Meaningful Research Articles

The German-Polish border as a site of linguistic communication in diachronic terms (on the example of routine formulas in Polish)

This paper presents ways of communicating during inspections at Polish-German border crossings. The research material consists of conventionalized patterns of linguistic behaviour (routine formulas) in Polish taken from Polish-German phrasebooks published from the 16th to the early 21st century. The excerpted linguistic means were grouped thematically in chronological order and partially annotated. The aim of the study is to retrospectively reconstruct typical linguistic interactions between border officials and border crossers. The submitted study forms part of the research work in the field of sociopragmatics and phraseology in a historical perspective and constitutes the second part of the study covering lexical material in German used in the situational context in question.

A Review of the Limitations of Language Models in NLP

Abstract. In the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), large neural language models have successfully been applied to a variety of tasks, including machine translation and reading comprehension. These models often learn the structure of language (such as grammar and semantics) by predicting the next word or character. However, there's an overly optimistic assessment of the current state of natural language understanding, which assumes that models can handle text at a semantic level. This article primarily explores the successes of large neural language models (such as BERT and GPT-2) in numerous tasks that require the understanding of linguistic meaning in the domain of NLP. Language models trained purely on form cannot learn meaning, as understanding meaning involves the relationship between linguistic form and non-linguistic communicative intent. The article aims to guide scientific research in the field of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) by clearly distinguishing the concepts of form and meaning. The learning, generalization, and other capabilities of different models under various attributes show significant differences, suggesting that a combination of different models and properties can achieve unexpected results. The simple learning combinations of some models may offer new insights into the understanding of linguistic meaning by models.

Niche Construction and the Politics of Language

Two recent practice-based conceptions of linguistic communication challenge the dominant “content-delivery” models. Beaver and Stanley’s The Politics of Language (2023) and Rouse’s Social Practices as Biological Niche Construction (2023) have different aims. Beaver and Stanley develop an account of linguistic meaning as affective and politically engaged. Rouse starts from evolutionary accounts of human ways of life to situate language within a more general, naturalistic account of social practices as forms of biological niche construction. Despite their different orientations, the two books can work together as a more compelling challenge to standard accounts of linguistic meaning and communication.

ПРОТИДІЯ РОСІЙСЬКИМ ФЕЙКОВИМ НАРАТИВАМ У БРИТАНСЬКИХ ТА АМЕРИКАНСЬКИХ МЕДІА: КРИТИЧНИЙ ДИСКУРС-АНАЛІЗ (КДА)

Based on critical discourse analysis conducted on the media reports which cover the articles from British and US press, the research gives insights into the common Russian propaganda narratives which have been spread over the last decade on Ukrainian sovereignty and the war unleashed by Russia on the territory of Ukraine. The linguistic analysis of the confl ict rhetoric covers pragmatic and semantic elements with the implied negative assessment of Russian policy. With Critical Discourse Theory and Analysis, Critical Metaphor Analysis and Positioning Theory applied, the research classifi es the positioning of the main actors as aggressors or victims and describes the discursive strategies used for countering and dispelling the fake Russian narratives. The study reveals the causes and implications of the analysed practices, identifi es the linguistic means used for the realisation of the discursive strategies and shows how emotional triggers engage readers through lexical-semantic means and stylistic fi gures. Key words: critical discourse analysis, discursive strategies, linguistics means, stylistic fi gures, Russian fake narratives, war in Ukraine.

КОНЦЕПТ “ВІЙНА”: МОВНА ОБ’ЄКТИВАЦІЯ У ГРЕЦЬКОМУ МЕДІАТЕКСТІ (ВИСВІТЛЕННЯ ПОДІЙ В УКРАЇНІ 2022–2024 РОКІВ)

The research is dedicated to the analysis of linguistic representation of the concept of “war” in articles from the Greek media news platform CNN Greece for the period from February 2022 to February 2024 focusing on the topic of the Russian war in Ukraine. The conceptualized notion under investigation is examined based on linguistic objectifi cation means such as the central nomination of war – πόλεμος, and related units, including cognates and derivatives (πολεμικός, εμπόλεμος προπολεμικά πολεμάω), many of which are compounds (πολεμοφόδια, ανταρτοπόλεμος, καταπολέμηση, ψυχροπολεμικός). Regarding the fronts of military events in Ukraine, mention is made of the economic war and cyberwar (οικονομικός πόλεμος and κυβερνοπόλεμος, respectively). The synonyms of war are divided into two groups (επίθε- ση, εισβολή as a Russian invasion and μάχη, πάλη, αντεπίθεση as a struggle of Ukrainians). Among the antonyms, primary emphasis is placed on the lexeme νίκη. Syntactic combinations with linguistic units of diff erent lexical-grammatical classes (namely attributive, nominative, and predicative syntagms) and some stylistic phenomena (such as association, enumeration, periphrasis) are also considered as verbalizers of war. Figurative means, including epithets, metaphorical and metonymical combinations, are used in media texts to enhance the negative emotional impact of war. The analysis reveals that the war in Ukraine is illustrated in Greek media as aggressive and bloody. The concept of “war”, as demonstrated in the article, is characterized by complexity and multifaceted nominative fi eld in the examined media texts with a negative evaluative marking regarding the aggressor state. The linguistic representatives of the analyzed concept in Greek media texts play a crucial role in forming a negative attitude toward events in Ukraine for Greek readers, contributing to the creation and maintenance of the corresponding emotional mood. Key words: war, concept, verbalizer, evaluativity, media text.

Conceptual sphere of the lexemes svoi (English our own), chuzhoi (English alien), inoi (English other) in the Russian language (corpus research experience)

The relevance of studying linguistic means used to represent the categories of community/otherness is justified by the significance of this social phenomenon constructed by society and the individual in accordance with the norms of a particular (i. e. Russian) culture. The attention of modern linguistics to the "person in language" issue has determined the anthropocentric approach to language study, which implies a rethinking of linguistic objectives when examining the category of identity. The focus of the study is the linguistic means of the Russian language representing the category of community/otherness with the lexemes svoi (English our own) / inoi (English other) / chuzhoi (English alien). The article aims to study the conceptual sphere of the lexemes svoi, chuzhoi, inoi within the framework of Russian linguoculture. The research methodology includes several stages: 1) statistical data analysis; 2) linguo-cognitive analysis of the use of the lexemes; 3) creation of an experimental microtext corpus. In the experimental part, we conducted a corpus study with a subsequent analysis of the statistical indicators of the occurrences of the lexemes in texts, as well as semantic analysis. Linguo-cognitive analysis of the use of the lexemes in proverbs and clichéd expressions enabled us to determine the conceptual meanings and environment of each lexeme. During the work, a research corpus was created. It contained contexts with the phrase we do not leave our own obtained from the Russian mass media. Using the PoS tagger RNNTagger, we processed and analysed the texts, and then the material was quantitatively and statistically characterised. The study results enabled us to draw conclusions about the frequency and conceptual meanings of the lexemes svoi, chuzhoi, inoi. Moreover, they expanded the understanding of the conceptual sphere of these linguistic units and made a certain contribution to the scientific understanding of Russian linguoculture.

CPoser: An Optimization-after-Parsing Approach for Text-to-Pose Generation Using Large Language Models

Text-to-pose generation is challenging due to the complexity of natural language and human posture semantics. Utilizing large language models (LLMs) for text-to-pose generation is appealing due to their strong capabilities in text understanding and reasoning. However, as LLMs are designed for general-purpose language processing and not specifically trained for pose generation, it remains nontrivial to generate precise articulation targets for the full body using LLMs directly. To this end, we propose CPoser, a novel approach to harness the power of LLMs for text-to-pose generation, featuring a prompt parsing stage and a pose optimization stage. The parsing stage utilizes LLMs to turn text prompts into pose intermediate representations (Pose-IRs) through a set of predefined structured queries. These Pose-IRs explicitly describe specific pose conditions, such as squatting depth and knee bending angle, naturally forming an objective function that a target pose should satisfy. The optimization stage solves for expressive poses and hand gestures based on the Pose-IR objective function via robust optimization in a quantized pose prior space. The results are further refined to enhance naturalness and incorporate facial expressions. Experiments show that our approach effectively understands diverse text prompts for pose generation, surpassing existing text-to-pose methods.

Sposoby wyrażania śmierci w inskrypcjach nagrobnych ze Starego Cmentarza w Zakopanem

MEANS OF EXPRESSING DEATH IN GRAVESTONE INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE OLD CEMETERY IN ZAKOPANE The article investigates linguistic and extralinguistic means of notifying of death through gravestone inscriptions in Zakopane. The analysis of 595 inscriptions from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries allowed us to establish that the repertoire of linguistic means of signalling death is much more differentiated than the extralinguistic one. Linguistic measures include: 1. lexemes directly communicating death (e.g. verbs: to die, to commit suicide; participles: killed); 2. euphemistic expressions for death (death is metaphorically expressed as: rest, sleep, transformation in the world of flora, extinguished flame, journey, sacrifice); 3. date of death. Extralinguistic measures include: 1. ideograms in the form of an obelisk (dagger) †; 2. placing names in a certain context, in the burial area, at a cemetery gravestone. The analysis results were compared with results of studies of inscriptions from other cemeteries in Poland, which showed that the fundamental manner of speaking of death is constant, independent of place or time – discrepancies pertain to nuances only.

Associative Field “Brest Region” as a Way to Model a Fragment of the Linguistic Consciousness of Residents of the Brest Region

Introduction. Modeling geopolitical images using anthropometric methods is a new and relevant direction in modern scientific knowledge. The article examines the image of the Brest region through the prism of the linguistic consciousness of the inhabitants of the Brest region. Methodology and sources. The theoretical basis of this study was the work of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of linguistic research methods (A.A. Zalevskaya, N.I. Kurganova, A.V. Rudakova, O.N. Seliverstova, I.A. Sternin, N.V. Akovantsev, etc.), psycholinguistics and linguistic consciousness (E.I. Goroshko, A.A. Zalevskaya, L.O. Butakova, Yu.N. Karaulov, A.A. Leontiev, A.P. Klimenko, Z.D. Popova, I.A. Sternin, E.F. Tarasov, N.V. Ufimtseva, etc.). The study was carried out within the framework of the project “Brest region through the eyes of people of different professions” together with the main department of ideological work and youth affairs of the Brest Regional Executive Committee. The research material was 1062 associations obtained during a free association experiment, in which 400 representatives of the cultural sphere took part. Results and discussion. During the association experiment, the free association technique was used. In the questionnaires, respondents were asked to write 3–5 associations for the stimulus phrase “Brest region” within a limited time period. Based on the obtained associative reactions, an associative field was formed and 9 thematic groups were identified. Based on the ranking of thematic groups in accordance with quantitative data, layers in the cognitive structure of the image of the Brest region are identified. Conclusion. An association experiment is the most effective method that allows us to identify the attitude of residents of a region to the surrounding reality. This attitude is expressed by linguistic means and reflects the understanding of the world, its conceptualization, as well as the strategy of communication and verbal existence of the individual.

Truthmaker Semantics and Natural Language Semantics

ABSTRACTTruthmaker semantics is a non‐classical logical framework that has recently garnered significant interest in philosophy, logic, and natural language semantics. It redefines the propositional connectives and gives rise to more fine‐grained entailment relations than classical logic. In its model theory, truth is not determined with respect to possible worlds, but with respect to truthmakers, such as states or events. Unlike possible worlds, these truthmakers may be partial; they may be either coherent or incoherent; and they are understood to be exactly or wholly relevant to the truth of the sentences they verify. Truthmaker semantics generalises collective, fusion‐based theories of conjunction; alternative‐based theories of disjunction; and nonstandard negation semantics. This article provides a gentle introduction to truthmaker semantics aimed at linguists; describes applications to various natural language phenomena such as imperatives, ignorance implicatures, and negative events; and discusses its similarities and differences to related frameworks such as event semantics, situation semantics, alternative semantics, and inquisitive semantics.

The Geometry and Dynamics of Meaning.

An enigma for human languages is that children learn to understand words in their mother tongue extremely fast. The cognitive sciences have not been able to fully understand the mechanisms behind this highly efficient learning process. In order to provide at least a partial answer to this problem, I have developed a cognitive model of the semantics of natural language in terms of conceptual spaces. I present a background to conceptual spaces and provide a brief summary of their main features, in particular how it handles learning of concepts. I then apply the model to give a geometric account of the semantics of different word classes. In particular, I propose a "single-domain hypotheses" for the semantics of all word classes except nouns. These hypotheses provide a partial answer to the enigma of how words are learned. Next, a dynamic cognitive model of events is introduced that replaces and extends the function of thematic roles. I apply it to analyze the meanings of different kinds of verbs. I argue that the model also explains some aspects of syntactic structure. In particular, I propose that a sentence typically refers to an event. Some further applications of conceptual spaces are briefly presented.

Animals of the Mustelid Family in the Linguistic Picture of the World of the Altaians

Purpose. The article describes zoonyms of the Altai language and folklore denoting mustelids, representatives of the fauna of the Altai Mountains. This lexical-semantic group of lexemes in the Altai linguistic culture has not been thoroughly studied yet. The identification of the lexical potential of zoonyms denoting mammals of the mustelid family provide information about the etymology, dialect variants, donative and connotative features that express ideas about those animals in the language and folklore of the Altaians, and their mythological context of use.Results. Lexical meanings of zoonyms have been identified and established: agas /aas ‘ermine’, kish ‘sable’, borsuk ‘badger’, jeeken ‘wolverine’, saras ‘kolinsky’, ‘weasel’, kushkuly/kalazak ‘weasel’, suzar ‘marten’, ‘mink’, toktonok ‘weasel’. Of these, the general Turkic layer of vocabulary includes: agas ‘ermine’, suzar ‘marten’, kish ‘sable’, borsuk ‘badger’, küzen/joonmoiyn ‘ferret’, jeeken ‘wolverine’. Denotative and connotative features that characterize animals are presented in various folklore and literary texts that provide information about their color, body structure, habitat, and their habits.Conclusion. In the religious and mythological picture of the world of the Altaians, such animals as kish/albaa ‘sable’, agas ‘ermine’ were revered totem animals. In relation to these animals, there were certain rules of behavior during the hunt. These factors influenced the development of a system of euphemisms in the language of hunters, formed with the help of such linguistic means of objectifying concepts as metaphor and metonymy.

LANGUAGE OF A BARRIER-FREE SOCIETY: THE EXPERIENCE OF UKRAINE

The purpose of this article is to provide a better scientific understanding of a “barrier-free language”, the concept of which has been developed by Ukrainian politicians, public figures and journalists, and to interpret it as a linguistic phenomenon. The subject of scientific interest is the handbook and the dictionary of the barrier-free language introduced in Ukraine as a part of the strategy for the formation of a barrier-free society, and its object is the suggested linguistic means of implementing the principles of the barrier-free language and argumentation of their expediency. The compilation of the dictionary of the barrier-free language and the suggested changes in nomination demonstrate a number of important developments: overcoming depersonalisation, rethinking the role of linguistic means that were previously unconditionally perceived as acceptable and desirable (in particular, euphemisms) in communication, understanding affixal derivatives not only in linguistic dimension in terms of word-forming meaning, but also taking into account their social connotations fixed by usage, raising the issue of objectification of a person's sexual and gender identity in the Ukrainian language, etc. In a broader sense, it demonstrates changes in perception of language as a social phenomenon that not only serves the communicative needs of society but also affects the way people live in it, and the gradual formation of a type of speaker who understands freedom of expression as inseparable from the responsibility to respect the rights and guarantee the freedom of others.

Narrative Accounts of Language Recovery through Music Therapy

The language of healing involves the use of medical terminology related to critically ill patients and their recovery. The present research focuses on the role of music therapy as a nonverbal form of healing. A vast array of neurological disorders affect nowadays both young and elderly patients. Among the most devastating illnesses, the stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), in medical terms, disables many patients who lose the power of communication. A stroke, among other terrible paralyzing effects, may cause a condition named aphasia, which is the loss of the ability to communicate normally due to the damage produced to the left side of the brain which is the centre of communication. The power of language in healing such patients is often beyond our grasp as the linguistic means used for this purpose may include confessions, incantations, and lyrics. The present study will focus on the mechanisms of speech recovery through music therapy and its benefits on the life of patients with aphasia. In addition to listing different types of aphasia, with particular focus on Broca’s aphasia, we bring to attention two medical cases of aphasic patients, of which one involves music therapy as a nonverbal recovery tool. The detailed narrative account of this successful case history provided by neurologist Oliver Sacks (2011) represents valuable evidence that supports the idea of the beneficial effects of enduring music therapy.

Comparative analysis of communication strategies impact on the effectiveness of interaction with an AI chatbot

Introduction. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into everyday human interactions, particularly through chatbots, has significantly increased in recent years. AI-based chatbots successfully mimic human conversations by understanding user requests and responding appropriately. Improving the effectiveness of educational and professional activities related to text processing in these conditions seems extremely relevant and predetermines the goal of our study: comparing the effectiveness of interaction with ChatGPT when formulating queries in various communication strategies. Procedure and methods. The study on the effectiveness of interacting with ChatGPT was conducted using a natural experiment scheme with preliminary training. The subjects of the study were 34 employees (15 men, 19 women, aged 25-36; M = 31.6; SD = 1.8) from the marketing department of the company "Technologies of Trust". These employees performed rewriting tasks by interacting with ChatGPT within the framework of specially adapted communication strategies (persuasive and cooperative) and evaluated the chatbot's usability and the quality of the text generated by ChatGPT. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test for dependent samples was used to identify the effects of communication strategies on interaction efficiency, and exploratory factor analysis with subsequent varimax rotation was employed to identify latent variables of interaction under different communication strategies. Research Results. Comparison of the results of the ChatGPT interaction performance evaluation when using 2 strategies (cooperative and persuasive) showed that for all 11 usability indicators, there is a significant advantage of the cooperative communicative strategy at the significance level of p<0.05. However, on 6 indicators of text quality obtained through rewriting, the persuasive strategy shows advantages and on 4 of them at a significance level of p<0.05. In the course of the study it was found that the factor solutions for the studied communicative strategies differ significantly: the key factor in using the persuasive strategy is speed and accuracy in achieving goals, while in the cooperative strategy the adequate response of chatbots to objections is critical. Conclusion. The results obtained in the study contribute significantly to the understanding of communication with AI chatbots, highlighting the nuances of interacting through linguistic means typical for human communication. The findings demonstrate the complexity of choosing the optimal strategy for interacting with ChatGPT and uncover the factors that determine the features of subjective evaluation of the interaction.

A new type of linguistic sign

Abstract A new type of morphological expressive linguistic means and the corresponding linguistic sign are described: metasemy1 — an expressive linguistic means that is an operation on the signified of the target lexeme; and metasemy2 — a sign whose signifier is a metasemy1. Thus, the English metasemy2 painting , when applied to a human proper name, such as, e.g., Turner, produces a derived lexeme, in this case, painting (Turner) = [a] Turner ‘[a] painting by Turner’ (I have seen two excellent Turners). A formal description of the Russian metasemy2 pomeščenie ‘place2’ is presented, based on the analysis of the Russian phrase u otca ‘at father’s’ = ‘at father’s place2’, where the underlying lexeme otec ‘father’ and the derived lexeme pomeščenie (otec) are involved, the meaning ‘place2’ being expressed by the metasemy2 pomeščenie . The English and French translational equivalents of this phrase, Eng. at father’s and Fr. chez le père, are shown to have different organizations: in at father’s, the meaning ‘place2’ is carried by the ’s-form, and in chez le père, by the preposition chez. A tentative list of known Russian metasemies2 is supplied, as well as the similar lists for English and French. A metasemy2 always expresses a metonymic semantic relation between the underlying lexeme and the resulting derived lexeme; it is a derivational morphological means, parallel to derivational affixes. Metasemy2 seems to exist universally.

Adjectives ‘otdalyonnyy’ [distant], ‘priblizitelnyy’ [approximate], and ‘neulovimyy’ [elusive] as Means of Expressing Semantics of Implicit Similarity

This article is dedicated to linguistic means that denote implicit similarity between one object and another. The author aims to identify common patterns in constructing contexts that describe situations of implicit similarity. The study focuses on the specific usage of the adjectives ‘otdalyonnyy’ [distant], ‘priblizitelnyy’ [approximate], and ‘neulovimyy’ [elusive], along with their derived adverbs, as tools for expressing implicit similarity. The research employs definitional, componential, distributional, and contextual analysis methods, utilizing data from linguistic dictionaries and the Russian National Corpus. The analysis of corpus data reveals that situations of implicit similarity can be characterized by four criteria: “semantic class,” “basis for comparison,” “degree of similarity,” and “presence of explanations.” It is demonstrated that the contextual synonyms ‘otdalyonnyy (-o)’ [distant (-ly)], ‘priblizitelnyy (-o)’ [approximate (-ly)], and ‘neulovimyy (-o)’ [elusive (-ly)] exhibit several distinctions in their functioning across various criteria: frequency of use, collocational compatibility, semantic class of the compared objects, basis for comparison, and degree of expressed implicit similarity. In most cases, implicit similarity between objects is not thoroughly motivated but is presented as a ready result of perception, comparison, and interpretation carried out by the speaker.

Topic modelling and sentiment analysis during COVID-19 revealed emotions changes for public health

Between 2020 and 2022, lockdown and restraining measures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in daily routines and also in language usage. At certain points during the pandemic, populations in some countries were unwilling or unlikely to respond to government messages, either because of the tone and analytic discourse used by leaders, or because they did not understand the messages. Linguistic markers and meanings were therefore linked to low levels of engagement, negative emotions and high levels of analytical thinking, especially in relation to the discourses of influential international leaders. We subjected sixteen speeches by eight country leaders to topic modelling and sentiment analysis in order to understand how the psychological functions of language were affected during two different periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this topic analysis we organize 39,073 words collected from sixteen authentic speeches delivered in two different periods of the acute phase of the pandemic. These were encoded in the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count program (LIWC), with the main aim being to identify differences between the periods. We examined the following aspects: (1) the emotional tone, analytical thinking and clout (empathy dimension); (2) the changes in these three dimensions or factors between periods 1 and 2 (February and May 2020). We observed a negative relationship between emotional tone and analytical thinking and a positive relationship between clout and emotional tone. When we considered the changes in pandemic circumstances, the psycholinguistic profiles of eight country leaders demonstrated fluctuations in language and emotions. Further reviews and research should focus on the current language and deficit wording of this population (leaders). We also note that psychologists and schoolteachers can play an important role in supporting language programmes with positive wording and by emphasising the collateral effects of face-to-face classes when teaching children to read and write.

Средства выражения итеративной неоднократности с семантикой «цикличность» в произведении «Темные аллеи» И. А. Бунина

The aim of the research is to identify the specifics of the functioning of iterative repetition with the semantics of cyclicity in the individual style of I. A. Bunin. The article considers iterative repetition as a functional grammatical category that constitutes the functional-semantic field of aspectuality; details the ways of expressing iterative repetition in a literary text at the lexical, morphological and syntactic levels; creates a semantic model of iterative repetition with the meaning of cyclicity in the work ‘Dark Alleys’ by I. A. Bunin. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time the category of iteration is considered in I. A. Bunin’s work from the point of view of the functional approach. The iterative meaning is studied taking into account not only the paradigmatics, but also the syntagmatics of verb forms. As a result, it has been found that the category of iterative repetition in the work of I. A. Bunin is presented as a complex and branched system of multi-level linguistic means. It has been revealed that the category of iterative repetition as an expressive means is actively used in Bunin’s texts when describing everyday habits, lifestyle and activities of characters. It has also been determined that the semantic meaning of iterativity is combined with other components of the functional-semantic field of aspectuality: duration, phase and statality.

Semantic Valence and Cultural Representation of Phraseological Units (Kazakh and English)

The rules for the compatibility of idiomatic units in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers are a particular problem that is related to the formation and evolution of the language norm. It is still unknown what is the catalyst for the transformation of language norms — usage or the laws and rules of the language. As a result of the cultural interpretation of a phraseological unit in the process of its use, the most important component of the cultural and linguistic meaning of the phraseological unit is formed, the content of which is the value-emotional attitude to what is happening. The focus of the article is the notion that phraseological valence - beyond grammatical structure to cultural and semantic dimensions. This perspective likely emphasizes the importance of cultural and semantic factors in shaping the meaning and usage of phraseological units, rather than purely grammatical considerations. Comparing English and Kazakh phraseological units with similar concepts but different cultural representations provides an insightful examination of how language reflects unique cultural perspectives and values. The article determines that there is a certain pattern in the semantic variation of phraseological units, and also compares the semantically equivalent and non-equivalent structure of English and Kazakh phraseological units. The purpose of the article is to prove that in the valence of phraseological units the role of the transitive meaning, rather than the literal meaning, predominates, and the grammatical construction has valency.