Idioms. Classification of idioms

Phraseological units, or idioms, as they are called by most western scholars, represent what can probably be described as the most picturesque, colourful and expressive part of the language's vocabulary.

Classification Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units may be classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological collocations.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups, such as red tape — 'bureaucratic methods'; heavy father — 'serious or solemn part in a theatrical play'; kick the bucket — 'die'; and the like.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one's teeth, to wash one's dirty linen in public if interpreted as semantically motivated through the combined lexical meaning of the component words would naturally lead one to understand these in their literal meaning.

Phraseological collocations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take hatred (disgust). These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichés where the meaning of member-words is to some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.