Influence of Unlicensed Definiteness on Behaviour of Non-Existing V+NP Idioms

Abstract

The current study aimed to explore a possible effect of unlicensed definiteness on idiomatic behaviour of English non-existing idioms. It has been found that definite nouns in idioms are often not licensed by the context. An online questionnaire was created in which participants were asked to produce meanings for definite and indefinite non-existing idioms and rate their properties. It was found that the definite non-idioms generated meanings that preserved less of the original VP compared to the indefinite non-idioms. The indefinite non-idioms generated more meanings with a syntactic structure similar to the structure of the non-idiom. Therefore, unlicensed definiteness can possibly be seen as a cue for idiomatic meaning.