Research Article Open Access

Why Construction Grammar Catches the Worm and Corpus Data can Drive you Crazy: Accounting for Idiomatic and Non-Idiomatic Idiomaticity

Thomas Herbst1
  • 1 Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany

Abstract

This article outlines why the treatment of idiomatic elements in language in terms of constructions can be considered a real step forward in the understanding of the character of language. It is argued that construction grammar provides a theoretical basis for accommodating insights into the phraseological character of language that were gained in a number of fields such as corpus linguistics, foreign language teaching and traditional phraseology and lexicography.

Journal of Social Sciences
Volume 11 No. 3, 2015, 91-110

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/jssp.2015.91.110

Submitted On: 7 May 2015 Published On: 11 September 2015

How to Cite: Herbst, T. (2015). Why Construction Grammar Catches the Worm and Corpus Data can Drive you Crazy: Accounting for Idiomatic and Non-Idiomatic Idiomaticity. Journal of Social Sciences, 11(3), 91-110. https://doi.org/10.3844/jssp.2015.91.110

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Keywords

  • Collocation
  • Corpus Analysis
  • Construction
  • Contextualism
  • Electronic Dictionaries
  • Exemplar
  • Foreign Language Teaching
  • Idiom Principle
  • Learner′s Dictionaries
  • Lexicography
  • Probabeme
  • Valency