Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2016
Abstract
Similes are a salient type of idiomatic expression, characterized by a number of specific features. They are a subject of debate regarding their idiomaticity and classification within the area of phraseology.
This article provides a concise overview of the basic questions such as the essential definition of similes and their structure, which serves as a basis for a further investigation of their semantic aspects, particularly the phenomena of metaphor and metonymy. The role of these two figures of speech in similes is investigated, based on examples from a large set of frequent similes gathered from the corpus.
Subsequently, the phenomenon of variation within the area of fixed phrases is observed.