From: tvp@gibdo.engr.washington.edu ()
Subject: Re: What's an idiom (Was: Re: Monotarinai)
Organization: clearer than blir
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 20:37:47 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.184243.17648@news.Hawaii.Edu>
mathias@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B. Mathias) writes:
>
>In article <1992Sep6.085313.15138@u.washington.edu>
>tvp@gibdo.engr.washington.edu (Tad Perry) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Sep6.023930.6024@news.Hawaii.Edu>
>>mathias@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B. Mathias) writes:
>>
>>>
>>> I could use some help on this one.  I haven't figured out a way to
>>> distinguish between real idioms and regular expressions yet.  Hints?
>>
>>I would say that the dividing line between the two is not always so
>>clear, but generally I follow the rule of thumb that if the meaning
>>of the expression is not immediately clear from it's components it
>>is an idiom.
>>
>> [some clear examples of idioms omitted]
>>
>>Some people count verb + preposition pairs (like "show up" for
>>"arrive") as idioms, but this is where things are less clear. I tend
>>not to count them but what I do doesn't count for much. Obviously,
>>something as easy as "go up" is not an idiom, as its most common
>>meaning is quite clear and straightforward given the component pieces
>>being used.
>
>Thanks for the try, Tad, but it looks like you may have as much trouble as
>I do.  I would be inclined to take "show up" as a bona fide idiom; I am sure
>it doesn't mean "show up" as opposed to "show down" or "show sideways."

No, I don't think I do have much trouble with it. You see I use a definition
of idiom that conveniently excludes all those borderline cases. :-)
Anyway, I'm fully aware why many people include these types of verbs
as idioms, but I'll try to defend why I don't.

>     Which is the "most common meaning" of "go up"?  If prices or temperatures
>or grade point averages "go up," do they really _go_?  They all "get higher,"
>but is that really _up_, or is it an(other?) idiom?  I begin to wonder if
>after all "up" and "go," etc., aren't one-word idioms.

Is there a meaning associated with "go up" other than meaning "move
upward"? I don't think that saying "the temperature has gone up" is
idiomatic so much as it is metaphoric. But before attacking me on that
point let's move on to my real defense: I consider verb+preposition
pairs as being a kind of compound word (albeit made up of more than
one part, but even monosyllabic words have been shown to be made up of
more than one part).

Perhaps the choice of pairs to use for a given meaning is idiomatic
(as expressed by your concern "Why express get higher with 'go' and
'up'?") but we're going to get into the trouble you find yourself in
if we go that route; namely, everything becomes an idiom. The fact
that there is no reason for the phonemes making up the word "go" to
represent the concept of "going" is in itself idiomatic. If we call
this "idiomatic" and then the word 'go' an "idiom" for this reason
alone, then every word is, strictly speaking, an idiom. There's your
problem I think.

That's why I only consider idiomatic phrases (made up of multiple
stand-alone words) as being "idioms". Although every word has
idiomatic properties I do not consider this alone enough to grant them
"idiomhood". That's why I draw the line where I do. Another way to
describe the way I think about is that I use the term "idiomatic" very
freely and apply it to all kinds of words, but I save the term idiom
for idiomatic phrases of the type we've been discussing.  It makes
sense to me, but I don't demand that others accept my definitions. And
anyway, you asked for help in the matter; if you don't like my
suggestion feel free to ignore it rather than argue about it. I have
no intention of adopting confusion in place of a clear and useful
definition.

>As for `monotarinai' (this is after all sci.lang.JAPAN, so I'd better get
>some Japanese in  :-) ), since in every case of `tarinai koto' there has to
>be something, i.e. some `mono' that is not adequate, then wouldn't `mono-
>tarinai' be kind of a dumb thing to say if we expected it to be taken as a
>sum of its parts?   Sure looks like an idiom to me.

This is a red herring. It *may* be redundant to use "mono" in
"monotarinai" but it certainly doesn't get in the way of understanding
what it means. If you think every word that displays redundancy,
illogic, or has idiomatic usages is an idiom you *are* lost. But then
again you shouldn't be too worried about it; for you "idiom" is a
synonym of "word". Note that I consider monotarinai to be a kind of
compound word anyway. So it sure doesn't look like an idiom to me.

> (What I have trouble with is more the "what's NOT an idiom" side.)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Obviously.

-- Tad Perry   Internet:    tvp@gibdo.engr.washington.edu
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