathy Conklin. 2017. Cross language lexical priming extends to formulaic units: evidence from eye-tracking suggests that this idea ‘has legs’. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20(2). 299–317 • Andy Egan. 2008. Pretense for the complete idiom. Noûs 42(3). 381–409. • Jamie Y. Findlay. 2019. Multiword expressions and the lexicon. DPhil thesis, University of Oxford. • Derdre Gentner. 1983. Structure-mapping: a theoretical framework for analogy. Cognitive Science 7(2). 155–170. • Paul Kay, Ivan A. Sag, and Daniel P. Flickinger. 2015. A lexical theory of phrasal idioms. Unpublished ms., CSLI, Stanford. • Stephen G. Pulman. 1993. The recognition and interpretation of idioms. In Cristina Cacciari & Patrizia Tabossi (eds.), Idioms: processing, structure, and interpretation, 249–270. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. • David A. Swinney & Anne Cutler. 1979. The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18(5). 523–534.

⟨

S

VP

NP

N

bucket

D

the

V

kick

NP

, λx.die(x)

⟩

Semantic mapping theoriese.g. Pulman (1993), Egan (2008)

Convention: when we talk about kicking a contextually salient bucket, we’re actually talking about dying.

Motivations

1. Lexically flexible idioms

(3) Kim gave me a kick up the backside/rear/arse/bum/booty/...

ɍ Any word meaning backside is acceptable here—the constraint is on meaning, not form.

2. ‘Inferred’ idioms

(4) a. Shit finally completes 29-month journey towards fan. b. Good gawd it’s another porcine flyer.

ɍ What makes these interpretable as instances of the idioms in question? They describe the same situation as the literal meaning of the idiom.

3. ‘Extended’ idioms

(5) a. Alex let the cat out of the bag, and we saw that it had sharp claws.

b. Livia didn’t quite kick the bucket, but she took a good strong swing at it.

ɍ If direct access theories are right, these should be nonsense: (5a) says that the secret had claws, and in (5b) there is no antecedent for it.

ɍ Rather, we have to interpret the extension relative to the literal meaning, which is not available under a direct access approach.

Distorted

form

Canonical

form

s s′

lite

ral lite

ral

idiomatic

idio

mati

c

Two modes of idiom interpretation

ɍ We propose that both theories can be right: they correspond to two distinct ways of interpreting idioms.

ɍ The direct access approach is the default; other cases (except for the lexically flexible ones) have an affected, playful, or literary feel—this is because they are interpreted via a different, less automatic, mechanism.

ɍ Idiom extensions are interpreted as analogical (along the lines of Gentner 1983).

cause(alex, x, be-revealed) ∧ secret(x)

cause(alex, x, be-revealed) ∧ secret(x) ∧ sharp-claws(x) ∧ dangerous(x)

sharp-claws(x)∧ cat(x) ⇒ dangerous(x)

Alex let the cat out of the bag. ... and we saw that it had sharp claws. Livia didn’t quite kick the bucket, but she took a good strong swing at it.

die(livia)

nearly(die(livia))

take-a-good-strong-swing-at(x, y)∧ ¬kick(x, y) ⇒ nearly(kick(x, y))

Motivations

1. Psycholinguistic ‘idiom advantage’ ɍ Idioms processed faster than literal/compositional expressions

(e.g. Swinney & Cutler 1979, Carrol & Conklin 2017).

2. Idiosyncrasies of form: ɍ Lexical idiosyncrasy (‘cranberry words’):

(1) a. They left me in the lurch. b. I took umbrage at that.

ɍ Syntactic idiosyncrasy:

(2) a. We tripped the [?? light fantastic] all night long. b. This was [?? by and large] a success.

Idiom meaning encoded directly in the lexicon (phrasally or lexically), e.g.: Idioms seen as mappings from literal meanings to figurative meanings—i.e. as metaphors:

1

2

3

4

5

cause(alex, x, be-revealed) ∧ secret(x)

cause(alex, x, be-revealed) ∧ secret(x) ∧ sharp-claws(x) ∧ dangerous(x)

sharp-claws(x)∧ cat(x) ⇒ dangerous(x)

Livia kicked the bucket.

die(livia)

nearly(die(livia))

take-a-good-strong-swing-at(x, y)∧ ¬kick(x, y) ⇒ nearly(kick(x, y))