A Study on the Literal Interpretation of Idioms

This paper analyzes the situation in which a double meaning of idioms is realized. Idioms are composed by plural lexical items and their fixed form represents an idiomatic meaning. Usually, the meaning of idioms is figurative and differs from their literal meaning, however, in a particular context, the both meanings are interpretable simultaneously. In such a case, we can claim that an idiom is actualized in the context. Idioms have lost their basis of figure through the decontextualization, so applied to an appropriate context, they can recur to the “literal” figurative expression