Parseme MWE Template: English
MWEs by syntactic type
Nominal MWEs
Verbal MWEs
Prepositional MWEs
Adjectival MWEs
Clausal MWEs
Other patterns
MWEs by fixedness
Fixed MWEs
Semi-fixed MWEs
General characterization
Semi-fixed MWEs may show inflection and for reflexive pronoun agreement.
They do not allow for internal modification, lexical variation, or topicalization. Usually they do not allow for passive.
Nominal MWEs
Compounds. They are treated as semi-fixed rather than fixed because they typically show number inflection.
Semi-fixed Verb-Noun Idiomatic Combinations
Typically show agreement on the verb, but do not allow for passivization or any movement of the direct object NP. These are treated as non-decomposable idioms.
kick the bucket
saw logs
trip the light fantastic
Flexible MWEs
General characterization
Flexible Verb-Noun Idiomatic Combinations
They all allow for passive, raising, and internal modification.
Class 1: Some may allow for pronominalization, determiner change.
spill the beans
Class 2: Even fewer may allow for relative clause formation, use of idiom parts without the rest of the idiom in the same sentence, though it must be salient in the discourse.
pull strings
Institutionalized phrases
General characterization
Combination only shows statistical idiomaticity.
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