Abstract
The present paper examines the variability of the Czech phraseme sednout/chytit na vějičku [meaning: to deceive someone, lit.: to sit/to catch someone on a decoy], as well as the use of the Czech word vějička [decoy] in a metaphorical sense. The material that was analysed consists of a series of corpus examples relating to the Czech phraseme sednout/chytit na vějičku. The corpora employed for this study were Totalita and SYN v13. The research method employed in this paper is the typology of multi-word expressions (Hnátková et al. 2018) and the typology of phraseme variability (Jelínek et al. 2018). The present study seeks to identify the types of variability that can be identified for the Czech phraseme under study. The analysis revealed the presence of different types of phraseme variability. A case of morphological variability was documented, namely the quite common use of the Czech noun vějička [decoy] as a part of the phraseme in the plural. The noun vějička can be further developed, sometimes with great richness, with attributes, which is an example of syntactic variability. The lexical variability is manifested both by the use of different verbs that can form the phraseme under study (e.g. sednout [to sit], chytit [to chatch]) and by their variants (e.g., sedat, chytat). The Czech expressions skákat/skočit na vějičku [to jump on a decoy] and naletět na vějičku [to fly on a decoy] are synonymous. These verbs can be regarded as further examples of lexical (verbal) variability of the phraseme under study. The corpus examples furthermore offered various types of pleonastic expressions, of which the phraseme under study became a constituent.