ANTHROPOCENTRIC CHARACTER OF PHRASEOLOGICAL EUPHEMISMS IN THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES

The present paper deals with the functioning of phraseological comparative constructions with biblical characters in dialects of East, West, and South Slavic languages. The charac- ters of the Holy Scripture include not only the nameless and named heroes of the Bible but also the Creator himself as well as supernatural beings that serve or oppose the Creator. The description involves comparative phraseological units with an adjective that derives from a character of the Bible. Most of the analyzed Slavic dialectal phraseological units are fixed in dictionaries.The description of comparative phraseological units (if possible) is carried out from the positions of structural and semantic modelling, which allows to identify the lexical variation of components in the dialects of the same language or in various languages. In some cases, the paper includes areal characteristics of comparative constructions. For this purpose, the author shows their parallels in other linguistic and dialect regions. As a result, the paper reveals both structural and semantic biblical universals and phraseological units with national specificity, i.e. similes that have no equivalents (literary or non-Slavic). There are units that are specific for some regions, for example, phraseological units containing microtoponyms such as geographical objects that are not widely known. The national and regional identity is manifested both at the level of figurative basis and at the level of non- equivalent comparativism since some subjects can be active in one language, while they are peripheral or lacunary in another one.In some cases, phraseological units are provided with cultural, historical, and etymol- ogical comments which reveal not only the biblical and religious roots but also reflect the ancient mythological representations of the Slavs. The author gives an explanation to the meaning of similes and their components.The Old and New Testaments are a common element of the spiritual culture of Chris- tians so the comparison reveals the similarity and repetition of comparative units, directly or indirectly related to the names of the characters of the Bible, or structural and semantic models in a particular area. At the same time, the phraseological units genetically ascending to the Bible show a quite large differentiation, demonstrating the peculiarity of the recep- tion of biblical images by the Slavs, the unequal interest in them. Although the very name of the biblical character is often international, set similes containing it are not always the same. This is usually the case for pseudo-biblical phraseological units that have no direct links to the character of the Bible; they are usually inherent in folk speech and are often jokingly ironic. This is particularly evident in dialects.

The author compares the semantics of the Russian cest’ and dostoinstvo with that of the Polish cześc, honor and godnośc. The Russian cest’ is characterized by two aspects: external (respect for someone, e.g. cest’ i slava geroyam ‘honor and glory to the heroes’) and internal (a high moral value, e.g. celovek cesti, cestnyy celovek ‘a person of honour’). This semantic differentiation is manifested in synonymous sets, derivatives and phraseological units. The semantic duality of this kind is characteristic of all Slavic languages: it is a continuation of the Proto-Slavic meaning of *cьstь (from the verb cisti/cьsti ‘revere, respect’). The original “actional” meaning developed into the abstract ‘respect, deference’, and then into the more concrete ‘medal, award’. The semantic structure of the concept is analyzed through the actants of the verb ctit’: its subject (who respects?), object (who is respected?), the relation between th em, and the reason why a person is respected. Russian derivatives and phraseological units (okazat’ cest’ ‘show respect’, byt’ v cesti ‘be respected’ etc.), similarly to other Slavic languages, mainly refer to the external aspect (showing respect towards someone), whereas the internal aspect (the reason why someone is respected) is historically secondary. Prototypically, the subject of cestnyy (adj.) is a person, evaluated mainly through what they do not do: lie, steal, etc. (therefore, truth and justice are important values for the speakers). In Russian, the “external” aspect of cest’ and cestnyy has weakened over the centuries (it is preserved in stereotyped usages) and the “internal”, ethical aspect had gained strength – the latter is already found in the 19th c., in the writings of Pushkin, Lermontov (pogib poet – nevol’nik cesti ‘a poet has died, a slave to cest’’), Lev Tolstoy and in political slogans (cestnye vybory ‘fair elections’). The Polish counterpart of the Russian cest’ is the Latin loan word honor, defined as ‘personal dignity’ (slowo honoru ‘word, promise’, lit. ‘the word of honour’, sprawa honoru ‘a matter of honour’), but the plural honory (czynic honory ‘do the honours’) has an “external” meaning. Old-Polish cześc referred to acts of showing respect, which points to its external dimension. In both languages, there is now a tendency to express the “internal” aspects of the semantics of the Russian cest’ and Polish honor, in accord with the growing interest in human inner life and people’s personality. In both languages, too, there exist lexemes that express the features and behaviour of people in the context of moral values, independent of external judgement: Pol. godnośc and Russian dostoinstvo.

The author of the article makes an attempt to analyze the Russian idiom согнуться в три погибели in the cognitive aspect. The work identifies the prerequisites for the conditionality formation of lexical and grammatical meanings of phraseological units on material this idiom. Taking into account the conditions for the transition of free phrases to related ones (loss of reality, metaphorization, deformation of phrase parts and primary grammatical structure failure), including etymological analysis, semantic relations are defined within the phraseological unit requiring a specific grammatical form of certain words. The idiom в три погибели is built on the basis of metaphorical transference in appearance. The anthropomorphism of metaphor on the ground of external similarity, as well as the reality, received some metaphorical interpretation in the analyzed phraseological unit, retains its significance for understanding this idiom. The given examples from the Slavic languages have confirmed that in this phraseological unit the word погибели reflects the archaic semantics “to be bent”. The lexical and grammatical meanings in phraseological units are preconditioned. This phenomenon can be explained by etymology features and formation pattern of semantic links between components of phraseological units. For complete idioms understanding, it is often necessary not only to perform linguistic analysis, including etymological, but also to use cognitive approach, involving appeal to history, anthropology and cryptology, and other subjects. Key words: phraseological unit согнуться в три погибели, an idiom, etymology, semantics, symphysis, grammatical form of the word.

The translation of fiction and folklore works has its own specific character. It covers poetry and prose, lyrics and drama. Modern translators use the advice and creative heritage of their predecessors, in particular Maksym Rylskyi, who has combined scientific and folkloristic activities with translation from Slavic and non-Slavic languages, made a number of valuable comments on the issues of translation, its adequacy, transmission of the national identity of works, etc. Attention of the other translators and researchers has been also drawn to the issue of the translation of folklore works into Hungarian and Ukrainian. É. Grigássy, Zs. Rab, I. Petrovtsii and others are among them. They testify that besides the language competence, this work requires certain extralinguistic knowledge of ethnology, history, local studies, etc. They talk about two main dangers in such translations: on the one hand, it is the leveling of the national flavor of the work, its transformation into one’s own work; on the other hand, the text should not sound foreign, but should be natural and easy to read. The translation of various genres and types of folklore has its own specificity. Thus, significant difficulties arise when translating the Slavic heroic epos into Hungarian, the volumetric form of dumy and byliny, their epicness, dynamism, etc. Reproduction of the flavor of folk songs is demonstrated in the article exemplified by the translations of Hungarian calendar and love songs into Ukrainian. Then the authoress presents a number of samples of her own translations from the bilingual collection Hungarian Folk Fairy Tales of Uncommon Beauty, commenting the transmission of realia, proper names, phraseological units, language formulas – initial, medial and final. Despite certain doubts about the ability to translate folklore works into very different (not close) languages successfully, it can be said with certainty that it is possible, but this process requires, in addition to deep linguistic and discourse knowledge, extralinguistic, as well as poetic skill and talent of the translator.

In the present article, the ethnolinguistic perspective on the interpretation of one of the most widespread birds in Lithuania and in the Slavic countries, namely, an owl, is studied. In the cultural tradition, both positive and negative aspects are associated with birds, and, as a rule, only negative ones are associated with birds of prey. The connection of an owl with negative aspects of life is analyzed on three levels: on the linguistic level (metaphors, fixed comparisons, phraseological units, etc.); on the level of folklore texts (songs, fairy tales, legends, etc.); and on the level of traditional concepts. The material for the study has been collected from the explanatory dictionaries of the Lithuanian and various Slavic languages, the phraseological dictionaries, folklore collections, etc. On the linguistic level, the analysis shows that in the Lithuanian and Slavic languages, an owl is usually associated with an ugly woman, with large bulging eyes, in Lithuanian it is also associated with an ugly sitting person (which is also found in Polish); in Slavic languages, there is a comparison between an owl and a person who has not slept at night for a long time. What is common in the Lithuanian and some Slavic languages is the love of an owl for its ugly children. In the Lithuanian song material, an owl is depicted as a comic character showing off its “beauty”. In the songs, there is an image of an owl as a rich woman (in Lithuanian and Belarusian folklore); the wedding motif of an owl married to a sparrow is popular in Lithuanian and some Slavic folklore traditions. The motif of widowhood, single motherhood is vividly represented in the Slavic languages. In Lithuanian and Slavic folklore, an owl is widely represented in marriage songs where this bird usually parodies the bride or another participant in the wedding ceremony. The nocturnal lifestyle is explained in Lithuanian and Slavic folklore by its fear of other birds chasing an owl during the day. An owl is demonized in the Lithuanian and Slavic folk tradition. For instance, Lithuanian folklore mentions that a witch can turn into an owl, while in Slavic folklore, an owl is often associated with other birds that are servants of the devil. In both Lithuanian and Slavic traditions, owls are able to foretell the future: either future misfortunes or a birth of a child. This is associated with the acoustic impression of owl’s cry, and with an idea of its connection with the other world. The above-mentioned general interpretations of an owl in the traditional culture of Lithuanians and Slavs, primarily Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, and to a lesser extent – the southern Slavs, Czechs and Slovaks, prove the close ties between Lithuanians’ and Slavs’ beliefs.

The article in question deals with the notions of the phraseological units (PhU), phraseological and semantic paradigm Attention is being focused upon the concept of business subject. The authors of this paper have elaborated the classification of the relevant topic using semantic, structural, functional and pragmatic criteria. The valid conclusions are presented herein. PhU under analysis have much in common in terms of convergence. Their divergence is objectivized by certain extralinguistic factors. Business subject PhU are considered on the vector of imaginary motivation. Topical PhU are polyaspected and polymodal for they fulfill nominative identifying functional, pragmatic, expressive and valuative functions. Some of PhU are of borrowed nature due to international cooperation with people speaking English. The scientific validity of this paper consists in its novelty and the efforts to typologically identify the notion of business subjects in the Slavonic languages (Russian and Polish).

This article begins a series of publications devoted to the phraseological presentation of the image of food in English and Ukrainian. From the phraseological dictionaries of each language, a general sample of idioms that implement certain cognitive models was singled out. The models are: (a) SOMEONE CONSUMES SOMETHING (SOMEHOW) and (b) SOMEONE FEEDS SOMETHING (TO SOMEONE). In this article, the phraseological units (FU) are subjected to comparative analysis of the central component of both models (a, b) SOMETHING, i.e. we consider how the food component is verbalized: (a) what is consumed (eaten or drunk) and (b) what is fed, treated to in the phraseological units of two unrelated languages. Corresponding FUs form a partial sample of 380 English and 538 Ukrainian idioms. Depending on their basic element, all FUs are grouped into clusters. Nominal units (NU), which name this or that consumed product, are the basic elements of idioms. The samples comprise: 110 English and 98 Ukrainian clusters. All clusters are divided into frequency zones depending on the number of FUs for each specific NU. The high-frequency zone contains 10 English-language NUs used in 81 FUs and 13 Ukrainian NUs used in 171 FUs. The medium frequency zone comprises 35 English NUs (89 FUs) and 33 Ukrainian NUs (117 FUs), the largest is the low-frequency zone of 65 English NUs (as many FUs) and 52 Ukrainian NUs (as many FUs). Comparative analysis has shown that the use of equivalent NUs in the two analyzed languages rarely results in equivalent FUs, discrepancies exist in the figurative, evaluative areas as well as in the NU's productivity. The article proposes a new concept of endemic NU, which implies nominative units present in one sample of phraseology to denote food and absent in the sample of the other language. The analysis, comparison and linguo-cultural description of the considered phraseological units are performed mainly on the material of high-frequency zones of both samples.

The present article aims to examine phraseological units with the lexical component “liver” in a Slavic languages: Belarussion, Bulgarian, Croatian, Lower Lusatian language, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, Ukranian. Somatic phraseology is a relatively new study of phraseology. The comparative semantic analysis of somatic phraseological units from an equivalence perspective allowed to establish their common and distinctive features, which are the reflection of cultural specificity and uniqueness of each language. The analysis was based on the researches of both Ukrainian and world linguists. The source of linguistic material were phraseological dictionaries of different languages. The results of this study may be useful for translators and advanced foreign language learners. This scientific study is a small fragment of the study of comparative somatic phraseology. But even such a fragment can reflect the common and different in the worldview of speakers of different languages. At the present stage of development of phraseology, many different and insufficiently studied problems have been identified, in particular the study of phraseological units in a comparative aspect.

The significance of bilingual education has grown remarkably in the modern society since the benefits of bilingualism were affirmed long ago. However, the specific kind of bilingualism resulting in the most favourable effect has not been clarified as much. According to our investigation held on the subject of bilingualism in terms of the comprehension of a third language without its prior learning, bilingualism between two different language families contributes significantly to the understanding of another language belonging to a language family manifested in the bilingual informant. Hence, for example, a person representing a native-like capacity in a Slavic language, such as Russian, and a Romance language, such as Romanian (the case investigated in the research), will present the development of specific psycholinguistic strategies implying particular brain functioning as well as language data analysis resulting in the ability to access and understand, then subsequently acquire another Slavic or Romance language more efficiently. Evidently, this specific example does not refer to the Russian-Romanian bilingualism merely, but to any bilingualism between two language families. Consequently, how can it contribute to the educational system? Providing a child with a strong bilingual education based on the bilingualism between two different language families can result in the subsequent opportunity for an easier acquisition of other languages provided they belong to one of the language families the child masters. Additionally, the knowledge of many languages brings more facility in terms of eventual language learning in general, including dealing with a language from a different language family.

The paper presents a short contrastive analysis of phraseological units in the Bulgarian and the Polish language, which have Biblical origin. The text is focused on non-predicative expressions (i.e., it deals with semantic, formal and stylistic features of expressions with no verbal component) and observes their variation of the meaning following as a context their contribution in Bulgarian and Polish resources. In this respect, the first part of the article represents the similarities between Bulgarian and Polish Biblical Phraseological Units. The units under observation here are grouped in pairs, depending on the general element they contain. Mainly, that is an onomastic element with symbolic meaning and it is a kind of reference to the Old or New Testament. In the second part of the present text, Biblical expressions share one and the same symbolic element, but they have different semantics and structure. The compared constructions are based on different aspects of the symbol and they have different connotative potential. That part has a main function to highlight that both – Bulgarian and Polish language, using the same Biblical element could make completely different phraseological units. Despite the genetic relations of the two Slavic languages, the cited constructions are formed by Bulgarian and Polish cultural and religious experience.

In this paper we will investigate the nature of deverbal nominals across languages. Deverbal nouns are typically classified according to their word-formation model: affixation and conver-sion. Our study will compare the word formation of deverbal nominals in Slavic (Croatian, Slovenian and Polish) and Romance languages (Italian, French and Spanish) in order to show (i) that affixation corresponds to a specific mode of morphological operations and (ii) that the differences and similarities between deverbal nominals of these two language families follow from the properties of the base verbs. Furthermore, our analysis will try to shed some light on the distinction between nouns and verbs. The paper comprises three major thematic parts. The first part briefly reviews the basic notions and theoretical assumptions of Generative Grammar regarding word formation. We have especially tried to explain those notions that we draw from Distributed Morphology. This part further exposes the theoretical framework that is used in this paper. In the second part, deverbal nominals in Slavic languages are analysed and de-scribed. We primarily investigate the Slavic languages, since in these languages morphology plays a larger role in the construction of deverbal nouns. The third part contains an investiga-tion of the phrasal structure of nominalizations across the Romance languages. We close the work with a general conclusion about the behaviour of deverbal nouns in these two groups of languages. We concentrate mainly on the differences between the phrasal architecture of nom-inalizations and correspondent verbal constructions.

The textbook is devoted to theoretical and practical issues of studying the Old Slavic language, which appeared in the middle of the IX century and had a significant impact on the development of Slavic cultures in general and the emergence of book-written Slavic languages on a national basis in particular. The manual includes educational and methodological materials on the analysis of phonetics, morphology, vocabulary, syntax; texts of the Old Slavic language from glagolitic and Cyrillic monuments, tasks for the analysis of texts, a dictionary. The educational and methodological materials presented in the manual meet the main goals and objectives of the discipline: mastering the grammar system of the classical (Old Slavic) language in comparison with the grammar of the studied foreign languages and vocabulary, productive in the formation of the vocabulary of new languages and international terminology; developing skills of comparative analysis of facts of diverse languages (classical and new) in order to ensure the success of mastering modern foreign languages and other philological disciplines; implementation of practical tasks of reading, translation and historical and linguistic analysis of Old Slavic texts. Knowledge of the socio-cultural functions of the Old Slavic language, linguistic phenomena in the field of phonetics, morphology, vocabulary, syntax, winged words and phraseological units of biblical origin included in the national linguistic and cultural fund will allow students to comprehend the role of the oldest written language in the development and formation of the lexical and grammatical system and semantic and stylistic richness of the modern Russian literary language. Meets the requirements of the federal state educational standards of higher education of the latest generation. For philology students of higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation studying in the field of training 45.03.01 "Philology".

The article analyzes the role of phraseology, as a most specific and nationally distinctive linguistic area, in the formation of linguistic worldview. Assuming that the figurative content of the phraseological structure of a language embodies its cultural and national worldview, the author examines the national and cultural specificity of phraseological units. Different approaches to the understanding of the scope of national phraseology are described: according to the broad approach to the scope of culturally marked phraseological units, a wide range of phraseological phenomena, all the idiomatic phraseological units in particular, are considered to be nationally specific; other phraseology researchers take the opposite position - they attribute to the nationally marked idioms only those which comprise the names of culture-specific concepts; another approach includes the specific national idioms which embody the inter-language differences. In the semantic aspect, a phraseological system (like any other subsystem of language) is a special unity of characteristics, both common (universal) and exceptional, i. e. semantically unique, typical only for a certain linguistic culture. If the universals are common characteristics of all languages, then the uniqueness represents specific, unique characteristics of a particular language. Besides, there is reviewed the ethnolinguocultural and ethnolinguocognitive specificity as characteristics of the semantically unique idioms in Slavic, Germanic and Turkic language groups. There are given some examples of the semantically exceptional idiomatic expressions in the above-mentioned language groups.

The popular view o~ language assumes that the origins of alphabets and of writing systems are connected. The development of the writing systems is subsequent to the time when the alphabet was devised and adapted to the needs of an existing dialect. There are some similarities between the manner in which the alphabets reflect and relate to speech and the manner in which the writing system of a language relates to the spoken original. The alphabets, as the exist today, can be phonetic, phonemic, or morphophonemic; and some are none of these. Some Slavic alphabets approach the desired goal of being phonemic or almost so. Russian and Czech are good examples. The attempt is to have one letter corresponding to one phoneme. The English spelling system and its alphabet are not phonemic by that principle but reflect in many cases the etymology of the word, and in a very faithful manner preserve the spelling system of Old and Middle English. One of the most significant factors influencing the development of a literary language and the structure of its writing is the presence or absence of diglossia at one point in history and, if present, the degree of diglossia. By diglossia linguists mean the spoken use of two different languages for different functions (Ferguson 1958). Thus one language can be used for everyday functions such as communicating with one's family. while another language may be used for communi­ cating with groups in the process of administrative, official or religious transactions. The alternate use of two different codes for different functions could be, and has been, extended to involve a variety of codes. It may involve the use of different dialects. or it may involve the use of different languages from the same linguistic family or from different families. The latter often obtains when one code is used for writing purposes only. Diglossia differs from bilingualism in that a bilingual speaker or language user has at his disposal two languages for all functions while in diglossia each language is used for specific functions only. In the history of the development of languages, the bilingualism of speakers played a role in being instrumental in various borrowings of lexical or grammatical constructions; while, in my opinion, diglossia influenced the formations of various styles such as written styles. This understanding comes from the extended meaning of diglossia which may be inferred from the original definition. Therefore, it seems that if there is one single factor that is the most significant in the formation of a literary language and thus of its writing system, it is the presence or absence of diglossia as understood above. Some languages such as English have gone through short periods of time when another language was used in diglossia with the native language. Originally, Anglo-Saxon was the nationality of those who spoke Old English prior to the twelfth century. In 1066 when the Normans conquered England, there was a surge of French influence on Old English which is still evident in the lexicon. However, the original influence of French on Old English was never long lived and it was the interaction between varieties of English that played an important role in formation of literary English. The extent of diglossia has differed from language to language in the Slavic area. It is postulated here that the diglossia between the native Slavic vernacular and another Slavic language had the most profound effect on the formation of Slavic literary languages, while bilingualism or diglossia with a non-Slavic language resulted in long-term borrowings. The

This paper is devoted to identification of specific characteristics of Russian and Serbian phraseological units. The author considers the phraseological units from structural and semantic aspect and pays special attention to the national and cultural component of the studied units, which cause the greatest difficulties for foreigners. Identification of the given component is carried out by linguocultural analysis of components of phraseologicaly related word combinations. The material of research was comprised based on data from lexicographical dictionaries of Russian and Serbian languages. The phraseological units – toponyms are reviewed as a separate group and are, in the author’s opinion, bearers of rich linguoculturological information. The author identifies three main sources of imagery of these units: characteristics of the geographical position of the object; important historical and cultural events, as well as prominent historical figures, which brought fame to the region; lifestyle and crafts of local residents. The analysis allowed the author to identify specific national and cultural characteristics of a number of Russian and Serbian toponyms. This work is of an applied nature. Results of the study can be used in the teaching the Russian language as second Slavic language.