Appunti di Lingua Inglese I

Prof. Elisa Perego

Università degli Studi di Trieste – SSLMIT
A.A. 2022/2023

Grammatical features: an umbrella term that covers anything that recurs in texts that can be
described.
What can be described when talking about a language?
 Sound patterns → or phones in phonetics
 Words → morphology, syntax
 Phrases: groups of words that belong together but they are not so structured as a clause
 Clauses
 Sentences
 Texts: biggest unity of analysis of a language; made of several conjoint sentences with a
whole, coherent meaning

Standard English: a codified form of language accepted by and serving as a model to a larger
speech community. A standard language is the one written on grammar books; the reference point,
the variety taught to foreigners. We need it to determine, analyze and recognize all the different
varieties that exist but deviate from the standard one. Among the many varieties, there are the ones
of foreign speakers: each of them will have its own specific features.
Therefore → different variety=different features NOT mistakes.

e.g. The English spoken by black people → • DON’T instead of DOESN’T

• WANT becomes WANNA
• GOT TO becomes GOTTA
• Misuse of plural
• AIN’T
• Double negation

What is a word? → • Orthographic word or word form: sequence of letters separated by space;
the physical shape of words
• Grammatical word or word: word that falls into one grammatical category
(e.g. nouns, verb, adjective etc…)
• Lexemes: word forms seen from the point of view of meaning: set of
grammatical words which share the same basic meaning, similar forms, and
the same word class (e.g. “leave”, “leaves”, “left”, “leaving”, members of the
verb lexeme “leave”)
• Lexical unit or lexical entry: combination of one meaning with one (or more)
word form(s). A lexical unit could be a single orthographic word but it could
also be a combination of different orthographic words with a singular meaning
(e.g. “cat”, “traffic light”, “take care of”, “by the way”… different words sticking
together with a single meaning).
Such labels let us develop a metalinguistic competence.
The English lexicon
Some words of the English language come from:
• Celtic loans: e.g. whiskey
• Scandinavian loans: e.g. to get, to give, to take
• German and Dutch loans: e.g. lager, gin, cruise
• Latin and Greek loans: e.g. dish, desk → typically formal
• Romance loans: e.g. fashion, gown, piano, vanilla → mostly from French
• Indian loans: e.g. cashmere, shampoo
• Arabic loans: e.g. alcohol, cotton, saffron
• Present-day loans: typically food names, words referring to new things for which the foreign term
is taken over; by absorbing the new word it is necessary to absorb a new cultural concept, as it’s
not only words that travel, but also ideas and habits → cultural borrowing: e.g. pizza, sushi
This happens because people move, some peoples conquered other peoples imposing their
language (colonization), or simply their languages came into contact. Nowadays this is also a result
of globalization, the internet, the use of English as a lingua franca, and immigration.

English is a lexically mixed language, however front runners are native English words. Loan words
have a different value, a different impact and are usually:
• longer
• more peripheral and tricky
• more specific in meaning
• linked to style and text type
• colder, less emotional, as native words convey more emotional meaning
• more formal

e.g. get, buy → acquire, obtain, purchase

These words roughly share the same meaning but have a different impact

Words can be indicators of:

• Dialects: language variety with its own features determined by the identity of the users
e.g. BE vs. AE → biscuit/cookie; chips/fries; rubber/eraser
A pidgin is a variety that comes from the mix of two languages: the one of of the colonizers
and the one of the colonized people.
• Register (tenor): language variety determined by its use for a particular purpose or in a particular
social setting → frozen (static), formal, consultative, familiar (intimate), informal, colloquial, slang.
• Field: language variety determined by the subject/topic; it has to do with technical, specialized
terms

e.g. lexeme, etymology, morphology → linguistics

• Mode: language variety determined by the medium (spoken vs. written)

e.g. spoken: discourse markers, contractions, vague lexis, monosyllabic words

written: adjectives, hard words, technical terms, polysillabic words

These differences are linked to time factors.

• Class: words convey many information and can also be class indicators: there is, in fact, a link
between one’s lexical choices and the speaker’s education and social class. However, there are
no strict rules: things can change and be subjective. Alan S. C. Ross, a professor of Linguistics,
wrote U vs. non-U Language (U standing for upper class). If a word is non-native, then it is most
probably part of the non-U variety, that is because lower classes of society use foreign words
thinking they are using ‘special’ terms, but native words are the best choice.

e.g. Meal names → tea, dinner, supper

Depending on what you call the evening meal and when you have it, you are likely to belong
to a certain social class
Morphology
Words can belong to categories, called word classes or parts of speech. Having them helps us
describe and analyze the form and the function of a given word, as each category has its own
features.

Word classes in English are:

• Nouns
• Adverbs
• Adjectives
• Verbs
• Articles
• Pronouns
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Interjections

These categories can be divided into 3 major families:

• Lexical: words with a semantic meaning → nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs
• Functional or grammatical: words with a function more than a meaning; they define lexical words
and need to be paired with them → articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions
• Inserts: interjections

Another distinction is the one between open and closed word classes:
• Open word classes include all the lexical words that can be expanded; these word classes are
open to new items that can be incorporated; English words can even shift word classes
• Closed word classes, on the other hand, are fixed and can’t be expanded and are typically
function words.

Word classes are recognizable by observing their position (e.g. the lamp → article + noun) and
morphology (e.g. sadly → sad+ly).

Morphology is a branch of linguistics concerned with the internal structure of words and the “pieces”
they are made of. These pieces are called morphemes. A morpheme is the minimal (i.e. smallest)
and meaningful unit of word construction. It clashes the definition of syllable that has to do with
phonology: syllables do not have a meaning.

e.g. BOYS → boy + s

FRIGHTENS → fright + en + s
SOFTENED → soft + en + ed
DISAGREE → dis + agree
BOOKCASES → book + case+ s

Free or lexical morphemes: lexical words that can be isolated and stand alone
Bound morphemes: can’t stand alone, need to glue with free morphemes. There are two types of
these morphemes:
• Lexical or derivational morphemes
• Inflectional morphemes

Derivation is a lexical process which actually forms a new word out of an existing one by the addition
of a derivational affix. They establish new words and the word class may change. Derivational affixes
may be followed by inflectional suffixes, but NOT the other way round.

e.g. INDUSTR-IAL-IZ-ATION = N → Adj → V → N

UN-HAPPY = Adj → Adj
LEGAL-IZE = Adj → V

Inflection is a grammatical process which combines words and affixes (always suffixes in English)
to produce alternative grammatical forms of words. They do NOT change the word class.

e.g. BOYS → boy + s free morphemes

FRIGHTENS → fright + en + s derivational morphemes
SOFTENED → soft + en + ed inflectional morphemes
DISAGREE → dis + agree
BOOKCASES → book + case+ s

N.B. -ing/-ed can be both inflectional (if used for verbs) or derivational (if used to create nouns
and adjectives)

Derivational affixes can be:

• Class-changing: nominalizers, verbalizers, adjectivizers, adverbializers
• Class-maintaining: prefixation
There are two types of derivation affixes:
1. class-changing (i.e., nominalisers, verbalisers, adjectivisers, adverbalisers)
2. class-maintaining (usually prefixation; e.g., happy → unhappy)
Word formation strategies
There are several ways in English to form new words, beyond derivation.

Compounding: merging of pre-existing words. Compounds are stems (form that carries the basic
meaning of the word) consisting of more than one root (stem consisting of a single morpheme).
NO consistent orthographic treatment! We can combine different word classes:
• N+N → textbook, shopkeeper, lipstick
• Adj+N → Englishman
• V+N → washing-machine
• N+Adj → user-friendly, child-friendly
• Prep+Prep → into
The stress pattern of the compound is usually different from the stress pattern in the phrase
composed of the same words in the same order.
If you change the stress pattern, you are also changing the syntax (and therefore the meaning) of
the sentence.

Conversion: also known as zero derivation or functional shift. A word belonging to a word class
is transferred to another word class without any concomitant change of form, either in pronunciation
or spelling.
• N → V: to battle, to commission
• V → N: a call, a guess, a spy
• Adj → N: the poor, the rich
• Adj → V: to better, to poor
• Prep → V: to up
• Adv → N: the hereafter
Sometimes larger units can be converted and become new words. Whole phrases can undergo
conversion and act as a noun. (e.g. “forget-me-not”, “Monday morning feeling”, “not-to-be-missed
opportunity).
“Verbification” or “verbing” = verb conversion. Bad reputation with some English users
(neologisms, colloquial language and specialized jargon).

e.g. To gain access → To access

It’s often impossible or very difficult to tell which form arose first.

e.g. “I’ll unhair thy head” → figure of speech, the verbing figure: anthimeria

UNHAIR: conversion + derivational prefix

 Contract vs. Contract → the pronunciation changes, so this is not a case of conversion.
Stress can be considered a derivational affix (suprafix).

Blending (“parole macedonia”): new lexeme built from parts of two (or more) words. Blending is
typically used in informal style, journalism, advertising, technical fields. (e.g. “brunch”, “motel”;
“slanguage”, “glitzy”, “guestimate”)

Back-formation (“retroformazione”): it’s the opposite process, the creation of new lexemes by
removing actual or supposed suffixes.

e.g. GLITZY (Adj) → GLITZ (N); -y is not a real suffix.

Shortenings: there are three different types of shortenings.

• Clipping or truncation: only part of the stem is retained. It’s very frequently used, as English
doesn’t like long words. (e.g. laboratory → lab)
• Initialism: extreme form of clipping; only initial letters are put together and used as words.
The words are pronounced with the names of the letters in the alphabet. It’s used for brevity,
catchiness, euphemism. (e.g. “SJM”, “SJF”, “SBF”, “GSOH”, etc.)
• Acronyms: extreme form of clipping; only initial letters are put together and used as words.
The letters are pronounced as a word- (e.g. “laser”, “ram”, etc.)
Adjectives
Adjectives are always combined with nouns.

Adjectives from a semantic point of view

• Describe
• Modify noun/pronoun
• Gradable
• Give more info

Adjectives may be compared to other world classes, such as:

• Articles → in terms of defining function
• Relative clauses (‘adjective clauses’) → both adjectives and relative clauses give more info
about the element they refer to
• Prepositional phrases → in terms of description

Semantic grouping (Biber et al. 1999)

Descriptors (simply provide information)
• Colour
• Size/quantity/extent
• Time
• Evaluative/emotive
• Miscellaneous descriptors

Classifiers (have a little descriptive content)

• Relational/classificational/restrictive
• Affiliative
• Topical/other

Adjectives from a morphological point of view

• Simple form: ugly, poor, weak, cheap
• Complex form:
1. Affixes/derivation
· noun → adjective beauty-ful, wealth-y, in-expens-ive
· verb → adjective attract-ive, in-digest-ible, un-accept-able
2. Participal: amaz-ing, amazed
3. Compound: good-looking
Adjectives are invariable, so they never change form (but for comparative and superlative
constructions). Gradable adjectives can be compared.
 Regular forms of comparison:
Positive Comparative Superlative
rich richer richest
lovely lovelier loveliest
beautiful more beautiful* most beautiful*

*Phrasal comparison (e.g., more/most beautiful).

Irregular forms of comparison:

Positive Comparative Superlative

good better best

bad worse worst

far further furthest

much

many more most

some

Morphological characteristics: -ed and -ing adjectives describe feelings and things (e.g., my
holiday was relaxing, I felt really relaxed).

Adjectives from a syntactic point of view

Attributive adjectives precede a noun (e.g., skinny girl, chubby kid), so they have an attributive
position.

Predicative adjectives follow the verb referring to a noun (e.g., she is skinny, Maria is responsive,
She declares herself bankrupt).

≠ position ≠ function
OCD is a disabling condition ATTRIBUTIVE
This condition is disabling PREDICATIVE

1. Adjective collocations
There are some adjectives that tend to go with given prepositions or syntactic structures. They
are not actual rules, but very recurrent patterns of language; things that users do very
frequently.
 e.g. to be good at something
to be vague about something
to be allergic to something
to be aware that + clause
to be furious that + clause
to be furious to + verb + that + clause
to be highly + adjective
to be deeply/thoroughly + adjective
It is not enough to know what furious means, but also how it behaves and collocates.

2. Adjective order
The adjective order in English is fixed.
e.g. wooden red ugly box INCORRECT
ugly red wooden box CORRECT
The order is:

0. determiner* (determiners always come first!)

1. opinion/judgement
2. size
3. age
4. shape
5. colour
6. nationality
7. material
8. purpose/qualifier

However, it is a matter of:

• General to specific
• Less inherent to more inherent
• Subjective to objective
It is more useful considering objectiveness than learning this ‘rule ’by heart so that you can
be more conscious about what message you want to convey.
Order dictated by intended meaning, though strongly influenced by type of pre-modifiers
(Biber et al. 1999: 598).
Preferred order: adverb + adjective + colour adjective + participle + noun + head noun
No absolute rules but tendencies.
Idiomatic pairs of adjectives
Expressions that have no literal meaning but rather a metaphoric meaning that is often hard to guess,
you need to know it (e.g. it’s raining cats and dogs doesn’t mean that actual cats and dogs are falling
down from the sky, but rather that it is pouring.)

Idiom: number of words which, when taken together, have a different meaning from the individual
meaning of each word (Seidl & McMordie 1988: 13).

Some adjectives behave in idiomatic way (e.g. cut and dried does not mean that something is
actually cut and dried, but that is rather settled/final. The two words sort of become one in terms of
meaning.)

What does fair and square mean? It is a binomial pair of adjectives: it has two meaning.
1. Let’s settle the bill for the damage fair and square. We were both at fault, so we’ll both pay
half.
fare and square = in a fair way
2. He raised his fist and hit him fair and square on the chin.
fare and square = exactly, directly

Exercises
I can’t tell you how to use prepositions correctly, but I can give you a few … rules.
▢ safe and sound → unharmed
▣ rough and ready → only approximate, not exact
▢ free and easy → casual, relaxed
▢ bright and early → very early in the morning

I hope it won’t be formal dress for dinner in the hotel – I like to be … when I’m on holiday.
▢ safe and sound
▢ rough & ready
▣ free and easy
▢ bright and early

What do they mean?

1. good and …
2. nice and …
a. Furthermore, we'll end this conversation when I'm good and ready.
b. Good for your teeth. Makes your teeth nice and strong.
c. Those people are good and prosperous.

Some adjectives are conjoined with good or nice in order to intensify the meaning of the
adjective (Biber at al. 2002: 198).
 E.g. good and sorry = very sorry good does not add its individual meaning; it
occurs only if the good and … sequence occurs in predicative position.

Complex adjectives: adjectival compounds

Combination of more than one

word, resulting in a compact
expression of information
• Can take many forms
• Usually hyphenated
• Its meaning is usually
clear from the combined words
• Most of these adjectives
are not included in
vocabularies because they are
created on the moment.

Adjectival compounds as economy devices

e.g. eye-catching that catches the eye(s)
never-ending that never ends
tight(ly)-fitting that fits tightly

Adjectival compounds substitute longer construction, typically relative clause.

· diffusion [EN > IT]
· condensation [IT > EN]

Adjectives describing appearance, personality and character

They are usually -ed ending and hyphenated.
e.g. long-haired
rosy-cheeked
open-necked (of a shirt)
warm-harted
self-centered
big-headed (idiomatic = proud of oneself)

How do the comparative and superlative forms behave?

• Positive: long-haired
• Comparative: longer-haired
• Superlative: longest-haired
Bahuvrihi compounds
Typically descriptive lables for living things. A number have body parts as second elements and
first elements which are metaphorical or indicate resemblance (Adams, V. (2001). Complex
words in English. Longman).

Morphological characteristics of adjectives

Words that are not adjectives themselves become adjectives due to their position.
Doing so, you prioritize an important piece of information and compress that information, too (e.g.
conductors do so in shows when it comes to present a guest and there is not much time).

You can be creative by coining adjectives such as the following:

1. He gave a will-you-give-me-a-break look
2. He showed me a sack-me-if-you-like face when he was very late and I was about to tell
him off
3. The salesgirl finally displayed her take-it-or-leave-it look to the fastidious customer who
had asked her to take down ten pairs of shoes

Nouns as other nouns modifiers

Adjectives are not the only class that can modify nouns. It is in fact possible for nouns to modify
other nouns.
• Attributive nouns
• Noun modifiers
• Noun adjuncts

N.B. cannot be predicative!

A beautiful park is beautiful because beautiful is an adjective, but a car park is not ‘car ’since car is
a noun.

The last noun is the entity we are talking about, while the preceding nouns are modifiers.
To render the same meaning in Italian you most probably want to use prepositions creating more or
less longer phrases.

e.g. • bus stop

• research group
• soy milk
• website access
• sodium level
• family member (you can also say a member of the family: it depends on you, on your
style, on what you want to emphasise. However, you most probably will use the
 unpacked version the very first times you introduce something; then you will begin to
use the compressed one)
• pet shop
• food allergy
• cake recipe
• blood pressure
• film catalogue
• cigarette packet
• kidney failure
• exam grade
• language teacher

In written language, you do so because you tend to set the scene, also because you know the reader
should be aware of such strategy and if there were any doubt, he/she can always go at the beginning
of an article and check.

Exercises

· preparato per pancake → pancake mix, pancake preparation

· burro di arachidi → peanut butter
· misto di spezie → spice mix
· estratto di vaniglia → vanilla extract
· hamburger di verdure → vegetable burger
· glasse per torte → cake frosting
· scaglie di cioccolato → chocolate chips
· cibo per cani → dog food

· to up conversion
· blackbird compound
· to uncorck 1. shift (from noun to verb)
2. class-mantaining derivation
· sawdust compound
· smog blending (smoke + fog)
· webinar blending
· doc initial clipping
· readable derivation
· workbook compound
· UN initialism
· phone final clipping
· to bottle conversion
· snolo blending (snow + polo)
· glitz back-formation (from glitzy)
· into compound
· pub clipping (public house)
· biopic blending
· black bird / (it’s a phrase)
· GPS initialism
· rep clipping
· hazmat blending
· RAM acronym
· sitcom blending
· WASP acronym
Phrases
Phrase: unit of language analysis that falls somewhere in between clauses and single words.
Phrases can be made of several elements: a phrase is, in fact, a group of words that belong
together and have a solid internal structure.
It is important to study phrases both formally and syntactically because we speak and read in
chunks. As a matter of fact, few words occur individually: as language users, we tend to select
information units rather than single words, and it is easier to read information units because
that’s the way linguistic input is structured.
Language can be compared to beads on a string. These “chunks” need to be linked, and this also
has to do with collocations (words that tend to occur with other specific words → they don’t occur
individually!).

e.g. [The opposition] [is demanding] [a more representative government]

[The opposition] = subject element, noun phrase, nominal chunk
[is demanding] = verb element, verb phrase
[a more representative government] = object element, noun phrase, nominal chunk

Words in phrases have a grammatical, hierarchical relation; chunks are more meaningful than
single words, also from a syntactic point of view (subject, verb, object…). Form is another level of
analysis: form and function do not always go together, which means that form doesn’t always
determine function. As a matter of fact, the two noun phrases in the example have a different
syntactical function, despite being nominal chunks. Furthermore, function is also determined by
position.

e.g. [A more representative government] [is demanding] [the opposition]

In this case, [A more representative government] becomes the subject element, and
[the opposition] the object element.

Every phrase has a central element, a chief word called head. Heads give phrase its name, can
stand alone and must be present.
Noun phrase (NP)
The noun phrase can be very long, complex, heavily modified, starting from the head noun.

e.g. [The large apples that you ate with your nice friend] → premodified and postmodified
[The large apples that you ate] → premodified and postmodified
[The large apples on the table] → premodified and postmodified
[The large apples] → premodified
[The apples] → premodified
[Apples] → head noun

NP premodification
• Identifier: THE analysis
OUR research
THIS bias
• Numeral: TWO groups
• Quantifier: MANY variables
SOME variables
• Adjectives: PREGNANT mums
BROAD knowledge
A SPECIAL project
FINELY-GRAINED material
• Participial premodifiers: WRITTEN reasons
HIDDEN variables
DETECTING devices
•Noun modifier (N+N sequence): DISTANCE education
RESEARCH group
SKIN care
Premodifiers can also be combined.

e.g. Quite pale skin

The Greatest British theoretical physicist
These very traditional work clothes

Noun+noun sequences
• No function words → no explicit logical relation
• Dense packaging of referential info
• Extreme reliance on implicit meaning
These sequences are typically used in headlines; however, they may cause ambiguity.

e.g. Wine glass: a glass of/containing wine vs. a glass used for wine → content vs.
purpose
NP Postmodification

Finite postmodifying clauses:

• Finite relative clauses → relativizers: “which”, “who”, “whom”, “whose”, “that” (pronouns);
“where”; “when”, “why” (adverbs).

e.g. Women whose partners do not smoke

The social changes that have taken place
Many variables which affect

Non.finite postmodifying clauses

• Non-finite clauses: to-clauses; -ing clauses; -ed clauses

e.g. Failure to quit

Books to read
Variables affecting motivation
The man standing under the lamp
Structure based on the idea of

• Prepositional phrases

e.g. The finding of a report

A message for parents-to-be
A third of parents
Joint planning of pregnancy

• Noun phrase in apposition

e.g The Prime Minister,Tony Blair

Andrew, the handsome boy who lives with Tom
Complex noun phrases: when and how?
Typically in ads, newspaper headlines, book and film titles, formal names for services, technical
names for pathologies (e.g. “eating disorder”, “low blood pressure”, “slow heart race”, “fluid
retention”, etc.). Also used yo condense already given info.

Verb phrase (VP)

Easily recognizable: the head is the lexical verb, which may be preceded by an auxiliary or modal.

e.g. Go
Went
Has gone
Is going
Have been going
Should go
Should have gone
Should have been going

Adjective phrase (AdjP)

Adjectives can be premodified by adverbs and/or other adjectives.

e.g. Green
Amazingly green
Amazingly light green

N.B. “An amazingly light green sweater” → it’s a NP where the head (“sweater”) is
premodified by an AdjP whose head is “green”.
AdjP can also be postmodified by complements; these can be seen as collocations.
Adverb phrase (AdvP)
Adverb phrases can be modified by other adverbs and/or complements

e.g. Gently
Very gently
Amazingly well
Very soon
Right here
Extremely carefully
So quickly you don’t even enjoy it
Much more quickly than imagined

Prepositional phrase (PP)

The head is a preposition so they are almost never premodified.

e.g. In trouble
In big trouble
In very big trouble
About the shopping center
Behind you
On it

What is difficult about PP, is to recognize whether they are used in isolation or are embedded in
larger phrases.

e.g. [The large apples][on the table]] are healthy

Phrases in context
• Info not tightly packet
• Not planned
• Short clauses
Higher portion of complex phrases in academic prose and news.
• Higher lexical density → written language: much higher ratio of lexical items, twice as many
• Deal with complex subject matter
• Have high info load
• Long clauses
Words in combination
Language involves choices: when we talk, we are less free than we think. Virtually any word can
occur when a slot opens up, the only restraint is grammaticality. But we speak in chunks, so we
tend yo select chunks rather than single words. This is also known as the open choice principle
(John Sinclaire).

All grammars are built on the open choice principle, but language users have available to them a
large number of semi-preconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might
appear to be analyzable into segments. This is the idiom choice principle, which says that words
are not independent. Making a choice at one point often commits one to further choices.

Combinations are restricted by:

• Reality: you can say “rancid butter”, but not “rancid laundry”, as it does not make any sense
• Register: “maritime trade” vs. “sea trade”

Multi-word units or lexical phrases are well-established lexical combinations which consist of one
or more word forms or lexemes (e.g. “of course”, “how do you do?”, “bed and breakfast”, discourse
markers, etc.).

Multi-word units are so common in normal language that they may well be the basic organizing
principle in language production.
• Clichés
• Pragmatic idioms
• Collocations
• Binomials
• Idioms
• Proverbs and commonplaces
• Fixed expressions in text

Clichés and fixed expressions are routine or stereotypic forms that are found in many areas of life
(e.g. “show business”, “to leave no stone unturned”, etc.). They are automatisms, therefore
associated with stylistic poverty as they are unoriginal, overused, and it’s an uninteresting kind of
language. They are the opposite of creative language.
However, they are used by many as they play an important social function (“funzione fàtica”,
Jakobson), not to sound intimidating, and they are typical of small talk. These expressions are not
important for their content, but rather for their purpose, as they create an in-group feeling.

e.g. “A friend of yours is a friend of mine”

“Gimme a break”
“Love conquers all”
“We are doing anything humanly possible”
“When all is said and done”
“Live happily ever after”
• There are many
• Stored in long-term memory
• Known by speakers of given language
• Have parallels in other languages (same in function, NOT meaning)
• Used to avoid silence, life-preservers
• Part of socio-cultural competence
You can easily understand clichés. They can even be used wittly and creatively → altered clichés:
starting from a known cliché, playing with it and creating a new one that remind of the original. Used
in marketing, advertising, etc.

e.g. “France’s ski business: there’s no business like snow business” → “There’s no business
like show business”
“Fit as a fiddle” → to be ready and able, to be very healthy and strong. A pragmatically
equivalent translation of it, would be “Sano come un pesce”.

Fixed expressions
• Name of people
• Name of places
• Brand names
• Organization names+Titles of songs, books, movies, TV shows
• Quotations
• Foreign phrases (→ not idiomatic)

Pragmatic idioms are lexical items and expressions whose occurrence is determined by a particular
social situation. They often need the context of the situation to be understood correctly.
• Routines
• Social formulas
• Gambits (→ lit. “stratagemma”)
e.g. “Dear/Yours” → letter
“Can I help you?” → shop
“White or red?” → wine
“Black or white?” → café
“Single or return?” → tickets
Discourse markers
• Rituals: words lise their full sense; function is more important than meaning
• Register characteristics: you need to know when it is socially appropriate to use them.

e.g. “How do you do?” → formal; upper-middle

“Pleased to meet you” → lower-middle; AE
“Hi there” → informal; AE
“Straight or handle?” → pub; UK
Pragmatic idioms can be elliptical, and this leads to semantic opaqueness.

e.g. “Say when (I am to stop pouring)”

“Many happy returns (of the day)”

Collocations are combinations of lexical items which make an isolated semantic contribution and
are regularly repeated, come readily to mind, and are relatively fixed (≠ free combinations).
Combination of words that frequently occur together.
e.g. “Bitter complaints” vs. “recent complaints”
“Bilingual dictionary” vs. “expensive dictionary”
“To commit suicide” vs. “to hate suicide”
“To declare war” vs. “to hate war”
“Amusement park” vs. “big park”
“Deeply absorbed (in)”
“A dog barks”
“To argue heatedly”
“Close friend”

We can distinguish two kinds of collocations:

• Lexical: such as Adj+N
• Grammatical: combination of a dominant word (N, Adj, V) with a preposition or grammatical
construction (e.g. “eager for, “amazed at”, “eager to do something”, “want somebody to do
something”)
Some adverbs typically modify particular types of adjectives (e.g. “utterly” frequently occurs before
adjectives with negative connotations, although it can also be used with neutral or positive words).
Depending on how frequently a collocation occurs, it can ve classified as:
• Strong
• Fixed
• Weak
How to decide whether an expression is a collocation or an idiom?
• “To agree entirely” → each constituent has independent meaning
• “To rain cats and dogs” → the first constituent has independent meaning, the other is idiomatic
• “To paint the town red” → hardly possible to say what the individual constituents contribute to the
combination as a whole.

Binomials are made of two constituents from the same word class, linked by a grammatical item
(e.g. “and”, “or”, etc.). Binomials include two elements, but they are different from collocations.

e.g. “Fish and chips”

“Mom and dad”
“Black and white”
“Bed and breakfast”
“Part and parcel”
• N+N
• V+V
• Adj+ Adj
• Adv+Adv
Some ancient words tend to be preserved and survive only in binomials.

e.g. “Hale and hearty”

“Kith and kin”

They are usually quite fixed, especially if very idiomatic, you can’t break them down or add linguistic
material between the words.
Trinomials can comprise three elements /e.g. “left, right and center”, “hook, line and sinker”).

Idioms are complex lexical items, longer than a word form but shorter than a sentence, which have
a unitary meaning that cannot be derived from a knowledge of its component parts. Lexical complex
which is semantically simplex.
e.g. “Red herring” → a false hint, something misleading
“White elephant”
“Kick the bucket”
“Give someone a piece of one’s mind”
Idioms can also have a literal meaning in a given context.
How to recognize them?
• Knowledge of the world
• Context clues
• Common sense
Many derive from more or less recognizable metaphors.
Lexical repetition around the idiom:
• A state of affairs id described
• The sender refers to it with and idiom
• It is picked up again by a non-idiomatic, literal lexical item
e.g. “The detectives were following a red herring, but they’re on the right track now”
“Wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve” → to make one’s feelings apparent; to display one’s
feelings openly and habitually, rather than keep them private
There are different approaches to idiom classification:
• According to the image they evoke, such as color idioms, body idioms (e.g. “to find your feet”, etc.)
• According to the concept they express (e.g. danger → “on the loose”)

Proverbs are short, traditional saying in general use; usually express some kind of obvious trurh or
familiare experience. Proverbs are full, short sentence that people often quote, which give advice or
tell you something about life. They are a means for understanding the culture of a country. There
are many proverbs in English that reflect important typical values as they are part of folklore, history
and tradition.

e.g. “Good wine needs no bush” → There’s no need to advertise or boast about something
good
Proverbs can be borrowed from the Bible, farmer world and so on. The origin tells us something
about the culture.
Linguistic aspects:
• Not completely frozen
• Tolerate small variations (shortening or addition)
• Marked by specific expressions (e.g. “ad they say…”, etc.)
• Irregular syntax (e.g. “like father, like son”, etc.)
• Anglo-Saxon vocabulary
• Present tense to express timeless meaning
• No known author
• Non-literal meaning
• Sound patterns, prosodic features, rhymes, alliteration, assonance
• Structural repetition, parallelism
• Two part structure