H 237, U 94, M 92, F 2.
(20) etwas wie seine Hosentasche kennen “to know something like one’s trousers pocket”
‘to know something very well’
H 84, U 70, M 69, F 1.
(21) etwas wie seine Westentasche kennen “to know something like one’s vest pocket”
‘to know something very well’
H 590, U 477, M 440, F 34.
(22a) eine dicke Brieftasche haben “to have a fat billfold”
‘to have much money’
(22b) mit einer dicken Brieftasche “with a fat billfold”
‘possessing much money, very rich’
H 256, U 45, M 45, F 0.
(23) sich etwas in den Bart murmeln/brummen “to mutter/mumble something in one’s beard”
‘to speak (unwillingly) quietly or indistinctly to oneself’
H 64, U 55, M 55, F 0.
(24) den Schwanz einziehen “to retract one’s tail (informal also: penis)”
‘to have feelings of despondency and humiliation or surrender, to be embarrassed or ashamed because you have failed at something’
H 95, U 33, M 33, F 0.
Our corpus-analysis has shown that the idioms (16–24) have clear usage restrictions which are correlated with the image component of the idiom and in one case also with its folk etymology. In summary, we are not supposing that all motivation is based on the knowledge of the idiom’s true etymology.x But we do argue against the postulate that it never is and that only “folk etymology” and/or such interpretation of the underlying image which is consistent with the present-day world knowledge can be relevant to the processing and usage of conventional figurative language. The result of these considerations is that the study of motivation must include an etymological description. Only at the next stage of analysis can it be determined whether the data obtained via etymological analysis are consistent with the usage conditions of a given lexical unit and whether the “etymological memory” is, therefore, a part of the image component.
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