Mikhail A. Bredis

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Leading Researcher of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Faculty of Philology

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

(Moscow, Russia)

Olga V. Lomakina

Doctor of Philology, Leading Researcher, Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Faculty of Philology

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

(Moscow, Russia)

B. Xue

Postgraduate Student of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Faculty of Philology

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

(Moscow, Russia)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2023-1-72-82

Abstract. The article analyzes phraseological units, including various small genres of paremias, with a numerical component ‘four’, extracted by continuous sampling from lexicographic sources of the Russian, Buryat, Tuvan, Kumyk, Khakass, Tatar, Chuvash and Chinese languages. These languages are typologically different and belong to the Slavic, Turkic language groups and the Chinese branch of the SinoTibetan family of languages, representing inflectional, agglutinative and isolating types. An analysis of scientific papers devoted to numerical components in the composition of stable units has demonstrated the interest of researchers in these components, which is explained by their universal nature and symbolic meaning in various linguocultures. The purpose of the work was to present the meaning of the numerative component ‘four’ as part of stable units of languages with typologically different structures. The study used the methods of historical-etymological, descriptive-analytical and linguoculturological analysis, which made it possible to conduct an interlingual comparison of phraseological units and paremias in the aspect of comparative ethnolinguoculturology. The analysis showed that the symbolism of the numerical component ‘four’ is universal for all compared linguocultures. It is the symbolic semantics that underlies the active use of this numeral in stable language units (phraseological expressions and paremics) and its role in the creation of the numerical cultural code. In this regard, the connection between the numerical code of linguoculture and the spatial one turned out to be the closest. At the same time, national specifics associated with the symbolism of the numeral 'four' were also revealed. Thus, the Chinese linguoculture demonstrates a negative attitude towards the considered numeral, unlike other linguocultures, and in Russian linguoculture this component does not have bright symbolism. The analysis also showed that the typological diversity of languages does not affect the role of the considered component in phraseological units and paremias, since its role is associated primarily with symbolic semantics.
Keywords: phraseological unit, paremia, proverb, mystery, number, cultural code, numeric code.

Full text of the article (PDF)

For citation: Bredis MA, Lomakina OV, Xue, B 2023, ‘Numerical Code of Linguoculture: Analysis of the Numeral Four as a Component of Phraseological Units and Paremias (Based on Examples of Typologically Different Languages)’, Tula Scientific Bulletin. History. Linguistics, issue 1 (13), pp. 72–82, http://doi.org/10.22405/2712-8407-2023-1-72-82 (in Russ.)

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