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

2.3. Intertextuality as factor of motivation

Intertextuality is of the utmost importance given the cultural foundation of idioms. In this article, intertextuality is understood as the relationship of a conventional figurative unit (such as an idiom) with an already existing text as its cultural historical origin.^vi There are a great number of figurative units whose image components can be traced back to an existing (mostly identifiable) textual source. Intertextuality is a result of the etymology of idioms (e.g. idioms taken from the Bible, Shakespeare, classical literature etc.), rather than a question of motivation. Nevertheless, in certain cases, intertextuality must be accounted for as a special type of motivation. Therefore, we will look at this phenomenon more closely both within this section (where we try to answer the question as to what extent intertextuality provides motivating links synchronically) and below within Section 3.4 where we will be dealing with etymological aspects of intertextual connections.

Several idioms can be regarded as motivated by intertextuality and by a certain frame or cultural symbol at the same time. However, there is a small group of idioms where we may assume that the intertextual motivation offers the only possibility for making sense of the idiom, i.e. for establishing the motivational link between the inner form and the lexicalized meaning of the idiom. Let us first consider such an idiom, (5).
(5) a/the Trojan Horse

‘a deception, a concealed danger; an enemy concealed within someone or something that attacks the group or organization he/she/it belongs to’

Idiom (5) is currently very well-known in computing, as a program with a concealed function that damages other programs on the computer to which it is downloaded. The idiom is either opaque to speakers or motivated by intertextuality. A semantic motivation can be excluded. It is motivated by knowledge that there is a story behind it, even if this story may not be mentally present with all its details to every speaker. Homer reports in his Odyssey (and Virgil in his Aeneid) that, after Hector’s death, Ulysses had a huge wooden horse made and declared that it was an offering to the gods to secure a good voyage back to Greece. The Trojans dragged the horse within their city, but it was filled with Greek soldiers, including Menelaus, who stole out of the horse at night, slew the guards, opened the city gates and set fire to the city. This phrase, in the sense of an imminent and great danger, became proverbial as early as in Roman antiquity (Pohlke 2008: 219).

Other idioms of intertextual origin can be motivated for speakers also by different knowledge structures (e.g. metaphors or symbols), cf. (6-7).

(6) to run/approach with seven-league boots

‘to run/approach very quickly’

(7) a snake in the grass

‘a secretly untrustworthy or treacherous person; a great danger’
Idiom (6) seems to be motivated intertextually for people who are familiar with the tales of the seven-league boots, which magically enable a giant to take great strides and approach very fast. They are a motif in folktales, cf. the fairy tale “The Seven-leagued Boots” and various literary treatments of the theme (for German, e.g. by Wilhelm Hauff and Adalbert von Chamisso). The lexicalized meaning then would be ‘to run/approach very quickly, as if someone was the giant of the tale whose boots carry him/her seven leagues at a step’. For people who are unfamiliar with the textual source, the idiom may be motivated in part by their symbolic knowledge of the number seven which has, among others, the symbolic meaning ‘many, much’ (‘intensification’): The ability to make strides of seven leagues clearly results in great speed.

Similarly, idiom (7) has its origin in classical literature (it is a quotation from Virgil’s “Eclogues”: latet anguis in herba “there is a snake hiding in the grass”, 37 BC). Its motivation for the average speakers, however, is likely based on knowledge about snakes (they actually hide in tall grass, and their bite is dangerous), on the one hand, and symbolic knowledge (snake is a strong cultural symbol signifying ‘danger’, ‘evil’, ‘malice’), on the other. Thus, idioms that have roots in works of literature, fables, fairy tales etc. may be motivated by their “true” etymological origin for speakers who are familiar with the textual source, while other speakers can often activate other knowledge structures to make sense of the idiom. In what follows we will look at the issue of idiom etymology in more detail.