The importance of the pragmatics of verbal idiomatic expressions with a figurative meaning in Spanish

Ðàìèðåñ Ðîäðèãåñ Pablo Assistant, Department of Theory and Practice of Foreign Languages, RUDN Institute of Foreign Languages 117198, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Miklukho-Maklaya, 7, kab. 312 pabloatanasev@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

Verb stable expressions or idioms act like simple verbs, so their function forms the basis of the predicate, and as such they can make up a statement. The verb establishes connections with certain arguments required by it, such as a direct or indirect complement, as well as with some other additions, such as the so-called additions Alarcos ^{[1, p. 175]}. When a choice is made between a verb and a complement, a phraseologization process is performed, which converts a free phrase into a fixed combination of words: meter ciza?a, perder comba, comerse un marr?n, etc.

In general, verbs that are accompanied by a nominal syntagma behave differently from the point of view of valence than verbs completed with a prepositional syntagma. The former suggest a restructuring of valence, which a verb taken freely will require. The latter do not represent such a restructuring. Consequently, two main groups of verbal idioms can be distinguished: verbal and nominal (echar un cable, echar una mano) or verbal and prepositional (sacar las cosas de quicio, apuntarse a un bombardeo).

Despite the great development of phraseology research both in Spanish and in other languages, at the moment it has not been possible to reach unanimous agreement on the separation of grammatical and neighboring phraseological phenomena, which is reflected in the existing positions found in relation to various aspects that phraseology deals with.

The reason for so many disagreements lies in two already classical questions, since they have been raised in phraseology studies from the very beginning: fixation and idiomaticity and, in particular, their gradation, from which it is impossible to establish exact boundaries that clearly distinguish the fixed from the unfixed and the idiomatic from the non-idiomatic.

Materials and methodology of the study

Phraseological units are usually defined by referring to morphological fixation as one of their defining characteristics, the result of a diachronic process of lexicalization. Nevertheless, there are many examples of phraseological units that have more than one possible canonical form, without going beyond synchronicity and standard language (echar una cana/echar una canita al aire, importar un bledo/un pimiento/un huevo), in addition, like simple words, multiple expressions have diatopic, diastratic, diaphase and diachronic variants. On the other hand, consideration of a large corpus of texts allows us to make sure that the intended fixation of phraseological units is not incompatible with the creation, often associated with metaphorical processes and deautomatization or delexicalization, which leads to non-standard variants of phraseological units, which are achieved by modifying or manipulating fixed expressions in their most common form, as well as by reducing or increasing.

Leaving aside these innovative variants, the result of the creative ability of speakers, Zuluaga ^{[2, p. 160]} identified the manifestations of fixation in fixed expressions in the following phenomena: immutability of order (de armas tomar / *de tomar armas); fixation of grammatical categories (pagar los platos rotos / *pagar el plato roto); fixation inventories of components with refusal to insert or delete any of the components of phraseological expressions (a tontas y a locas / *a tontas y locas); inseparability of components (tomar las de villadiego / *tomar todos los d?as las de villadiego) and /or irreplaceability of components (com?n y corriente / *com?n y moliente); transformative fixation (carta blanca / *la blancura de la carta) or, as suggested by other authors, syntactic defectiveness.

However, the same author admits the possibility of inserting into a fixed combination of elements that do not belong to him (todo queda, como quien dice, en familia), changing the order of the components of a phraseological unit (ni t?tere que dejen con cabeza), making lexical modifications to the constituent parts (echar un cana/canita al aire) and applying transformations to phraseological units (tomar el pelo/tomadura de pelo), which indicates that there are different degrees of fixation of phraseological units.

Thus, Zuluaga ^{[2, p. 154]} indicates the existence of variants, although it also justifies that their identification is confused with the differentiation of each phraseological unit and phraseological schemes. The former are characterized by the fact that they occur in the same functional language, have no differences in meaning, do not depend on contexts and are partially identical in their structure and components, since the variant is obtained by replacing part of the expression and the specified replacement is fixed.  According to these requirements, some examples with variants may be as follows: importar un bledo/un pito, dormir como un tronco/lir?n, dar en el clavo/la tecla. As for the latter, they react to the existence of syntactic patterns, the internal structure of which is arbitrarily limited, as it happens with the expressions de pies a cabeza, de pe a pa, de cabo a rabo o de punta a punta. In this case, it seems obvious that there are verbal idioms with variants of lexical modification, such as those indicated above, even in cases where they form an extensive series.

Garc?a-Page ^{[3, p. 225]} studies morphological variants of phraseological units and, depending on the object of morpheme variation, distinguishes two classes of variants: those that respond to inflectional changes and those that respond to derivative changes. Among the first, he identifies as the most noticeable those that are associated with the inflection of the core of verbal idioms, although the author acknowledges that sometimes the noun element also allows variations in generic and numeric morphemes, as it happens with expressions such as: hacerse el sueco/la sueca/los suecos/las suecas.

Inflectional changes are inherent in verbal idioms, since their insertion into speech entails the adaptation of inflection signs of all those components that establish a relationship of agreement with elements external to speech, but present in the context in which it is inscribed. As for derivative changes, Garc?a-Page ^{[4, p. 66]} points to verbal idioms that usually affect their nominal component, and gives, among other things, the following examples: echar un cana/canita al aire, dormir como un ?ngel/angelito, poner de patas/patitas en la calle.

The difficulties associated with any attempt to limit the concept of a verbal idiom are noteworthy. Thus, although multiverbality is one of the defining features of these idioms, while idiomaticity and fixation tend to characterize them, it is very difficult to establish a clear boundary between what is idiomatic and what is not, and what is or is not fixed. In addition, as the name implies, verbal idioms are characterized by the fact that they consist of a verb that is systematically combined with a chain of words that is a fixed or connected part.

Since verbal idioms are not the only phraseological expressions that include a verb in their composition, and that, on the other hand, most fixed expressions are idiomatic and more or less lexicalized, confusion often arises and there are discrepancies in where to set boundaries between verbal idioms and some fixed and/or idiomatic expressions of a similar nature. Thus, we initially intend to establish criteria that will allow us to determine what is verbal speech and what is not.

For this reason, this study is based on concepts and ideas generally accepted in the field of linguistics, such as those already mentioned about pluribality, fixation and idiomaticity, and takes into account the behavior that is given to verbal idioms within phraseology, as well as discussions about this that have taken place among phraseologists who have focused their work on the study of fixed expressions in Spanish.

Verbal idioms are those that express processes (actions/verbs) forming predicates with or without additions. They represent a large morphosyntactic variety, for example, there are binomials formed by two verb kernels united by a compound that can carry a complement (dormir largo y tendido). Phrases consisting of verbs and pronouns, such as palmarla or a verb, a pronoun and a particle, like tomarla con alguien, or simply a verb plus a particle associated with it as dar de s?, also belong to this type.

However, nowadays there are especially many verbal idioms that represent more complex syntactic patterns formed by an aggregate verb plus an attribute, for example ser la leche. Verbs are also given a more detailed complement, for example comer como una lima, or even more additional verbs, for example oler a gato encerrado.

There are also idioms that are examples of patterns, such as costar un ojo de la cara or chuparse los dedos. Many of these units are capable of forming themselves predicates of the sentences in which they are inserted. Finally, most of these idioms, as a rule, have a negative phraseological fixation, for example: no tener vuelta de hoja, no tener dos dedos de frente, no tener pelos en la lengua, no pegar ojo, etc.

Research results

As for the formal aspects, idioms maintain a dialectical connection between their individual components and the whole that they make up as lexical units of the language system. Any study of them should begin with this double level of analysis: on the one hand, it is necessary to take into account the individual relationships between the components of idioms, and on the other - the relationships that these units represent when they are considered within the language system.

Alliteration is one of the most common sound resources in these units, for example estar alejado de la mano de Dios, rizar el rizo, no tener ni voz ni voto. Closely related and often combined with the above, there are also rhythmic arrangements such as haber a cal y canto. Within the formal aspects, paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations are included, which are observed in both planes.

The internal fixation of idioms restricts the paradigmatic choice of its members, imposing restrictions on the inventory and internal reflection of components. The individual components of idioms can represent synonymous relationships either with each other in the idiom itself, or through its various variants, such as de golpe y porrazo.

As for variants, although it is possible to find synonyms that are also synonyms in the language system, for example colgar/ahorcar los h?bitos, the most common situation is that these variants function as institutional synonyms only with respect to the idioms in which they appear. Here the structural variants are irse de/a picos pardos due to the alternation of different grammatical components or due to differences concerning inflexible morphology.

Some idioms represent antonymic relations between their constituent elements, for example, hacer algo por las buenas o por las malas. It should be noted that these types of idioms are not considered variants because they include grammatical changes such as: poner a alguien al corriente/estar al corriente. However, it should be borne in mind that such lexical oppositions, mainly due to the idiomatic meaning of the unit involved, are not always possible, since there are cases such as: tener mala uva and *tener buena uva.

The previous units retain the relations of synonymy among themselves, however, as it happens in each semantic field of idioms, they can also maintain among themselves and with the other components the relations of antonymy, polysemy or homonymy Wotja ^{[5, p. 42]}, which form part of the universal characteristics inherent in idioms in all languages.

As for syntagmatic relations, the internal fixation of idioms affects both the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes. The combinatorial limitations of the components of idioms stem from the relations of mutual dependence, very similar to the relations of the implication of solidarities como un cosaco implies the verb beber and pies en polvorosa the verb poner Garc?a-Page ^{[4, p. 90]}. These are elements that lack autonomy in the language system and whose ability to manifest themselves is limited by the idioms of which they are a part, with the components of which they maintain a relationship of participation.