Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English.docx

Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English
A Corpus-Based Approach

ROSAMUND MOON

CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD 1998

-iii-

Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press

Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

© Rosamund Moon 1998

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First published 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

British Library, Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Fixed expressions and idioms in English: a corpus-based approach / Rosamund Moon. ( Oxford studies in lexicography, and lexicology)

1. English language--Discourse analysis. 2. English language-Terms and phrases. 3. English language Lexicology. 4. English language--Idioms. 5. Figures of speech. I. Title. II. Series.

PE1422.M66 1988 420.1′41--dc21 97-46861

ISBN 0-19-823614-X

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset by J & L Composition Ltd, Filey, North Yorkshire Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King's Lynn

-iv-

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my doctoral thesis, submitted at the University of Birmingham in 1994, and I must acknowledge the many people who helped me with the thesis and with this book. First and foremost is my Ph.D. supervisor, Malcolm Coulthard; also Michael McCarthy and John Sinclair, who jointly supervised the thesis in its early stages. I must also thank former colleagues in the Dictionaries Department of Oxford University Press, especially Patrick Hanks and Sue Atkins; former colleagues on the Hector Project at Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, California, Mary-Claire van Leunen, Lucille Glassman, Cynthia Hibbard, James R. Meehan, and Loretta Guarino Reid, and also Bob Taylor, director of SRC, and Mike Burrows; and colleagues at Cobuild, University of Birmingham, especially Gwyneth Fox, Jeremy Clear, Ramesh Krishnamurthy, and Tim Lane. Many other people gave me help and advice on specific points or pointed out additional examples or approaches, and I should especially like to thank Nick Alt, Pierre Arnaud, Ian G. Batten, Henri Béjoint, Ken Church, Murray Knowles, Bill Louw, and Eugene Winter. Finally, I should like to thank the Series Editors for their invaluable comments and suggestions; and Frances Morphy, Leonie Hayler, and Virginia Williams for seeing this book through to publication.

-v-

[This page intentionally left blank.]

-vi-

Contents

-vii-