Abstract
This paper proposes that idioms are subject to the Continuity Constraint, a grammatical principle that defines their general architecture in terms of a chain of head-to-head relations. The Continuity Constraint accurately describes the organization of extant idioms, including non-constituent idioms, while at the same time correctly predicting that certain types of patterns are impossible. In addition, it sheds new light on the relevance of argument structure to idiom creation, uncovering asymmetries in the composition of idioms that appear to involve thematic hierarchy effects.
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