1

This research was supported by a grant from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF20009269),

Jerusalem, Israel.

(a) The maturation of figurative language in cognitive development and its role in children's acquisition of idioms.

(b) The relevance and use of an informative context in the comprehension and production of idioms.

(c) The maturation of the ability to utilize semantic analysis of the subparts of idiomatic phrases of various degrees of transparency.

(d) The developmental differences between idiom comprehension and production.

The major conclusions: (a)-(c) are necessary ingredients for children's achieving adult-like performance in the comprehension and use of idioms, that this ability develops gradually from age 6-7 and continues to mature even beyond age 12, and that children are better at comprehending idioms than at producing them.

Little is known about: (i) the potential implications of the idioms’ internal structure for their acquisition

(ii) idiom acquisition in other languages Our study addresses:(I) the stages of acquisition (Hebrew)(II) the effects of internal structure on comprehension and production(III) consequences for models of idiom storage

Previous studies (English, Italian, French) focused on:

(Ackerman 1982, Cacciari and Levorato 1989, 2009, Cain, Towse, and Knight 2008, Gibbs 1987, Laval 2003, Levorato and Cacciari 1992, 1995,1999, 2010, Levorato, nesi & Cacciari 2004, Nippold and Taylor, 1995, 2002, Nippold and Tarrant Martin 1989, Nippold and Rudzinski, 1993, among others)

Unpredictable meaning Figuration.

(Nunberg, Sag and Wasow, 1994; Horvath and Siloni,2012)

a. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Idiom

b. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. proverb

The current research:

180 Hebrew speaking children of three age groups A set of two experiments testing:Comprehension of verb-phrase idioms headed by a transitive verb (experiment 1)Production (experiment 2).

VP idioms: Idioms headed by a verb and including the verb’s internal domain, excluding the external argument.

Variables manipulated:

(1) full/gapped idiom: a. A full constituent: shoot the breeze

b. idioms that include an open position that is not interpreted idiomatically (O’Grady 1998, Bruening 2010): cut x some slack

(2) The decomposability of the idiom into meaningful constituents that are consistent with its syntactic structure

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An idiomatic phrase is decomposable if it is isomorphic with its meaning, i.e. if each of its syntactic components - namely, the constituents immediately dominated by the phrase -corresponds to one syntactic component in its meaning.

To be considered a “meaning” an interpretation must be applicable in all the contexts in which the use of the idiom is appropriate and completely non-metaphorical.

Decomposability

The definition of decomposability we used:

(structurally motivated refinement of Wasow et al. 1984; Gibbs et al.1989 ; Nunberg, Sag & Wasow 1994, inspired by Geeraets 1990; Van de Voort & Vonk 1995)

(2) Killed two birds with one stone [achieved] [two goals] [with one action]- Decomposable

(3) Shoot the breeze Idiomatic: chat - Non-decomposable

(4) hexzik ‘et ha-roš me-’al ha-mayimheld ACC the-head from-above the-water

‘held his head above the water’ ;Idiomatic: survived - Non-decomposable

(5) hoci 'et ha-'agala me-ha-boctook-out ACC the-cart from-the-mud

Idiomatic: solved a difficult problem - Non- decomposable

(6) Sam ‘et kol ha-beycim be-sal exadput ACC all the-eggs in-basket one

‘put all his eggs in one basket’ Idiomatic: [hiški’a] [‘et kol ha-m’amacim] [be-matara axat];

]במטרה אחת][ את כל המאמצים] [השקיע[[put] [all his efforts] [into one cause]- Decomposable

20 Hebrew phrasal idioms headed by a transitive verb modified by a NP and a PPDecomposability/existence of gap: 5 full and decomposable; 5 full and non-decomposable; 5 gapped and decomposable; 5 gapped and non-decomposable.

Meaning:

No transparent idioms. Nippold &, Taylor 2002; Cain, Towse, & Knight 2008: the extent to which the figurative and literal meanings are close, may influence children’s performance in comprehension tasks. Idioms like kibel et x bizro’ot ptuxot, ‘welcomed X with open arms’ (idiomatic: ‘gladly welcomed/accepted X’), were excluded.

To enable a literal comprehension of unfamiliar idioms, all idioms had a plausible literal meaning. Specifically, none of the chosen idioms exhibited selectional restrictions violations. (no idioms like gava libo, his heart rose/got tall, idiomatic: he became proud)

Frequency:

Determined by subjective frequency estimation survey (following Levorato and Cacciari (1995), Cacciari and Levorato (2009)).

Participants: 68 adult Hebrew speakers. Stimuli: 55 idiomatic phrasesTask: provide a number between 1 and 5 to rate the phrase's frequency

The phrases with median ratings ranging between 3 and 5 were included in the research. frequency was counterbalanced between full/gapped idioms as well as

between decomposable/non-decomposable idioms.

Structure :

All idioms consisted of a transitive verb, an NP, and a PP Within the set of gapped idioms the position of the gap was controlled: in 5 of them the gap was in the direct object's position and in 5 of them the gap was in the indirect object's position. The number of idioms which include a complex NP was identical (3) between the sets of gapped and full idioms.

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Participants: 90 Hebrew speaking children; 30 first graders (age 6-7), 30 second graders (7-8) and 30 third graders (8-9).

Design and procedure: Illustrated short stories providing the appropriate setting without revealing the meaning of idioms were individually read to participants.

Each story ended with an idiom, and was followed by a multiple-choice question. Stories and tasks were pseudo-randomly ordered. Subjects were asked to choose the correct interpretation among: 1. The correct idiomatic interpretation2. A literal contextually inappropriate interpretation of the idiomatic phrase3. A contextually appropriate invented idiomatic interpretation

the third option never featured the correct answer simple, multiple choice content questions were presented

once every 2-3 items.

A three-way ANOVA (age group (3) × decomposability (2) × the existence of a gap (2)).

A significant effect for age (F(2,87) = 45.7, p < 0.001)

Linear effect: first graders (M = 9.5 , S = 4.6 )< second graders (M = 14, S = 3.78< third graders (M = 18.1, S = 0.89 )No other main effects or interactions were found.

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1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade

percentage of correct choices per grade

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Percentage of literal errors (out of all errors) per grade

Participants: 90 Hebrew speaking children who did not take part in experiment 1, divided into 3 age groups .

Design and procedure: 20 pseudo-randomly ordered illustrated short stories and tasks were individually read to each participant. The target idiom appeared at the end incomplete, allowing recognition of the idiom but not a correct guess. Subjects had to complete idioms. To make sure participants were paying attention, they

were occasionally presented with a content question structurally similar to the target task (i.e. a fill-in-the-blank task).

In this experiment the stories did provide the meanings of the idioms. This was done in order to facilitate the lexical retrieval of the target phrase.

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Three-way ANOVA (age group (3) X decomposability (2) X the existence of a gap (2))

Source: First graders (M = 2.6 (8.66%), S = 3.33 ) < second graders (M = 4.25 (14.17%), S = 5.3) < third graders (M = 12.21 (40.7%), S = 7.2)

decomposability (F(1, 87) = 98.08, P < 0.001)

the existence of a gap (F(1, 87) = 8.926, P = 0.004)

Correct= 1matched the target word 2. matched a different, but contextually appropriate idiom 3. matched existing colloquial uses of the target phrases.

Source: for all age groups, non-decomposable > decomposable

Source: main effect for second graders (only) (performed better with gapped).

Main effects:

Age group (F(2, 87) = 45.53, p < 0.001).

Decomposability X the existence of a gap X age √

Sources:

significant interactions between decomposability and the existence of a gap variables for:

second graders (F(1,29) = 9.2, p = 0.005)

Third graders (F(1,29) = 34.776, p < 0.001)

first graders (F(1, 29) = 1.64, p = 0.31).

Interactions:

Decomposability X the existence of a gap √No interaction.

First grade:

5

The existence of a gap only affected performance with non-decomposable

Disordinal interaction:

Decomp.Full>gapped

Non-decomp. Gapped>full

Production vs. ComprehensionThe ability to produce idioms matures more slowly than that of idiom comprehension.

Production but not comprehension is affected by internal structure

Discussion

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Production Comprehension

Discrepancies between what children seem to understand and their performance in tasks designed to elicit production/ their spontaneous speech, is often observed in acquisition studies (see Clark and Hecht 1983 for an overview), as well as in studies specifically targeting the acquisition of idioms (Levorato and Cacciari 1992).

With regard to performance with idioms, we suggest that:

idiom production is more difficult than idiom comprehension because it requires active lexical retrieval of the vocabulary item (as the idiom doesn’t occur in a complete form). Call it “Retrieval”.

idiom comprehension does not require such active retrieval but rather merely accessing the item (which is given as a whole) in order to detect its meaning, Call it “Accessing”.

“Retrieval” is a more difficult task than “Accessing”.

This explains why the development of idiom production is slower. It also explains why comprehension is not affected by internal structure.

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Production: Internal structure

GapsGapped idioms scored better in production by 2nd graders.

• 1st grade – performance is too low to detect differences.

• 2nd graders start acquiring figurative meaning; load on memory is high; hence gapped idioms, which involve fewer figurative constituents, are easier to retrieve than full ones. Production involves “Retrieval” while comprehension involves “Accessing”, hence the gapped/full distinction affects production only.

rd 3in With the maturation of the ability to process idioms • .ct is no longer observedmain effe, this grade

(Non)decomposability

(Non)decomposability played a role in production across age groups: Significantly superior scores for nondecomposable idioms in the production task across all age groups

(i) Nondecomposable phrasal idioms are stored in children’s (1st-3rd graders’) lexicon as independent "big units" or "long words", while decomposable ones are stored as subentries of their lexical head.

(ii) “Retrieval” of independently stored "long-word" or “big-unit” entries is easier than retrieval of subentries, since the former are "more lexicalized" (Gibbs and Gonzales 1985, Gibbs, Nayak, Bolton, & Keppel, 1989 ).

Idioms stored as subentries of their head, on the other hand, also require an identification of the relationship between the head and its dependents. Hence, their retrieval involves phrase processing, which is known to be slower than word recognition (Cacciari and Glucksberg 1991).

(iii) “Accessing” (which only requires detection of the phrase’s meaning) is equally possible under “big unit” or subentry storage, and therefore comprehension is not affected.

What about the interactions? We’ll get back to that soon.

Scenario (i): The storage strategy as independent entries suggested by our acquisition experiments for nondecomposable idioms vs. the storage of decomposable idioms as subentries is a fixed property of the lexical component of the adult grammar (as suggested on syntactic grounds by Nunberg, Sag & Wasow 1994).

Scenario (ii):Both types of phrasal idioms are stored in the adult mental lexicon uniformly, as subentries of their head (as proposed by Horvath & Siloni 2009 based on evidence from cross-diathesis distribution ). - Storing nondecomposable idioms as independent “big unit” entries, and the resulting higher scores for this idiom type in the production experiments, constitute merely a transitory stage in acquisition, not a property of the mature grammar.

According to (i), adult speakers will also exhibit significantly higher scores on nondecomposable than on decomposable idioms in production experiment 2 (parallel to children)

According to scenario (ii), adult speakers will not exhibit the nondecomposabilityeffect found in children’s production

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Participants: 45 adult native Hebrew speakers( ages 21-65, M=25.9).

Stimuli: 10 full decomposable idioms ;10 full non-decomposable idioms (19 transitive verb +NP +PP ;1 reflexive +PP)Counterbalanced Frequency (based on a subjective frequency pretest).

Design and procedure: Two lists , each had 10 idioms with the final word missing: 1. decomposable 2. non-decomposable.(frequency of occurrence of the missing words was counterbalanced between the two lists (W(10) = 1, p = 0.98).

Each participant was assigned 1 questionnaire that consisted of either decomposable or non-decomposable idioms, In each questionnaire, the list of idioms appeared in a different random order.

In total, 22 non-decomposable questionnaires and 23 decomposable questionnaires were considered (52 distributed, 7 discarded- completed by non-natives). Participants were asked to complete the idioms as fast as they can and to stop when they are asked to. They were allotted 35 seconds (3.5 seconds for idioms, based on a pre-test).

This between-subject design enabled attributing participants’ success rate to the value of decomposability featured in their questionnaire (whereas, in a within-subject design, a failure in completing an idiom could be caused by a prolonged completion time for a previous item, which would not necessarily share the same value of decomposability.

Prediction of scenario (ii) is borne out: Participants did not exhibit the nondecomposability effect found in children’s production.

one-way ANOVA for independent samples yielded a significant effect for decomposability (F(1,43) = 40.36, p < 0.001), success rates with decomposable idioms (M = 92%, S = 7.8) were significantly better than success rates with non-decomposable idioms (M = 67.2%, S = 7.6).

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Decomposable Non-decomposable

The adult lexicon:

Both decomposable and nondecomposable verb phrase idioms are stored as subentries of their head (as argued in Horvath and Siloni2009).

Decomposable, unlike nondecomposable, idioms can be retrieved by semantic composition of the metaphoric pieces.

For adults semantic composition is the standard strategy. Hence, they are better at producing decomposable than nondecomposableidioms.

The Child's lexicon:nondecomposable verb phrase idioms (in contrast to decomposable ones) are stored as independent “big-unit” entries during acquisition (unlike adults).

-Does this mean that the child’s lexical component is different in structure from the mature grammar or has devices not available in the mature grammar?

By no means – Rather:

Storage of idioms as independent “big units” is available for the mature grammar too, as a default alternative to head-based (subentry) storage, attested for non-phrasal, i.e., not lexically headed, idioms (Horvath and Siloni 2012).

The storage of nondecomposable phrasal idioms as independent lexical entries by children is due to their initial misanalysis of such idioms as having no internal syntactic structure.

This difficulty, in turn, arises from the lack of isomorphism of meaning with the syntactic subconstituents, characteristic of nondecomposable phrasal idioms.

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Now let us return to the interactions between decomposability and the existence of gaps we observed in the production (children) experiment:

no interaction, non-decomposable idioms are better regardless of being gapped/full

Second grade: Performance with decomposable idioms was

unaffected by the variable full/gapped.Performance with non-decomposable idioms was significantly higher if they were gapped

Third grade:Performance with Non-decomposable idioms: better when they were gapped, performance with decomposable idioms: better when they are full!

Suggestion: the divergence between the 2nd and 3rd grade reflects the beginning of a transitional developmental stage, characterized by a preliminary activation of a retrieval strategy based on semantic composition, which is the standard for adults

First grade:Both second and third graders: non-decomposable (stored as “big units” or “long words”) are easier to retrieve when they included a gap. For both groups, this facilitating effect was not present with decomposable

idioms (stored as sub-entries of the idiom’s lexical head)

The lexical retrieval of idioms stored as ‘long words’ is more inclined to be facilitated by gaps than the retrieval of idioms stored as subentries of the head. Since this only involves word recognition while the latter also requires phrase comprehension. With ‘long-word’ storage method, the existence of a gap means that there is less idiomatic, stored material to retrieve from memory.

Storage as subentry of the idiom’s head, on the other hand, would in any case require an identification of the relationship between the head and its modifiers, one of them being the non-idiomatically interpreted gap.

In contrast with gapped non-decomposable idioms, then, the retrieval of gapped decomposable idioms also requires the processing of the non-idiomatic part of the phrase, since this constituent stands in some kind of modification relation with the idiom’s head.The retrieval of decomposable idioms is therefore less inclined to be made an easier process due to the existence of a non-idiomatic empty slot than the retrieval of a non-decomposable idiom.

The existence of a gap, then, did not facilitate performance with decomposable idioms for both second and third graders.

Similarities:

Second graders: equal performance with gapped decomposable idioms and full decomposable idioms. Third graders: performed significantly better with full decomposable idioms. This means that third graders performed better with gapped idioms when required to retrieve non-decomposable idioms while in the case of decomposable idioms it was the full ones that were more easily retrieved.

Suggestion: this divergence is due to a developmental difference between the idiom retrieval techniques employed by second and third graders.

Third graders begin a developmental stage which involved the use of an idiom retrieval technique that is based on semantic composition of the phrase’s components (like the technique adults were observed to prefer). This technique can be employed with idioms for which the metaphorical meaning can be distributed over its parts (decomposable) but not with non-decomposable ones. As third graders begin to employ this retrieval technique with decomposable idioms, they perform better when these idioms are full, i.e. when all their components are idiomatic. Gapped idioms include an empty slot whose reference needs to be worked out in view of the context, this makes the semantic relation between the head and its modifiers harder for the children to compute.

This effect is not observed with non-decomposable idioms since its occurrence is due to the implementation of on semantic composition, which is only possible with decomposable idioms. It is not observed with second graders since children start developing the use of this retrieving technique only in the third grade.

Differences:

Ackerman 1982. On comprehending idioms: Do children get the picture? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Cacciari and Glucksberg 1991. Understanding idiomatic expressions: The contribution of word meanings. In: Simpson G.B (Eds), Understanding Word and Sentence.

Clark and Hecht 1983. Comprehension, production, and language acquisition. Annual Review of Psychology.

Geeraets 1990 soorten van Niet-compositionaliteit bij idiomen [types of noncompositionality in idioms], paper published at the AIO course on syntax and semantics of idiomatic constructions, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Gentner, D., & Medina, J. (1997). Comparison and the development of cognition and language. Cognitive Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 4, 112-149.

Gibbs 1987. Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms . Journal of Child LanguageGibbs and Gonzales 1985. Syntactic frozenness in processing and remembering idioms . Cognition,

1985 .Gibbs, Nayak, Bolton, and Keppel 1989. Speakers' assumptions about the lexical flexibility of idioms .

Memory & Cognition. Hendriks and Koster 2010. Production/comprehension asymmetries in language acquisition. Lingua. Horvath, J. and Siloni, T. (2009). Hebrew idioms: The organization of the lexical component. Brill’s

Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 1:283–310.Horvath, J. and Siloni, T. (2012). Idioms: The Type-Sensitive Storage Model. Manuscript, TelAviv

University.Levorato and Cacciari 1992.Children's comprehension and production of idioms: The role of context and

familiarity . Journal of Child LanguageLevorato and Cacciari 1999. Idiom comprehensionin children: are the effects of semantic analyzability

and context separable? European Journal of Cognitive Psychology.Nippold and Tarrant-Martin 1989. Idiom Interpretation in Isolation versus Context A Developmental

Study with Adolescents. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research Vol.32 59-66. Nunberg, G., Sag, I., and Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3):491–538.Van de Voort, Marlies E.C. and Wietske Vonk, 1995. You don’t die immediately when you kick an empty

bucket: A processing view on semantic and syntactic characteristics of idioms. In: M. Everaert, E.-J.

Appendix A: idioms used in experiments 1 and 2 (words omitted in experiment 2 appear in

italics)

Decomposable full

Idiom Median Frequency

Decomposable full

sam ‘et kol ha-beycim be-sal exad 3

put ACC. all the-eggs in-basket one

‘[put] [all the eggs] [in one basket]’

Interpretation:

[invested] [all efforts][in one goal]

hosif šemen la-medura 4

added oil to-the fire

‘[added] [oil] 1 [to the fire] 2’ (same as: added fuel to the fire)

Interpretation:

[worsened] [a difficult situation] 2 [via a certain act] 1

harag štey ciporim be-maka axat 4

killed two birds in-strike one

‘killed two birds with one strike’ (same as: killed two birds with one stone)

Interpretation:

[achieved] [two goals][with one act]

zara (le-X) melax ‘al ha-pca’im 5

sprinkeled (to-X) salt on the-wounds

‘sprinkeled salt on the wounds’ (same as: rubbed salt into the wound)

Interpertation:

[added] [insult] [to harm]

ra’a ‘et ha-‘or be-kce ha-minhara 5

saw ACC. the-light at-end the-tunnel

‘saw the light at the end of the tunnel’

Interpretation:

[discerned] [the end of a difficult situation]

OR [discerned] [a solution] [at the end of a difficult situation]

Decomposable gapped

hidlik le-X nura ‘aduma 4

light to-X bulb red

‘light a red-bulb to X’

Interpretation:

[raised] [a suspicion] [to X]

hixnis ‘et X la-tmuna 3

put-in ACC. X to-the-picture

‘put X in the picture’

Interpretation:

[included] [X] [in the plans]

hipil ‘al X tik 4

dropped on X file/bag

‘dropped a bag on X’

Interpretation:

[imposed] [on X] [a difficult task]

taman le-X pax 4

conceled to-X bin

‘concealed a bin for X’ (similar to: set a trap)

Interpretation:

[secretly set] [X] [an obstacle]

šalaf ‘et X me-ha-šarvul 3

pulled ACC. X from-the-sleeve

‘[pulled] [X] [out of the sleeve]’

Interpretation:

[provided] [X] [without preparation]

Non-decomposable full

hixnis roš bari le-mita xola 4

put-in head healthy in-bed sick

‘put a healthy head in a sick bed’

Interpretation: to unnecessarily get involved in a complex situation

sam ‘et ha-klafim ‘al ha-šulxan 4

put ACC. the-cards on the-table

‘put all the cards on the table’ (same as: put one’s cards on the table)

Interpretation:

revealed his/her intentions

hixzik ‘et ha-roš me-‘al ha-mayim 3

held ACC. the-head from-over(above) the-water

‘held the head above water’ (same as: keep one’s head above water)

Interpretation:

(barely) survived

taman ‘et ha-roš ba-xol 3

concealed ACC. the-head in-the-sand

‘buried the head in the sand’ (same as: buried one’s head in the sand)

Interpretation:

hid from/ignored obvious signs difficulty

dafak ‘et ha-roš ba-kir 4

banged ACC. the-head in-the-wall

‘banged the head against the wall’ (similar to: banging one’s head against a brick wall)

Interpretation: continued trying to achieve a hopeless cause

Non decomposable gapped

hifna le-X ‘et ha-gav/‘oref 4

turned to-X ACC. the-back/back-of-neck

‘turned the back/back of the head to X’ (same as: turned one’s back on X)

Interpretation:

betrayed X

sovev ‘et X ‘al ha-‘ecba ha-ktana 4

turned ACC. X on the-finger the-little

‘turned X around the little finger’ (similar to: to have someone warped around one’s finger)

Interpretation: psychologically control X

hoci ‘et X me-ha-kelim 5

pulled ACC. X from-the-tools

‘pull X out of the tools’

Interpretation: annoyed/angered X

hixnis ‘et X la-kis ha-katan 4

put ACC. X to-the-pocket the-little

‘put X in the little pocket’

Interpretation: be significantly better than X at something

he’ela le-X ‘et laxac ha-dam 3

elevated to-X ACC. pressure-blood

‘elevated X’s blood pressure’

Interpretation: annoyed/angered X

Appendix B: stimuli used in experiment 3

Idiom Median Frequency

Decomposable

hafax ‘et ha-ke’ara ‘al piha 2

[turn-over] [Acc. the-bowl] [on its-mouth]

‘turned the bowl over’

Interpretation:

[changed] [matters] [completely]

kibel ‘oto bi-zro’ot ptuxot 4

welcomed him in-arms open

‘[welcomed] [him] [with open arms]’

Interpretation:

[hosted] [him] [gladly]

zara (le-X) melax ‘al ha-pca’im 5

sprinkeled (to-X) salt on the-wounds

‘sprinkeled salt on the wounds’ (same as: rubbed salt into the wound)

Interpertation:

[added] [insult] [to harm]

nitla be-‘ilan gadol 2

hung-on in-tree big

‘[hung] [on a big tree]’ (similar to: standing on the shoulders of giants)

Interpretation:

[relied] [on a respected figure]

ra’a ‘et ha-‘or be-kce ha-minhara 5

saw ACC. the-light at-end the-tunnel

‘saw the light at the end of the tunnel’

Interpretation:

[discerned] [the end of a difficult situation]

OR [discerned] [a solution] [at the end of a difficult situation]

axaz ‘et ha-šor be-karnav 2

held ACC. the-bull in-its-horns

‘held the bull by its horns’ (similar to: took the bull by its horns)

Interpretation:

[took care] [of the matter] [immediately/directly/first-hand]

hixzik ‘et ha-klafim karov la-xaze 3

held ACC. the-cards close to-the-chest

‘held the card close to the chest’

Interpretation:

[kept][his intentions][a secret]

harag štey ciporim be-maka axat 4

killed two birds in-strike one

‘killed two birds with one strike’ (same as: killed two birds with one stone)

Interpretation:

[achieved] [two goels][with one act]

hosif šemen la-medura 4

added oil to-the fire

‘[added] [oil] 1 [to the fire] 2’ (same as: added fuel to the fire)

Interpretation:

[worsened] [a difficult situation] 2 [via a certain act] 1

sam ‘et kol ha-beycim be-sal exad 3

put ACC. all the-eggs in-basket one

‘[put] [all the eggs] [in one basket]’

Interpretation:

[invested] [all efforts][in one goal]

Non-decomposable

kavaš ‘et eynev ba-karka 2

set ACC. eyes-his in-the-ground

‘set his eyes on the ground’

Interpretation:

was embarrassed

tafas ‘et ha-xevel bešney kcotav/cdadav/ha-kcavot 4

caught ACC. the-rope in-both ends-its/sides-its/the-ends

‘caught the rope in both ends’

Interpretation:

did two contradictory actions simultaneously

hixnis rošo beyn harim gdolim 2

inserted head-his between mountains big

‘inserted his head between nig mountains’

Interpretation:

Got involve in a controversy too complicated for him

hixnis rošo be-lo’a ha-‘ari 2

inserted head-his in-muzzle the-lion

‘inserted his head into the lion’s muzzle’

Interpretation:

took a big risk

taka lo maklot ba-galgalim 4

stuck to-him sticks in-the-wheels

‘stuck sticks in his wheels’

Interpretation:

sabotaged

hixnis roš bari le-mita xola 4

put-in head healthy in-bed sick

‘put a healthy head in a sick bed’

Interpretation: to unnecessarily get involved in a complex situation

sovev ‘et X ‘al ha-‘ecba ha-ktana 4

turned ACC. X on the-finger the-little

‘turned X around the little finger’ (similar to: to have someone warped around one’s finger)

Interpretation: psychologically control X

dafak ‘et ha-roš ba-kir 4

banged ACC. the-head in-the-wall

‘banged the head against the wall’ (similar to: banging one’s head against a brick wall)

Interpretation: continued trying to achieve a hopeless cause

hixzik ‘et ha-roš me-‘al ha-mayim 3

held ACC. the-head from-over(above) the-water

‘held the head above water’ (same as: keep one’s head above water)

Interpretation:

(barely) survived

taman ‘et ha-roš ba-xol 3

concealed ACC. the-head in-the-sand

‘buried the head in the sand’ (same as: buried one’s head in the sand)

Interpretation:

hid from/ignored obvious signs difficulty

Appendix 3: Error analysis experiment 2

Error type definition example (target words are underlined)

1. Literal The contextually

established literal

correlate of the

target word

idiom:

sama ‘et kol ha-beycim be-sal

exad

put ACC. all the- eggs in-basket

one

‘put all the eggs in one basket’

Response: classes

2. Inappropriate literal An error

influenced by an

irrelevant detail in

the context

story/illustration

idiom:

hifna ‘et ha-gav/oref

turned ACC. the-back/ back-of-the-

head

‘turned his back’

Response: book (the story described a

scenario where girl refuses to lend a

book to her friend)

3. Guess an incorrect guess

influenced by the

idiom:

harag štey ciporim be-maka axat

other lexical items

in the idiom

killed two birds in-strike one

‘killed two birds in one strike’

(same as: killed two birds with one

stone)

Responses: flies, roaches, mice

4. Explanation a correct

explanation of the

idioms’

interpretation

idiom;

tamna lo pax

concealed to-him bin

‘concealed by burring a trap for him’

(same as: set a trap)

Response: “she wanted the girl to win

so she decided they should compete in

swimming instead of running”

5. Highly figurative

lexical item

a lexical item with

a high figurative

capacity

head, things, imagination, etc.

6. Irrelevant idiom a lexical item

influenced by a

irrelevant idiom

the child was

familiar with

kankan (‘jar)

influenced by the idiom:

al tistakel ba-kankan (‘ela be-ma še-yeš

bo)

do-not look at-the-jar (but in-what that-

is within-it)

‘Don’t look at the jar , but at what it

contains.’ (same as: don’t judge a book

by its cover).

7. Don’t know ------ -----

Percentage of answers by types, first grade

Percentage of answers by types, second grade

17.8

23.7

17.7

4.2

16.2

10.0

1.8

8.7

0

5

10

15

20

25

20.0

11.8

26.0

0.7

14.011.2

2.2

14.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Percentage of answers by types, third grade

9.74.5

14.0

0.0

24.5

5.21.5

40.7

05

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