The UAB publishes a new online version of the most comprehensive dictionary of idioms in the Catalan language
Linguist Maria Teresa Espinal, professor in the Department of Catalan Studies at the UAB, has published the second online edition of the Diccionari de sinònims de frases fetes, which includes updates of the printed work. The dictionary connects concepts with lexicalised expressions of diverse grammatical nature—what traditional grammar has generically referred to as idioms and fixed expressions. For each expression, the author provides a variety of grammatical and linguistic information, as well as semantic relations with other lexicalised expressions. With 5,800 conceptual entries, 19,600 lexicalised expressions, and 23,200 distinct records, it is the most comprehensive dictionary of fixed expressions in the Catalan language.
The first edition of the printed work was published in 2004 by the Publications Service of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Publications of the Universitat de València, and the Publications of the Abadia de Montserrat, with the collaboration of the Department of Education and Culture of the Government of the Balearic Islands and the Department of the Presidency of the Government of Catalonia. In 2006, a second updated edition was published, which remains the latest printed version available and can also be consulted in open-access electronic format.
The printed edition of the dictionary included a CD-ROM that expanded the functionalities of the work. Over time, however, as its software requirements no longer matched the computer systems currently on the market, the author, with the collaboration of software developer Pere Orga, released the first online electronic version of the dictionary, launched in 2018. This year, with the collaboration of Pere Orga and proofreader and translator Maria Coll Amengual, the second online electronic version was completed. Fifty-four percent of the initial entries have been revised and improved.
Maria Teresa Espinal Farré is Professor of Linguistics at the UAB, PhD in Hispanic Philology (UAB, 1985), and ICREA Acadèmia research fellow (2010–14, 2016–20), with a distinguished career in research on the syntax-semantics interface. Among her most notable works, in addition to the Diccionari de sinònims de frases fetes (2004 and 2006; 2nd online edition in 2025), are the edition of Semántica (Akal, 2014), the co-edition of The Oxford Handbook of Negation (Oxford University Press, 2020), and the authorship of numerous specialised articles on negation and negative concord, bare nominals, vocatives, among other topics, in international journals. She has received the Narcís Monturiol Medal for scientific merit (2020) and was elected member of the Academia Europaea (2023).
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