A Corpus Based Approach to Near Synonymy of German Multi-Word Expressions
Christiane Hmmer · 2004
The core of this paper is a detailed corpus-based analysis of the two nearly synonymous German idioms etw. liegt jmdm. im Blut and etw. ist jmdm. in die Wiege gelegt. The central conclusions drawn from this analysis are: On the basis of the behaviour of the semantic arguments of the two idioms n their presence or absence as well as certain semantic properties n clear statements can be made about the context conditions under which the two idioms are interchangeable and those allowing the realisation of one of them while excluding the other one. Furthermore, it is stated that even in the contexts that allow both idioms, the choice of one or the other makes a subtle difference. This difference has to do with the metaphorical image encoded in the idiom. The prominent degree of prototypicality of certain traits demonstrates that speakers actively use these subtle differences. The paper constitutes thus an investigation on the level below WordNet synsets discussing the concept of synonymy underlying WordNet organisation.