Phraseologisms are integral and bright turns of speech, idioms. Many of them have been formed in the language for so long that obsolete words in their composition already make it difficult to understand the meaning, although the very stable phrase is used and relevant. For example, what does “small small less” mean ? To determine the meaning of phraseologism, we will deal with the concept itself.
What is phraseology
All phraseological units have a certain set of features:
- This is a stable indivisible phrase consisting of two or more words.
- Phraseologism has a holistic meaning, often not associated with the meaning of the words included in it.
- The whole phraseological unit performs a single syntactic function in a sentence.
Thus, the simplest definition, covering all the signs, is the following: phraseological circulation is a holistic meaning, stable and indivisible phrase with figurative meaning.
Sustainable phrase "small small smaller": meaning
This is phraseologism, implying a large number and very small size (in relation to inanimate nouns) or age (in relation to animated nouns). Refers to colloquial, expressive speech. In some dictionaries, it is marked as deprecated. The most commonly used phrase is "small small smaller" in the meaning of "many young children."
Usage examples and semantic meanings
It has several semantic meanings:
- The most common meaning of phraseology “small is small is less” is “a large number of small children”. "After the war, eight children already lived in Semenovna’s house, a small one, a smaller one." This is due to the time of its occurrence, for which large families were common.
- For inanimate objects, "small small smaller" may be used in the meaning of a very small size. "And in the grass, on a rotten tree stump, a family of honey agarics huddled, small is less small, Yulina’s beloved mushrooms."
- Another common semantic meaning is that children belong to the same family. "Your home is already small, small, smaller, another value will not have."
- Growth ranking value. "Children ran out of the hut and lined up, small, smaller, thin and untidy, with hungry and sharp eyes."
As for the spelling of phraseologism, this stable phrase is unchanged in its grammatical composition. All words are written separately, without hyphens in all variants of use. Do not confuse the spelling of adjectives and adverbs: "little by little" or "little by little."
Pay attention to the correct pronunciation: a little less - that’s the way in phraseologism to correctly place stress in accordance with historical tradition.
The use of phraseological units has certain advantages over free phrases or single words. They are easily reproduced in the text in the form of speech blanks, simplify the communication process, give speech expressiveness and imagery, enrich it. Therefore, it is necessary to use phraseological units in speech, but at the same time paying attention to the appropriateness of their use and to literacy in pronunciation and spelling.