Abstraction in phraseology

Abstraction is a form of knowledge, which is based on the allocation of significant mental properties

and relations of the subject and in diverting from their non-significant properties and relationships. Thus, a set of examples a man in general, an animal in general, a book in general, etc. illustrates abstraction as a mental diversion from a variety of people, animals, books. In the objective world, there is no man in general, but only a definite person, as well as a definite animal, a definite book, etc.

We maintain, after A.V. Kunin, that there are two forms of abstraction. The first form is isolating, or analytical abstraction. The other form is abstraction of identification. Both forms of abstraction are found in phraseology.

Analytical abstraction occurs when mentally distracted and well-fixed properties, differentiate a definite name from the objects and other properties, with which it is closely connected. As a result of such abstraction general concepts appear, such as, the green-eyed monster – jealousy, the never-ending sleep – death, etc.

Abstraction of identification occurs when we mentally divert from the original, different properties of objects and, at the same time, concentrate on the general properties of the objects, that is, we try to identify these objects in a way. This does not mean that the objects under study are completely identical. Partial identity is enough for abstraction of identification. As examples of this form of abstraction, the following metaphoric and metonymic phraseologisms can serve: the ship of the desert – the camel; a cup that cheers but not inebriates – tea; the king of beasts – the lion; etc.

All of the above mentioned phraseological units have lexical synonyms: camel, tea, lion. These words are unmotivated in modern English. They express general concepts and do not contain estimation. On the other hand, the corresponding phraseological synonyms are evaluative expressions, characterized by imagery, motivating them. They not only represent the corresponding object, but describe one of its features. So we can conclude that such phraseologisms have lower degree of abstraction than their lexical synonyms do. In those cases where the phraseological units and its lexical synonyms are unmotivated, they both have a high degree of abstraction, for example, to send smb to Coventry – to ostracize smb.

A similar situation is seen when comparing the phraseologisms: the unmotivated phraseological units like send smb to Coventry have much higher degree of abstraction than motivated phraseological units like a cup that cheers but not inebriates have. This fact is explained by greater diversion from the component meaning in unmotivated phraseologisms.

The problem of phraseological abstraction was first raised by V.L. Arhangelsky, who introduced the term of phraseological abstraction. V.L. Arhangelsky put forward the following main statements:

a) phraseological abstraction consists in diversion from the meaning of words as PU components;

b) phraseologisms can in general express emotions, the will, modal relations;

c) there are different degrees of phraseological abstraction, which testifies to the asymmetry of phraseology.

According to V.L. Arhangelsky, phraseological unities may belong to different degrees of abstraction. If we compare, for instance, the term and the transferred expression that appeared on its basis, it becomes quite evident that the last one has always a higher degree of diversion than the former one, e.g. (a) play first fiddle as the term of professional musicians and (b) play first fiddle with the meaning of 'to be the leading, most influential person in something'.

We maintain after A.M. Melerovich that phraseological abstraction is closely connected with linguistic motivation of phraseological meaning. There is an inverse relationship between those categories: the presence of a certain form of motivation of phraseological meaning shows the absence or incompleteness of the corresponding form of phraseological abstraction, and vice versa – the higher the phraseological abstraction is, the weaker the motivation of the corresponding form is.

A.M. Melerovich finds out the following forms of phraseological abstraction:

1) abstraction of lexical and grammatical meaning of phraseological components,

2) an abstraction of the original value combination of words,

3) abstraction of a sample value of syntax.

In addition to it A.V. Kunin suggests one more type of abstraction, i.e. complicated abstraction which is supposed to be referred to different combinations of the enumerated types of abstraction.

In the first form of abstraction the linguist singles out full and non-full abstraction. Full abstrction is found in cases where the meaning of phraseological units is abstracted from both lexical and grammatical meanings of components. Nonfull abstraction takes place in the following two cases:

1. If phraseological meaning is abstracted from the meanings of the phraseological unit’s lexical components, but the categorial meaning of the phraseological unit is motivated by the part-of-speech meaning of the grammatically leading phraseological unitcomponent, e.g.: the prodigal son, a good Samaritan, a new broom (substantive phraseological units); to cut the Gordian knot, to put the cart in front of the horse, to call the tune (verbal phraseological units), at the eleventh hour, hand over fist, through thick and thin (adverbial phraseological units), etc. The belonging to the class of substantive, verbal, adverbial, etc. subclasses of phraseological units is explained by the categorial valuemeaning of grammatically leading phraseological unit components. This form of abstraction is found in phraseological units, the meaning of which is diverted from the lexical meaning of the components.

2. If the phraseological meaning is abstracted from the grammatical meaning of the phraseological unit components, but to some extent is motivated by the lexical meaning of the individual components.

The notion of phraseological abstraction is very important both in the field of theory of phraseology and in the field of practical analysis of phraseological units and their sub-systems.

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