Pour un Dictionnaire des Fréquences des Locutions Verbales

Although many frequency dictionaries of French words have been published over the past decades, they rarely include fixed expressions and idioms. I therefore view it as an important task to try to compile a frequency dictionary of French locutions verbales (fixed expressions of the predicate type). A pilot study of the frequency of about twenty expressions in the newspaper Le Monde 1996 and 1997 reveals that particular problems arise in creating such a dictionary. This paper discusses some of these problems, including variation (instability) and ambiguity, and concludes with a model entry for the dictionary.