B.regular structure, unclear meaning To have a bee in one’s bonnet [head] →to have a strange fixed idea about something. C.irregular structure, unclear meaning (to do) through thick and thin →through both good and bad times; in spite of
a single word, or even a sentence, with a special meaning that cannot be guessed from its structure.
An idiom is a multi-word expression which functions as a single unit and whose meaning cannot be worked out from the sum of its separate parts. That is, it has a holistic meaning which cannot be retrieved from the individual meanings of the component words.
evening next month. →arrange; perform
2. The features of English idioms
1) Very short or rather long An Indiod things come to an end. 天下没有不散的宴席
English Lexicology
第八讲
The Idiomatic Aspect of English Word Combination
I. Chunks in English
Definition
In linguistics, a chunk is a unit of language that forms a syntactic or semantic unit but also has its internal structure.
Example: A: When did you leave the party? B: I got out of there as soon as they
ran out of food.
A few chunks sentential How do you do? The majority lexical in kind and
phrasal in form
Lexical chunks, also calld
lexical phrases
There are two subtypes of lexical chunks, notably collocations and idioms.
Collocations in English
Collocation is the way in which words are used together.
Collocations are the words that tend to co-occur in a language---in grammatical patterns, compounds or fixed phrases.
all the difficulties.
3) Fixed and partly fixed idioms a. A stitch in time saves nine. →一针及时，可省九针；及时处理，事半功倍 b. to come to a bad end
nasty, sticky, no good, untimely take forty winks have, enjoy
Example:
The doctor performed the operation while the committee was holding a discussion.
II. English Idioms
1.Definition An idiom is a fixed group of words or
4) It has a special meaning. 5) It is relatively widely used. 6) They consist of obsolete（废弃） words. hither and thither---in all directions kith and kin--- friends and relations 7) They represent a semantic unit. make up one’s mind: decide look down on: depise
to spill the beans
Idioms and free phrases
blue sky, blue jacket blue moon I haven’t seen you in a blue moon. 我很久没见到你了。 We get up early yesterday. The students will get up an English
2) Take different structures A. irregular and illogical structure I am good friends with him. Diamond cut diamond. The devil take the hindmost. (irregular meaning, clear meaning)
Specifically, it refers to a unit of language longer than a word (though often shorter than a sentence) and it plays a facilitative role in comprehension and production.