EINFACHE FORMEN – MYTHOLOGISCHE REDENSARTEN – DIE LEBENDIGKEIT DER IDIOME
SIMPLE FORMS – MYTOLOGICAL PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS – THE LIVENESS OF IDIOMS

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to demonstrate the relationship between Simple Forms as understood by André Jolles and the notion of the liveliness of idioms and then to investigate the liveliness of idiomatic units. The liveliness of idioms, a linguistic concept that includes the mental presence and usability of idioms, appears compatible with such elements of the concept of Simple Forms as verbal gesture, actualization (proverb – idiom), continuity and multiplicity (variants, modifications), mental occupation. The myth, the proverb and the proverbial saying (idiom) are addressed under Simple Forms. After a characterisation of the idioms of mythological origin in German, the example of the idiom between Szylla and Charybdis and its variants illustrates the liveliness of the idioms in the 19th and 20th–21st centuries. The study is lexicographically and corpus-linguistically based.

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