The article is dedicated to the problem of occasional transformations of phraseological units. Occasional modifications of units are determined by the author’s intentions, which are the major factor of transforming phraseological units. The principal author’s intentions are considered to be specification and explication of the meaning of a phraseological unit, intensification of characterizing features, literalization of a phraseological image. The process and the result of authorial work with a phraseological unit are demonstrated in the example of the phraseologism to build castles in the air which is actively used in the modern language; phraseological transformations are found in authorial texts of artistic and journalistic styles, in native speakers’ communication on Internet forums, in phraseological dictionaries and reference books. The unit is converted by means of methods of occasional transformations. Some changes take place in the component structure of the idiom — occasional components appear. They are aimed to specify the meaning. As a rule, changes in the component structure are based on paradigmatic connections of this component with an occasional one. While explicating the meaning, occasional components represent elements of the phraseological meaning. Intensification of an action or feature binds occasional components with linguistic syntagmatic relations. Literalizing the image, authors deal with figurative basis of the phraseological unit. Linguistic and occasional components are connected by means of systematic (to a lesser degree — of associative) relations. This defines the systematic approach to the problem of transformations. Frequently repeated authors’ intentions used in texts of different styles and genres are considered to be systematic.
Key words: occasional phraseology, phraseological transformations, author’s intentions, specification of phraseological meaning, explication of phraseological
meaning, systematic character of phraseological transformations.
Reference to article:
Tretyakova I. Yu. The systematic approach to phraseological modifications in synchrony // Ivanovo State University Bulletin. Series «The Humanities». 2020. No.2. P. 27-32.