Hasta los huesos, bis in die Knochen. Somatic Constructional Idioms in Contrast through Corpora

Abstract

This paper aims at conducting a contrastive analysis of the [ADJ hasta SN_{{part of the body}}] mesoconstruction in Spanish and its functional counterpart [ADJ bis PP[N_{{part of the body}}]] in German, whose meaning is the intensification of the ADJ slot (calado hasta los huesos, nass in die Knochen), being these structures relegated to the periphery in the phraseological tradition due to their productive nature and partially compositional character. Adopting a corpus-based methodology (Sketch Engine), we carry out a holistic contrastive analysis of both mesoconstructions, putting emphasis on formal, semantic, and pragmatic aspects. In this way, we show, on the one hand, the similarities and discrepancies between the constructions from a semantic-pragmatic point of view in their context of use, as well as the syntactic peculiarities of the structures. On the other hand, we want to underline the preferences in the renewal of the somatic slot as well as the preferences and restrictions of the adjective slot, paying special attention to the combinability of both slots according to the languages involved.