L. Phraseology: general characteristic

So far we have discussed the ways of naming a concept by a borrowed word, by a secondary use of the actual word or by a newly derived word. But a concept may also be lexicalized by combinations of words arranged into phrases and sentences according to certain laws.

Traditionally syntax is concerned with studying laws governing the so-called free phrase and sentence structures (a nice girl; I love you). But lexicology examines special aspects of the ways the words combine into phrases. Its interest is based, first of all, on certain preferences and restrictions that words in every language undergo in their general ability to form grammatically and logically acceptable phrases.

For example, the phrase to drink tea is acceptable in English though it is preferable to combine the noun tea with the verb to have and to say to have tea. Or, there is mutual expectancy between the English verb to shrug and the noun shoulders, and this restriction is of great interest to lexicology and lexicography. The adjective blond 'light-coloured (usu. yellowish)', according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, is mostly collocated with the noun 'hair' like blond hair. Though another dictionary may point to a wider use of this adjective, its ability to apply to the word skin to denote 'of a pale white or rosy white colour', and even to some other words like in a table of blond walnut to denote 'made light-coloured by bleaching', the word blond still has severe restrictions on its application and a word combination such as *a blond sweater is hardly possible.

The restrictions and preferences of words in their combining activity are different in different languages. They should be learned and memorized, and thus many word combinations become complex units of the lexicon.

Besides preferences and restrictions, lexicology is interested in one more aspect of word combinations - their meaning. Some of the phrases and even sentences in a language, just as derived and compound words, may mean more than their constituents suggest. This additional meaning is a part of their systemic meaning rather than pragmatics, it does not derive from a new situation in which the words are used. Thus, Hobson's choice means 'no choice at all', in cold blood means 'deliberately, without passion', and an old bird is not to be caught with chaff stands for 'experienced people are not easily fooled or deceived'. The additional semantic component that can hardly be deduced from the meanings of constituent words is called idiomatic meaning. It turns word combinations and sentences into ready-made units that become a part of the lexicon. People should learn them specially in order to understand and use them correctly.

Regularly reproduced and having specific restrictions, structure and meaning, such word combinations should definitely be memorized, lexicalized and enter our lexicon. They should be the subject of lexicology alongside its other lexical units, like derivational affixes, lexemes and regularly used senses of lexemes.

These complex ready-made and often idiomatic units, for which there is no unanimously accepted term, are the objects of a special branch of lexicology - phraseology. Some scholars regard phraseology even as a special branch of linguistics due to its very specific object of investigation, implied complex methods of analysis and widespread research activity.

The scope of questions raised and discussed by phraseology is diverse. They range from classification of phraseological units to investigating their specific aspects including stylistic value, grammatical, semantic and etymological characteristics, pragmatics, contrastive analysis and problems of translation, their role in a language and their representation in the mind.

It should be underlined that the achievements of Soviet phraseology led by V.V. Vinogradov, A.V. Kunin, A.I. Smirnitsky, N.N. Amosova, A.S. Akhmanova and nowadays by V.N. Telia, N.L. Shadrin and others are widely recognized in the scientific world. "'Classical' Russian theory with its later extensions and modifications is probably the most pervasive influence at work in current phraseological studies and is unrivalled in its application to the design and compilation of dictionaries" /Cowie 1998:27.

Nowadays many linguists realize that phraseological units are not a peripheral phenomenon in lexicon bordering on syntax. Even if they are from some points of view, this type of word combinations makes up a large part of our language knowledge. They tell us a lot about the core of a language. (I.MePchuk has even claimed that "people do not speak in words, they speak in phrasemes" /MePchuk 1995:168A) Phraseological units are specific lexical units that are framed into syntax. They are also a place where phonetics, semantics, morphology, syntax and pragmatics meet. As a consequence, phraseology is turning into an important interdisciplinary research for scholars of different backgrounds.

Theoretical linguists are interested in knowing which principles relate phraseological units to syntactic configurations. Computational linguists work on processing systems that can easily recognize phraseological units in text. Psychologists are interested in production and comprehension of these conventionalized complex units and in speech errors that people make producing and processing them.

In this chapter we shall limit ourselves to traditional problems of phraseology, the choice of units for inclusion into phrasecon and their most well known classifications.

It is necessary to describe the features that both types of word groups have in common before we start discussing criteria used to differentiate between ready-made lexicalized word combinations, investigated by phraseology, and free non-lexicalized word groups, which remain the object of syntax. All words in all types of word groups have certain lexical and grammatical restrictions and a certain grammatical structure characteristic of a language.

2. Lexical and grammatical valence in word groups]

All words in a language form word groups and sentences if word combinations do not violate syntax. A child smiles is a regular word combination in English but *a smiles child would be an ill-formed phrase. Yet, the correct syntax is not enough for a word group to be correct and accepted.

The sentence invented by N. Chomsky Green ideas sleep furiously is perfect from the point of view of syntax but the words do not come together because in this sentence immediate phrases do not make sense.

Our general knowledge of the world installs certain selectional restrictions on word usage. Words make word groups in speech if their semantic structures are compatible, too. Thus, a question can be urgent, delicate, disputable or serious, but noi*laughing, *soft, or *blue, the adjective deep 'extending far from surface downward' comes together with a noun well 'a pit or hole sunk into the earth to reach a supply of water' as they both have a common semantic component of 'having measure from surface to bottom' but such sequences as *a deep building or *a deep tree sound odd.

Restrictions on sequences of words may also be determined by the language structure, by the individual meaning of a word and the language norms, as in the case with the adjective blond described above.

For stylistic purposes, however, in order to create special verbal effects, to communicate about some uncertain vaguely structured concepts and to cause unusual and rich associations of ideas, writers and poets often violate conventional selection restrictions on word usage like in the following poem by E.E.Cumming:

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