Филологические науки / 3.Теоретические и методологические проблемы исследования языка

Zemlyakova K.

Chelyabinsk institute of economy and law named after M.V. Ladoshin, Russia

On the issue of basic types of phraseological units in the Russian and the English languages

The problem of investigating of phraseological units (PhU) / idioms (in Western tradition) exists for several centuries. Phraseological units are interesting because they are colourful and lively and because they are linguistic curiosities. At the same time, they are difficult because they have unpredictable meanings or collocations and grammar, and often have special connotations. Research into idioms shows that they have important roles in spoken language and in writing, in particular in conveying evaluations. Only in the beginning of the XX-th century preconditions for phraseology allocation in an independent linguistic discipline have been created. In this process researches of many linguists have played the important role, such as J. Seidl, W. Mc Mordie, Ch. Bally, I.I. Sreznevsky, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, E.D. Polivanov, L.V. Shcherba, A.A. Shakhmatov, Ferdinand de Saussure, K. Brugmann, H. Paul, O. Jespersen and others.

The Swiss linguist Charles Bally traditionally is considered the founder of the theory of phraseology who in the beginning of the XX-th century tried to give a classification to various combinations of words in the French language. However he did not consider it necessary to allocate phraseology as a separate discipline, he included it in structure of lexicology science and studied PhU mainly in the stylistic aspect.

The central problem one comes up against in attempting to define «idiom» is identifying the property (or properties) which will adequately capture all the idioms in a language while excluding all the non-idioms. In 1909 in Great Britain the dictionary of English idioms «Idioms of the English language and their use» by J. Seidl and W. Mc Mordie was published. Authors of the dictionary considered that the idiom is «some quantity of words which, under condition of their joint consideration, mean something absolutely another in comparison with the individual word meanings, forming an idiom» [6. C. 4]. So one of properties of phraseological units, named later idiomaticity, has been formulated.

For allocation of a class of phraseological units among other units of language and parts of speech it is necessary to take advantage of two typological criteria: semantic and formal (morphological). The semantic criterion assumes unit reference to a wide conceptual category. This criterion serves one of differential signs of allocation of parts of speech in languages. The morphological criterion is used for unit reference to the certain category on the basis of its morphological properties. Also there is a criterion of compatibility – is defined on ability of units of the given class to be combined among themselves and with other units. For example, the adverb «well» is combined with verbs (to write well), but is not combined with nouns and adjectives (impossible: well house). According to the word-formation criterion for each part of speech it is necessary to allocate a word-formation paradigm peculiar only to it, but the given criterion does not operate for allocation of a class of phraseological units since they possess not-a-single-wordness, stability and idiomaticity [2. C. 52], that makes phraseological system of a language derivative from the lexical one.

Idiomaticity is the core of the notion of idioms. Mainly, the question in idiomaticity is to analyze how idiomatic idioms are, i.e. how unpredictable the meaning of an idiom is from its literal counterparts. Idiomaticity can also be called phraseology. Gläser clarifies as follows: This is the corresponding term among Soviet and Eastern European linguists when describing set expressions whose meaning cannot be derived from the meanings of their parts. However, the term phraseology is also used to describe 1) the inventory of phrases or set expressions, and not only idioms; 2) the linguistic subdiscipline of lexicology which studies and classifies set expressions (phraseological units in the broadest sense). The foreign linguistics still follows this tradition. So, phraseological units or idioms, as most Western scholars call them, represent the most colorful and expressive part of the English language vocabulary.

Sophia Lubensky in her Russian-English dictionary [5. C. 13] gives the following definition: «An idiom is interpreted as a non-free combination of 2 or more words, that acts as a semantic whole. In the most cases, the meaning of an idiom cannot be predicted from the meaning of the components. An idiom is reproduced in speech as a ready-made unit, and, in this function, is a part of speech or interdependent sentence». As the author says in the introduction, there are no strict criteria of idioms in the dictionary, that is why the dictionary includes along with the traditional idioms some proverbs and sayings, formula phrases used in common communication situations (in greeting, importing, etc.) and other types of set expressions.

Ch.Bally asserted that features of phraseological units are made of intrasemantic features [1]. Proceeding from the degree of stability of semantic links between components, he subdivided fixed combinations of the French language into two groups: phraseological series (series phraseologiques) and phraseological unities (unites phraseologiques).

For the first time the phraseology as an independent linguistic science in the 20^th years of the XX-th century was allocated by an outstanding Russian scientist V.V. Vinogradov. Unlike studying of phraseological units in respect of speech activity, he has defined the object, the structure of the science and phraseology volume. Among existing before terms for a designation «semantic unities, more complicated, than a word»: a phrase, an idiom, the close phraseological group, fixed, indivisible or indecomposable word-combinations, phraseological unit – V.V. Vinogradov stops the choice on the last one and defines phraseological unit as the basic object of phraseology.

So, a phraseological unit is a word-group or a sentence with full or partial transformation meaning and with stability at phraseological level. The classification system of phraseological units suggested by academician V.V. Vinogradov is based on the degree of semantic cohesion between the components of a phraseological unit, where the criteria is akin to the one in Bally’s classification. The more distant the meaning of a phraseological unit from the current meaning of it’s constituent parts, the greater is the degree of semantic cohesion. The given typology, worked out on the material of the Russian language, was widely used by phraseologists for describing phraseological systems of other languages, including English. According to Vinogradov’s classification, phraseological units are divided into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological combinations [7. С. 121, 128].

Phraseological fusions are word-groups with a completely changed meaning, they are non-motivated, that is, their meaning cannot be deduced from the meanings their constituent parts; the metaphor on which the shift of meaning is based, has lost it’s clarity. E.g. Rus. очертя голову – thoughtlessly, rashly, recklessly; курам на смех – extremely pointlessly, unreasonably, foolishly, absurdly; awkwardly; Eng. at sixes and sevens, to set one’s cap at smb , to come/get a cropper.

Phraseological unities are word-groups with a completely changed meaning, i.e. the meaning of the unit doesn’t correspond to the meanings of its constituent parts. They are motivated, their meanings can be deduced from the meaning, it is clear and transparent. E.g. Rus. намылить голову – give a heavy scolding; плясать под чужую дудку – come under smb's influence, submit to the influence of smb; Eng. to lock the stable door after the horse is stolen, to ride the high horse (means to behave a superior, haughty way), to show one’s teeth (to take a treating tone, show an intension to injure), to wash one’s dirty linen in public (discuss of make on public one’s quarrels), to carry coal to Newcastle.

Phraseological combinations are word-groups with a partially changed meaning. They may be said to be clearly motivated. I.e. the meaning of the unit can be easily deduced from its constituents. They are motivated , but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valence, which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. E.g. Rus. беспробудное пьянство, беспросыпное пьянство – to drink heavily a lot of alcohol; крайний срок – deadline, closing date; Eng. a question on the agenda of the day, a question of a great importance, to raise a question. These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichés, where the meaning of a member-word dominated by the meaning of the whole group. So they posses certain degree of semantic inseparability: закадычный друг, to take smb/smth for granted, bosom friend, to be at one’s wits’ end.

The borderline separating unities from fusions is vague and even subjective; the more the person knows a language and its history, the fewer fusions are likely to discover among phraseological units.

We see that the suggested Vinogradov’s classification can be applied for classification of units both in Russian and English. Russian scientists N.N. Amosova, A.V Koonin and others have done great contributions to the field of phraseology of the English language in particular. Taking into accounts the syntactic functioning of phraseological units, Koonin worked out a functional classification, which reveals the function of a phraseological units depending on its size (collocations or sentences).

Nominative collocations, which stand for a certain notion denoting things, actions and qualities (properties). Substantive phraseological units represent them: a bed of roses, a baker’s dozen. Verbal phraseological units, e.g.: eat one’s words, to catch a straw, to put one’s foot abut. Adjectival phraseological units, e.g.: cool as cucumber, poor as a church mouse, sober as a judge, easy as ABC. Adverbial phraseological units, e.g. in full swim, on the spot, at the eleventh hour.

Interjections, e.g.: Hear, hear!

Communicative (sentence-lawn) includes proverbs and sayings. E.g.: the coat it clear, every cloud has a silver linen, can the leopard change his spots?

Nominative-Communicative. Collocations become sentences in Passive Voice. E.g.: to pull one’s leg – smb’s led is pulled.

Our attention is directed to the structural principles of classifying – following groups of phraseological units are singled out: verbal: to get the upper hand; substantive: cat or dog life, calf live, horse opera; adjectival: brand new, spick and span; adverbial: by hook or by crook, high or low, in full swim, on the spot, at the eleventh hour; interjectional: Good heavens!

In the work «Semantical-grammatical classes of Russian phraseological units» by A.M. Chepasova the phraseological structure is described simultaneously from the semantic and grammatical sides / aspects. She correlated phraseological units with the categorial grammatical meaning of words and created the semantical-grammatical classification of Russian phraseological units. Phraseological units according to substantial properties break up into 7 big classes, each of which has common grammatical and categorial value peculiar only to it, or semantic type, and is characterized by natural for this class syntactic compatibility. Such semantical-grammatical classification allows defining a place of each phraseological unit in the complicated phraseological system, helps to open the basic laws of functioning of a phraseological unit, semantic and functional.

In the field of our attention there are phraseological units of the qualitative-adverbial class which make the most part of phraseological units of modern phraseological fund. The qualitative-adverbial phraseological units according to semantic and grammatical signs correspond with a class of words (part of speech) – an adverb.

The list of the used literature:

1. Bally Ch. Presis de stylistique. – Geneve, 1905.

2. Baranov A.N., Dobrovolskiy D.O. Idiomatichnost i idiomy // Voprosy yazykoznaniya. – 1996, №5, 51–64.

3. Chepasova A.M. Semantiko-grammaticheskie klassy russkih fraseologizmov.- Chelyabinsk, 1974.

4. Koonin A.V. Anglo-russkiy fraseologicheskiy slovar – izdanie 4-jе prerabotannoe i dopolnennoe, М., 1984.

5. Lubensky S. Russian-English Dictionary of Idioms. N.Y.1995.

6. Seidl J., Mc Mordie W. English Idioms and how to use them. – Moskow: Vyssaja skola, 1983.

7. Vinogradov V.V. Izbrannye trydy. Leksikologiya i leksikografiya. – М., 1977.