Yp1-03(2) Idioms: Motivation and Etymology Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij and Elisabeth Piirainen Abstract

4. Image component and usage restrictions

4.1. Traces of the image component in the lexicalized meaning of idioms

Two idioms that share a nearly identical lexicalized meaning but have different literal meanings can almost never be considered “equivalent”. This holds true for intra-linguistic as well as for cross-linguistic quasi-synonymous idioms. An idiom with a different lexical structure often cannot be replaced or translated by a “similar” one without consequences for the meaning of the given text passage.

Cross-linguistic quasi-synonyms, i.e. quasi-equivalents are idioms of two or more different languages that show almost the same image component and very similar, but not identical, lexicalized meanings. Their lexicalized meanings may even coincide in the core; however, they show different nuances. This means that they can function as equivalents in many contexts but not in all of them. There are certain contexts that highlight these subtle differences. These can barely be noticed in an isolated presentation and, for this reason, corpus-based data is necessary to be able to properly describe the meanings of partly equivalent idioms from various languages. Compare the idioms (11–12) and the contexts (13–14), drawn from large German and Russian text corpora: from DeReKo Mannheim, RNC (Russian National Corpus) and from the Corpora of the Department of Experimental Lexicography of the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
(11) German schwarz auf weiß

“black on white”

‘in writing or print, therefore official’

(12) Russian черным по белому

“in black on white”

‘clear, plain (only with regard to something in writing, mostly officially printed matters)’

(13) Damit bekämen sportliche Aktivitäten einen verbindlicheren Charakter. Was einmal schwarz auf weiß festgehalten sei, werde nicht so schnell umgestoßen, sagt Mayrhofer.

[“By this, sporting activities would get a more obliging character. What once has been recorded black on white, would not be upset as quickly, says Mayrhofer.”]

(14) Читай внимательней! Там же черным по белому написано, что на что влияет.

[“Read more attentively! There it stands written in black on white what has an effect on what things.”]

Both idioms (11–12) have seemingly the same underlying knowledge structures as their image components (fragments of frame knowledge about printed and written material). The lexicalized meanings show little divergence. The semantic component ‘printed’ is a presupposition of the Russian idiom (12). The assertive part of its meaning (as contrasted with presupposition and implication consists of the semantic components ‘clearness, clarity’. However, the semantics of the German idiom (11) highlights the ‘official character’ (of a printed or written document) so that everything recorded black on white can be used as a piece of evidence. This idea is a part of its assertion whereas in the semantic structure of (12) it is only a possible inference.

This leads to differences in the combinatorial profile of these two idioms. The German idiom (11) tends to be found in contexts such as “to give/show someone something in writing (official)” or “to (want to) have/record something in writing (official)” whereas the Russian idiom (12) is mostly used in co-occurrences such as “something stands clearly in writing or print”. These differences can be deduced from the usage of the idioms by means of analyzing text corpora. In RNC, idiom (12) has been encountered in 165 contexts which can be used for our purposes. Only 16 contexts are semantically ambivalent in the sense that they are either autonomous or deal with official documents so that the semantic component ‘official’ can be ascribed to the semantic structure of the idiom as a kind of implication.

In DeReKo Mannheim idiom (11) has been encountered in 223 contexts which can be used for our purposes. 192 text passages use the idiom quite similarly to that of example (13). The idiom highlights the official character of the documents printed or written in black and white.

Can these semantic differences be explained in terms of relevant traces of the image component? At first glance, it seems that it is not the case because the image components of (11) and (12) appear to be identical. However, the lexical structures of the two idioms point to correlating slots of two different frames. The frame within which idiom (11) has to be interpreted is a kind of official document. As for (12), it goes back to the frame of every possible written or printed text. That is the reason why the idea of being approved by an authority is highlighted in the image component of (11) whereas the image component of (12) focuses the semantic feature ‘clearly readable’. So, in (11) and (12) we are dealing with the case where nearly the same lexical structure evokes different frames and, therefore, not identical image components. In many cases, text corpora can provide evidence for illustrating the subtle differences between seemingly similar idioms of two languages.

Traditionally, cross-linguistic quasi-synonyms have been regarded as “absolute equivalents”. Older bilingual dictionaries like Taylor and Gottschalk (1966) or Binovič and Grišin (1975) are full of such examples. Therefore, it is important to examine their functional characteristics in more detail. This is significant for semantic theory as well for solving several practically oriented tasks.