Classification of Phraseological Units Based on the Structural

Principle

It is obvious that Academician V. V. Vinogradov’s

classification system does not take into account the structural
characteristics of phraseological units. One and the same phraseological
unit may appear motivated to one person (and therefore be labelled as a
unity) and demotivated to another (and be regarded as a fusion). The
more profound one’s command of the language and one’s knowledge of
its history are the fewer fusions one is likely to discover in it.

Prof. A. I. Smirnitskiy worked out structural classification of

phraseological units, comparing them with words. He points out one-
top units which he compares with derived words because derived words
have only one root morpheme. He points out two-top units which he
compares with compound words because in compound words we
usually have two root morphemes. Among one-top units he points out
three structural types:

a) units of the type to give up (verb + postposition type), e. g. to

art up, to back up, to drop out, to nose out, to buy into, etc.;

b) units of the type to be tired. Some of these units remind the

Passive Voice in their structure but they have different prepositions
with them, while in the Passive Voice we can have only prepositions
“by” or “with”, e. g. to be tired of, to be interested in, to be surprised at,
etc.;

c) prepositional-nominal phraseological units. These units are

equivalents of unchangeable words: prepositions, conjunctions,
adverbs, that is why they have no grammar centre, their semantic centre
is the nominal part, e. g. on the doorstep (quite near), on the nose
(exactly), in the course of, on the stroke of, in time, on the point of, etc.
In the course of time such units can become words, e. g. tomorrow,
instead, etc.

Among two-top units A. I. Smirnitskiy points out the following

structural types:

a) attributive-nominal such as: a month of Sundays, grey matter,

a millstone round one’s neck and many others. Units of this type are
noun equivalents and can be partly or perfectly idiomatic. In partly
idiomatic units (phrasisms) sometimes the first component is idiomatic,
e. g. high road, in other cases the second component is idiomatic, e. g.
first night. In many cases both components are idiomatic, e. g. red tape,
blind alley, bed of nail, etc.

b) verb-nominal phraseological units, e. g. to read between the

lines, to speak BBC, to sweep under the carpet, etc. The grammar centre
of such units is the verb, the semantic centre in many cases is the
nominal component, e. g. to fall in love. In some units the verb is both
the grammar and the semantic centre, e. g. not to know the ropes. These
units can be perfectly idiomatic as well, e. g. to burn one’s boats, to
vote with one’s feet, to take to the cleaners’, etc.;

c) phraseological repetitions, such as: now or never, part and

parcel, etc. Such units can be built on antonyms, e. g. ups and downs,
back and forth; often they are formed by means of alliteration, e. g.
cakes and ale, as busy as a bee. They can also be partly or perfectly
idiomatic, e. g. cool as a cucumber (partly), bread and butter (perfectly).

Phraseological units the same as compound words can have

more than two tops (stems in compound words), e. g. to take a back
seat, a peg to hang a thing on, lock, stock and barrel, to be a shaddow of
one’s own self, at one’s own sweet will.
 Syntactical Classification of Phraseological Units

Phraseological units can be clasified as parts of speech. This

classification was suggested by I. V. Arnold. In the traditional structural
approach, the following principal groups of phraseological units are
distinguishable .

1) Verbal denoting an action, a state, a feeling: to run for one's

(dear) life, to get (win) the upper hand, to talk through one's hat, to
make a song and dance about something, to sit pretty (Amer. sl.), to be
on the beam;

2) Substantive denoting an object, a person, a living being: dog's

life, cat-and-dog life, calf love, white lie, tall order, birds of a feather,
birds of passage, red tape, brown study, Green Berets;\

3) Adjectival denoting a quality: high and mighty, spick and

span, brand new, safe and sound, (as) cool as a cucumber, (as) nervous
as a cat, (as) weak as a kitten, (as) good as gold (usu. spoken about
children), (as) pretty as a picture, as large as life, (as) drunk as an owl
(sl.), (as) mad as a hatter/a hare in March;

4) Adverbial: in cold blood; to the bitter end; by a long chalk;

like a dog with two tails; like a dream; with a bump.

5) Interjectional: my God/by Jove! By George! Goodness

gracious! Good Heavens' sakes alive!

6)Prepositional: in the course of, on the stroke of.

In I. V. Arnold’s classification there are also sentence

equivalents, proverbs, sayings and quatations, e. g. The sky is the limit,
What makes him tick, I am easy. Proverbs are usually metaphorical, e.
g. Too many cooks spoil the broth, while sayings are as a rule non-
metaphorical, e. g. Where there is a will there is a way.
 Like words phraseological units can be related as synonyms,
e.g. to back the wrong house – to hunt the wrong hare – to get the boot
on the wrong foot; before the ink is dry – in a twinkle of an eye – before
one can say Jack Robinson; like a shot – in half a trice, etc.
Phraseological synonyms often belong to different stylistic layers.

Phraseological synonyms should not be mixed up with variants

of а phraseological unit, to add fuel to the fire – to add fuel to fire – to
add oil to fire – to add fuel to the flame, etc.; God knows – goodness
knows – Heaven knows – the Lord knows, etc.; not worth a bean – not
worth a brass farthing – not worth a button – not worth a pin – not
worth a rap – not worth a straw, etc.

Occasional phraseological variants may be formed due to

authors’ actualizing the potential (literary) meanings of their
components. Cf. a skeleton in the family cupboard: We were peeping
into the family cupboard and having a look at the good old skeleton
(P.G. Wodehouse).

Phraseological antonyms are of two main types: they may either

differ in a single component (to do one’s best – to do one’s worst; up to
date – out of date; to look black – to look bright, etc.) or have different
sets of components (to draw the first breath – to breathe one’s last; to
take a circuit – to make a bee-line; to talk to the dozen – to keep mum,
etc.).
 Proverbs

A proverb is a simple and concretesaying, popularly known and

repeated, that expresses a truth based on common sense or the practical
experience of humanity. They are oftenmetaphorical. A proverb that
describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as amaxim.

Proverbs are often borrowed from similar languages and

cultures, and sometimes come down to the present through more than
one language. Аlmost every culture has examples of its own unique
proverbs. The study of proverbs is called paremiology (from
Greekπαροιμία –paroimía, “proverb, maxim, saw”) and can be dated
back as far as Aristotle. Paremiography, on the other hand, is the
collection of proverbs.

Mieder defines the term proverb as follows: A proverb is a

short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom,
truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed and
memorisable form and which is handed down from generation to
generation. Examples: Haste makes waste.Those who live in glass
houses shouldn’t throw stones. We never know the value of water till
the well is dry.

These examples show that proverbs are different from

phraseological units. Phraseological units are a kind of ready-made
blocks which fit into the structure of a sentence performing a certain
syntactical function.

Ex.: George liked her for she never put on air (predicate).
Proverbs are sentences and so cannot be used in the way in which
phraseological units are used.

Proverbs could be compared with fables for they sum up the

collective experience of the community. A proverb is a short popular
saying that moralizes, gives warning, gives advice about how people
should behave or that expresses a belief that is generally thought to be
true.

Here are some examples: If you sing before breakfast, you will
cry before night. Don’t cry over spilled milk. Those who live in glass
housesshouldn’t throw stones. A stitch in time saves nine.

Their function in speech is purely nominative (they denote an

object, an act, etc.). The function of proverbs in speech is
communicative (they impart certain information)

Like idioms, proverbs often have a meaning that is greater than

the meaning of the individual words put together, but in a different way
than idioms. The literal meaning of an idiom usually doesn’t make
sense, and idioms can be almost impossible to understand unless you
have learned or heard them before.

The literal meaning of a proverb such as “Don’t cry over spilled

milk” does makes sense on its own, but it’s not until you apply this
meaning to a broader set of situations that you understand the real point
of the proverb. For example, “Don’t cry over spilled milk” means
“Don’t get upset over something that has already been done. It’s too
late to worry about it now, just get on with your life.”

Grammatical Structure of Proverbs

Proverbs in various languages are found with a wide variety of

grammatical structures. In English, for example, we find the following
structures (in addition to others):

1 Imperative, negative –Don't beat a dead horse.

2 Imperative, positive –Look before you leap.
3 Parallel phrases –Garbage in, garbage out.
4 Rhetorical question –Is the Pope Catholic?
5 Declarative sentence –Birds of a feather flock together.
 Literary-Bookish Words

Literary-bookish words belong to the formal style, to the formal

category of communication. Literary words are more stable due to the
traditions of the written type of speech. They mark the text as belonging
to this or that style of written speech, but when used in colloquial
speech or in informal situations, they may create a comical effect. These
words are mostly of foreign origin and have polymorphemic structure,
e. g. solitude, fascination, cordial, paternal, divergent, commence,
assist, comprise, endeavour, exclude, heterogeneous, miscellaneous,
hereby, thereby, herewith, wherein, etc.

Literary (bookish) words are not stylistically homogeneous.

Besides general-literary (bookish) words, e. g. harmony, calamity,
alacrity, etc., we may single out various specific subgroups, namely:

1) terms or scientific words such as, e g. renaissance, genocide,

teletype, etc.;
2) poetic words and archaisms such as, e. g. whilom –
‘formerly’, aught – ‘anything’, ere – ‘before’, albeit – ‘although’, fare –
‘walk’, tarry – ‘remain’, nay – ‘no’; etc.;
3) barbarisms and foreign words, such as, e. g., bon mot – ‘a
clever or witty saying’, apropos, faux pas, bouquet, etc.;
4) neologisms such as, e. g. teledish (“a dish-shaped aerial for
receiving satellite television transmissions”), roam-a-phone (“a portable
telephone”), graviphoton (“a hypothetical particle”), etc.
Terms are words or nominal groups which convey specialized
concepts used in science, technology, art, etc., e. g. gerontology,
phoneme, radar, knee joint, common denominator, periodic table, still
life, choreography, etc.
 Poetic words are stylistically marked; they form a lexico-
stylistic paradigm. In modern poetry such a vocabulary barely exists.

Poetic words are diverse; they include: a) archaic words

(commix – mix); b) archaic forms (vale – valley); c) historic words
(argosy – large merchant ship); d) poetic words proper (anarch, brine).

Their main function is to mark the text in which they are used as
poetic, thus distinguishing it from non-fiction texts. In modern poetry
such words are seldom used

Archaisms are words which are no longer used in everyday

speech, which have been ousted by their synonyms. Archaisms remain
in the language, but they are used as stylistic devices to express
solemnity. Archaisms are obsolete names for existing things, actions,
phenomena, etc. All of them can be replaced by neutral synonyms,
e. g. hark (“listen”), deem (“think”), glee (“joy”), aught
(“anything”), nigh (“near”).
Grammatical archaisms represent obsolete grammatical forms:
thou, three, thy, thine; ye; he goeth, thou knowest, etc. Among archaic
words one should distinguish historical words that denote no-longer
existing objects, e. g. yeoman, fletcher, gleeman, galleon, visor, etc.
Historical words have no neutral synonyms in Modern English.
Archaic words that denote existing objects are divided into two
groups: a) archaic words proper: words which are no longer
recognized in modern English. They were used in Old English and have
either dropped out of language use entirely or completely changed
(troth – faith, losel – worthless);
b) archaic forms of the words: corse instead of corpse, an
instead of and, annoy instead of аnnоуаnсе.
Sometimes a lexical archaism begins a new life, getting a new
meaning, then the old meaning becomes a semantic archaism, e. g. fair
in the meaning “beautiful” is a semantic archaism, but in the meaning
“blond” it belongs to the neutral style
 Barbarisms and foreign words.

There are many borrowings in every language, some of them

being assimilated. We may distinguish three groups of such words in
English: foreign words, barbarisms, and exotic words.

Foreign words are close to barbarisms, but they are

characterized by occasional usage only, mainly in literary speech. They
do not form a lexico-stylistic paradigm, though they may be used to
create some stylistic effect.

Barbarisms are words of foreign origin which have not been

entirely assimilated into the English language preserving their former
spelling and pronunciation. Most of them (e. g. chic, chagrin, en
passant) have corresponding English synonyms.

Neologisms are the main problem of modern scientific research.

A neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created
(“coined”) – often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing
concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary.
Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new
phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context

Neologisms can develop in three main ways:

a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to

denote a new object or phenomenon. In such cases we have semantic
neologisms, e. g. the word umbrella developed the meanings:
“авіаційнеприкриття”, “політичнеприкриття”.

A new lexical unit can develop in the language to denote an

object or phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it.
In such cases we have transnomination, e. g. the word slum was first
substituted by the word ghetto then by the word-group inner town. A
new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object
 We can point out several semantic groups when we analyze the
group of neologisms connected with computerization, and here we can
mention words used:

a) to denote different types of computers, e. g. PC, super-

computer, multi-user, neurocomputer, etc.;
b) to denote parts of computers, e. g. hardware, software,
monitor, screen, data, etc.
c) to denote computer languages, e. g. BASIC, Algol
FORTRAN,
d) to denote notions connected with work on computers, e. g.
computerman, computerization, computerize, to troubleshoot, to blitz
out, etc.
There are different semantic groups of neologisms belonging to
everyday life:

a) food e. g. starter instead of hors d’oevres, macrobiotics,

longlife milk,microwave stove, consumer electronics, fridge-freezer,
hamburgers /beef-, cheese-, fish-, veg-;
b) clothing, e. g. catsuit (one-piece clinging suit), slimster, string
(miniscule bikini), hipster (trousers or skirt with the belt on hips),
completenik (a long sweater for trousers), sweatnik (a long jacket);
c) footwear e. g. winklepickers (shoes with long pointed toes),
thongs (open sandals); backsters (beech sandals with thick soles);
d) bags, e. g. bumbag (a small bag worn on the waist), sling bag
(a bag with a long belt), maitre (a small bag for cosmetics).
Among neologisms one can find the so-termed occasional words
(or nonce-words) coined for a particular situation or context and aimed
at a certain stylistic effect, e. g. “A what?” – “Moneyholic. A word I’ve
just made up to describe someone with an uncontrollable addiction to
money”. We can say that author's neologisms (of course it's considered
to be only the part of some definite text) are among occasional words.
 Colloquial Words

Colloquial words are characteristic of the informal style of

spoken English. Colloquialisms are common sayings that people use in
everyday speech and some are very old expressions. Colloquialisms are
expressions appropriate to informal, conversational occasions.
Colloquial words are characteristic of the informal style of spoken
English. For example, I felt “down in the dumps” is a colloquialism for
feeling depressed or miserable. Сolloquialisms appear frequently in
literature because they provide an impression of actual or genuine talk
and make use of the grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and terms of
everyday speech.

Colloquialisms include words (such as y'all, gonna, and wanna),

phrases (such as old as the hills, raining cats and dogs, and dead as a
doornail) and aphorisms (such as there's more than one way to skin a
cat).
Generally, colloquialisms are specific to a geographical region.
They are used in “everyday” conversation and, increasingly, through
informal online interactions. An example of the regional specificity of
colloquialisms is the term used when referring to “soft drinks”. In the
Upper Midwestern United States and Canada, soft drinks are called
“pop”.
One should distinguish between literary colloquial words (which
are used in every day conversations both by educated and non-educated
people) and non-literary colloquialisms (which include slang,
jargonisms, professionalisms and vulgarisms).Famous linguist Ghil’ad
Zuckermann, which will explain the difference to us:
Slang refers to informal (and often transient) lexical items used
by a specific social group, for instance teenagers, soldiers, prisoners, or
surfers. Slang is not considered the same as colloquial (speech), which
is informal, relaxed speech used on occasion by any speaker
A colloquialism is a lexical item used in informal speech; whilst
the broadest sense of the term colloquialism might include slangism, its
narrow sense does not. Slangisms are often used in colloquial speech
but not all colloquialisms are slangisms. One method of distinguishing
between a slangism and a colloquialism is to ask whether most native
speakers know the word (and use it); if they do, it is a colloquialism.

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not
considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are
considered acceptable in certain social settings. As a rule, their
meanings are based on metaphor and often have ironic colouring, e. g.
attic (“head”), beans (“money”), saucers (“eyes”), etc. Such words are
easily understood by all native speakers, because they are not specific
for any social or professional group.

Jargon is words or phrases used by people in a particular job or

group that can be difficult for others to understand. Such words are
usually motivated and, like slang words, have metaphoric character, e.
g. bird (“spacecraft”) /astronauts’ jargon/; to grab (“to make an
impression on smb.”) /newspaper jargon/; grass, tea, weed (“narcotic”) /
drug addicts’ jargon/, etc. Words such as “backup”, “chatroom” and
“browser” are computer jargon. Jargon is often referred to as “technical
language”. It makes communication quicker and easier among members
of a group who understand it.

Professionalisms are sub-standard colloquial words used by

people of a definite trade or profession. Such words are informal
substitutes for corresponding terms, e. g. Hi-Fi (“high fidelity”), smash-
up (“accident”), anchor (“brakes”), etc.

A vulgarism also called scurrility, is a colloquialism of an

unpleasant action or unrefined character, which substitutes a coarse,
indecorous word where the context might lead the reader to expect a
more refined expression. Vulgarisms include: a) expletives and swear
words of abusive character, like damn, bloody, etc.; b) obscene (or
taboo, four-letter) words which are highly indecent.