ABSTRACT

Given as a point of departure that in generative grammar syntactic structure is defined by some version of the X-bar system and that the phenomenon of idioma-tization is delimitated by the syntax, one has to postulate an intrinsic connection between idioms and X-bar theory. Such a correspondence can be shown to exist, especially with respect to the notions head and projection and the syntactic levels involved. If fixation is defined in terms of X-bar theory, there are some central questions in relation to this framework: How are idiomatic phrases represented in the lexicon and how are they introduced in X-bar syntactic structure? Two main answers are found in the literature. The first one is the idiom rule approach. Its shortcomings lead to its rejection in favor of the second one, the listeme approach. The type of en bloc insertion involved in the latter is in need of an adaptation, which presents itself in a natural way within the X-bar system advocated here.