Cultural component in semantics of dialectal set phrases with mythonym чёрт (chert) (part I)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the semantic analysis of dialectal set phrases with the component чёрт (chert) ‘devil’. The results of the first stage of the study are presented: set phrases with meanings reflecting folk ideas about devil’s place in the hierarchy of demonological characters, his appearance, habitat, and mode of action are identified and organized into separate phraseological groups. The material for the research was collected from dialect dictionaries and card indexes of the 19th–20th centuries. Classification of set phrases containing the key mythonym (the name of the mythological character) was made according to their reference to the motivating mythologem and to the leading motivating feature associated with the image of the devil. Identification of key mythonyms, motivating mythologemes, and dominant motivating features made it possible to clarify the original meaning of set phrases with obscure inner form as well as to explain the emergence of new phrases with modified key word forms, rearranged components, and new figurative semantics. The author comes to the conclusion that the most frequent and dialectally variable set phrases (comparisons, idioms, and paremic units) reflect the most popular cultural constants typical of folk mythological ideas. The description of set phrases included in the phraseosemantic groups allows to bring together paremic units, typical expressions, phrasemes and idioms with transparent inner form, on one hand, and phrases that have undergone structural changes and have secondary figurative semantics, on the other hand, which is of great importance for dialect lexicography.
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