Phrases with the keyword-symbols (on the material of the Ukrainian and Russian languages)

Abstract

The article deals with the study of one of the topical problems of Modern Linguistics – the reflection of the most important mental peculiarities of Slavonic peoples, in particular, Ukrainian and Russians. The aim of the paper is to fix up the most representative stable units with the help of the key word-symbol WATER and accomplish their linguistic description. Water is the biggest gift of heavan to the Earth, resuscitates it and makes fruitfull. In connection with a special importance of this natural substance in people’s life, the above-mentioned nations created unique phraseological units with the keyword WATER. For achieving the aim the descriptive, comparative-confrontation methods, the method of conceptosphere modelling, componental and contextual analyses have been used. During the work the author bases his research on the main scholarly postulates of well-known Ukrainian and foreign learned men, introducing their own vision of the problem to them. The material under investigation enabled distinquishing ten the most important conceptospheres, in the author’s opinion, which form the concept water with the corresponding word-symbol. As a result of carrying out the research the author comes to the conclusion that fixed up phraseological expressions are vivid representatives of mental peculiarities of Ukrainians and Russians, in particular they reflect their mode of life, customs, beliefs, the features of the character, the relations among them, etc.