In literature and journalism sometimes there are phrases and stable expressions, the meanings of which may not be completely clear to the reader. All of us have heard such expressions as "shot sparrow", "Sisyphus labor", "Trishkin caftan". Is it always clear to everyone what this is about? For example, what is a stumbling block? This expression is quite common. What is meant?
To explain the meaning of words and individual expressions, we should recall the concept of phraseology. This is a complex composition (that is, consisting of two or more words) stable expressions ("upside down", "after the sleeves", "the cat cried"). The whole combination of these expressions is called phraseology.
Phraseology is also called a science that studies such established combinations of words with a stable meaning. The name of science comes from the Greek words phrsis (expression) and logos (teaching). Phraseology studies the composition and structure of phraseological units, their origin. So, the already mentioned expression “stumbling block”, the meaning of which may not always be obvious to everyone, comes from the Bible. It is found in both the Old and New Testaments. As the Scriptures tell us, the stumbling block was laid by the Lord in Zion, and all unbelievers and not observing righteous laws stumbled upon it.
In Church Slavonic, “stumble” sounds like “stumble”. Hence the "stumbling block." This is a rather rare case when a phrase taken from the Bible entered everyday speech in its original meaning.
Other phraseological units came to us from everyday life, being free phrases and constantly used in a figurative sense. Moreover, there are relatively few borrowed from other languages ​​among them; most phraseological units have a native Russian origin. Some of them are associated with the culture and life of Russian people, everyday rites and traditions. For example, "clumsy work" or "sky with a sheepskin."
Others arose from proverbs and sayings ("shot sparrow", "ate a dog", etc.) or from works of art ("bear service", "Trishkin kaftan"). From the Old Slavonic language came the expressions “the salt of the earth,” “Thomas the unbeliever, ” “manna from heaven,” the same “stumbling block." From myths of other nations, the "Procrustean bed" and the "Augean stables" appeared.
Compared with lexical units, phraseological units have a number of features. First of all, they always have a complex composition, and the individual components do not retain independent meaning ("puzzling"). Prepositional and case combinations ("under the arm") do not apply to phraseological units.
Secondly, phraseological units are semantically indivisible, that is, they have one common meaning for the whole expression. Often this meaning can be expressed in one word (“little” - instead of “the cat cried”, “back” - instead of “upside down”), but not always. For example, "run aground" - to get into a difficult situation, etc.
In addition, phraseologisms differ in the consistency of the composition. You can’t replace their components with synonyms (for example, say “throw your head” instead of “spread your mind” or instead of “cat cried” - “kitten cried”). True, there are exceptions (“with all my heart” - “with all my heart”), but their number is small.
Phraseologisms are characterized by reproducibility and predictability, that is, they are used in speech as they are in our memory. Having said "bosom", we will always add a "friend", and not anything else. It is not allowed in phraseological units to change the grammatical form of words, for example, the plural to the singular ("sharpen the line"). You can not rearrange words and change places.
A number of phraseological units along with the full form has a truncated form ("measure seven times ..."). These are usually long and complex phrases representing whole proverbs and sayings. The abbreviated version is usually used in colloquial speech for convenience, if the meaning is clear.
A full explanation of the meaning of most of the available phraseological units is given in the phraseological dictionary.