The problem of classification of phraseological units

A phraseological unit can be defined as a reproduced and idiomatic (non-motivated) or partially motivated unit built up according to the model of free word-groups (or sentences) and semantically and

syntactically brought into correlation with words.

According to the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units can be classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions (сращения), phraseological unities (единства) and phraseological collocations (соче­тания).

Phraseological fusions arc completely non-motivated word-groups. e.g. as mad as a hatter — ‘utterly mad’: white elephant — ‘an expensive but useless thing*.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. e.g. to bend the knee — ’to submit to a stronger force, to obey submissively*: to wash one's dirty linen in public — "to discuss or make public one’s quarrels’.

Phraseological collocations are not only motivated but contain one component used in its direct meaning, while the other is used metaphorically, e.g. to meet the requirements, to attain success. In this group of phraseological units some substitutions are possible which do not destroy the meaning of the metaphoric element, e.g. to meet the needs, to meet the demand, to meet the necessity: to have success, to lose success. These substitutions are not synonymical and the meaning of the whole changes, while the meaning of the verb meet and the noun success are kept intact.

the characteristic features of phraseological units are: ready­made reproduction, structural divisibility, morphological stability, permanence of lexical composition, semantic unity, syntactic fixity.