Syntactic and Semantic Characteristics of Pragmatic Idioms (on the English Language Material)

Abstract

The article deals with structural and semantic peculiarities of pragmatic idioms. The definition of these lexical units is provided in the research. It is underlined that they belong to the sphere of phraseology. Determinant features of pragmatic idioms are semantic indivisibility, communicative character, emotive colouring. They are directly connected with pragmatic information and characterized by idiomaticity. The article develops the hypothesis that they are signal language signs. Pragmatic idioms consisting of one word, two words and several words are singled out. Their lexico-semantic groups are analyzed. The main functions of the units analyzed – communicative, expressive, phatic, voluntative – are considered. The expressive function dominates. The idioms are characterized by negative or positive connotations. It has been revealed that in the English language the negative connotation of pragmatic idioms prevails. Functional groups of idioms of productive and non-productive communicative styles are defined.