The Study of the Phraseological and Paremiological Corpus of the Spanish Language: Main Stages

Kurinnaia Anna Andreevna PhD student; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University Specialist in educational and methodological work; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 1 Leninskie Gory str., Moscow, 119991, Russia anya.kurinnaya@gmail.com

Bakanova Anna Valentinovna PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Faculty of Philology; Lomonosov Moscow State University 1 Leninskie Gory str., Moscow, 119991, Russia asia_sim@mail.ru

The study of the phraseological composition of a language in terms of diachrony and synchronicity, as well as the identification of its national and cultural specifics, is one of the traditional areas of language science. The tasks of phraseology in a narrow sense are focused around the study of the formal and substantive aspects of phraseological units and border on the field of lexicology. "On this structural and semantic basis, the identification and classification of phraseological units was carried out - all combinations of words that are consistently reproduced in the 'ready–made' lexico-grammatical composition" ^{[8, pp. 60-61]}. Phraseology in a broad sense focuses on the peculiarities of the functioning of phraseological units in the speech of native speakers, referring both to the texts of fiction and to works of oral folk art, which brings it closer to the science of folklore: "Small genres of folklore prose, or paremia (from the Greek paroimia – "parable"), are very diverse: proverbs, sayings, omens, riddles, jokes, sayings, tongue twisters, puns, well-wishes, curses, etc." ^{[4, p. 113]}.

Paremiology as a subsection of phraseology, in addition to the classification of units – from ancient proverbs to modern slogans – is also engaged in the study of ways to preserve and transmit the centuries-old experience of the people, the peculiarities of national character and linguistic worldview, which brings its tasks closer to the interests of cultural linguistics, which arose within the framework of the anthropocentric paradigm. The purpose of comparative paremiology, in addition, is a comparative analysis of the similar and distinct features of paremiological units in the languages of different peoples. "The study of paremiology has a long tradition in line with philological, folklore, and cultural studies as a treasure trove of folk wisdom based on the material of various languages (L. B. Savenkova, G. L. Permyakov, O. A. Kornilov), analyzed in order to establish its composition, as well as classification, structural, referential, and semantic characteristics of the paremiological fund of a special kind of stable expressions. – paremius" ^[11]. Thus, an appeal to the history of studying the phraseological and paremiological heritage of Spain seems to be an urgent task, which makes it possible to rely on both linguistic and folkloristic analysis, taking into account, among other things, the linguistic and cultural approach.

As V. N. Telia notes, in natural language, cultural realities are reflected in the most concentrated form in prescriptions of folk wisdom: proverbs, sayings, catch phrases, etc., which are peculiar "templates of cultural and national worldview" and constitute the paremiological fund of language ^{[10, p. 238]}. Russian and Spanish researchers note the interdisciplinary nature of phraseology and methodological difficulties in analyzing its units, as V. S. Vinogradov writes: "there is no unity among phraseologists in their views on the volume of phraseological corpus in the language" ^{[3, p. 151]}. In the Russian tradition, paroemias are considered either within the framework of phraseology, where one of the modern approaches is considered to be from the point of view of semiotics, or they are taken outside this field and explored as part of the folklore heritage. The Spanish tradition distinguishes them as two independent branches, studying, respectively, either idioms (the field of phraseology) or proverbs and sayings (the field of paremiology). However, if we talk about the accepted terminology, we can see similarities in the understanding of the research material, for example, the term fraseolog a is interpreted quite broadly: "f. Conjunto de frases hechas, locuciones figuradas, metáforas y comparaciones fijadas, modismos y refranes", while the term paremiolog a is interpreted more narrowly: "f. Tratado de refranes", and the paremias themselves, which include forismo, proverbio, refran, sentencia, frase proverbial, adagio, dialogismo, apotegma and other units, such as "unidades cerradas, breves, de mensaje sentencioso, citadas en el discurso oral o escrito cual joyas linguisticas" ^{[20, p. 106-107]}. The area of intersection is mainly proverbs and sayings, which simultaneously represent the most voluminous genre form for phraseology, the basic one for paremiology, and the minor one in folklore studies.

When classifying phraseological units, modern Spanish researchers take into account the following factors: known or anonymous origin, folk or literary usage, as well as the degree of idiomaticity, didactic character, etc. The first criteria lead to the division into two main groups – folklore units (sayings and proverbial expressions) and author's units (proverbs and aphorisms). If the origin of the expression is known, then in modern science the terms proverbio and beforismo are mainly used, however, throughout history other terms could be used in the same meaning, for example sentencia, m a xima, adagio, apotegma, etc. The main source of the Spanish proverbial fund are biblical and Greek-Latin texts, and the origin of aphorisms is associated with the names of famous personalities or popular literary heroes. The Spanish researcher Sevilla muñoz defines the proverb as follows, which primarily emphasizes its bookish origin: "El proverbio es un enunciado sentencioso de origen conocido, cuyas características son la procedencia culta, la antigüedad, el tono grave, la gradación idiomática, la potencial variación y el uso preferentemente culto" ^{[20, p. 109]}. For a more complete picture, we supplement this definition with a semantic and syntactic criterion introduced by Russian authors: proverbs are "phraseological units with a sentence structure, having in their meaning the idea of universality, illocutionary semantics of recommendation or advice (moralizing) and characterized by relative discursive independence" ^{[1, p. 69]}.

The texts, whose origin is considered unknown, belong to several genres, the main of which is refrán. All of them are anonymous and have passed through the oral path of existence, which determines their harmonious, easy-to-remember form and artistic features (the presence of rhyming elements, mnemonic techniques, etc.). Their content reflects different aspects of human relations and forms of traditional life, often retaining a didactic and satirical sound. "Iconic interpretations of the realities of the surrounding world and human attitudes to it reflect both universal ways of conceptualization and purely national ones" ^[6].

Both proverbs and sayings of the Spanish language retain echoes of cultural and historical periods important for the national tradition, spiritually and socially significant events, which over time may change, rethink and acquire a modern sound. Spanish folklore reflects pagan superstitions and religious worldview, combining elements of different mythological systems and cultural traditions: "Spain was destined by fate, history, and its geographical location to become a bridge between two civilizations – Western and eastern, European, Arab, and Afroasiatic" ^{[7, p. 7]}.

The study of the national paremiological tradition in Spain has been developing for several centuries and goes through several main stages. As you know, paremiography examines the history of collecting, publishing and studying small genres of folklore, including proverbs and sayings. And if paremiology is considered a relatively young science, whose basic principles were formed in the twentieth century, then paremiography has its roots in the Middle Ages: "Mientras la paremiografía existe desde la Edad Media -en el caso de la paremiografía francesa y la española-, se considera que la paremiología Moderna nace en el siglo XX" ^{[12, p. 238]}. In medieval Spain, the tradition of publishing the first collections of folk proverbs and sayings begins: "La riqueza paremiográfica española se aprecia en el elevado número de colecciones editadas de forma continuada desde la Edad Media hasta nuestros días, si bien no se conservan muchos repertorios medievales ^[18]. Proverbs and sayings of the Spanish language during this period can be found as an insert illustrative material in literary works, religious and secular collections, historical chronicles and legends. However, it is too early to talk about the established terminology or a clear classification of folklore genres and phraseological units.

The rise in interest in national heritage and linguistic wealth is associated with the development of the humanist movement, which has a special character in Spain. An important feature of the Spanish Renaissance is that it is influenced by both the southern humanist tradition and the northern one. Spanish humanists owe their interest in ancient heritage, including ancient aphorisms and catchphrases, and Italian authors to the influence of the Italian tradition. – Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio. The Northern humanist tradition brings a fascination with the philosophy of Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose annotated collections of sayings, proverbs and apophegmas become a reference point for Spanish humanists. The Spanish Renaissance encompasses a narrow circle of educated aristocracy, which includes the Marquis de Santillana, Juan de Lucena, Enrique de Villena and other authors who, focusing on ancient and medieval philosophers, writers and historians, are looking for new ways to develop culture. The absence of a developed literary tradition in the Castilian language during this period forces humanists, in addition to referring to the ancient heritage, to rely on the national folk tradition.

In the XV–XVI centuries, linguists (Antonio de Nebrija, Juan de Valdez, and others) used Castilian proverbs and sayings (en aquellos refranes se vee mucho bien la puridad de la lengua castellana) in their first works on the grammar of the Castilian language as examples of correct usage, putting their linguistic richness above the examples of classical traditions (los castellanos son tomados de dichos vulgares, los más de ellos nacidos y criados entre viejas, tras del fuego hilando sus ruecas; y los griegos y latinos, como sabéis, son nacidos entre personas doctas ^[2]. The attentive attitude of scientists and writers to the national language, history and folklore reflects the flourishing of the humanist movement in Spain during this period.

Since the Renaissance, Spanish researchers have been increasingly interested in both the parodies that came from the Greek-Latin culture and the examples of folk wisdom created in new Romance languages. Since the 15th century, voluminous dictionaries of proverbs, sayings, and examples by such authors as H. de Mal Lara, E. Nunes, P. Valles: "La llegada del Renacimiento supone el afán por recopilar paremias, tanto de uso culto como popular, lo que se refleja en voluminosas colecciones de enunciados breves y sentenciosos. Así, es la época de la publicación de refraneros considerados clásicos para la paremiografía españolas, como los de Pedro Vallés (1555), Hernán Núñez (1555) o Juan de Mal Lara (1568)» ^[18]. These dictionaries contain numerous samples of paroemias, arranged alphabetically and provided with detailed comments by the authors. Gradually, repeating from collection to collection, this material forms the basis for the formation of a general Spanish corpus of paremiological texts.

The first collection of Spanish parodies is considered to be the work "Refranes … que diçen las viejas tras el fuego", painted by the Marquis de Santillana (real name Iñigo L ó pez de Mendoza) commissioned by Juan II in 1549. Some researchers question Santillana's authorship: "Así no consideramos como folklorista al Marqués de Santillana, sino al rey" ^{[16, p. 32]}. However, everyone agrees that this publication has become an important milestone in the development of Spanish paremiological science: "una obra esencial para comprender la paremiografía española [...]. Por estos motivos, merece estar en la Biblioteca fraseológica y paremiológica» ^{[16, c. 32]}.

Since the XVI century. In Spain, the transition to a new cultural system is gradually beginning, in which the national tradition plays an important role. "The turn of the XV–XVI centuries was a landmark period in the collective consciousness of the Spanish–speaking society, which was aware of its strength and power after the completion of the Reconquista, and at the same time clearly realized its imperial destiny after Columbus discovered the New World and annexed vast territories in Central and Southern Europe to Spain" [9: 9.]. Proverbs sayings, apophegmas, aphorisms and other examples of folk wisdom are perceived as examples of linguistic creativity, as key elements of national identity and at the same time as a tribute to ancient and medieval authors. An example of this attitude is the authoritative apothegmata "Floresta española de apotegmas o sentencias, sabia y graciosamente dichas, de algunos españoles" by Melchor de Santa Cruz de Dueñas, published in 1574 (Es ésta una de las más important colecciones de la época y quizá la más interesante, no solo como obra folklore ^{[16, p. 38]}). The stories collected by de Santa Cruz echo not only the Greek-Latin tradition and the publications of E. Rotterdam, but also contemporary Italian and Spanish authors, for example, the works of Juan de Timoneda. In 1730, the collection was supplemented and republished by F. Francisco Asensio, which further strengthened his influence on his followers. A few years earlier, in 1568, Juan de Mal Lara published about a thousand proverbs and sayings in his work La Philosophia vulgar. The author carefully collects and comments on each item presented in the collection, which puts it on a par with fundamental folklore research (en él se propuso Mal Lara exponer el fundamento filosófico del Pueblo y las observaciones que pudieron llevarle a cristalizar en el refrán la conclusionobtenida de las experiencias proporcionadas por la vida cotidiana ^{[16, c. 37]}.

In the XVII century . Several famous collections of Spanish phraseology are being published, among which we note the 1616 work "Medicina española contenida en proverbios vulgares de nuestra lengua" by Juan Sorapán (Juan Sorapán de Rieros), which contains detailed proverbs and sayings on medical topics. The author emphasizes that they preserve the wisdom and experience of the people in a concise form (conocerá que los refranes, no son materia débil, y sin artificio, y forma: antes que engendran en los entendimientos de los hombres, son suavidad, y gracia, admirable sabiduría, y ciencia ^{[16, p. 52]}). One should also mention the famous collection of phraseological units by the Spanish grammarian Gonzalo Correas, "Vocabulario de refranes y frases proverbiales y otras fourmulas comunes de la lengua castellana," which became available to researchers only in the twentieth century.

The work on publishing proverbs and sayings of the Spanish language continued in the XVIII–XIX centuries, becoming more critical over time.

In the 19th century, interest in phraseology and paremiology in Spain was marked mainly by a compilative and descriptive approach. This period was characterized by the activities of scientists and folklorists who sought to preserve the country's linguistic and cultural heritage. One of the most prominent figures and representatives of the compilation approach was Mariano de Rementería y Fica, who published in 1821 "Refranes o proverbios españoles", a work in which a large number of folk proverbs, sayings and stable expressions were collected. Already in the title of the work, there is a terminological problem characteristic of paremiological research in Spanish, which is of great interest to researchers in the 21st century — the difference between the terms refran and proverbio. This work by Rementeria-i-Fika laid the foundation for future paremiological collections and research.

In addition, Romanticism, which came at the beginning of the 19th century, with its interest in everything folk and traditional, stimulated the collection of proverbs, sayings and idiomatic expressions. With the advent of comparative linguistics methods, the approach to working with texts of oral folk art is gradually changing. For example, Antonio Machado y Alvarez, the father of the poets Antonio and Manuel Machado, made a significant contribution to this "preparatory" (in relation to the philological proper) stage in the development of Spanish folklore and paremiology with his works "Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Españolas" (1883-1886), "Colección de enigmas y adivinanzas" (1881), etc. However, during this period, there was still no systematic theoretical approach in research of this kind: the main goal of the researchers was precisely to collect folklore material, not to analyze it. However, until the beginning of the twentieth century, it was impossible to talk about a truly scientific analysis of folklore heritage, since throughout the 19th century collectors and publishers, focusing on the activities of the brothers Grimm, allowed literary processing of texts to give them an even greater folk flavor.

Among the costumbrist researchers of the second half of the 19th century, one should mention Fernand Caballero (real name Cecilia B 'hl de Faber y Larrea), who published several collections of folklore texts, including riddles and sayings, as well as fairy-tale and song folklore: "Cuentos y poesías populares andaluzas" (1859), "Cuentos, oraciones, adivinas y refranes populares e infantiles" (1878). In the eighties of the 19th century, the activity of positivists (A. Machado y Alvarez, A. Guichot y Sierra, etc.) came to the fore, thanks to which the Spanish folklore tradition was enriched with new terminology, gradually integrated into the European scientific context and developed in all regions of the country.

The 20th century, despite all the difficulties and upheavals faced by Spain (in the first half of the twentieth century, the country went through a number of political and social transformations, including the Second Republic (1931-1939) and the Civil War (1936-1939), became a turning point in phraseological and paremiological research — during this period, the philological approach to More attention is paid to the study of these units, systematization and scientific analysis. In this regard, it is impossible not to mention Ramon Menendez Pidal. Ramón Menéndez Pidal is a central figure in Spanish philology and linguistics. Although his work did not focus exclusively on paremiology or phraseology, Pidal's scientific approach to the study of folklore elements has become an important theoretical and methodological basis for much research in the field of phraseology and paremiology. Many of his works ("El lenguaje del siglo XVI" (1919), "La España del Cid" (1929), "Los españoles en la historia", etc.) are more or less related to the study of stable expressions and phraseological components in the Spanish language at different stages of its formation and development. Pidal's research plays a crucial role in understanding the historical context of the origin and etymology of many modern idiomatic expressions.

Pidal's contemporary, Julio Cejador y Frauca, published a four-volume monumental work, Fraseología, o estilística castellana, between 1921 and 1925. It represents one of the first systematic attempts to analyze and classify proverbs, sayings, and other stable expressions of the Spanish language. Interestingly, Cejador was interested in language not only from a linguistic, but also from a cultural point of view, recognizing that language and parodies are a reflection of the history, traditions and linguistic worldview of the people: "Porque el idioma es la propia expresión de un pueblo y la expresión no es más que el mismo interior o alma que llega a superficie como manifestativa, donde se echa de ver tal cual es en su ser intraseco, sin mudanza alguna" and "Hay expresiones castellanas...las cuales, como todo lo popular, son producto del pueblo... el modo de sentir y pensar de todos" ^{[14, pp. 7-9]}. This interdisciplinary approach to the study of phraseological units is relevant today. In the first two volumes of his work, Sejador classifies thousands of idioms he has collected according to their grammatical structure, function, and meaning (although the classification sometimes turns out to be arbitrary or unclear), explains the origin and use of paroemias in speech, literature, and written sources; in the third volume, the researcher provides regional variants of stable expressions, thereby emphasizing the dialectal richness of the Spanish language and noting the presence of a national and cultural component in them; the fourth volume is devoted to the use of phraseological units in fiction. Sejador analyzes the author's style of classical Spanish writers (Miguel Cervantes, Francisco Quevedo, Lope de Vega, etc.), gives examples from their works, focusing on how writers introduced phraseology into their text in order to give it vividness and proximity to folk speech.

In the middle of the 20th century, the most important work of José María Iribarren appeared — "El porqué de los dichos" (1955), which became a classic reference book for the study of proverbs, sayings and other idiomatic expressions in Spanish. This work is an attempt to explain the etymology, usage and meaning of paremias; it is organized in the form of an encyclopedic dictionary, where idioms are arranged in alphabetical order (unlike the same Sehador), and each dictionary entry contains the expression itself, an explanation of its meaning, the historical or intended context of the unit's appearance, as well as examples of its use in literature or colloquial speech. It should be noted, however, that some etymological explanations are speculative and are not supported by reliable historical sources; despite this, Iribarren's work is still a must-read guide for researchers of Spanish phraseology and paremiology. Another landmark work of the mid—20th century is "Introducción a la lexicografía Moderna" (1950) by Julio Casares, which, although not exclusively devoted to phraseology and paremiology, laid the foundation for the systematic study of phraseological units and their processing in dictionaries. Casares pays attention to idiomatic expressions, emphasizing their complexity and inseparability from the language ("Las locuciones no son meras combinaciones de palabras, sino unidades léxicas complejas que deben ser tratadas con el mismo rigor que las palabras simples" ^{[13, p. 10]}), notes that they should be treated in a special way when compilation of dictionaries. He suggests that stable expressions should be included in lexicographical works as separate dictionary entries or additions to the main articles, depending on their frequency and use, insists on the need to include in the articles a litter concerning the register of speech and the dialect variety of the unit. Casares' approach influenced how phraseological units are displayed in modern dictionaries, and became the methodological basis for further research and new lexicographic works (for example, Diccionario fraseológico documentado del español actual (2004) by Manuel Seco, Olimpia Andrés, and Gabino Ramos). Speaking of the lexicographic tradition, it should be noted that the Institute of Lexicography of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) was established in 1947, which also contributed to the standardization and study of phraseological and paremiological units in both synchronic and diachronic aspects.

In the 1960s and 1980s, phraseological research began to become more interdisciplinary: to analyze stable expressions, folklorists increasingly resort to the tools of various related sciences, such as anthropology and sociolinguistics. For example, the Spanish philologist Gregorio Salvador Caja studied paroemias, analyzing their structure and value as part of linguistic and cultural heritage, as a way of reflecting and shaping reality, and as a means of communication.

At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, in 1996, work began on "Refranero multilingue" by Julia Sevilla Munoz and Teresa Zurdo Ruiz-Ayúcar, professors at the University of Madrid Compulense. This work is an outstanding, innovative example of the comparative study of stable expressions in different languages, collected through a variety of dictionaries, collections of folk art and literary works in different languages (for example, to the Spanish phrase: "A quien madruga, Dios le ayuda" ("Whoever gets up early, God gives it to him"), Munoz and Ruiz adds her French ("Le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt") and English ("The early bird catches the worm") equivalents with Spanish translations ("El mundo pertenece a quienes se levantan temprano" and "El pájaro madrugador atrapa el gusano" respectively) ^[21]. The authors compare Spanish paronyms with their equivalents in French, Italian, English, German, Portuguese — a total of ten different languages. The work is a thematically structured dictionary (love, work, friendship, family, nature, and other semantic fields), which simplifies the search and comparative analysis of paremiological units. In addition, the study includes the author's comments on the etymology and evolution of some expressions, as well as their social function. It is worth noting that Munoz devoted her other studies to phraseology and paremiology; one of them, "Refranes y expresiones proverbiales en la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera" (2000), is devoted to the study of paremias in the context of teaching Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), another relevant area in this field: phraseology and Paremiology plays a key role in the formation of students' communicative competence.

One of the most important milestones in modern paremiological research was the publication of the previously mentioned Diccionario fraseológico documentado del español actual by Manuel Seco, Olimpia Andres and Gabino Ramos. This dictionary, based on an extensive array of texts, represents significant progress in documenting and analyzing phraseological units of the Spanish language. The work includes more than 10,000 dictionary entries covering a wide range of stable expressions, from the most to the least common. Each of them is supported by real-life examples taken from written and oral sources, which guarantees its current use and relevance in modern Spanish. Sources include the press, literature, film, television, and other media. Unlike other phraseological dictionaries, this work focuses on modern Spanish, which makes it especially useful for students, teachers, and native speakers.

It should be noted the role of electronic Spanish language corpora (CREA, CORPES, etc.), the creation of which contributed to the empirical study of idiomatic expressions and sayings. These tools allow researchers to analyze the actual use of phraseological units in various contexts.

Russian Russian scientists of the 20th and 21st centuries also study Spanish phraseology and paremiology: in 1985, E. I. Levintova created the first Spanish-Russian phraseological dictionary, which includes phraseological units, proverbs and sayings, provided with examples from the works of Spanish and Latin American authors with translations into Russian. V. C. also dealt with issues of terminology, classification, variability and systemic interrelationships of Spanish phraseological units. Vinogradov.

Of course, it is worth noting interdisciplinary works devoted not only to linguistic, but also to anthropological and cultural aspects of the study of phraseology and paremiology. Thus, Yu. L. Obolenskaya's monograph "Legends and Legends of Spain" (the first edition dates back to 2004; later the work was reprinted many times) contains a "Short dictionary of Spanish superstitions, signs, mythological images and symbols" — the first dictionary of its kind in Russia ^[7]. The research not only highlights the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mythology, combining linguistics, history and cultural studies, but also allows for a deeper understanding of phraseological expressions related to Spanish superstitions and mythology. N. G. Med in the monograph "Evaluative worldview in Spanish vocabulary and phraseology" (2007) examines evaluative meanings in Spanish colloquial speech, which form the image of a person and the surrounding world: the author analyzes semantic fields, mechanisms of evaluative metaphorization and phraseologization, concludes that the evaluative picture of the world in Spanish is based on a variety of linguistic means (word-formation, morphological, lexical and syntactic), with semantically transformed vocabulary and phraseological units playing a key role.

Thus, currently phraseological and paremiological studies of Spanish language units are undergoing a period of active development and diversification due to the development of technologies — corpus linguistics, computer natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning methods — and the consolidation of interdisciplinary approaches. Phraseology and paremiology have been integrated into fields such as cognitive linguistics, lexicography, translation, and teaching Spanish as a foreign language.