This investigation proposes an empirically-based description of a particular type of multiword units which have been observed during the lexicographic design of a database of Italian word combinations (CombiNet dictionary): obligatorily negated multiword expressions. The work here proposed offers a new view on this multiword format, still underestimated within the literature devoted to the topic. On the one hand, the quantitative analysis will reveal different patterns of Italian negated
multiwords and their productivity features. On the other hand, the contribution aims at exploring the relation between the “falseness” of negation and the lexicalization degree of negated multiword expressions. Furthermore, the corpus-driven compilation of lexicographic records will put forward interesting reflections on the notion of Multiword Lexical Unit, shedding light to a new word format (Simone 2007)
