Stable word complexes of comparative semantics with a component-demonym in the Swedish and Russian languages

Abstract

The article is devoted to identifying of general patterns and distinctive features in the structure, meaning and evaluation of stable verbal complexes of comparative semantics of the Swedish and Russian languages with a component-demonym. Stable verbal complexes of comparative semantics with a demonic component are present in both the Swedish and Russian languages. There is a significant quantitative disproportion between stable comparisons and paremias of comparative semantics of both languages, but in the Swedish language in favor of proverbs, and in Russian — in favor of stable comparisons. It can be assumed that the names of evil spirits are more taboo in Swedish stable comparisons, and also comparative phraseological units in general were less subject to lexicographic fixation. The studied proverbs of the Swedish and Russian languages are quantitatively comparable. Structurally, the similarity of the proverbs of the two languages is manifested in the presence of such models as sentences with opposition introduced by adversative conjunctions, and sentences with the presence of a component in the comparative degree. But the analyzed Swedish proverbs are characterized by such models as sentences with adjacent components, identity sentences and sentences built according to the syntactic model “better… than…”, which are absent in the studied material of the Russian language. In turn, in the analyzed Russian proverbs one can note models that are absent in Swedish ones: sentences built on the principle of syntactic parallelism and collapsed comparison.