Calquing and Borrowing of Idiomatic Noun Compounds

Ramon Marti Solano (1)

1 CeReS - Centre de Recherches Sémiotiques

This study examines the calquing and, to a lesser extent, the borrowing of a specific group of idiomatic noun compounds, namely those including a colour term as in white elephant or black spot. This phraseological contrastive study involves English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Although most cases are examples of calques of English compounds to be found in these four Romance languages, we will be looking as well into the influence of French not only on English but also on the other languages. Our claim is that an important number of these calques have made their way into these languages, and many others, especially via the international press and media and that they display different degrees of institutionalisation.

Domaines: Linguistique

Ramon Marti Solano. Calquing and Borrowing of Idiomatic Noun Compounds. Phraseologie im interlingualen und interkulturellen Kontakt/Phraseology in Interlingual and Intercultural Contact, Zora 95, pp.239-250, 2013. ⟨hal-00933034v2⟩