The Idiomatic Variability and Polysemy from the Perspective of the Bilingual Phraseography

Abstract

Many idioms occur typically with two or more meanings. In case of some other idioms, it is not possible to clearly distinguish whether we are facing two variants of one idiom, or two particular expressions.

Based on chosen Portuguese idioms, this contribution looks into the constraints of the idiomatic polysemy and of the unclear identity of the idiom in the process of creation of entries for a bilingual idiomatic dictionary.

Keywords

• idiom
• variability
• Portuguese
• polysemy
• phraseography