FRASEOLOOGIA JA SÕNARAAMATUD
Idioms in Dictionaries

Summary/Abstract: Representation of Estonian idiomatic expressions in different dictionaries is analysed from the ’user-friendly’ aspect. More often than not dictionary users are expected to have some knowledge on the lexical content and syntactic structure of the expression, serving as a cue to its entry. Nevertheless, the syntactic flexibility and lexical variability of phraseological expressions may render them hard to find in a dictionary. An alternative to representation by means of formal characteristics is offered by the conceptual approach, inspired by cognitive linguistics. As idioms are conceptually motivated our knowledge of them most likely depends on our ability to perceive conceptual relations. Obviously a user would be able to relate phraseological expressions to large concepts. The concept system developed for the Database of Estonian Sayings and Phraseological Expressions enables bringing together expressions that are semantically related, pointing out their (general) meaning and demonstrating the stages of development, alteration and functional changes of their meaning.

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