provides significant insights into the fundamental figurative character of hu-
man cognition.
The Analyzability of Idioms
There are many problems with the traditional view of idioms. First, consider
whether idioms are noncompositional. The traditional belief is that any ex-
pression whose meaning is not predictable from an analysis of the meanings of
its parts must have an arbitrary, or unmotivated, interpretation. For instance,
the classic example ofkick the bucket(meaning ‘die’) must receive its meaning
by arbitrary stipulation because the wordskick, the,andbuckethave little to do
with the act of dying. Of course, there may be some obscure historical reason
why people usekick the bucketto talk of dying, but contemporary speakers are
often unsure, or even completely ignorant, of why this phrase means what it
does.
One major difficulty with this analysis is that scholars tend to draw false
generalizations from an analysis of a single example (e.g.,kick the bucket)or
from just a few idiomatic phrases. Even thoughkick the bucketnicely illustrates
some of the traditional claims about idioms, it is not particularly representative
of the many kinds of idioms in American English. As noted by an increasing
number of idiom scholars, it is clearly problematic to assume that idioms form
a homogeneous class of linguistic items. Careful attention must be paid to the
many syntactic, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic differences that exist among
words and phrases that are generally judged to be idiomatic (i.e., those listed in
standard idiom dictionaries).
The investigation of a wide range of idioms clearly demonstrates that many
idioms are analyzable and have figurative meanings that are at least partly
motivated (Cacciari 1993; Cacciari & Glucksberg 1990; Fillmore, Kay, &
O’Connor 1988; Gibbs 1992, 1993; Gibbs & Nayak 1989; Glucksberg 1993; Lak-
off 1987; Langacker 1986; Nunberg 1978; Ruwet 1992; Wasow, Sag, & Nunberg
1983). That is, many idioms, perhaps thousands, have individual components
that independently contribute to what these phrases figuratively mean as
wholes. For example, speakers know thatspill the beansis analyzable because
beansrefers to an idea or secret andspillingrefers to the act of revealing the se-
cret. Similarly, in the phrasepop the question,itiseasytodiscernthatthenoun
questionrefers to a marriage proposal when the verbpopis used to refer to the
act of uttering it. People recognize thatblow your stackis analyzable because
blowrefers to the act of suddenly releasing or expressing internal pressure from
thestackor from the human mind/body.
Idioms differ in the extent to which they are analyzable. Some expressions
are almost completely compositional or analyzable (e.g.,pop the questionand
blow your stack), whereas other phrases are much less analyzable (e.g.,chew the
fatandkick the bucket). Many idioms that seem analyzable are also capable of
being syntactically and lexically altered (e.g.,leave no legal stone unturned, Your
remark touched a nerve I didn’t know existed,orHe pulled a string or two to help you
get the job). Many idioms share similar linguistic properties, as do most literal
expressions, whereas other phrases are more classically formulaic (but far
fewerthanmostscholarsimagine!).Wemaynotbeabletopredictexactlywhat
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