Semantic, structural and cultural essence of phraseological units

Phraseology is a branch of Linguistics that studies set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than or otherwise not predictable from the sum of their meanings when used independently. Phraseological units occupy an intermediate position between free word combinations and compound words. On the one hand, they are combinations of words and lack external inseparability. On the other hand, they are semantically integral and function as words. A free word combination does not exist in language as a ready-made unit: it is created in the process of speech: e.g., a big house (adj. + noun), to read books (verb + noun), on the table (prep. + noun), A compound word i s grammatically and semantically inseparable and exists in the language as a ready-made unit reproducible in speech (unless it is a “potential” word). A phraseological unit is also reproduced in speech as a ready-made unit. Its meaning may be described as idiomatic because the meaning of the whole is not equal to the sum of the meanings of words which compose it.A phraseological unit is a word equivalent, and its components may be regarded as morpheme equivalents. Although a word equivalent retains formal identity with the syntactic pattern of a free combination of words, it is semantically isolated and idiomatic. Word equivalents are distinguished from compound words by their formal structure, which does not differ from free combinations, and by their idiomatic character. The majority of compound words are not idiomatic.Phraseological units possess phraseological stability that may be called macrostability; it is made up of several microstabilities. The stability of use. Phraseological units are reproduced as ready-made; they are not based on a grammatical and semantic pattern of a free word-group. They are registered in dictionaries and passed from generation to generation; they are public property, not private. Structural stability. Although there exist phraseological units with grammar variants—e.g., Procrustes’ bed = the Procrustean bed = the bed of Procrustes,—structural stability implies restriction in substitution: англ. to carry coals In free word-groups all components can be varied: e.g., the ship/boat/carries/takes/brings coal to any port.) A typical mistake with students of English is to use the plural form of fault in the phraseological unit to find fault with somebody. Besides phraseological stability, phraseological units are characterized by structural separability (the term of A. I. Smirnitsky) on the basis of grammatical forms. The markers of structural separability are: (1 ) morphological —changes of the verb: e.g., to burn one’s finger (burnt, has burnt, will burn); changes of the noun: e.g., he is pulling my leg (our leg s); changes of adjectives: e.g., he is poor er than a church mouse, as well as (2) morphological and syntactical: e.g., the formation of the passive voice: Don’t you see that our legs are being pulled? Stability of meaning. The meaning of phraseological units is fully or partially transferred. Metaphor and metonymy are the common types of the complication of meaning: (1) fully transferred meaning: e.g., a bull in a china shop, to make a mountain out of a molehill, like a fish out of water, Wall Street, Fleet Street, time and tide wait for no man, на козаку нема знаку, Ten Command­ments, to be or not to be, десять заповідей, бути чи не бути, Tom Thumb (a small man, a Lilliputian), Nosy Parker (людина, що втручається/суне ніс не в свої справи), (2) partially transferred meanin g: e.g., as brave as a lion, as sly as a fox, to drink like a fish, The stability of meaning does not mean that the meaning of a phraseological unit does not change: e.g., the expression to give up the ghost (to die) now is applied to vehicles (trains, cars, etc.) that have stopped functioning. Lexical stability: (1) there are phraseological units with no lexical replacement possible: e.g., to pay through the nose (to pay a very large sum of money), Tomy Atkins (American soldier), a bloody Mary (a drink); but they may have grammatical forms: e.g., He kicked the bucket (He died) and (2) limited replacements are possible: e.g., close/near at hand, not to stir/raise/lift/turn a finger, to close/shut one’s eyes to smth. The variants are fixed, their number is determined, they must be learned.Phraseological stability might roughly correspond to the term ‘ idiomaticity’, which implies two essential features of phraseological units—stability of lexical components and lack of motivation. Thus, phraseological units are stable word-groups characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning. The cultural essence of phraseological units lies in the fact that such expressions often consist of words that denote specifically national notions that are determined by extralingual reality: customs, traditions, legends and historic facts of the nation: e.g., the bard of Avon, Fleet Street. The translator should be aware of the cultural and social background of such phraseological units.One more national peculiarity of phraseological units is due to the difference in thinking and cognition of human beings. Every nation has its own way of creating images. In most cases phraseological units having the same meaning in different languages are different in the inner form and images. According to the degree of the national peculiarity, all phraseological units are divided into three groups:(1) international phraseological units, which are based on universal images: e.g., the alpha and omega of smth, to cross the Rubicon, the heel of Achilles (ахіллесова п’ята), the Trojan horse (троянський кінь), the tree of knowledge (дерево/древо пізнання), thirty pieces of silver (тридцять срібняків), Pandora’s box, Herculian pillars, Gordian knot, between Scylla and Charybdis; I came, I saw, I conquered; the Ten Commandments, wise Solomon, to be in (the) seventh heaven,(2) locally non-marked phraseological units, which are based on neutral images, not nationally peculiar: e.g., to burn one’s fingers, to break one’s heart, a snake in the grass, a fly in the ointment (ложка дьогтю в бочці меду), make haste slowly (тихіше їдеш—далі будеш), and(3) locally marked phraseological units with vividly expressed national and cultural component: e.g., to catch the Speaker’s eye, to set the Thames on fire, to carry coals to Newcastle, something is rotten in the state of Denmark, to dine with Duke Humphry, to cut off with a shilling and only in Ukrainian such idioms as передати куті меду, впіймати облизня, etc.