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Article published In: Words & Constructions: Language complexity in linguistics and psychology
Edited by Juhani Järvikivi, Pirita Pyykkönen-Klauck and Matti Laine
[The Mental Lexicon 9:2] 2014
► pp. 267–293

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Processing multiword idiomatic strings

Many words in one?

 | University of Modena
Published online: 21 November 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.9.2.05cac
Idioms are strings of words whose figurative meaning does not necessarily derive from that of the constituent parts. They belong to the vast and heterogeneous realm of multiword expressions, i.e. literal and non-literal word clusters whose representations are stored in semantic memory. This article provides an updated review of the psycholinguistic and electrophysiological literature on the processes underlying idiom comprehension with specific reference to the cues that lead to idiom recognition, to the syntactic and semantic behavior of idioms, to the relationships between literal compositionality and idiomatic meaning retrieval. Behavioral models of idiom comprehension are presented and discussed also with respect to the electrophysiological correlates of idiom and figurative language comprehension.
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Mancuso, Azzurra, Annibale Elia, Alessandro Laudanna & Simonetta Vietri
2020. The Role of Syntactic Variability and Literal Interpretation Plausibility in Idiom Comprehension. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 49:1 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Bhattasali, Shohini, Murielle Fabre, Wen-Ming Luh, Hazem Al Saied, Mathieu Constant, Christophe Pallier, Jonathan R. Brennan, R. Nathan Spreng & John Hale
2019. Localising memory retrieval and syntactic composition: an fMRI study of naturalistic language comprehension. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 34:4 ► pp. 491 ff. DOI logo
Citron, Francesca M.M., Cristina Cacciari, Jakob M. Funcke, Chun-Ting Hsu & Arthur M. Jacobs
2019. Idiomatic expressions evoke stronger emotional responses in the brain than literal sentences. Neuropsychologia 131 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Kulkova, Elena S. & Martin H. Fischer
2019. Idioms in the World: A Focus on Processing. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Vulchanova, Mila, Evelyn Milburn, Valentin Vulchanov & Giosuè Baggio
2019. Boon or Burden? The Role of Compositional Meaning in Figurative Language Processing and Acquisition. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 28:2 ► pp. 359 ff. DOI logo
Bizzoni, Yuri, Marco S. G. Senaldi & Alessandro Lenci
2018. Finding the Neural Net: Deep-learning Idiom Type Identification from Distributional Vectors. Italian Journal of Computational Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 28 ff. DOI logo
Bonin, Patrick, Alain Méot, Jean-Michel Boucheix & Aurélia Bugaiska
2018. Psycholinguistic norms for 320 fixed expressions (idioms and proverbs) in French. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 71:5 ► pp. 1057 ff. DOI logo
Cacciari, Cristina, Paola Corrardini & Fabio Ferlazzo
2018. Cognitive and Personality Components Underlying Spoken Idiom Comprehension in Context. An Exploratory Study. Frontiers in Psychology 9 DOI logo
Pomp, Jennifer, Anne-Kathrin Bestgen, Patrick Schulze, Christina J. Müller, Francesca M.M. Citron, Boris Suchan & Lars Kuchinke
2018. Lexical olfaction recruits olfactory orbitofrontal cortex in metaphorical and literal contexts. Brain and Language 179 ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Chahboun, Sobh, Valentin Vulchanov, David Saldaña, Hendrik Eshuis & Mila Vulchanova
2017. Can you tell it by the prime? A study of metaphorical priming in high‐functioning autism in comparison with matched controls. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 52:6 ► pp. 766 ff. DOI logo
Senaldi, Marco S. G., Alessandro Lenci & Gianluca E. Lebani
2017. Determining the Compositionality of Noun-Adjective Pairs with Lexical Variants and Distributional Semantics. Italian Journal of Computational Linguistics 3:1 ► pp. 43 ff. DOI logo
Beck, Sara D. & Andrea Weber
2016. Bilingual and Monolingual Idiom Processing Is Cut from the Same Cloth: The Role of the L1 in Literal and Figurative Meaning Activation. Frontiers in Psychology 7 DOI logo
Citron, Francesca M. M., Cristina Cacciari, Michael Kucharski, Luna Beck, Markus Conrad & Arthur M. Jacobs
2016. When emotions are expressed figuratively: Psycholinguistic and Affective Norms of 619 Idioms for German (PANIG). Behavior Research Methods 48:1 ► pp. 91 ff. DOI logo
Jacobs, Arthur, Markus J. Hofmann & Annette Kinder
2016. On Elementary Affective Decisions: To Like Or Not to Like, That Is the Question. Frontiers in Psychology 7 DOI logo
Kong, Lingyue, John X. Zhang & Yongwei Zhang
2016. Are Chinese Correlative Conjunctions Psychologically Real? An Investigation of the Combination Frequency Effect. Psychological Reports 119:1 ► pp. 106 ff. DOI logo
Yang, Jie, Ping Li, Xiaoping Fang, Hua Shu, Youyi Liu & Lang Chen
2016. Hemispheric involvement in the processing of Chinese idioms: An fMRI study. Neuropsychologia 87 ► pp. 12 ff. DOI logo
Cacciari, Cristina & Paola Corradini
2015. Literal analysis and idiom retrieval in ambiguous idioms processing: A reading-time study. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 27:7 ► pp. 797 ff. DOI logo
Pesciarelli, Francesca, Tania Gamberoni, Fabio Ferlazzo, Leo Lo Russo, Francesca Pedrazzi, Ermanno Melati & Cristina Cacciari
2014. Is the comprehension of idiomatic sentences indeed impaired in paranoid Schizophrenia? A window into semantic processing deficits. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 DOI logo
Weiland, Hanna, Valentina Bambini & Petra B. Schumacher
2014. The role of literal meaning in figurative language comprehension: evidence from masked priming ERP. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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