USAGE: idioms with variable objects (was: deeply embedded VSO nightmare)

Matthew Pearson scripsit:

> But no such idioms exist in English. In fact, it's been claimed that
> no language anywhere has such idioms. If we assume that idioms are stored
> in our mental dictionaries as phrases (constituents), then we could take
> this observation (if true) as evidence that languages treat a verb and
> its object as a phrase, to the exclusion of the subject of that phrase
> (at least underlyingly).
I think that Russian has an idiom of the form "The devil's grandmother
knows X", where X is an event, and meaning that X is obscure,
incomprehensible, or generally f****-ed up.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
Please leave your values        |       Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.           |          check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel      |            --Miles Vorkosigan

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