Two major classes of Proverbs and Sayings

Grammatically, proverbs and proverbial phrases form two major classes. Consider the following proverbial phrases:

1.(St) “Every cloud has a silver lining”

(TT) «Әр бұлттың күмістей жиегі бар»

(TT) «Всякое темное облако серебром оторочено»

2. (St) Only the grave will straighten the hunchback.

(TT) «Қымырды мола ғана түзейді»,

«Қара май шелек тазармас, жаман адам түзелмес»

(TT) «Горбатого могила исправит»

In speech, i.e. in the actual use of language, both these clichés yield full bipartite sentences; Every cloud has a silver lining and Only the grave will straighten the hunchback. But while the former takes its final shape (and concrete meaning) only in a context, which supplies the missing elements (in our case the subject) the latter is reproduced in speech in its permanent and stable form. In other words, the latter is fully clichézed, while the former is only partly so.

Sentences that are full clichés, i.e. those consisting only of stable elements and not subject to changes or additions in speech, are called closed: sentences that are partial clichés, i.e. contain variable parts that are modified or complemented in speech, are called open sentences.

Clichés of the type Every cloud has a silver lining, which yield open sentences, are proverbial phrases, whereas clichés of the type Only the grave will straighten the hunchback, which yield closed sentences, are proverbs.

All the proverbs and proverbial phrases, furthermore, fall into two classes depending on the degree of generalization. Some narrate particular incidents, individual and sometimes downright exceptional cases.

Other proverbs speak of regular occurrences, rules or customs, e.g.

(ST) “One does not come to another monastery with one’s own rules”

(TT) «Бөтен үйге өз заңыңмен кірмейсің»

(TT) «В чужой монастырь со своим уставом не ходят»

Sentences of the former type can be called particular and those of the latter type – general.

Particular sentences are, as a rule, of the definite-personal type and, less frequently, certain impersonal structures containing an indication of past tense or completed action. General sentences are for the most part indefinite-personal, generalized-personal, infinitival and of the special generalized type with the underlying formula “There is no… without…,” e.g.

(ST) “There is no smoke without fire”

(TT) «Түтінсіз от болмайды»

(TT) «Нет дыма без огня»

The class particular sentences comprise all the open sentences (i.e. proverbial phrases) and some of the closed ones (i.e. proverbs), while the generalized sentences are only of the closed type.

Open sentences are further divided into two classes depending on which of their parts are replaceable. Sometimes it is the subject: [Somebody] brought a donkey into his own vineyard (one can say John brought a donkey…, etc.). Sometimes it is the secondary part of the sentence that is modified or specified by context: A fly kicked him

Thus, proverbs and proverbial phrases are realized in four structural types of sentences, as shown in Table 1.

Each of the above four types is divided into subtypes differing in the motivation of their general meaning.

Table 1

Type of cliché	Structural sentences type	Example
Proverbial phrases	A Open particular sentences with ellipsis of pronoun-replaced secondary part	“Brought a donkey into his own vineyard”
	B Open particular sentences with ellipsis of pronoun-replaced secondary part.	“A fly kicked him”
Proverbs	C Closed generalized sentences	“The sheepskin is not worth the making”
	D Closed particular sentences	“They milk a submissive sheep three times”

One subtype is image-motivated, and it includes clichés whose overall meaning is not directly derived from the component words, but is linked with them through an image. Examples are:

(ST) “The hedgehog calls his children cotton-wool”

(TT) «Қарға баласын аппағым деп сүйеді,

Кірпі баласын жұмсағым деп сүйеді»

(TT) «Ёж называет своих детей мягонькими»

In the clichés belonging to the other subtype, the general meaning is directly motivated, i.e. directly derived from the meaning of the component words:

(ST) “There are as many minds as there are wise men”

(TT) «Айла – алтау, ақыл – жетеу»

(TT) «Сколько людей, столько умов»

This is not to say that image-motivated clichés have no direct meaning. They do. Witness the proverb about the moon and the stars. But, on the one hand, that direct meaning is not always convincing or probable enough (cf. the above proverb about the “hedgehog”) and, on the other hand, their main message is normally understood to lie not in the literal but in the metaphorical meaning of the image. By the same token, directly motivated cliches can also be used in a transferred sense.

Thus, the previously cited proverb about wise men could be applied ironically not to wise men but to fools. However, the main message of this cliches stems directly from the words of which they consist, even though these words themselves may be used in a transferred meaning, as metaphors or metonymies, e.g.:

(ST) “Truth is born from doubt”

(TT) «Шындық күмәннен туылды»

But this suggests that there are proverbs of direct meaning. How is that possible? After all, it has been known since Vladimir Dahl’s time that a proverb is “a parable”, “a circumlocution”, and that a proverbial saying is “transferred speech”, “a roundabout phrase”.

There is much to be said, therefore, for distinguishing between proverb-like directly-motivated saying and proverbs and proverbial phrases proper.

I propose to use the term by-word to designate open cliches of the A and B types with directly-motivated meaning. For one thing, this word is still “available” as a term (it is generally used synonymously with “proverbial phrases”) and, for another thing, the bulk of directly-motivated cliches of this type are represented by various comparative phrases attached, or complementary, to some word, i.e. a verb or a noun.

The closed directly-motivated cliches of the C and D types, which Dahl called “proverbial sayings” to distinguish them from proverbs proper, could best be referred to as folk aphorisms or simply aphorisms. In paremiological literature this word is customarily used to denote quotations (which more often than not have a direct meaning); there is no terminological meaning attached to it.

Table 2

Type of motivation Type of cliché	I Image motivation of general meaning	II Direct motivation of general meaning
Proverbial phrases (structural types A and B)	Proverbial phrases proper	By-words
Proverbs (structural types C and D)	Proverbs proper	Aphorisms

Like all sentences proverbs and proverbial phrases possess a certain syntactic structure and belong to a certain communicative type.