>ČASOPIS PRO MODERNÍ FILOLOGII 2024 (106) 1
English Adjectival Similes: Comparison of a Corpus Sample with Their Selection in a Standard Reference Book of Idioms
ABSTRACT (en)
An adjectival simile is an established phraseological unit with a standardised form (blind as a bat). It is perhaps for this reason that it has not been attracting much attention, and most studies on similes focus on verbal similes. This study reports a significant diachronic shift in the usage of adjectival similes, identified by comparing a lexicographic sample with one from a corpus. Analysing corpus data, we collected a representative sample of 309 adjectival similes in English, which further served for the compilation of a “simile minimum” of 60 types. Both corpus samples were then contrasted with lexicographic lists from a dictionary of idioms: English Idioms and How to Use Them (Seidl & McMordie, 1978; 1988). The comparison shows that the lexicographic minimum (65 types) overlaps with that from the corpus by just one-third and the whole representative list (166 types) only by one-fifth. The significant disproportion can be explained as a shift in linguistic reality but also as a result of the dictionary authors’ idiolects or homogeneity of their data. These findings can serve for textbook and reference manual authors as a warning against relying too much on their own linguistic intuition.
KEYWORDS (cs)
adjektivní přirovnání, frazeologie, frekvenční seznamy, korpusová data, lexikografie
KEYWORDS (en)
adjectival simile, corpus data, frequency lists, lexicography, phraseology
DOI
https://doi.org/10.14712/23366591.2024.1.2
LITERATURE
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CORPUSES
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