In the past few decades, the investigation of grammatical change using electronic corpora has made headway internationally. Although linguists previously believed that grammatical changes progress too slowly to observe, this method enables linguists to investigate even recent, or ongoing, changes. However, no comprehensive study of recent and ongoing grammatical changes in Afrikaans has appeared yet. Also, when comments about ongoing changes are made, it is usually based on anecdotal evidence, with a focus on English influence. In this study, the method of short-term diachronic comparable corpus linguistics is used to investigate grammatical changes in written Standard Afrikaans from 1911 to 2010. Four corpora were collected to this end, representing language use from 1911-1920, 1941-1950, 1971-1980 and 2001-2010. Additionally, quantitative grammaticography is used to take into account possible effects of prescriptive sources. Two research questions are adressed in this study: the first inquires into the nature and extent of grammatical changes in selected grammatical categories in written Standard Afrikaans from 1911 to 2010; the second wants to clarify the differences and similarities between internal and external language change, and in the light thereof establish to which extent external change, and specifically English influence, is relevant for grammatical changes in Standard Afrikaans during the past century. The theoretical framework within which language use and change is investigated in this study is cognitive linguistics, specifically emergent grammar and the exemplar model. Changes that become apparent from the data are described and explained in terms of processes of change and forces of change, and linked to the principles of cognitive linguistics. Three broad grammatical categories are investigated: temporal reference, pronouns and the genitive. Even though there is an extent of stability in each of the categories, there are also several bigger and smaller changes that give an overview of the nature of grammatical change in written Standard Afrikaans in the past century. These changes can be divided into different categories. The first type of change has to do with formalisation and colloquialisation – in broad strokes, there are signs of formalisation between the first two periods, during which the standard variety was being established, causing some features associated with formality to increase (e.g. passive constructions). However, at the end of the century there are signs of colloquialisation between the last two periods, where some formal features decrease (e.g. the formal second person pronoun u "you"), and some informal features increase (e.g. nou "now" as discourse marker). The second type of change is analogy, causing greater regularity and/or uniformity in a paradigm. For instance, obsolescent preterite forms (had "had", wis "knew") were replaced by regular forms (het/het gehad, het geweet). The last of the Dutch genitive was also replaced by the Afrikaans genitive with se "'s" and van "of". The third type of change is driven by speakers' desire to be expressive. Some of the pronouns specialise increasingly, meaning that they are used less and less for functions other than their main function, and other options are used less and less for that function. Examples of this is the third person pronoun dit "it", the shortened forms jul "you/your" and hul "they/their", and the indefinite pronouns almal "everybody", alles "everything" and elkeen "each one". A next type of change is actually a combination of different processes and forces: grammaticalisation. There are several instances of grammaticalisation: the use of gaan "go" for future reference, the use of dis "it's" rather than dit is "it is", the use of mens "human" rather than 'n mens "a human" as generic pronoun, the use of indefinite pronouns with enig- "any" like enigiets "anything", enigiemand "anybody", enigeen "anyone", and the use of the genitive particle se "'s". The last type of change is externally motivated change. Contrary to the view the Afrikaans literature in general promotes, there is only one instance of confirmed English influence in the data of this study: the increasing use of -self with reflexive pronouns, rather than the bare object form. However, there are instances of extra-linguistic influence, like standardisation that caused large scale variation reduction between the first and the second period, and the influence of feminism that can be seen in decreasing linguistic sexism, particularly with regard to generic pronouns. The conclusion in the end is that the process of internally motivated change and contact-induced change is not different – an innovation can originate from another language (overt transfer), or an internal innovation can be promoted through bi- or multilingualism (covert transfer); however, the same principles, processes and forces of change are at play, irrespective of how many languages are involved.

In the past few decades, the investigation of grammatical change using electronic corpora has made headway internationally. Although linguists previously believed that grammatical changes progress too slowly to observe, this method enables linguists to investigate even recent, or ongoing, changes. However, no comprehensive study of recent and ongoing grammatical changes in Afrikaans has appeared yet. Also, when comments about ongoing changes are made, it is usually based on anecdotal evidence, with a focus on English influence. In this study, the method of short-term diachronic comparable corpus linguistics is used to investigate grammatical changes in written Standard Afrikaans from 1911 to 2010. Four corpora were collected to this end, representing language use from 1911-1920, 1941-1950, 1971-1980 and 2001-2010. Additionally, quantitative grammaticography is used to take into account possible effects of prescriptive sources. Two research questions are adressed in this study: the first inquires into the nature and extent of grammatical changes in selected grammatical categories in written Standard Afrikaans from 1911 to 2010; the second wants to clarify the differences and similarities between internal and external language change, and in the light thereof establish to which extent external change, and specifically English influence, is relevant for grammatical changes in Standard Afrikaans during the past century. The theoretical framework within which language use and change is investigated in this study is cognitive linguistics, specifically emergent grammar and the exemplar model. Changes that become apparent from the data are described and explained in terms of processes of change and forces of change, and linked to the principles of cognitive linguistics. Three broad grammatical categories are investigated: temporal reference, pronouns and the genitive. Even though there is an extent of stability in each of the categories, there are also several bigger and smaller changes that give an overview of the nature of grammatical change in written Standard Afrikaans in the past century. These changes can be divided into different categories. The first type of change has to do with formalisation and colloquialisation – in broad strokes, there are signs of formalisation between the first two periods, during which the standard variety was being established, causing some features associated with formality to increase (e.g. passive constructions). However, at the end of the century there are signs of colloquialisation between the last two periods, where some formal features decrease (e.g. the formal second person pronoun u "you"), and some informal features increase (e.g. nou "now" as discourse marker). The second type of change is analogy, causing greater regularity and/or uniformity in a paradigm. For instance, obsolescent preterite forms (had "had", wis "knew") were replaced by regular forms (het/het gehad, het geweet). The last of the Dutch genitive was also replaced by the Afrikaans genitive with se "'s" and van "of". The third type of change is driven by speakers' desire to be expressive. Some of the pronouns specialise increasingly, meaning that they are used less and less for functions other than their main function, and other options are used less and less for that function. Examples of this is the third person pronoun dit "it", the shortened forms jul "you/your" and hul "they/their", and the indefinite pronouns almal "everybody", alles "everything" and elkeen "each one". A next type of change is actually a combination of different processes and forces: grammaticalisation. There are several instances of grammaticalisation: the use of gaan "go" for future reference, the use of dis "it's" rather than dit is "it is", the use of mens "human" rather than 'n mens "a human" as generic pronoun, the use of indefinite pronouns with enig- "any" like enigiets "anything", enigiemand "anybody", enigeen "anyone", and the use of the genitive particle se "'s". The last type of change is externally motivated change. Contrary to the view the Afrikaans literature in general promotes, there is only one instance of confirmed English influence in the data of this study: the increasing use of -self with reflexive pronouns, rather than the bare object form. However, there are instances of extra-linguistic influence, like standardisation that caused large scale variation reduction between the first and the second period, and the influence of feminism that can be seen in decreasing linguistic sexism, particularly with regard to generic pronouns. The conclusion in the end is that the process of internally motivated change and contact-induced change is not different – an innovation can originate from another language (overt transfer), or an internal innovation can be promoted through bi- or multilingualism (covert transfer); however, the same principles, processes and forces of change are at play, irrespective of how many languages are involved.

This corpus-based study of the use of expressions of future in English has two aims: to examine how certain expressions of future are used in Present-day English, and to explore how electronic corpora can be exploited for linguistic study. The expressions focused on in this thesis are five auxiliary or semi-auxiliary verb phrases frequently discussed in studies of future reference in English: will, ’ll, shall, going to and gonna. The study examines the patterned ways in which the expressions are used in association with various linguistic and non-linguistic (or extra-linguistic) factors. The linguistic factors investigated are co-occurrence with particular words and co-occurrence with items of particular grammatical classes. The non-linguistic factors examined are medium (written vs. spoken), text category, speaker characteristics (age, sex, social class, etc.), region and time. The data for the study are exclusively drawn from computer-readable corpora of Present-day English. Corpus analyses are performed with automatic and interactive methods, and exploit both quantitative and qualitative analytical techniques. The study finds that the use of these expressions of future varies with a number of factors. Differences between spoken and written language are particularly prominent and usage also varies between different types of text, both within spoken and written corpora. Variation between groups of speakers is also attested. Although the linguistic co-occurrence patterns are similar to some degree, there are nonetheless differences in the collocational patterns in which the expressions are used. Methodological issues related to corpus-based studies in general are discussed in the light of the insights gained from this study of expressions of future.

This thesis investigates the history of preposition stranding in the Modern English period from 1500 to 1900, in close relation with the prescriptive movement in the tradition of English grammatical thought. The aim is to assess, or rather re-assess, thee ffect and effectiveness of the (late) eighteenth-century normative tradition on actual language usage. The methodology lies in the comparison of a precept corpus, i.e.meta-linguistic comments, with a usage corpus, i.e. actual language practice. On the one hand, this study will provide insightful observations into the attitudes towards and conceptualisation of end-placed prepositions in the course of the eighteenth century, the age of prescriptivism. Evidence comes from a self-compiled corpus of observations made on this peculiar usage as gathered from a miscellany of precept works (1700-1800). On the other hand, this thesis will trace the diachronic evolution of the use of preposition stranding before, during and after the age of prescriptivism,as collected in two renowned historical corpora, namely the Early Modern English section of the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus (1500-1710) and the British part of A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers (1650-1899). The evaluation of the evidence from precept and the evidence from usage will shed new light on (a) the origin of the stigmatisation of preposition stranding (micro-level), and(b) the role of the normative tradition on language variation and change(macro-level). First, contrary to what has been taken for granted in the literature hitherto, I will demonstrate that the proscription against ending sentences with prepositions does not go back directly to the late eighteenth-century heyday of publication of precept works (e.g. Robert Lowth's grammar) but to the mid/late seventeenth-century incipient stages of the prescriptive tradition embraced with ideals of correctness and politeness; especially, to the grammarian and rhetorician Joshua Poole and to the literary writer John Dryden. Language change can thus be observed as early as the early eighteenth century. Secondly, I will provide evidence to show that late eighteenth-century precepts did exert an influence on the use of preposition stranding. The effect is manifest in contemporaneous writings and the effectiveness extends into the early nineteenth century. Nonetheless, it is only a temporary one, as the trends reverse in the late nineteenth century when prescriptivism was fading away. It will be argued that the eighteenth-century normative tradition did not trigger linguistic change but rather reinforced an existing trend.

This doctoral thesis analyses the concept of risk and how it functions as an organizing principle of discourse, paying close attention to actual linguistic practice.           Article 1 analyses the concepts of risk, safety and security and their relations based on corpus data (the Corpus of Contemporary American English). Lexical, grammatical and semantic contexts of the nouns risk, safety and security, and the adjectives risky, safe and secure are analysed and compared. Similarities and differences are observed, suggesting partial synonymy between safety (safe) and security (secure) and semantic opposition to risk (risky). The findings both support and contrast theoretical assumptions about these concepts in the literature.           Article 2 analyses the concepts of risk and danger and their relation based on corpus data (in this case the British National Corpus). Frame semantics is used to explore the assumptions of the sociologist Niklas Luhmann (and others) that the risk concept presupposes decision-making, while the concept of danger does not. Findings partly support and partly contradict this assumption.           Article 3 analyses how newspapers represent risk and causality. Two theories are used: media framing and the philosopher John Mackie’s account of causality. A central finding of the study is that risks are “framed” with respect to causality in several ways (e.g. one and the same type of risk can be presented as resulting from various causes). Furthermore, newspaper reporting on risk and causality vary in complexity. In some articles, risks are presented without causal explanations, while in other articles, risks are presented as results from complex causal conditions. Considering newspaper reporting on an aggregated overall level, complex schemas of causal explanations emerge.           Article 4 analyses how phenomena referred to by the term nano (e.g. nanotechnology, nanoparticles and nanorobots) are represented as risks in Swedish newspaper reporting. Theoretically, the relational theory of risk and frame semantics are used. Five main groups of nano-risks are identified based on the risk object of the article: (I) nanotechnology; (II) nanotechnology and its artefacts (e.g. nanoparticles and nanomaterials); (III) nanoparticles, without referring to nanotechnology; (IV) non-nanotechnological nanoparticles (e.g. arising from traffic); and (V) nanotechnology and nanorobots. Various patterns are explored within each group, concerning, for example, what is considered to be at stake in relation to these risk objects, and under what conditions. It is concluded that Swedish patterns of newspaper reporting on nano-risks follow international trends, influenced by scientific assessment, as well as science fiction.           Article 5 analyses the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products (e.g. sports clothes and equipment). The controversy involves several actors: print and television news media, Government and parliament, governmental agencies, municipalities, non-government organisations, and companies. In the controversy, antibacterial silver is claimed to be a risk object that negatively affects health, the environment, and sewage treatment industry (objects at risk). In contrast, such claims are denied. Antibacterial silver is even associated with the benefit of mitigating risk objects (e.g. bacteria and micro-organisms) that threaten health and the environment (objects at risk). In other words, both sides of the controversy invoke health and the environment as objects at risk. Three strategies organising risk communication are identified: (i) representation of silver as a risk to health and the environment; (ii) denial of such representations; and (iii) benefit association, where silver is construed to mitigate risks to health and the environment. / Avhandlingen analyserar begreppet risk och hur detta begrepp strukturerar diskurs. Ett centralt intresse för analysen är faktisk språkanvändning.           I den första artikeln analyseras de engelska begreppen risk, safety and security och deras relation. Analysen bygger på korpusdata (the Corpus of Contemporary American English). Lexikala och grammatiska kontexter för substantiven risk, safety och security och adjektiven risky, safe och secure analyseras och jämförs. Både likheter och skillnader identifieras vilka i stort bekräftar att safety (safe) och security (secure) är synonymer och i sin tur motsatser (antonymer) till risk (risky). Studien stödjer flera tidigare antaganden om dessa begrepp inom forskningslitteraturen, men motsäger andra.           I den andra artikeln analyseras de engelska begreppen risk och danger och deras relation baserat på korpusdata (the British National Corpus). Ramsemantik (eng. frame semantics) används för att undersöka antagandet att begreppet risk förutsätter beslutsfattande, medan begreppet danger inte gör det. Studien stödjer delvis detta antagande, men visar också på problem med antagandet.           I den tredje artikeln analyseras hur nyhetspress framställer risk och orsak-verkansamband (kausalitet). Två teorier används. För det första används teorin om medias ”inramning” av händelser (eng. media framing). För det andra används filosofiska perspektiv på kausala beskrivningar. En huvudsaklig slutsats är att risker framställs på många olika sätt med avseende på kausalitet. Exempelvis kan en och samma risk framställas som ett resultat av flera olika orsaker. Vidare framställer nyhetspress riskers kausalitet med olika grader av komplexitet. I vissa tidningsartiklar presenteras risker utan några kausala förklaringar. I andra tidningsartiklar presenteras risker som resultat av komplexa orsak-verkansamband. Om man betraktar nyhetsrapporteringen om risker på en övergripande nivå, så framträder en komplex bild av riskers orsakssamband.           I den fjärde artikeln analyseras framställningar av fenomen som benämns med morfemet nano, exempelvis nanoteknologi, nanomaterial och nanorobotar. Frågan som besvaras är på vilket sätt sådana fenomen framställs som risker i svensk nyhetspress. Teoretiskt utgår studien från den relationella teorin om risk och ramsemantik. Baserat på vilka fenomen som framställs som riskobjekt (eller hot) i tidningsartiklar, identifieras fem grupper av nanorisker: (I) nanoteknologi, (II) nanoteknologi och dess produkter (t.ex. nanopartiklar och nanomaterial), (III) nanopartiklar (utan referens till nanoteknologi), (IV) nanopartiklar som inte är resultat av nanoteknologi (utan istället uppstår t.ex. i trafiken) och (V) nanoteknologi och nanorobotar. För varje grupp undersöks vidare mönster i framställningen av dessa risker, exempelvis, vad som beskrivs som hotat av dessa riskobjekt och under vilka förutsättningar. Studiens empiriska observationer stödjer tidigare forskning om hur nanorisker rapporteras i nyhetspress internationalt. Rapporteringen av nanorisker är influerad av vetenskapliga riskbedömningar, men också av science fiction.           I den femte artikeln analyseras en kontrovers kring användningen av antibakteriellt silver inom sjukvården och i konsumentartiklar som exempelvis träningskläder och sportutrustning. Fokus för artikeln är hur risker uppfattas i den svenska debatten som inbegriper nyhetsmedia (press och TV), regering och riksdag, myndigheter, kommuner, intresseorganisationer och företag. Vissa aktörer menar att silver är ett riskobjekt som påverkar olika värden på ett negativt sätt, till exempel, folkhälsan, miljön, och avloppsreningsindustrin. Andra aktörer förnekar dessa påståenden. De menar till och med att silver har fördelar som att motverka risker som hotar folkhälsan och miljön. Med andra ord åberopar båda sidorna av kontroversen hälsa och miljö som värden viktiga att skydda. Slutligen identifieras tre strategier för riskkommunikation som tillämpas i kontroversen: (i) framställningen av silver som en miljö- och hälsorisk, (ii) förnekande av dessa påståenden, och (iii) nyttoassociationer där silver framställs som något som motverkar miljö- och hälsorisker. / <p>QC 20160127</p>

<p>Syftet med denna studie är att se hur ordet <em>grym</em> används i icketraditionell bemärkelse. Undersökningen har skett genom studier av ordet i elva tidningskorpusar mellan åren 1965-2004, sammanställda av Språkbanken. Genom att studera faktorer såsom betydelse, genre, användare och ordklass har jag kommit fram till att ordet har gått från att innan 1970-talet endast använts för någonting negativt till att ordet används som en förstärkning eller för något som är snyggt, häftigt och positivt. Studien visar att ordet främst används inom sport- och musikgenren i tidningarna och majoriteten av användarna är män. I denna studie om bruket av ordet <em>grym</em> i tidningsskriftspråk har ordet inte uppkommit i annan ordklass än vad dagens ordböcker tar upp.</p> / <p>The aim of this study is to see how the Swedish word <em>grym</em> is used in non-traditional sense. The research is based on eleven newspaper corpuses from Språkbanken between the years 1965-2004. By studying factors like meaning, genre, user and part of speech the conclusion is that the word has gone from something negative before the 1970s to be used as reinforcement or for something nice, cool and positive. The research shows that the word mainly is used within the sport and music genre in the newspapers and the majority of the users are men. In the result the word is never used as another part of speech other than the ones presented in the word books, which is adjective and adverb.</p>

Second Language Acquisition (SLA) researchers have yet to map the developmental stages language learners go through as they approach the target language. In studies of ESL writing, the term "advanced learner" has been applied indiscriminately to learners ranging from freshman ESL composition to graduate students (Bardovi-Harlig and Bofman, 1989; Chaudron and Parker, 1990; Connor and Mayberry, 1996; Hinkel, 1997, 2003). There is a need to examine the advanced stages of SLA in order to refine SLA theories and pedagogical approaches.A corpus of texts written by eleven graduate students in applied linguistics who are non-native-English speakers from several linguistic backgrounds was analyzed to determine the texts' lexical, morphological, and syntactic fluency, accuracy, and complexity. A sub-corpus of papers by seven native-English-speaking peers was used for comparison. The texts were sit-down and take-home examinations written in a doctoral program at the end of the first semester and three years later. Surveys and interviews were conducted to supplement the corpus with ethnographic data.This dissertation defines data-based criteria that distinguish four quantitatively and qualitatively distinct developmental stages: the advanced, highly advanced, near-native, and native-like stages. Advanced learners make more frequent and varied errors (with articles, prepositions, plural and possessive markers, agreement and anaphors), which can be explained by linguistic transfer. Native-like writers make few errors that can be explained by overgeneralization of conventions from informal English and working memory limitations (just like native speakers' errors). Throughout the four stages, errors (i.e., incorrect forms that reflect lack of linguistic knowledge (Corder, 1967)) became less frequent, and more of the incorrect usages appeared to be mistakes (occasional slips).This dissertation supports Herschensohn's (1999) proposal that SLA is a process of transfer followed by relearning of morpho-syntactic specifications. Syntax was used with the greatest accuracy (Bardovi-Harlig and Bofman, 1989), while lexicon (especially function words) was the weakest. In addition, length of stay in an English-speaking country and amount of interaction with native speakers were proportional with accuracy. An important pedagogical recommendation is that (corpus-assisted) language teaching should continue until the target language is reached.

This study contributes to the growing body of formulaic language research that indicates that formulaic sequences (e.g., idioms, collocations, metaphors, and other conventionalized multi-word items) facilitate comprehension by reducing processing load (Wray, 2002). Expanding on Underwood et. al. (2004), this study combines corpus analysis and eye-movement data to assess the contribution of formulaicity to the comprehension of a whole, authentic text.Information regarding grammatical, lexical, and contextual conventions for each formulaic item in the text was obtained via the Collins COBUILD Online Corpus and the British National Corpus. Additionally, using an Applied Science Laboratories Eye Tracker, the eye movements of two native speakers and one non-native speaker of English were recorded and the fixations for formulaic sequences were compared. All eye movement data was interpreted in light of Goodman's Transactional model of reading (2003). Specifically, eye movements for each participant were compared across two conditions: 1) a condition comprised of the formulaic sequences in the text and 2) a baseline segment from the text which was free of formulaic items. Paired t-tests were performed for each participant to determine whether or not the eye movement behavior differed significantly in the two conditions. Data analysis indicates that both native and non-native readers of English showed significant differences in the eye movement patterns for the two conditions. However, these significant differences were reversed for the two participant groups. In the case of the native readers, the predictable nature of formulaic sequences facilitated the processing of written text, as evidenced by a significantly lower percentage of words fixated in the formulaic sequences in comparison with the percent of words fixated in the baseline condition. However, for the non-native readers, 1) lack of experience with the formulaic items and 2) their opaque nature appeared to hinder comprehension, resulting in a significantly higher percentage of words fixated in the formulaic condition than in the baseline, non-formulaic condition. This dissertation has implications for the fields of first and second language acquisition, particularly literacy theory and instruction.

This dissertation describes the investigation of codeswitching in a computerised corpus of child bilingual language, the LOBILL Corpus, which consists of twenty-five hours of recordings of naturalistic interactions between two bilingual Brazilian/English siblings (JAM, 3;6 and MEG, 5;10) and their family members. Collected over three years, the data was transcribed and coded using the CHAT (Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts) transcription system developed by MacWhinney and colleagues (MacWhinney, 1991). In addition to standard CHAT coding, language codes were inserted throughout the corpus and a specially developed postcode was added to all bilingual utterances. Addressee information for each utterance was also included. The longitudinal and heterogenous nature of the corpus and its specific coding allowed for the comprehensive investigation of the children's code-switching practices from both grammatical and pragmatic perspectives. Three levels of analyses were performed using the CLAN (Computerized Language ANalysis) software (ibid). First, quantitative analyses were carried out using the commands FREQ (which outputs frequency word lists), VOCD (which outputs vocabulary diversity scores) and WDLEN (which outputs mean word and utterance lengths). An analysis of the results pointed to the existence of relationships between the various values found and the participatory roles of English and Portuguese in code-switched utterances. The second level of analysis involved the examination and interpretation of word lists and code lists produced by the use of FREQ. Using Myers-Scotton's 4-Morpheme Model (4-M Model) (Jake & Myers-Scotton, 2009) to interpret the word lists, comparisons of morpheme types revealed the existence of an asymmetry in terms of the contributions of both languages to bilingual utterances. These results were seen to lend support to the Matrix Language/Embedded Language asymmetry proposed in the Matrix Frame Language Model (MFL Model) (ibid). The quantitative analysis of four types of codes (used to code instances of retracings and reformulations, errors, tag questions and metalinguistic usage) provided evidence for the existence of potential relationships between these features of spoken discourse and code-switching.

The question of how to integrate idioms into standard theories of grammar has been a matter of investigation since at least the beginning of generative grammar. Idioms are uniquely positioned at the interface between the lexicon and the syntax, demonstrating properties of both words and phrases. On the one hand, idioms behave like stored units, arbitrary correspondences between sound and meaning that must simply be memorized by speakers of the language. In this way, they are similar to words, which have long been recognized as arbitrary sound-meaning pairs (cf. Saussure (1986)'s arbitrariness of the sign). On the other hand, idioms in the traditional sense are multiword units, often with some degree of syntactic flexibility, ranging from tense inflection (e.g. Eli kicked the bucket yesterday vs. I'm pretty sure Eli's going to kick the bucket tomorrow) to passivizability (e.g. Lisa spilled the beans vs. The beans were spilled (by Lisa)), and beyond. This places idioms in the purview of the syntax, where the combination and manipulation of multiword units is typically assumed to take place. Idioms, then, bridge the gap between the lexicon and the syntax, challenging traditional assumptions about grammar. This dissertation provides a proposal for dealing with just such issues. I provide an account of idiomatic representations that is consistent with theoretical and empirical research in the field. I explore what kinds of structures are licensed to have special idiomatic interpretations, and I present novel experimental and corpus results that bear on the issue of how idioms are represented. Ultimately, I argue that the structural requirement model alone is able to sufficiently account for the data.