Phraseological Units Related to Food in the Dictionary of Colombianisms

Abstract

The article deals with the food lexicon found in the Diccionario de colombianismos (Dicol) and the Léxico de la alimentación en la vida cotidiana (Lavc), both published by the Instituto Caro y Cuervo in 2018 and 2023, respectively. The first part presents some general characteristics and the composition of the two works mentioned above. The subsequent sections concern the lexicon of food, both in terms of denotation and connotation, as well as idioms included in the two dictionaries.

The main objective of the article is to present the lexical and phraseological Colombianisms related to food as they are used in Colombia. According to Dicol, Colombianisms are differential, i.e. such terms can be used in any region of Colombia, but not in peninsular Spanish, although they do not have to be exclusively used in Colombia and may also appear in one or more of the varieties of Spanish in other Spanish-speaking countries in America. The theoretical considerations of the section on phrases taken as elements of phraseological units are based on the definition and classification of Corpas Pastor. Among the phrases in Dicol and Lavc referring to food, verb phrases that express processes are the most frequent; they appear in a wide variety of morphosyntactic forms. However, nominal, adjectival and adverbial expressions are also numerous.

The selected examples, taken from the two dictionaries, show how words and expressions develop from their denotations new connotative meanings that are often original and humorous