Original scientific paper
Holonym hand and its Meronyms as components of Croatian and Italian phrasems
Nina Spicijarić Paškvan
; Zavod za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU, Rijeka
Maja Opašić
; Filozofski fakultet u Rijeci
Abstract
This paper gives a comparative analysis of one level of phrasemes in Croatian and Italian
language – that whose components are parts of body hand and its parts. The level was chosen
because the parts of body are probably the richest phraseological level in most languages. The
aim of this paper was to determine in what amount has the possible basic and transferred
meaning of the word hand and its parts (fist, finger, palm, nail, elbow and shoulder) influenced
the meaning of the whole phraseme on one hand and the symbolism of an individual phraseme
on another.
Thus, lexical meaning of each part of body was determined to show if they are realized
in the phrasemes surrounding. The semantic phenomena of meronymy and holonymy on the
examples of phrasemes are also discussed, (i.e. (im)possibility of their substitution in certain
phrasemes).
The conducted analysis proved that basic and transferred meaning of the word hand and
its parts are generated in a large number of phrasemes (i.e. they influenced the background
image and the meaning of a certain phraseme). The large correspondence in lexical meaning
in both languages and phrasemes are registered, which is, of course, a consequence of the fact
that the role of hand and other body parts represents a kind of universality. Therefore, the
correspondence could also be expected in other European languages. However, the structural
and semantic differences between Croatian and Italian phrasemes are also registered which is,
as always when it comes to the phraseology, the result of national and cultural particularities.
That particularly applies to the phrasemes of gestural origin because it does not mean that all
gestures in all cultures have the same meaning, and some are not even used.
There was a great possibility of replacement of holonyms by meronyms which then make
synonymous pair, such as holonym hand by meronym fist, palm or fingers... This happens
because of the wide range of meanings of the word hand, unlike his meronyms. Therefore,
the replacement of some meronym by holonym hand has not been confirmed. Because of the
possibility of replacement of the word hand by its parts, a great number of lexical variants have
been confirmed in the Croatian phrasemes.
Keywords
phraseme; somatism; phraseme background; holonym; meronym; contrastive analysis; Croatian language; Italian language
Hrčak ID:
70500
URI
Publication date:
14.7.2011.
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