INTRODUCTION

The aim of this paper is to investigate structural and functional characteristics as well as the communicative functions of the idiomatic expression in which two noun phrases are connected by the particle of: NOUN PHRASE1 + OF + NOUN PHRASE2.

A constructional idiom is a (syntactic or morphological) schema in which at least one position is lexically fixed, and at least one position is variable (Hoffmann and Trousdale 2013: 258; Jackendoff 2002). In the case of the NP1+ of + NP2 phrase, preposition slot is fully lexically fixed, determiner slot is semantically fixed thus lexically semi-fixed, whereas other positions are open slots represented by variables (Vujić and Miladinović 2016: 82). To conclude, in terms of construction morphology this phrase can be classified as a constructional idiom (Booij 2010: 13) and termed “of-genitive constructional idiom.” It is a type of an idiom in which not all positions are lexically fixed. Even though the constructional idiom of this type is structurally identical to of-genitive construction, syntactic distribution of this construction's constituents is different, which results in its different semantics (Vujić and Miladinović 2016: 75). Practically, this means that it is N2 which is formally marked for genitive and modifies N1.

The fact that the head is prepositionally marked for genitive is atypical for English.

This construction is always attitudinal which means that it expresses the speaker's subjective evaluation of the referent. It is interpersonal rather than experiential. Thus, in its reference, it can be either appreciative or pejorative (Downing and Locke 2006: 437).

The description of this lexico-grammatical construction which contains the particle of is based on the examples found in various books by the search engine on the site books.google.com. Two noun phrases, connected by the particle of, stand in apposition. NOUN PHRASE2 is a head word, i.e. the meaning-bearer of the whole phrase, whereas NOUN PHRASE1 stands as a qualification and is equivalent to an adjective (Coffey 2009: 229).