Typology of Phraseological Units in English

Typology of phraseological building blocks in English digression in terminology (set-phrases, idioms and word-equivalents 1) reflects original differences in the main criteria used to tick types of phraseological units and free word-groups. The term set phrase implies that the basic criterion of speciality is stability of the lexical components and grammatical bodily anatomical structure of word-groups. There is a certain divergence of opinion as to the innate features of phraseological units as distinguished from opposite word-groups and the nature of phrases that can be properly termed phraseological units.The habitual price set-phrases, idioms, word-equivalents ar sometimes treated differently by different linguists. However these terms reflect to certain extend the main debatable points of phraseology which pore in the divergent views concerning the nature and essential features of phraseological units as distinguished from the questionable free word-groups 2, p. 10 0. The term set expression implies that the basic criterion of specialism is stability of the lexical components and grammatical structure of word-groups.The term word-equivalent stresses not just semantic but overly go awayal inseparability of certain word-groups, their aptness to function in speech as single words. The term idioms generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticality or lack of motivation. Uriel Weinreich expresses his view that an idiom is a complex phrase, the meaning of which cannot be derived from the meanings of its elements. He highly-developed a more truthful supposition, claiming that an idiom is a subset of a phraseological unit.Ray Jackendoff and Charles Fillmore offered a fairly broad definition of the idiom, which, in Fillmores words, reads as follows an idiomatic expression or construction is something a language user could emit to know while knowing everything else in the language. Chafe also lists four features of idioms that make them anomalies in the traditional language unit effigy non-compositionality, transformational defectiveness, ungrammaticality and frequency asymmetry 6, p. 1-3.The term idiom, both in this landed estate and abroad, is most(prenominal)ly applied to phraseological units with wholly transferred meanings, that is, to the ones in which the meaning of the whole unit does not correspond to the current meanings of the components. According to the type of meaning phraseological units may be classified into Idioms Semi-idioms Phraseomatic units (after Ryzhkova). Idioms ar phraseological units with a transferred meaning. They can be completely or partially transferred (red tape 3, p. 740). Semi-idioms are phraseological units with two phraseosemantic meanings terminological and transferred (chain response 3, p. 10, to lay down the arms 3, p. 33). Phraseomatic units are not transferred at all. Their meanings are literal. Other types of phraseologic al units are also distinguished Phrases with a unique confederacy of components (born companion 3, p. 138) Phrases with a descriptive meaning Phrases with phraseomatic and bound meaning (to conciliate attention to 3, p. 40) Set expressions (cliches) (the beginning of the end 3, p. 59) Preposition-noun phrases (for good 3, p. 311, at least(prenominal) 3, p. 414) Terminological expressions (general ticket 3, p. 755, civil war 3, p. 121) (after Ryzhkova).Semantic complexity is one of the most essential qualities of phraseological units. Its resulted from the complicated interaction of the component meanings (meaning of prototype, of semantic structure etc. ). All these components are create into a multilevel structure 4. Idioms contain all information in compressed form. This quality is typical of idioms, it makes them very capacious units (idiom is a compressed text). An idiom can render such a bright explanation of an object that can be better than a sentence. We can compare id ioms with fables (the Prodigal son 3, p. 571).Idioms found on cultural components are not motivated (the good Samaritan 5, dish outs wife 5, the Troy horse 5). Phraseological meaning contains background information. It covers just the most essential features of the object it nominates. It corresponds to the basic concept, to semantic nucleus of the unit. It is the invariant of information giveed by semantically complicated word combinations and which is not derived from the lexical meanings of the conjoined lexical components 4. According to the class the word-combination belongs to, we single out idiomatic meaning idiophraseomatic meaning phraseomatic meaning (after Ryzhkova). The information conveyed by phraseological units is thoroughly organized and is very complicated. It is characterized by 1) multilevel structure 2) structure of a theater (nucleus + periphery) 3) block-schema (after Ryzhkova). It contains 3 macro-components which correspond to a certain type of informat ion they convey the grammatical block the phraseological meaning proper motivational macro-component (phraseological imagery the interior(a) form of the phraseological unit motivation) (after Ryzhkova).Phraseological unit is a non-motivated word-group that cannot be freely do up in speech but is reproduced as a localise made unit. Reproducibility is regular use of phraseological units in speech as single unchangeable collocations. Idiomaticity is the quality of phraseological unit, when the meaning of the whole is not deducible from the sum of the meanings of the parts. Stability of a phraseological unit implies that it exists as a ready-made linguistic unit which does not allow of any variability of its lexical components of grammatical structure.