Лексикологія / Lecture6

Lecture 6.

ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGY

1. The notion of phraseological units.

2. Classifications of phraseological units by V. Vinogradov.

3. Classifications of phraseological units by N. Amosova.

4. Classifications of phraseological units by A. Koonin.

BASIC NOTIONS OF THE LECTURE.

Phraseological units are defined as non-motivated word groups that cannot be freely made up in speech but are reproduced in speech as ready-made units.

This definition proceeds from the assumption that the essential features of phraseological units are stability of lexical components and lack of motivation (idiomaticity).

E.g.: “red tape” – “bureaucratic method” – is semantically non-motivated, that is its meaning cannot be deduced from meanings of its components. It exists as a ready-made linguistic unit which does not allow any variability of its lexical components.

Stability of phraseological unit implies that it exists as a ready-made linguistic unit which does not allow any variability of its lexical components and grammatical structure.

Reproducibility is regular use of phraseological units in speech as single unchangeable collocations.

Idiomaticity is the quality of phraseological units when the meaning of the whole is not deducible from the sum of meanings of the parts.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

One of the existing classifications of phraseological units was done by V.V.Vinogradov. Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity he classified phraseological units in 3 groups:

1. Phraseological fusions.

2. Phraseological unities.

3. Phraseological combinations.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word groups in which the meanings of the components have no connection with meaning of the whole group. Idiomaticity is combined with complete stability of lexical components and grammatical structure of the fusion.

E.g.: “heavy father” – серйозна частина п’єси

“red tape” – бюрократія

“all ales and skittles” – безтурботне життя

“a battle of the books” – вчений диспут

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be deduced through metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a high degree of stability of lexical components.

E.g.: “to show one’s teeth” – погрожувати

“to wash one’s dirty linen in public” – виносити власні сварки на публіку

Phrseological combinations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word groups. In phraseological combinations variability of member words is strictly limited.

E.g.: “to bear a grudge” (мати зуб на когось) may be changed into “to bear malice” but not into “to bear a fancy” or “to bear a liking”.

We can name them standardized phrases.

E.g.: to give help, to win a victory, to make a mistake

They may express:

1. attributive relations: acute pain, cold reason, black sheep

2. object relations: to declare war, to take measures

3. subject-predicative relations: extremes meet, time flies

4. adverbial relations: to freeze hard, to snow heavily, to rain fast.

Here also belong some comparisons: as blue as the sky, as black as a crow, as busy as a bee etc.

We also distinguish phraseological expressions – proverbs, sayings and aphoristic familiar quotations.

E.g.: Birds of a feather flock together.

Still water runs deep.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark (W. Shakespeare).

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread (A. Pope).

Another classification of phraseological units was suggested by N.Amosova. Proceeding from the assumption that individual meaning polysemantic words can be observed in certain context and may be viewed as depending on those contexts, it is argued that phraseological units are also to be defined through specific types of contexts. Free word groups make up variable contexts while the essential feature of phraseological units is a non-variable or fixed context.

Fixed context is context characterized by a specific and unchanging sequence of definite lexical components and peculiar semantic relationship between them.

Units of fixed context are subdivided into

1. phrasemes

2. idioms.

Phrasemes are always binary. One of the components has phraseologically bound meaning, the other serves as the determining context.

E.g.: “to grind one’s teeth” (скреготати зубами) – “to grind” has a phraseologically bound meaning, “one’s teeth” serves as a determining context.

Idioms cannot be separated into components. New meaning of idiom is created by unit as a whole though every element keeps its usual value.

E.g.: “a mare’s nest” – nonsense

Idioms are classified into 2 types.

1. some contain obsolete elements not occurring elsewhere or elements in obsolete meaning. They are never homonymous to a free phrase and so they are completely independent of distribution.

E.g.: “on the nick of time” – at the exact moment.

2. some idioms easily correlate with homonymous free phrases: dark horse, black sheep, red tape, white night etc.

Phrasemes and idioms are subdivided into movable and immovable. These qualities depend upon the structure of the unit. A phrase is called movable when one of its elements may vary

E.g.: the apple of one’s (his, her, mother’s, Mary’s etc.) eye – somebody dear for a person.

The third classification of phraseological units was done by A.Koonin. It is based on the function units fulfill in speech. His system is based on the combined structural and semantic principle. According to his classification phraseological units are subdivided into 4 classes considering their function in communication determined by their structural and semantic characteristics.

1. Nominative phraseological units are represented by word groups including ones with one meaningful word and coordinative phrase of the type: well and good, wear and tear.

Here also belong word groups of predicative structure: “see how the cat jumps” (вичікувати, куди вітер подме), “the straw that shows which way the wind blows” (соломинка, що вказує, куди вітер дме).

2. Nominative communicative phraseological units include word groups of the type: “to beat the drum”, “to break the ice”, “to beat the air”. They can be transformed in passive constructions.

3. Phraseological units neither nominative nor communicative. They include interjections: By George!, O my Lord!, God damn!, down with!

4. Communicative phraseological units represented by proverbs and sayings.

E.g.:She’s between two horns – вона між двох вогнів, “Can the leopard change his spots?” - Горбатого могила виправить.