Luke's Working Notes

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Concept Phrases

Becker argues that phrases, not just words, represent concepts. We manipulate words and phrases to assemble new meanings.

He suggests a taxonomy of 6 categories for these phrases, avoiding the dismissive "That's just an idiom":

1 . Polywords: multi-word phrases that are locked in. "to blow up" == "to explode". "for good" == "forever"

  1. Phrasal constraints: slightly less locked in. You can have something "by pure coincidence" or "by sheer coincidence".
  1. Deictic locutions: Tools for altering the flow of conversation, like "for that matter" or "by the way".
  1. Sentence builders: essentially templatic sentences. [A] gave [B] a (long) song and dance about [topic].
  1. Situational utterances: Complete sentences that are largely phatic, and often socially expected. "You're too kind" and "How can I ever repay you?" qualify.
  1. Verbatim texts: more-or-less memorized quotes. "Better late than never" or "I've got ninety-nine problems, but [subject]

References:

Thread from David Chapman

Referenced in

Concept Phrases