O mar como um Outro Espaço nas fraseologias portuguesa e croata

Abstract

Based on a more comprehensive study dedicated to presenting the concept of the SEA in Portuguese and Croatian phraseology, in this work we focus on the aspect pointing to the conceptualization of the SEA as Other Space (otherness, «non-self»). The analysis of the semantic-conceptual structure of phraseological units (idioms and proverbs with figurative meaning) with constituents from the sea semantic sphere revealed that the motivation of the subgroup’s idiomatic meaning is based on some kind of «cultural» or «secondary» experience (and not physical-perceptive) of space, implying a considerable influence of «folk theories», which in principle are subjective. In this case the SEA, at the conceptual level, represents a space that, in relation to the subject, is «exterior», alien, unnatural, inadequate, where the subject «does not exist». We propose to identify the most relevant metaphorical structures for such conceptualisation, as well as the specific mappings that motivate meanings of units in our corpus.