Phraseological units with component words denoting noble titles in the English language

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Phraseological units with component words denoting noble titles in the english language

Opryshko N.O., Bezkorovaina L.S., Kharkiv National Automobile and Highway University

The study of phraseological units is one of the most pressing issues in modern linguistics. Scientists of many countries are interested in their composition, internal form and motivation, functions in speech and national-cultural specifics. The article deals with the diverse and extensive corpus of English phraseological units with the component denoting noble titles of various kinds, including the title of baron, count, marquis, duke and members of the royal family (king / queen, prince), as well as phraseology with components “knight” (“lady”), similar in semantics and usage to aristocratic titles. The article is based on the classical understanding of phraseology as semantically connected combinations of words used in speech in the fixed, generally accepted form, and therefore it classifies such phraseological units according to the concept of Academician Vinogradov.

That is, starting from different degrees of ideomatics of components in the composition of a phraseological unit, phraseological merging, unity and combination are distinguished. The findings emphasize that the nature of the problem associated with the study of English phraseological units with components to denote titles, requires certain methods of linguistic analysis, especially the method of semantic analysis of phraseology. Therefore, a purely practical aspect of the study is the semantic classification of phraseological units with components to denote titles. The authors conclude that the most common in the phraseological system of the English language are units with components to denote members of the royal family. This is motivated culturally and historically, given the traditionally high respect for the monarchy in English society. But at the same time it is interesting that the palette of meanings of the units under consideration varies from solemnly sublime to parodic-sarcastic, from positively marked to those endowed with exclusively negative connotation. Such a phenomenon indicates the exceptional variability among the models of percepting the title and/or nobility concept in the English (British) language picture of the world.

Key words: phraseological unit, semantics, idiomaticity, phraseological fusion, phraseological unity, phraseological combination.

Фразеологізми англійської мови зі словами-компонентами на позначення титулів

Опришко Н.О., Безкоровайна Л.С.

Вивчення фразеологічних одиниць є однією з найбільш актуальних питань сучасного мовознавства. Їхній компонентний склад, внутрішня форма й умотивованість, функції у мовленні та національно-культурна специфіка цікавлять учених багатьох країн. У статті розглядається різноманітний і достатньо широкий корпус англійських фразеологізмів з компонентом, що позначає шляхетні титули різного роду, включаючи титул барона, графа, маркіза, герцога та членів королівської династії (король / королева, принц), а також фразеологізми із компонентами «лицар» («дама»), що подібні за семантикою і вживанням до аристократичних титулів. Послуговуючись класичним розумінням фразеологізмів як семантично пов'язаних сполучень слів, що вживаються у мовленні в закріпленій за ними загальноприйнятій формі, стаття класифікує такі фразеологічні одиниці за концепцією академіка Виноградова. Тобто, відштовхуючись від різного ступеню ідеоматичності компонентів у складі фразеологізму, виділяються фразеологічні зрощення, єдності та сполучення.

У ході виконання дослідження було виявлено, що характер проблеми, яка пов'язана з вивченням англійських фразеологічних одиниць із компонентами на позначення титулів, вимагає певних методів лінгвістичного аналізу, насамперед методу семантичного аналізу фразеологізмів. Відтак суто практичним аспектом дослідження є семантична класифікація фразеологізмів із компонентами на позначення титулів. Автори доходять висновку, що найбільш поширеним у фразеологічній системі англійської мови є одиниці із компонентами на позначення членів королівської родини. Це вмотивовано культурно та історично, з огляду на традиційно високу повагу до монархії в англійському суспільстві. Але водночас цікавим є і той факт, що палітра значень досліджуваних і аналізованих одиниць варіює від урочисто-піднесених до пародійно-саркастичних, від позитивно маркованих до тих, що наділені винятково негативною конотацією. Це говорить про виняткову варіативність моделей сприйняття поняття титулу в англійській (британській) мовній картині світу.

Ключові слова: фразеологічна одиниця, семантика, ідиоматичність, фразеологічне зрощення, фразеологічна єдність, фразеологічне сполучення.

Introduction (Постановка проблеми)

The phraseological system of any language is an extremely interesting and diverse field to study. Components of phraseological units, as a rule, have rich semantics cabable to illustrate the particular ethnic group's picture of the world. The English language is no exception, but the corpus of its phraseologisms is so large that in the course of the study it was advisable to single out only one layer of English phraseologisms.

To tackle the problem, we focused our attention on systematic description and division of phraseological units with components denoting noble and royal titles developing the ideas for their comparison and analisis according to the specifics of their semantics and structure. The choice of topic is based on the need for a systematic study of phraseology in English as a vocabulary material used in everyday life which allows stylistical marking of the language we speak with a certain colouring. To confirm this assumption, we studied the features of phraseologisms with the components for the title designation, taking into account that this layer of English vocabulary has a large number of units, but at the same time it does not belong to widely studied aspects of English phraseology and does not present us a veriety of materials available for comparison, classification, analysis, etc exept for the phraseological units themselves. That is why a thorough interpretation of the semantics of phraseologisms with components denoting titles makes it possible to determine the appropriateness of using certain phraseologicsl units in communicative and pragmatic terms.

Background analysis (Аналіз останніх досліджень і публікацій)

Analysis of recent theoretical works addressing the problem under consideration indicates that the study of phraseological units in the modern English language is not sufficiently developed. At the same time, this part of vocabulary is thoroughly analized and multifaceted in terms of determining the criteria for their selection in the theoretical perspective. The modern tendencies of phraseology development, their boundaries, features, differences, ways of use in stylistics, types of translation, typology of word formation are revealed and clarified. Specifically, this research has been done by a number of scholars, including S. Coffey, Y. Lebedenko, O. Nagornaya, O. Nazarenko, A. Naydy, N. Norrika, I. Skripnik, I. Timchenko, V. Uzhchenko and D. Uzhchenko, N. Shcherbakova, I. Halperin, N. Amosov, O. Smirnitsky, V. Vinogradov, O. Kunin, K. Ryashentsev, N. Klimenko, V. Teliya, L. Pastushenko, L. Smith, T Pavlenko and others. According to them, the subject of phraseology as a section of linguistics is the study of the categorical features of phraseologisms, on the basis of which the main features of phraseology are distinguished and the question of the essence of phraseologisms as specific units of language is determined, as well as patterns of functioning of phraseologisms in language and the processes of their formation. However, even with a single subject of research and in spite of numerous detailed analysis done on many issues of phraseology, there are different perspectives on what phraseological unit exactly is, not to mention the number of phraseological units that should be considered accurate.

In Ukrainian and world linguistics, there are different definitions of phraseology. According to V. Yartseva, a phraseological unit is the common name of semantically related combinations of words and sentences, which, unlike similar forms of semantic structures, are not reproduced in accordance with the general patterns of choice and combination of words in the organization of utterances, but are reproduced in speech in a fixed ratio of semantic structure and a certain lexical-semantic composition [4, р. 130], [7]. Y. Karaulov's definition states that phra- seologism (phraseological unit) is the common name of semantically related word combinations, which are not formed in speech, but function in it assigned to them a stable ratio of content and a certain vocabulary [3, p. 605]. According to another definition given by P. Lecant, a phraseological unit is a complex interdisciplinary unit, in the form and meaning of which units of different levels interact [6, p. 61]. I. Halperin gives the following definition of phraseological units: “in each language there are compounds of words in which the meaning of the whole dominates over the meaning of the constituent parts or the meaning of the whole unity is not accurate, and sometimes not at all deduced from the sum of the constituent parts of that combination. Such combinations are called phraseological units. One of the most characteristic features of phraseological combinations is their stability of arranging the constituent parts of compounds and the semantic unity of the whole combination. This combination is the property of the language and is included in the lexical inventory of the language. They are used in the language as ready-made units of language and reproduced in that language”. [2, p. 23]. So, scientists look at phraseological unit from different perspectives, analyzing their semantic connectedness, lexico-semantic structure, use, or stressing their interdisciplinarity.

Objectives (Постановка завдання)

To form a better view on the issue, we singled out the specific task of the current work - to explore peculiarities of using phraseological units with components denoting titles in modern English. Thus, the current paper presents 80 phraseological units with components for title designation [8], [9] and develops their analysis in terms of structure and semantics. To achieve this aim, a number of problems should be solved, i.e.

1) providing a general description of chosen phraseological units, defining their essence and characteristic features;

2) analysing phraseological units with components denoting titles, determining the place and role of each component in the structure of a phraseological unit.

The research is conducted with the help of phraseological and interpretative monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. The paper offers interpretation of 80 phraseological units (both sayings and idioms) which include a name of the noble/aristocratic/royal title. In fact, they constitute a considerable part in the phraseological system of any language since the words that denote titles belong to the oldest groups of vocabulary while it is known that the longer a word exists, the wider its semantic structure is.

The Body (Виклад основного матеріалу)

When considering phraseologisms with components denoting titles, we applied the classification of Academician V. Vinogradov who identified three types of phraseologisms: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological combinations, based on the varying degree of idiomatic (non-motivation) components in the phraseology. Thus, phraseological fusions are persistent combinations whose generalized meaning is not deduced from the meaning of their constituent components. In other words, it is not motivated by them in terms of the current vocabulary. Etymological analysis helps to clarify the motivation of the semantics of modern phraseological fusions. However, their roots sometimes go so far back that linguists do not come to a clear conclusion about their origin. Phraseological unities, on the other hand, are stable combinations whose generalized and holistic meaning is partly related to the semantics of their constituent components used in figurative meaning. While phraseological combinations are persistent inversions whose meanings are motivated by the semantics of their constituent components, one of which has a phraseologically related meaning [1].

Among the chosen sample of phraseological units, all three types were found, respectively.

The group of phraseological fusions with the components denoting titles includes the following items: “Queen Elizabeth is dead!” (something which is already common knowledge); “Duke of Seven Dials” (a nickname given to working people in London's working districts for trying to dress and act like an aristocrat).

Among the phraseological unities with the components denoting titles we can find such items as: “kings have long arms” (literally, it is difficult to hide from a king / authorities); “Kings go mad and the people suffer for it”; “to play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules'” (to act ethically, according to the rules, which literally comes from the name of Marquis Queensbury, who contributed to the publication of a compendium of basic rules of professional boxing in England).

Phraseological combinations with the words naming the titles include: “knight of the elbow” (a pick-pocketer); “knight of the carpet”, (a knight who got his title not in war, but in the palace bowing his knee on the carpet, basically, a soldier who avoided fighting in battles, sitting in the rear) ; “knight of the pen” (writer, journalist); “knight of the knife” (a thief).

The findings in studying the semantic features of phraseological units, which contain components denoting titles, provide rather promising and somehow unexpected results. The practical part of this paper presents a uniquely wide range of meanings - from solemnly exalted to parody-sarcastic, from absolutely positive in content to those endowed with a vivid negative connotation.

First of all, it should be noted that the phraseological units we are describing can be divided into several semantic groups, using the most logical and, at the same time, the simplest system of classification: taking into account the commonality of word / words to denote titles used in a phraseological unit. Thus, one of the largest groups is the items with the common component “members of the royal family” (king / queen / prince). Out of the eighty phrases of different types (fusions, unities and combitations, according to Vinogradov's classification), investigated in the work, more than a quarter (around thirty units) belong here.

These include a group of meanings that links phraseology to the king or queen (given different gender of various British monarchs who gained popularity and made a significant contribution to the development and prosperity of British culture). Here are phraseological units related to the monarch and / or the state on a number of grounds:

- By relevance (just as the monarch is the first person of the state, the phraseologisms of this subgroup characterize a certain person or object as a standard). These include such units as “King's English” (accurate, standard English), “King's speech” (a speech given by the Throne), “King's weather” (sunny weather), “cash is king” (cash is the safest way to keep money), “the uncrowned king / queen of something” (the one you consider to be the best representative in their occupation), “king of the terrors” (death as a perfect, the most terrifying terror), “live like a king” (to have an extravagant and luxirous lifestyle) and more.

- By the source of information or order and / or type of activity (what comes from the monarch is aimed either at improving and strengthening the state or the well-being of its inhabitants). Examples include “the King's Bench” (a court bench for civil cases), “King's (Queen's) bounty” (a one-time financial help for a mother who gave birth to a set of triplets), “King's (Queen's) proctor” (a divorce officer, since in the past only the monarch used to have the right to give permission for the divorce of their subjects) etc.

- By similarity (metaphorical transference of meaning) with a monarch / a member of a royal family/ Here a number of different, positively or negatively connotated phraseological units can be distinguished: for example, “king's (royal) evil” (colloquial name for scrofula - a metaphorical transference by color, because both golden color and gold as a material are strongly associated with royal ornaments, treasures, and royal power in general); "king's man" (literally - a servant of the king, basically a supporter of the Crown - the one who performs his functions for the sake of the king and kingdom); “king's pipe” (literally - the furnace in which garbage is burnt, metaphorically - the monarch who is personally responsible for the destruction of internal and external enemies of the state). In both cases, mentioned above, the metaphorical value transfer occurs by similarity of features, but given the fact that in the second unit the component “king's” is followed by an unanimated object, this example presents a wider metaphoric sence. Yet, the same subgroup also includes such idioms as “king's game” (the game in the royal reserves - a metaphorical transference to the scene, e.i. a place for royal hunting), “When Queen Ann was alive (literally - when Queen Anne was still alive, in fact, very long ago - a metaphorical transference based on the time of action).

- By contiguity (metonymic transference of meaning) with the royal family such phraseological units are grouped as “King's (Queen's) head” (a postal stamp showing the portrait of the current monarch); “Kings have long arms” (it is difficult to hide from royal justice) and the like.

- Phraseological units denoting personality flaws and virtues: “King's evidence” (a criminal who reveals his accomplices in court), “King Stork” (a tyrant), “(as) cocky as the king of spades” (too arrogant), “ice queen” (the Snow Queen, unemotional, cold woman), “Prince Charming” (a potential perfect boyfriend or husband) etc. Interestingly enough, there are few idioms with the prince component and no units with the princess component at all.

Almost the same in number is a group of phraseological units with the component knight / dame: altogether twenty-seven idioms of different nature and structure. Since historically, these words, although not belonging to aristocratic titles, denote exactly the type of activity and / or lifestyle of a person, today in the corpus of English phraseology idioms with them are used mainly to refer to the type of activity and are clearly divided into positively marked (“knight of grammar” for a teacher; “knight of pen” for a writer; “knight of brush” for an artist - all denoting people who have succeeded in their profession), negatively labeled (“knight offortune” for an adventurer who likes easy money; “knight of elbow” for a person who cheats in a game of cards; “knight of wager” for a mercenary ready for anything - all exceptionally negative characteristics) and neutral (“Knight of County” for a Member of Parliament representing the county - which is a specific occupation that lacks metaphorical or aphoristic component in the meaning).

On the other hand, a number of idioms with the component "knight" are endowed with a specific satiric-sarcastic colouring. Some are used as a joke or sarcastic comments (“knight of the forked order” for a man whose wife cheated on him; “knight of cleaver” for a butcher; “knight of collar” for a hangman; “knight of cue” for a billiard player); others are used to jokingly ennoble cetain unprestigious, dirty or unprofitable occupations (“knight offield” for a tramp; “knight of whip” for a coachman; “knight of whipping-post” for a thief who deserves / gets a whip at the pole).

Though rare but important, phraseological units associated with certain folklore and literary works present the next group of idioms, including “Knight of Rueful Countenance” (from M. Cervantes de Saavedra's `The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'), “Knight of the Round Table” (characters of folk and literature works related to the corpus of legends about King Arthur and Camelot). Such idioms, as a rule, retain their original meaning in connection with their primary source, but are used with a certain metaphorical colouring.

The least numerousof the units with components for title designation is a group of idioms with components duke, baron, etc., which denote more or less significant aristocratic titles. Basically these are formed as a result of some specific historical events, like “to dine with the Duke of Humphrey” (in fact, means being left without a dinner) - an idiom, related to the story of a man who was accidentally locked in the abbey during a visit to the Duke of Humphrey's tomb in Gloucester, and thus missed his dinner, or historical realities (“robber baron” - the saying that nowadays is used to refer to businessmen who gained wealth by illegal means, earlier used to designate any businessmen who received big money without being aristocrats, and thus despised and ridiculed, while in the Middle Ages, this was the name of highwaymen who attacked travelers on the roads and robbed of their belonings).

The method of phraseological analysis, which makes it possible to fully investigate the phraseological fund of the English language, despite all its versatility, was developed by the famous linguist O. Cunin. He distinguishes two varieties of it: phraseological identification and phraseological description. The method of phraseological identification helps to determine the phraseology of a particular phrase and helps to identify its relevance to idiomatisms, idiophrase- matisms or other significant groups. The main indicators of any phraseological unit are stability, separated spelling and impossibility of constructing a variable combination of words according to the model that forms it. Idioms are partially or completely reconsidered language units. The semantic stability of these units is established by imposing a phraseological value on the literal meaning of its components, for example: “fit for a king” (so distinctive, luxurious or exemplary that it is worthy of someone of the highest standards, such as a king); “A cat can look at a king” (everyone has rights, regardless of status, no one is so important that the average person cannot look at him or her). When considering the definition, it becomes apparent that none of the words contained in the structure of an idiomatic collocation are present in semantics, which indicates a final meaning of the whole idiom. A partial change of meaning can be exemplified by “(as) cocky as the king of spades” (thoughtful or prideful), where a word with the literal meaning “cocky” is included in both the word composition of the idiom and its metaphorical meaning.

Linguocultural analysis is used to determine the cultural features of the semantics in some phraseological units with the components to denote titles, which represents the development of mentality for the whole community of the English native speakers. After all, the phraseological system of the language is a “mirror in which the linguocultural community presents its national identity” [5, p. 118]. Therefore, it is often due to the phraseology of the language that foreigners get to understand customs, moral norms, traditions of the people. An appropriate example here is the idiom “King's man”: it is 1) an American Historicism with the meaning “supporter of the British” (during the period of the war for independence); 2) a King's servant (as it was already mentioned above) which also has got a historical basis (compare: “Now, the king's man himself, and can give you authority enough” (Th. Hardy)). Some idioms have literature origins, such as “King's (or Queen's) English” for literature English (a Shakespearean expression from the play `Merry Wives of Windsor': “Don't you know the King's English?” (L. Lindsay) and the like.

The Conclusion (Висновки)

To conclude, we can safely say that phraseology represents one of the most significant yet the most intriguing categories of vocabulaty. This paper summarizes our results for analyzing 80 English idioms with components denoting noble titles. Semantic groups, these items have been classified by, contain idioms connected with each other by relevance (phraseological units of a given subgroup characterize a person or an object as a reference), by source of information (order or activity), by similarity (metaphorical transferance), by contiguity (metonymic transferance).

And at the same time studying phraseological units under consideration requires certain methods of linguistic analysis. Thus, applying the method of semantic analysis, we categorized all 80 units according to semantic classification, which makes it possible to study and describe different types of phraseological values based on semantic and structural indicators. Simultaniously, the linguocultural analysis and method of phraseological analysis have been applied to determine the semantic characteristics of phraseological units with components denoting titles, their general characterization is created and typical features of their semantics are defined. Yet the analysis proposed is definitely not the only possible way to understand and interprete this particular group of idioms. This issue still remains, allowing to continue the research, further exploring new ranges of idiomatic meanings in the English phraseology.

phraseological unit english semantic title

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