Original scientific paper
Non-standard idioms in the newspapers Osvit (1898–1908)
Irina Budimir
Abstract
Stylistic marking is one of the relevant idiom features important for defining
the contrastive meaning of idioms. This paper aims at showing the contrast
between non-standard and standard idioms on the basis of the style being
marked or unmarked by analyzing examples of idioms from the Croatian
newspapers Osvit which used to be published in Mostar in the late 19th and
early 20th century. Based on this idiom feature and a detailed lexical anal-
ysis of idiom components, this paper illustrates the dissimilarities between
non-standard and standard idioms as well as their actual use in language.
A questionnaire was used to establish which of the collected non-standard
idioms are known to 125 young Croatian speakers, students of Croatian at
the University of Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina). The data show that
some described non-standard idioms published at the beginning of 20th cen-
tury are present today in various regional dialects and including the spoken
variation of standard with the same meaning, but (slightly) different forms
and are recognized by speakers today. Others belong to the passive lexicon
of Croatian.
Keywords
idiom; non-standard idioms; standard idioms; dissimilarities
Hrčak ID:
20656
URI
Publication date:
15.11.2007.
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