The Functional Classification

Prof. Alexander I. Smirnitskiy Лексикология английского языка (1956)

-the functional approach proceeds from the assumption that PhU may be defined as non-motivated word-groups functioning as word-equivalents;

-the functional approach seeks to establish formal criteria of idiomaticity by analysing the syntactic functions of PhU by analysing the syntactic function of PhU in speech;

-semantic inseparability and grammatical inseparability of PhU are viewed as the aspects of idiomaticity which enables to regard them semantically and grammatically equivalent to single words;

-PhUn are characterised by a single stylistic reference irrespective of the number and nature of the component words.

Phraseological units vs idioms proper

- PhU are non-motivated word-groups functioning as word-equivalents by virtue of their semantic and grammatical inseparability.

- Idioms proper (proverbs, sayings and quotations) are ready-made expressions with a specialised meaning of their own which cannot be inferred from the meaning of their components taken singly; they do not always function as word-equivalents.

According to the number and semantic significance of their constituent parts, PhU are classified into:

- one-summit (одновершинные) units, which have one meaningful component;

-two-summit and multi-summit (двухвершинные или многовершинные), which have two or more meaningful constituents.

According to the parts of speech of the summit constituents, one-summit units are subdivided into:

-verbal-adverbial units, the semantic and grammatical centres are in the first component, e.g. to give up, to put through, to get up etc.;

-units equivalent to verbs, their semantic centre being in the second component and the grammatical centre – in the first one, e.g. to be surprised, to be tired etc.; --prepositional-substantive units equivalent either to adverbs or to copulas, their semantic centre being in the nominal constituent and no grammatical centre, e.g. by heart, by means of etc.

According to the parts of speech of the summit constituents, two-summit units are subdivided into:

-attribute-substantive units equivalent to nouns, e.g. black art, couch potato, dark horse, Dutch courage, rough diamond etc.;

-verb-substantive units equivalent to verbs, e.g. to take the floor, to break the ice, to lose one’s heart, not to lift a finger etc.;

-phraseological repetions equivalent to adverbs, e.g. now and never etc.;

-adverbial multi-summit unts, e.g. every other day etc.

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