Set phrases
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What is a set phrase?
Set phrases are two or more words that don't combine freely, but occur as more or less fixed linguistic expressions. They reflect the way in which language is normally used, as a result of tradition and linguistic convention. Linguists recognize several types of set phrases, but do not necessarily agree on the number of categories and their exact definitions. KorpusDK uses set phrases in a broad sense and comprises most of the types found in phraseology, most importantly:
|
type |
explanation |
examples |
|---|---|---|
|
collocations |
words which commonly co-occur and are examples of typical language usage |
lys stemme, til skræk og advarsel, skingrende skør |
|
terms |
technically defined expressions used for classification in a subject field |
det periodiske system, gul okseøje |
|
idioms |
phrases having a sense that cannot be deduced from the sense of the individual parts, often a figurative sense |
se dagens lys, gøre sine hoser grønne, lugte lunten |
|
proverbs |
condensed expressions which summarize an experience or render a traditionally held truth |
højt at flyve, dybt at falde; der er mere mellem himmel og jord |
The set phrases give an impression of word combinatorics and idiomatic usage. Many phrases are recorded in The Danish Dictionary and the search result is taken from this source when a search for set phrases is performed.
The search result is presented as an alphabetical list of phrases from The Danish Dictionary. Click on a phrase to perform a corpus query for the phrase. The phrase is "translated" into a standard search expression with all inflected forms included for each word in the expression. This may lead to interesting results as illustrated by the example below.
Some phrases contain an empty slot, represented by an underscore, due to variation of the element in question. When you click on the phrase to make a query, the variational element is translated into an unspecified word for that particular element.
A search for Set phrases will of course only find phrases recorded by The Danish Dictionary.
A concordance query reveals that the
expression at have noget på hjerte is
getting competition from the variant
at have noget på hjertet (enlarge)
You may also get on the track of set phrases by a direct query into KorpusDK, for instance by searching for Collocations.
