idiomien

Idiomien is a term used in linguistics to refer to a class of fixed expressions whose overall meaning cannot be derived from the individual meanings of their component words. While the surface form may resemble ordinary phrases, idiomien carry a figurative sense that is conventional within a language or community. They include standard idioms, phrasal expressions, and set phrases that are frequently used as single lexical units.

Most idiomien are relatively fixed in form, with limited inflection or substitution allowed. The meaning of many idiomien is not transparent; for example, to "spill the beans" signals revealing a secret, not physically causing beans to spill. Some idiomien are semi-transparent, where part of the phrase hints at the meaning, while others are opaque and require conventional cultural knowledge.

Idioms contribute to style and expressiveness in language but can pose challenges for learners, translators, and natural language processing. They often resist straightforward translation and require bilingual equivalents or cultural context. In linguistics, idiomien are studied within the broader fields of phraseology and lexical semantics, with attention to their processing, acquisition, and evolution.

Classification schemes distinguish opaque idiomien from transparent ones and examine their syntactic flexibility—whether an idiomien can undergo normal grammatical changes without losing its idiomatic meaning. Cross-linguistic comparisons explore how languages encode similar concepts with different idiomien.