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25. Phraseology and phraseological units

Phraseology is a branch of linguistics which studies different types of set expressions, which like words name various objects and phenomena.

They exist in the language as ready-made units.

A Phraseological unit (PU) can be defined as a non-motivated word-group that cannot be freely made up in speech, but is reproduced as a ready-made unit.

It is a group of words whose meaning cannot be deduced by examining the meaning of the constituent lexemes.

The essential features of PU are:

1) lack of motivation;

2) stability of the lexical components.

A dark horse is actually not a horse but a person about whom no one knows anything definite.

A bull in a china shop: the idiom describes a clumsy person.

A white elephant – it is a waste of money because it is completely useless.

The green-eyed monster is jealousy, the image being drawn from Othello.

To let the cat out of the bag : to let some secret become known.

To bark up the wrong tree (Am) means ‘to follow a false scent; to look for somebody or something in a wrong place; to expect from somebody what he is unlikely to do’.

The idiom is not infrequently used in detective stories: The police are barking up the wrong tree as usual, i.e. they suspect somebody who has nothing to do with the crime.

The ambiguity of these interesting word-groups may lead to an amusing misunderstanding, especially for children who are apt to accept words at their face value.

- Little Johnnie (crying): Mummy, mummy, my auntie Jane is dead.

- Mother: Nonsense, child! She phoned me 5 minutes ago.

Little Johnnie: But I heard Mrs. Brown say that her neighbours cut her dead.

To cut somebody dead means ‘to rudely ignore somebody; to pretend not to know or recognize him’.

Puns are frequently based on the ambiguousness of idioms:

- Isn’t our Kate a marvel! I wish you could have seen her at the Harrisons’ party yesterday. If I’d collected the bricks she dropped all over the place, I could built a villa’.

To drop a brick means ‘to say unintentionally a quite indiscreet or tactless thing that shocks and offended people’.

The author of the “Book of English Idioms” Collins write: “In standard spoken and written English today idioms is an established and essential element that, used with care, ornaments and enriches the language.”

Used with care is an important warning because speech overloaded with idioms loses its freshness and originality. Idioms, after all, are ready-made speech units, and their continual repetition sometimes wears them out: they lose their colours and become trite clichés.

In modern linguistics, there is considerable confusion about the terminology associated with these word-groups

Most Russian scholars use the term “phraseological units” introduced by academician V.V. Vinogradov.

The term “idiom” used by western scholars has comparatively recently found its way into Russian phraseology but is applied mostly to only a certain type of phraseological unit as it will be clear from further explanations.

There are some other terms: set-expressions, set-phrases, phrases, fixed word-groups, collocations.

The ‘freedom’ of free word-groups is relative and arbitrary.

Nothing is entirely ‘free’ in speech as its linear relationships are governed, restricted and regulated, on the one hand, by requirements of logic and common sense and, on the other, by the rules of grammar and combinability.

A black-eyed girl but not of a black-eyed table.

The child was glad is quite correct, but a glad child is wrong.

Free word-groups are so called not because of any absolute freedom in using them but simply because they are each time built up anew in the speech process whereas idioms are used as ready-made units with fixed and constant structures.

FREE-WORD GROUPS vs PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

The border-line between free or variable word-groups and phraseological units is not clearly defined.

The free word-groups are only relatively free as collocability of their member-words is fundamentally delimited by their lexical and syntactic valency.

Phraseological units are comparatively stable and semantically inseparable.

Between the extremes of complete motivation and variability of member-words and lack of motivation combined with complete stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure there are innumerable border-line cases.

There are differences between word-groups and phraseological units

The difference often is in the interrelation of lexical components, e.g.:Blue ribbon (or red, brown, etc.), but blue ribbon – an honour given to the winner of the first prize in a competition – no substitution is possible in a phraseological unit;

Stretch one’s legs – размять ноги, прогуляться (а не «протянуть ноги»),

See eye to eye – быть полностью согласным (а не «видеться с глазу на глаз»),

Under one’s hand – за собственной подписью (а не «под рукой»),

Stew in one’s own juice – страдать по своей собственной глупости (а не «вариться в собственном соку»).

In free word-groups each of its constituents preserves its denotational meaning.

In the case of phraseological units however the denotational meaning belongs to the word-group as a single semantically inseparable unit. For example, compare a free word-group a white elephant (белый слон) and a phraseological unit white elephant (обуза, подарок, от которого не знаешь как избавиться).

Distinctive features of free-word groups and phraseological units

Free word-groups are but relatively free: they may possess some of the features characteristic of phraseological units.

On the other hand, phraseological units are heterogeneous. Alongside absolutely unchangeable phraseological units, there are expressions that allow some degree of substitution. Phraseology is concerned with all types of set expressions including those that stand for certain sentences.

3. Classifications of phraseological units

3.1. Semantic classification of phraseological units (V.V. Vinogradov)

is based on the motivation of the unit

Phraseological fusions are units whose meaning cannot be deduced from the meanings of their component parts. The meaning of PFs is unmotivated at the present stage of language development, e.g.

red tape (бюрократизм, волокита),

a mare’s nest (иллюзия, нечто несуществующее),

My aunt! (вот те на!, вот так штука!, ну и ну!). The meaning of the components is completely absorbed by the meaning of the whole;

Phrasological unities are expressions the meaning of which can be deduced from the meanings of their components; the meaning of the whole is based on the transferred meanings of the components, e.g.

to show one’s teeth (to be unfriendly),

to stand to one’s guns (to refuse to change one’s opinion), etc.

They are motivated expressions.

Phraseological collocations are not only motivated but contain one component used in its direct meaning, while the other is used metaphorically, e.g. to meet requirements, to attain success.

In this group of PUs some substitutions are possible which do not destroy the meaning of the metaphoric element, e.g. to meet the needs, to meet the demand, to meet the necessity; to have success, to lose success.

These substitutions are not synonymical and the meaning of the whole changes, while the meaning of the verb meet and the noun success are kept intact.


24.05.2016; 18:02
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