The notion of " inner form " and idiom semantics *

Most idioms are motivated in some way. The study of idiom motivation is an important linguistic issue because the motivation influences the way idioms are used. The prototypical idiom can be interpreted on two different conceptual levels: on a primary level, i.e. on the level of its lexicalized (actual) meaning, and on a second level, i.e. on the level of a “literal” meaning that evokes a given source concept. Between these two levels of the idiom’s conceptual structure there is a semantic bridge. This is the essence of idiom motivation. Within the linguistic theories of lexical semantics, many similar notions have been developed for analyzing motivational phenomena. Compare notions such as inner form, source domain, source frame, image component, background categorization and the like. The present paper discusses some prominent features of the notion of inner form in comparison with similar concepts.