Structure and classification of phraseological units

Adv+prep+A+N: once in a blue moon

Prep+N+or+N: by hook or by crook

Conj+clause: before one can say Jack Robinson

V.Set expressions functioning like prepositions:

Prep+N+prep: in consequence of

It should be noted that the type is often but not always characterized by the absence of the article e.g. by reason of – on the ground of.

VI.Set expressions functioning like interjections.

These are often structured as imperative sentences: Bless (one’s soul)! God bless me! Hang it (all)! Take your time!

There is one more type of combinations, also rigid and introduced into discource ready-made but different from all the types given above in so far as it is impossible to find its equivalent among the parts of speech. These are formulas used as complete utterances and syntactically shaped like sentences, such as the well-known American maxim Keep smiling! or British Keep Britain tidy.A.I. Smirnitsky was the first among Russian scholars who paid attention to sentences that can be treated as complete formulas, such as How do you do? Or I beg you pardon; It takes all kinds to make the world; Can the leopard change his spots? They differ from all the combinations so far discussed because they are not equivalent to words in distribution and are semantically analysable. The formulas discussed by N. N. Amosova are on the contrary semantically specific, e.g. save your breath ‘shut up’or tell it to the marines (one of the suggested origins is tell that to the horse marines; such a corps being non-existent, as marines are sea-going force, the last expression means ‘tell it to someone who does not exist because rel people will not believe it’) very often such formulas, formally identical to sentences, are in reality used only as insertions into other sentences: the cap fits ‘the statement is true’(e.g. “He called me a liar.”- “Well, you should know if the cup fits.”)Cf. also: Butter would not melt in his mouth; His bark is worse than his bite.

And one more point: free word combinations can never be polysemantic, while there are polysemantic phraseological units, e.g.

To be on the go 1. to be busy and active

2. to be leaving

3.to be tipsy

4.to be near one’s end

have done with 1. Make an end of

2. give up

3. reach the end of

Two types of synonymy are typical of phraseological units:

1.Synonymy of phraseological units that do not contain any synonymous words and are based on different images, e.g.

To leave no stone unturned = to move heaven and earth

To haul down colours=to ground arms

In free word combinations synonymy is based on the synonymy of particular words (an old man = elderly man).

2.Phraseological units have word synonyms: