Phraseological Unit vs Word Combination

3 types of lexical combinability of words can be mentioned:

1. Free combination:grammatical properties of words are the main factor of their combinability. Ex.: I?m talking to you. You are writing. Free combinations permit substitution of any of their elements without semantic change of the other element.

2. Collocations:At least one member of a collocation is not free, but is associated with another particular word or words. Speakers become accustomed to collocations. Very often they are related to the referential and situational meaning of words. Ex.: to commit a murder; bread & butter; dark night; blue sky; bright day.

Some collocations involve transferred or figurative meanings of words, in particular collocations involving colour words. Ex.: to be green with jealousy.

3. Idioms.Idioms are also collocations, because they consist of several words that tend to be used together, but the difference is that we can?t guess the meaning of the whole idiom from the meanings of its parts. Ex.: to cry a blue murder = to complain loudly. This criterion is called the degree of semantic isolation. In different types of idioms it is different.

The most basic and universal features of phraseologisms are considered to be:

? Semantic transposition: the meaning of the constituent parts of a phraseologism do not correspond to the meaning of the whole phraseologism. For example, to see red means ?to get really angry? which doesn?t have to do with neither seeing, nor red colour, except by association.

? The transposition of lexical-grammatical composition: semantic and grammatical relations between the constituent parts of a free or even fixed word-combination are different from those between the constituent parts of a phraseologism built according to the same model. The semantic relations between the components in the word-combination to cry vengeance (?to demand revenge?) are ?Verb+Object.? The semantic structure of the phraseologism to cry blue murder (apparently built according to the same model) cannot be described in terms of ?Verb+Object? semantic relations. It rather functions as an inseparable whole, with a semantic role of a verb (?to complain loudly?).

? Repeatability: the structure of a phraseologism does not change from use to use. It is an indivisible unit with the qualities of a lexeme. Slight changes in the structure are possible though, desctibed as phraseological variants and structural synonyms (see below). Thus, beside the classical phraseological variant no rhyme or reason, British National Corpus gives a more colloquial and more rarely used neither rhyme nor reason. Still, no change of meaningful components is possible: the variant, say, no ryme or sense* does not exist.

Professor V.V. Vinogradov defined 4 types of phraseologisms based on the degrees of motivation and semantic isolation:

1. Idioms (phraseological fusions, opaque phraseologisms), whose meaning is completely unmotivated (i.e. cannot be deduced neither from the literal nor from the figurative meanings of their components): to kick the bucket; dog days; to wear your heart on your sleeve.

2. Phraseological unities (semi-opaque phraseologisms),idioms, whose inner structure remains transparent, i.e. their meanings can be guessed from the figurative meanings of their components: to be a dime a dozen; to come back down to earth; a sting in the tail; the calm before the storm; leave no stone unturned; to win hands down; to take the wind out of sb's sails; any port in a storm.

3. Phraseological combinations(transparent phraseologisms),whose meanings can be deduced from the literal meanings of their components: a firm character; a field of activity, to see the light.

4. Phraseological expressions are set phrases or sentences with a transposed meaning (here belong proverbs and sayings): let the sleeping dogs lie; a bird in a hand is worth to in the bush.

The components of phraseological units can have different levels of component interdependance (according to Prof. A. Koonin) (?????, 1967, ?. 1233-1264):

1. Phraseological units with interdependable components that cannot be substituted by any others, i.e. constant components that need each other to express a certain meaning (constant component interdependance) ex. birds of a feather, green room, kick the bucket, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, etc.

2. Collocations that have variants or structural synonyms but that do not allow any free elements in their structure (constant-variable interdependance), ex. not to lift (raise, stir, turn) a finger, strait as a poker (as a ramrod).

3. Collocations that have variants or structural synonyms and at the same time allow free elements in their structure (constant variable-free interdependance), ex. give somebody a bit (a piece)of one's mind, close (shut) one's eyes to something, lay (put) somebody on the shelf.

4. Collocations that allow free elements but that do not have variants or structural synonyms (constant interdependence with free elements), ex. give somebody a run for his money, take one's time, etc.

The principle of structural-semantic patterns doesn't work for phraseological units, which means that unlike free collocations phraseologisms can't be built by means of combining different words within a certain pattern.

Stability of phraseological units

O. Jespersen explained the phenomenon of stability of phraseological units by the fact that while free expressions are created in speech according to a certain pattern, phraseological units are used in a ready shape (?????, 1967).

A. Koonin names 6 levels of the stability of phraseological units (?????, 1967, p. 1233-1264):

1. Usage stability. The fact that a phraseological unit is a unit of language, and not an individual formation.

2. Stability on the structural-semantic level. A phraseological unit possesses a stable non-typical meaning, which means that it cannot be created with the help of a structural-semantic pattern.

3. Stability on the semantic level, which implies meaning invariance.

4. Stability on the lexical level, i.e. the possibility to interchange the components of a phraseological unit only within the limits of phraseological variability and structural synonymy and under condition that the semantic invariant is preserved.

5. Stability on the morphological levelis created due to the presence of:

? a component (components) with zero paradigm:

- verbal word-forms: How do you do?

- noun word-forms in the singular or plural are used in phraseologisms quite often: Cook one's own goose, like a shot, sit on the fence, be on pins and needles, my aunt! my stars! Put up the shutters;

- adjectival word-forms of different degrees of comparison: one's better half, the last great chance, put one's best foot forward.

? a component with an incomplete paradigm: it goes (went) without saying, as the day is (was) long.

6. Stability on the syntactic leveli.e. the stability of the word-order within the phraseological unit, where the change is possible only within the limits of variability, structural synonymy or occasional deformation.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 1365