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The traditional idea that the lexicon is an inventory of idiosyncratic and irregular entities has been questioned by several theoretical frameworks. Various approaches have shown the existence of regular schemas beyond the lexicon. This paper aims at analyzing the domain of Italian complex prepositions, through the description of synchronic and diachronic features of such structures. Italian complex prepositions deserve special attention due to their high frequency of use and the related grammatical value. The quantitative analysis of Old and Contemporary Italian lexicon reveals that there is a major difference between complex prepositions in terms of type/token frequency. Furthermore, the analysis of syntactic formats among different diachronic phases i) sheds new light on the evolution of these structures and ii) puts into relation the fixedness, the syntagmatic structure and degree of grammaticalization of complex prepositions with their frequency of use.

This investigation proposes a corpus-based description of Italian intensifying constructions including colour terms. Colour terms may be employed as intensification markers in intensifying colour constructions, i.e. ready-made syntactic patterns which specialise in conveying the intensifying value. The chapter aims at identifying and classifying different patterns of Italian intensifying colour constructions according to syntactic/semantic parameters. It is demonstrated that these units can convey different types and degrees of intensified meanings and can be distributed along an intensification cline. Taking into account data gathered from the ITTenTen16 corpus, the analysis identifies the abstract semantic schemata underlying intensifying colour constructions (e.g. the metonymic/metaphoric scale association), and explores the relation between colour terms and schemata, in terms of degrees of lexicalisation/constructionalisation and pattern productivity.

The paper addresses the employment of body part nouns in the creation of phraseological expressions of some European languages, a topic at the crossroads of language, cognition and culture. In particular, the contrastive analysis explores the common linguistic representation of meanings through body part metaphorical expressions in Italian, French, Spanish and English. While several efforts to gauge the existence of a “European linguistic type” (cf. Haspelmath, 2001) have been largely devoted to the study of grammatical structures, a systematic account of the lexical component of the major European languages has not been attempted yet. Among the lexical units, phraseological expressions (e.g. compounds, multiword units, idiomatic expressions, as well as light verb and light noun constructions) represent a relevant ground to inquire into, since they are the most transparent and authentic vehicle of common ideas and experiences gradually rooted in European communicative realities.

Lexicological and lexicographical studies on multiword expressions in Romance languages have significantly increased in recent years. Even though some attention has been paid to Multiwords functioning as adjectives and adverbs, the structural and the functional relation between them has not been clarified yet. Employing both a qualitative and quantitative approach, this corpus-based investigation aims at exploring the diatopic distribution and the evolution of Romance multiword lexemes having the form of a prepositional phrase and the function of an adjective or/and an adverb (or both functions). According to data taken from corpora of Latin, Old Italian, Old Spanish and Middle French, this contribution investigates the relationship between the different degrees of schematicity and the productivity of this kind of multiword lexemes in order to highlight the evolutional path and the diachronic/diatopic principles engaged in the multiword modifying system across the different Romance languages taken into consideration.