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Needle in a Haystack: Finding Suitable Idioms Based on Text Descriptions
P. 185–196.
Dmitrii Zhernokleev, Braslavski P.
Idioms are an important part of natural languages and are often used to enhance expressiveness and fluency of speech. However, it can be difficult to find a contextually appropriate idiom when writing an essay or crafting a headline for a news article, especially for non-native speakers. This gives rise to the idea of an automated system that is able to recommend an idiom for an input sentence. The goal of this study is to develop and compare methods that would make such a system possible. We used an existing collection of idioms and employed several configurations based on models from the Sentence-BERT family. We also automatically expanded the initial dataset and fine-tuned a pre-trained Sentence-BERT model on the idiom/context matching task. This approach achieved the highest MRR score of 0.507. The data and the trained model are publicly available.
Publication based on the results of:
Trofimova N., Aleksandrova E. V., Vinogradova S. et al., Journal for Educators, Teachers and Trainers 2023 Vol. 14 No. 3 P. 269–274
The article presents a hermeneutic approach to idiomatic equivalents in terms of metaphoric transfer. Metaphor is viewed by the authors in its broad sense that can be applied to any use of words in an indirect meaning. Hence, an idiom is understood as a verbalized metaphor that reflects both the universal and specific features of ...
Added: February 22, 2026
Баркова Л. А., Русский язык в научном освещении 2024 № 2(48) С. 103–128
The article explores the history of an idiom ne zanimat' 'lit. not to borrow' in the context of DCxG. The source of this idiom is the negative matrix clause modal infinitive. This is why the idiom in the earliest contexts was the head of clauses, the syntax of which was identical to the clauses with ...
Added: March 9, 2025
Gridneva E., Zdorova N., Ivanenko A. et al., Вестник Томского государственного университета. Филология 2025 № 94 С. 67–91
The most developed classifications of Russian idioms are based on the description of the degree of semantic unity of idiom components. Data on this parameter are insufficient for conducting psycholinguistic studies of idiom language processing. As a consequence, the current study aims to fill this gap. The purpose of this study was to create a Database of Russian Idioms ...
Added: November 8, 2024
Budennaya E., Litvintseva K., Yakovleva A., Русский язык в научном освещении 2024 № 2(48) С. 31–69
This paper presents a diachronic corpus study of constructions of the X znaet ‘X knows’ type. Such constructions have a long-written history, so revealing the peculiarities of their constructionalization process is of great importance also for the theory of idiomatization. First, we focus on the semantics and compatibility of the construction with the anchor Bog ...
Added: October 30, 2024
Akhapkina Y., Русская речь 2023 № 3 С. 21–39
Widely understood semantics of quantity includes the meaning of measure and degree, from the maximal intensity of a feature, the meaning of ‘very’, to its complete absence, the meaning of ‘not at all’. In Russian speech, the prepositional-dative combination po + dative case in one of its uses turns into a sample, a prototype formula. ...
Added: July 5, 2023
Rudnev P., Shikunova Alexandra, Типология морфосинтаксических параметров 2022 Vol. 5 No. 1 P. 91–106
This paper challenges the legitimacy of the idiom diagnostic, which has long seen employed in syntactic argumentation to distinguish movement from base generation. In response to [Burukina 2020], who reanalyses several Russian control predicates in terms of ECM (exceptional case marking) based on the idiom test, we question the necessity of the alternative analysis. We provide data from ...
Added: November 15, 2022
Uspensky P., Новый мир 2022 № 10 С. 191–201
The article deals with the lines of O. Mandelstam, composed by the poet in the Gulag. The main attention is paid to a fragment that, within the framework of intertextual theory, can be associated with one surviving fragment of Archilochus. However, the focus of the article is devoted to the criticism of intertextual theory, and ...
Added: October 28, 2022
Krasilnikova T., Uspenskij P., Revue des Etudes Slaves 2021 Т. XCII № 2 С. 307–324
The article focuses upon puns in Boris Pasternak's collection The Second Birth (1932). Since the analysis of the language game was almost entirely replaced with the analysis of polysemy, puns have not become the subject of a special study. Within the framework of this approach, the ambiguities in the poems were interpreted as “Aesopian language” ...
Added: September 18, 2021
Uspensky P., Красильникова Т. А., Scando-Slavica 2022 Т. 68 № 1 С. 136–156
The article focuses upon the role of idioms in Boris Pasternak's collection «Second Birth» (1932) that has not yet been analyzed. The idiomatic plan of the Russian language with its assigned connotations used to serve for Pasternak as material for sophisticated metaphors, and simultaneously to transmit conventional and easily recognizable meanings. Thus, idioms provide an ...
Added: September 1, 2021
Красильникова Т. А., Uspensky P., М.: Издательский дом ЯСК, 2021.
В монографии рассматривается поэтический язык книги Бориса Пастернака «Сестра моя — жизнь» сквозь призму идиоматики (коллокации, фразеологизмы, устойчивые словосочетания, конструкции и поговорки). Пристальное прочтение стихов сборника — начиная с разбора отдельных строк и строф и заканчивая языковым анализом нескольких стихотворений — позволяет утверждать, что «готовые» словосочетания были для поэта источником неожиданных и темных метафор, а ...
Added: May 10, 2021
Belyaev A., В кн.: Порядки дискурса в философии и культуре. Алёшинские чтения – 2020: Материалы всероссийской научной конференции с международным участием Москва, 10–12 декабря 2020 г.: Барнаул: ИП Колмагоров, 2020. С. 12–16.
Phrase (quotation, idiom) as something short and therefore easily and successfully conveyed (translated), as time goes on, obtains different features and characteristics, which can be approximately situated on a scales like “worldwide” vs. “local”; “rare” vs. “tired” etc. The idiomatic corpora is huge, and the floating status of so called “winged” of each idiom/phrase causes ...
Added: January 18, 2021
Uspensky P., Файнберг В. В., М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2020.
В гуманитарном мире сложился устойчивый образ О. Мандельштама — сложного, «темного» поэта, чьи стихи нуждаются в кропотливой дешифровке. Увлеченные поисками интертекстуальных связей, филологи зачастую игнорируют первооснову мандельштамовской лирики — язык. В своей монографии «К русской речи» П. Успенский и В. Файнберг исследуют роль идиоматики в поэтическом языке Мандельштама: как поэт систематически использует фразеологию для создания ...
Added: June 26, 2020
Uspensky P., Файнберг В. В., Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch. Neue Folge 2019 № 7 С. 106–111
The article “The Language of Osip Mandel’shtam’s Armed with the Vision of Narrow Wasps” aims to describe how Osip Mandel’shtam uses literary language in the poem Vooryzhennyi zren’em uzkikh os... (1937) to create its specifi c semantics, which is both complex and extremely easy to understand. The authors demonstrate that complex metaphors in the poem ...
Added: February 20, 2020
Pinelli E., Naccarato C., , in: Contrastive Phraseology. Languages and Cultures in comparison.: Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020. Ch. 18 P. 259–270.
In this paper we propose a contrastive analysis of Italian and Russian idioms related to the domain of death. Death is a taboo concept which is very likely to be expressed through euphemisms and metaphors. The present analysis focuses on idioms implying the widespread DEATH IS A JOURNEY metaphor, which is based on the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL ...
Added: January 31, 2020
Rakhilina E. V., В кн.: Пограничный русский язык. Как рождаются экспрессивные кванторные выражения?.: СПб.: Алетейя, 2019. Гл. 1 С. 5–21.
В статье обобщенные результаты исследования грамматикализации кванторных выражений обсуждаются с точки зрения теории грамматики конструкций. ...
Added: October 25, 2019
Uspensky P., Файнберг В. В., В кн.: Acta Slavica Estonica X. Studia Russica Helsingiensia et Tartuensia XVI. Серебряный век в русской литературе и культуре конца XIX – первой половины XX вв. К 90-летию со дня рождения З. Г. Минц.: Tartu University Press, 2018. С. 211–227.
The article considers the semantics of Osip Mandelstam's poetic language. Analyzing his poetry against the background of literary language norms, the authors identify a particular poetic device - the modification of "reade-made" language elements, namely idioms and common collocations. The article also considers some cases of synonymic paraphrasing of Russian phraseological units. The simple implementation ...
Added: August 28, 2019