Phraseological units as text-forming factors in the genre of aphorism

Abstract

The article focuses on studying phraseological units (PUs) that serve as a text formation factor in the genre of apho-rism. These are mainly PUs which are the semantic core of the aphorism as a text of a minor speech genre. The aim of the article is to find out the features of using the PUs in the aphorism, which lead to generating a text small in size and deep in content, which is expressive, emotional and evaluative. First of all, the author defines the features of the aphorism as a text of a small speech genre, gives its definition and one of the classifications of aphorisms. As a result of studying the use of PUs in aphorisms, it was found that PUs often act as text-forming language units; there-fore, the genre of aphorism requires the addressant to have a high level of linguistic and communicative competence, erudition and a broad outlook. The article provides a semantic analysis of aphorisms containing PUs created by fa-mous philosophers, writers, satirists, selected by continuous sampling method from books and a collection of apho-risms. The article reveals the main ways of using PUs in aphorisms, when they are not only the main semantic component but also a text-forming factor: preserving the linguistic (dictionary) form as a unit of language and the semantic unit of an aphorism; de-metaphorizing the meaning of PUs; expanding the component structure of PUs; clipping (narrowing) the component structure of PUs; using two or more PUs within one aphorism; breaking a PU and presenting its compo-nents part by part within one aphorism; changing the grammatical form of a PU component, for example, changing its part-of-speech, etc. It has been proved that in order to understand the meaning of some PUs serving as a semantic component of aphorisms, it is necessary to know their etymology. It applies to bookish PUs originating in mythology, ancient philosophy and history. It is confirmed that aphorisms as texts of small speech genre require a high level of linguistic, cultural, historical, literary and communicative competence not only from the addressant, but also from the addressee to understand its deep meaning correctly.