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Introduction
The active development of modern comparative linguistics made it possible to conduct a thorough and detailed study of phraseological units (PhU) of various languages, with special attention paid to the study of anthropological phenomena - national languages as a form of life of an ethnos and life itself, as well as consideration of the methodological basis of the anthropocentric paradigm in the study of sign communications systems. “The anthropocentric paradigm suggests switching the interests of the researcher from the objects of cognition to the subject, that is, to aspects of the analysis of a person in language and language in a person” (Potselueva, 2012, p. 108). In addition, one of the advanced research directions of this kind is the identification of PhU designating emotions, i.e. feelings of a person. “Emotive meanings here are explicit, more stable, fixed, and represent direct signs of emotions” (Oripova, 2015, p. 113). At the level of the anthropocentric paradigm, phraseological units with a zoonym component represent an inexhaustible source for research in this context. In comparative phraseology, the zoonym series of phraseological units has a great historical and cultural potential, since it contains a clearly expressed emotional and expressive evaluation of the phenomena of reality by the native speakers in the context of a particular era. The material for our study of phraseological units with a zoonym component are lexicographic data obtained on the basis of the method of extraction from phraseological dictionaries of English, French and Russian.
Development
The concept of “phraseological unit” (PhU) in this paper is treated as a verbal complex of various structural types, characterized by relative stability and resulting from a complete or partial change of meaning. At the same time, full or partial change of meaning of the component composition, structural separability, stability of the lexical composition and reproducibility in a finished form are recognized as the main criteria that determine a linguistic unit as phraseological one (Lineva, et al., 2017).
We find an analogous understanding in the linguistic encyclopedic dictionary, where phraseological units are considered as semantically related combinations of words and sentences reproduced in a fixed proportion of the semantic structure and the corresponding lexical and grammatical composition. In line with the broad interpretation of the concept of phraseological units, the proverbs and sayings formed in folklore, winged words and expressions (aphorisms) belonging to a particular author or literary source are also referred to PhU.
We proceed from the fact that in the usage, when describing various life situations (from purely common to socially significant), in which a person often finds himself, the most frequent is the zoonym fund of phraseological units of the English, French and Russian languages, which acts in this case as one from the basic cultural codes. Out of a fairly diverse range of existing codes of “animal names”, such as faunisms, animalisms, zoomorphisms, zoosemisms, we fixed upon the concept of “zoonym”, which was due to its complex content, including the appearance of “zoosemism”, the actual name of the animal according to its belonging to a certain class of mammal, amphibian, insect, etc. and “zoomorphism”, its figurative, metaphorical meaning, directly projected onto a person with an explicit emotive constituent.
Consequently, the concept of phraseological units with a zoonym component rightfully acquires an independent status and, in our opinion, is interpreted in a broad and narrow sense in view of the specifics of the concept of a zoonym itself. Representatives of a broad approach to this concept also study phraseological units that comprise the names of body parts of an animal or objects indirectly related to animals (for example, a saddle, a stable, etc.). In lexicographic practice, PhU with similar elements are not always included in the dictionary. In this case, a narrow understanding of the term of a zoonym is involved.
Accordingly, the coherent figurative meaning, reproducibility, imagery and expressiveness as the main features of phraseological units are fully inherent in phraseological units with a zoonym component. These category features determine the attribution of units of different levels to phraseological units and determine the presence of two phraseological concepts in linguistics. According to the first, the subject of phraseology is outlined by the level of nominative units, interpreted as set combinations, semantically transformed word combinations, correlated with the word. According to another concept, the boundaries of phraseology are significantly expanded due to semantically transformed set expressions at the sentence level. In this case, phraseology, besides nominative ones, is also formed of communicative units: proverbs, winged expressions, etc. The term of phraseological units embraces phraseological units or idioms proper, i.e. structurally separable units of a language with a fully or partially changed meaning, as well as idiophraseomatisms with a figurative meaning and a limited number of phraseological units with a phraseomatically related meaning (Ayupova, et al., 2020). In other words, “everything that is expressed allegorically, in a roundabout way, hintingly, via comparisons with figurative words that are appropriate in meaning, or even by means of whole expressions, aphorisms in the form of separate phrases, proverbial expressions, sayings, proverbs and well-known quotations, becomes an integral part of phraseology”. (Mizhaeva, 2003, p. 10)
The structure of a simple or complex sentence is often possessed by sayings and proverbs, which are the object of the study of paroemiology dealing with various proverbs, sayings, riddles, superstitious beliefs, etc. from a linguistic viewpoint. In this case, the fundamental question is whether paroemias are language units, that is, whether it is possible to classify paroemias as phraseological units. Persuasive is the perspective by famous researcher of structural paroemiology Permyakov (1988), according to which proverbs refer to linguistic signs that formally meet all the requirements for such relatively fixed complexes as phraseological units (a certain degree of idiomaticity, reproducibility in speech in a finished form, relative fixedness of the component composition).
Note that the typical structural models of the sayings of the analyzed languages correspond to any general typical situation describing a certain state of affairs in the world around the native speakers. We will demonstrate this with the following examples. So, the construction “NImperV + N + V” in English that simulates the proverbs such as Don’t teach fish to swim, Don’t teach the dog to bark, Don’t teach the cock to crow, Don’t teach a hen to cluck, Don’t teach a serpent to hiss with Russian analogues “Не учи щуку плавать”, “Не учи собаку лаять” corresponds to the general typical situation - “It is no good teaching a person who knows their business.” And the situation “Everyone should mind their work and not poke their nose into other people’s affairs” is represented by English and Russian sayings which have the same type of construction. In English this is “ImperV+Adj+N+V+(Pron/Prep)+Pron+(Adj)+N”: Let every man skin his own eel; Let every pig dig for himself; Let every fox take care of his own brush; Let every herring hang by its own gill/tail (sheep hang by its own shank); Let every tailor stick to his goose; Let every sheep hang by its own shank. In Russian the construction of the proverbs “ImperV+N+Adj+N”: Знай сверчок свой шесток, Знай кошка свое лукошко, Знай ворона свое гнездо, Знай ворона свое кра. In total, we have identified 14 typical situations of a social and moral-instructive nature, represented by the same type of proverbs and sayings with the names of animals based on the studied material of English, French and Russian (Whiting, 1977; Rey, et al., 1997; Walter, 2001).
Considered all, the structural and grammatical approach to the analysis of zoonym phraseology based on structural and semantic classification of PhU with consideration of functional feature allows for the identification of the six structural types, which are verbal, substantival, adjectival, adverbial, interjectional, communicative PhUs. Among the most numerous group of phraseological units with a zoonym component - verbal phraseological units - in the compared languages the six structural models of the same type have been identified: “V+N”, “V+Prep+N”, “V+N+Prep+N”, “V+Adj+N”, “V+Comp+N”, “V+Comp+N+Prep+N”. The verbs “работать” (work), “есть” (eat), “петь” (sing), “спать” (sleep) (for PhU of the three languages), “жить” (live), “извиваться/скользить” (twist/slide) (for French and Russian PhU), the verbs “play/act”, “have”, “be”, “go”, “get”, “ride”, “see”, “put/set” (for English PhU), the verbs “faire”, “avoir”, “prendre”, “plumer”, “être”, “aller”, “avaler” (for French PhU), the verbs of visual perception “смотреть”, “глядеть”, “уставиться” (for Russian PhU) function as a supportive component in comparative constructions which explicitly represent an anthropological layer of zoonym phraseology. Only a relatively small part of the phraseological units of the English, French and Russian languages is marked by a mismatch in the structural organization and is represented, as a rule, by specific patterns of individual formations that do not differ in productivity or frequency of usage.
In connection with the multifaceted approach to determining the status and scope of the concept of PhU, the relatives with a zoonym component which perform the function of interjections at the level of the communicative act and have a clearly expressed colloquial and expressive stylistic coloring are of our main interest. This is what makes relatives much in common with paroemias, the origin of which is directly connected with oral folk art.
Interjectional PhU with a zoonym component represent a group of the most emotionally colored units, among which patterns of the same type have not been revealed. Relatives, being a direct reaction to the words of the interlocutor or the speech situation in general, are distinguished by a high degree of emotiveness. As noted previously, in the process of communication they perform the function of interjections. At the level of phraseological turns of speech, interjectional phraseological units (hereinafter IPhU) have semantic and syntactic properties of interjections. It is interesting that in “Russian Grammar-80” interjections do not belong to the service or significant parts of speech, but are considered as a special lexical and grammatical class of words. We believe that this expresses the main property (morphological and syntactic) of these units that have a certain lexical meaning and express certain concepts, but without their nominative function and the role of the members of the sentence. As for the syntactic role of interjections, in the structure of sentences they function not as its members, but as independent and isolated units.
According to some scholars, IPhU, depending on the purpose of use, implement the communicative functions of expressing attitude to the situation, evaluation, emotional state and catharsis, when interjectional phrases are used as a means of mental relaxation, a means of getting rid of negative emotional experiences. Alefirenko & Semenenko (2009). distinguish four semantic types of IPhU of the Russian language: emotional-evaluative, imperative-expressive, epistemic and formulas of social etiquette. Nazaryan (1987), defines two main groups of IPhU. The first includes phraseological units that express various feelings, such as, for example, approval, disapproval, surprise, annoyance, contempt, joy, request, oath, fear, despair. The second comprehends phraseological units that have hortative meaning in the form of encouragement, challenge with a threat, motivation, wishes, call for moderation, for silence, warning.
In the analyzed languages, most of the IPhU are distinguished by an emotional-evaluative meaning with a salient subjective component that conveys human feelings and emotions in all their diversity. At the level of coherent speech, i.e. syntactically, the IPhU are not the members of the sentence and act as independent and isolated speech units, separated in writing by punctuation marks. Let us compare: A l'ours “долой! вон! прочь!”, A la chouette! “здорово!”, От верблюда!, Ко всем псам! Едят тебя мухи! Опять за рыбу деньги! Пошли они к козе на именины! Ежкин кот! На кой пес! Пес его знает! Пес меня возьми! Пес с ним! Комар/комары тебя/его, etc. забодай/затопчи! Ну тебя/его к свиньям!
The formal indicator of the differentiation between IPhU and communicative PhU that have a sentence structure is the possibility of including communicative phraseological units in the sentence system as its constituent part, while this possibility is usually excluded for interjectional phraseological units. Proverbs being one of the most numerous and rich in semantic and structural varieties of a number of phraseological units traditionally refer to communicative phraseological units and can act as an independent sentence or a part of a complex sentence. We think that consideration of these criteria allows us to include phraseological units that combine the properties of interjections and some other parts of speech and, as a result, have a blurred categorical boundaries into a separate group. This group is formed, for example, the IPhU such as in a pig’s ass/eye/ear! “≈дудки! черта с два!; никогда!” (the phrase expressing distrust), свинья свиньей, идет коза рогатая, думает <только> индейский петух (да генералы), это и кошку рассмешит.
As for the structural and grammatical features of the IPhU of the French language, the latter are represented mainly by two-part sentences starting with a presentative “с’est” in an affirmative form or “ce n’est/c’est pas” - in a negative form: ce n'est/c'est pas cochon <du tout> “это недурно, это подойдет, это что надо, хоть куда”, c'est boeuf ! “это здорово!; швейц. это глупо!”, c’est (ce sera) le chien pour “черта с два”, c'est le chat! (an ironical answer to an attempt to prove one’s innocence), c'est la vache! “вот не везёт, это свинство”, с'est du chouette “вот это здорово! прелесть!”.
Conclusions
Thus, IPhU, depending on the context, expressing the entire spectrum of emotions and feelings - from utterly positive to highly negative - have an invariant emotional-evaluative meaning of interjections. Moreover, turns with a negative emotive meaning in the analyzed IPhU with a zoonym component are represented by a large number of units in the compared languages, which largely indicates the generic character of their semantics. As for the structural and grammatical features of these IPhU, the formal indicator of differentiation between IPhU and communicative PhU that have a sentence structure is the inclusion of communicative phraseological units in the sentence system as its component part, while interjectional phraseological units have the status of independent isolated units. Taking into account these criteria of concrete linguistic studies, the corpus of IPhU with a zoonym component has been singled out, which makes it possible to refer the phraseological units that combine the properties of interjections and other parts of speech to a separate group. We believe that the existence of such units indicate to the semantic and structural-grammatical characteristics of the language as a polyfunctional system, the various aspects of which are interconnected and interdependent.
