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The Mechanism Behind Idioms’ Meaning Extension

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Chinese Lexical Semantics (CLSW 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8922))

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Abstract

Meaning extension is an important mechanism by virtue of which new idioms are produced. Guided by the Principle of Economy, language users reanalyze the meanings of original idiomatic expressions, their semantic focus and the construction of their components, thus get a different explanation of the original idioms based on a new understanding of their literal meanings, which eventually lead to the semantic evolution.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hebei Finance University, Baoding, China

    Hongyan Liu

  2. Henan University, Kaifeng, China

    Peicui Zhang

  3. China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China

    Baopeng Ma

Authors
  1. Hongyan Liu
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  2. Peicui Zhang
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  3. Baopeng Ma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongyan Liu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China

    Xinchun Su

  2. Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Tingting He

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Cite this paper

Liu, H., Zhang, P., Ma, B. (2014). The Mechanism Behind Idioms’ Meaning Extension. In: Su, X., He, T. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8922. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14330-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14331-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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