PHRASEOLOGICAL UNIVERBATION AS A LANGUAGE PHENOMENON

Abstract

In the article we consider univerbation as a phenomenon of secondary nomination, a result of the derivation process. The essence of univerbation is a transformation of a complex name into a simple, one-word lexical unit, which is semantically equivalent to the initial combination. The process of renaming may occur on the basis of one, two or more components of an initial combination (phrase or combination of words). Among the primary units there are many stable, phrase-like ones, what gives grounds to consider phraseological univerbation to be a specific part of a common language productive process which suggests folding of a poly-component nomination into a word. The univerbation in phraseology is supported by: the relative formal-semantic autonomy of its components, which may inherit a holistic phraseological meaning; the lack of clear boundaries between lexical and phraseological subsystems of a language, what is manifested, on the one hand, in the existence of minimal (single-vertex) phraseological units, on the other hand, in the composite words with figurative meaning similar to a phraseological one; the constant mutual transition of language units from one subsystem to another, the vivid evidence of which is a phraseological word formation; the isomorphism of derivational processes at the phraseological and lexical levels, what allows to study phraseological univerbs in the structure of phraseoderivational clusters – complex formations, the elements of which are connected by derivational relations. Phraseological univerbs can be formed in both affixational and non-affixational ways (fusion, compounding, abbreviation, substantivation, etc.). They are characterized by increased idiomaticity, contextual coherence, and expressiveness and belong mainly to a colloquial style with a pejorative coloring. Inherited from a phraseological unit and acquired in the process of univerbation, that expressiveness is the source of rich emotional-evaluative (usually pejorative-evaluative) features of these words forming a connotative component of their meanings.