Analyze and comment on the following.What are the characters of idioms?
（1）SEMANTIC UNITY.
1.BEING PHRASES OR SENTENCES, IDIOMS EACH CONSIST OF MORE THAN ONE WORD, BUT EACH IS A SEMANTIC UNITY. THOUGH THE VARIOUS WORDS WHICH MAKE UP THE IDIOM HAVE THEIR RESPECTIVE LITERAL MEANINGS, IN THE IDIOM THEY HAVE LOST THEIR INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY.
2.QUITE OFTEN THE IDIOM FUNCTIONS AS ONE WORD. THE SEMANTIC UNITY OF IDI OMS IS ALSO REFLECTED IN THE ILLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LITERAL MEAN ING OF EACH WORD AND THE MEANING OF THE IDIOM. MANY IDIOMS ARE SEMANTICALLY INEXPLICABLE.
（2）STRUCTURAL STABILITY.
1.THE CONSTITUENTS OF IDIOMS CANNOT BE REPLACED.
2.THE WORD ORDER CANNOT BE INVERTED OR CHANGED.
3.THE CONSTITUENTS OF AN IDIOM CANNOT BE DELETED OR ADDED TO, NOT EVEN AN ARTICLE.
4.MANY IDIOMS ARE GRAMMATICALLY UNANALYSABLE.
（3）THE IDIOMATICITY OF IDIOMS IS GRADABLE AND MAY BEST BE THOUGHT IN TERMS OF A SCALE, WITH THE “TRUE” IDIOMS ESTABLISHED AT THE UPPER END AND REGULAR COMBINATIONS AT THE BOTTOM. IN BETWEEN ARE THE ‘‘SEMI-IDIOMS”.
