Binomial pair
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
, a binomial pair or binomial is a sequence of two or more words or phrases belonging to the same grammatical category, having some semantic relationship and joined by some syntactic device such as and or or. Examples in English include through and through, (without) let or hindrance, and chalk and cheese.
Several legal terms are binomial pairs, often (but not necessarily) consisting of one Germanic
word and one Romance
word, such as (last) will and testament or cease and desist.
Binomials are often irreversible; that is, they occur only in one order. For example, one says bow and arrow but not arrow and bow; one says here and there and that's neither here nor there, but not there and here or that's neither there nor here.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, a binomial pair or binomial is a sequence of two or more words or phrases belonging to the same grammatical category, having some semantic relationship and joined by some syntactic device such as and or or. Examples in English include through and through, (without) let or hindrance, and chalk and cheese.
Several legal terms are binomial pairs, often (but not necessarily) consisting of one Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
word and one Romance
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
word, such as (last) will and testament or cease and desist.
Binomials are often irreversible; that is, they occur only in one order. For example, one says bow and arrow but not arrow and bow; one says here and there and that's neither here nor there, but not there and here or that's neither there nor here.
External links
- Binomials and the Computer: a Study in Corpus-Based Phraseology (an abstract of a paper)