CHARACTERISTICS OF ANALYTICAL UNITS AND THEIR RELATION TO WORD COMBINATIONS

Abstract

Purpose: the article outlines the history of conceptualization of categorial differences between analytical structures and free collocations. Analytisms are internally differentiated into structures of phraseological levels. The article discusses structural-semantic characteristics of analytical units and their relation to free word combinations and phraseological units. Traditional view of the role of structural elements in analytical units as nonsemantic components is being redefined. Conditions of notional words assuming syncategorematic functions while retaining their lexical-semantic content in processes of designating the surrounding world and creating discourse are determined. Methodology: the research was conducted by way of synchronized analysis and comparison on the material of word combinations in the French and Russian languages, which are characterized by substantial differences of purely linguistic, as well as cultural and historical nature. Results: acquiring uniform meaning in the context of dissociation of syntactic links between words, when those links become irrelevant for perception of semantic content of any collocation and make the latter an analytical unit. To conclude, words become basic units, which are followed by free collocations characterized by variable components. This chain is completed by analytical formations in their two basic variants: a) analytical structures distinguished by a primary impulse of lexical stability; b) analytical structures which can be tentatively defined as those that completed dissociation of internal syntactic relations and reached the highest point in lexical consolidation. The invariant principle, in accordance with which analytical structures and free collocations differ in two compared languages, means rearranging thematic and functional values between the two constructions – semantic content of a word combination and its syntactic form – in favour of the former. Practical implications: the material set out in the article can be applied in theoretical and practical lexicography, in teaching general and comparative semasiology. The research in question can be useful for teachers of the French language to students of secondary schools and higher educational institutions, where educational programmes can include cultural studies and intercultural communication courses.