English also has many idioms as other languages. Usually, Structural stability and semantic unity are considered as the two characters of English idioms. And the elements of English idioms can not change a little even an article. That is to say we can’t change the elements and the word order of English idioms, and can’t delete any component of it and cannot add any words to an English idiom. However, in the specific context, the structure of idiom is not always stable. In this paper the author thinks that there still exists some grammatical change such as plural form of nouns;-ed and –ing form of verbs; the third person form of verbs; genitive form of nouns; comparative and superlative forms of adjective and adverbs. As to lexical change, we can add some elements to some idioms, delete some elements of the idioms, and we can change the order of the elements of the idiom and we can dismember the elements of the idioms. Meanwhile, the meaning of idioms can also change because the grammatical and lexical change. This research can help the learners’ cognize, master and employ the idioms properly.
Key Words
English idioms; instability structure; grammatical change; lexical change; semantic change.
Abstract.............................................................I
Key Words............................................................I
摘要.................................................................II
关键词...............................................................II
Introduction.........................................................1
I. Grammatical Change................................................3
A. Tenses and Aspects................................................3
B. Number............................................................3
C. Case..............................................................4
D. Adjectives and Adverb.............................................4
II. Lexical Change...................................................4
A. Replacement.......................................................4
B. Addition..........................................................5
C. Deletion..........................................................5
D. Position-shifting.................................................6
E. Shortening........................................................6
F. Dismembering......................................................7
III. Semantic Change.................................................7
A. Semantic Unity....................................................7
B. Figurativeness....................................................8
C. Peculiarity.......................................................9
D. Semantic Change Caused by Structural Change.......................9
Conclusion...........................................................11
Acknowledgements.....................................................12
Bibliography.........................................................13
