phraseological

Phraseological is an adjective relating to phraseology, the branch of linguistics that studies fixed expressions and multiword units in languages. It covers how sequences of words function as single units, sometimes with meanings not directly predictable from their parts, and how such units are stored, learned, and used in discourse.

Core types studied include idioms (for example, “kick the bucket”), collocations (strong tea, heavy rain), phrasal verbs (look up, break down), proverbs, and other fixed phrases. Idioms often have non-literal meaning, while collocations are predictable associations of words that feel natural to native speakers. Phraseological research also examines semi-fixed or semi-lexical expressions and their degree of lexicalization, as well as cross-linguistic differences in how languages compile their phraseological repertoire.

The field intersects with lexicography, language teaching, translation, and computational linguistics, where multiword expressions are treated as lexical units for parsing and generation. Methodologically, researchers use corpus data, dictionaries of multiword expressions, and contrastive analysis across languages. They explore issues such as semantic transparency, cultural specificity, metaphor, and diachronic change, including how new fixed expressions emerge or old ones fall out of use.

Applications include improving dictionaries and language teaching materials, aiding translation and parallel corpora alignment, and enhancing natural language processing tasks such as phrase-based retrieval and generation.

See also: idiom, collocation, multiword expression, proverb.