Семантика фразеологизмов как объект психолингвистического описания (на примере устойчивых сочетаний из древнегреческих мифов с компонентом «имя собственное»)

Abstract

The aim of the research is to develop a methodology for describing the semantics of phraseological units in the Russian linguistic consciousness. Using the example of set expressions borrowed from ancient Greek mythology with a proper name component (the Augean stables, Achilles’ heel, herostratic fame, the prophetic Cassandra, the Trojan horse), the paper demonstrates the potential of using the results of psycholinguistic experiments to describe the psychologically real meanings of phraseological expressions. The psycholinguistic meanings of the studied units are formulated based on the semantically interpreted data from a free association experiment. The paper compares lexicographic and psycholinguistic definitions. The research is novel in that it is the first to develop a methodology of psycholinguistic description of the semantics of set expressions in the everyday linguistic consciousness of Russian native speakers, to determine the types of psycholinguistic sememes in the set expressions. As a result of the research, it has been found that the psycholinguistic meaning of each phraseological unit in the linguistic consciousness of the native speakers is wider than its lexicographic version. Three types of psycholinguistic sememes of the phraseological units have been identified: phraseological, mythological and contaminated.