Semantics and linguocultural potential of comparative paremias (Based on the material from the collection of Matviy Nomys “Ukrainian sayings, proverbs, and so on”)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of comparative paremias with a conjunctive component, attested in the collection of Matviy Nomys “Ukrainian sayings, proverbs, and so on”. These comparative constructions are classified taking into account the semantic features of lexemes denoting objects of comparison, 4 thematic groups of the considered units are distinguished: paremias with the object of comparison “Nature”, paremias with the object of comparison “Man”, paremias with the object of comparison “Elements of everyday life”, paremies with the object of comparison “Elements of folk-religious beliefs”, as well as subgroups of each of them. Using the examples of core subgroups of 2 thematic groups, it was shown that the considered paremias are a valuable informative source for studying the specifics of the Ukrainian language of the 19th century, the way of thinking of our ancestors, and the reconstruction of the partially lost fragments of the linguistic and, accordingly, conceptual world pictures of the Ukrainians of that time. The linguocultural potential of comparative paremias is considered on specific examples. A thorough analysis of the paremiñ units attested in the collection of Matviy Nomys also allowed us to trace the lexical and dialectal features of the Ukrainian language of that period. In particular, the study showed that the paremias contains an extremely large number of archaic lexemes, each of them helps to delve deeper into the linguistic world of our ancestors, and also a considerable number of considered units are regionally marked, that is, they contain dialectisms. Keywords: comparative paremias, thematic group, object of comparison, linguistic picture of the world of Ukrainians of the 19th century, linguocultural code.