Proverbs of the English discourse: onto-gnoseological syncreta

Abstract

The article in question deals with the English proverbs, their onto-gnoseological endozone identification. Attention is being focused upon the phenomena of self-organization and self-control i.e. the evolution, function and modification. The complex consideration of the research items are being objectified by the modern linguistic tendencies and topically textocentric approach. The question of the structural and semantic parameters of proverbs is prior in the research considering modification patterns in terms of the outer and inner structures of proverbs. The proverbs in dichotomy with sayings are considered to be greatly apart in their functions: communicative – for proverbs and nominative – for sayings. Divergence consists in that: proverbs are predicative utterances, sayings are parts of them (blocks of sentences). Semantic distance between proverbs, aphorisms and riddles is formalized: proverbs :: aphorisms is equal to 0.75, proverbs :: riddles is equal to 0.25. For the first time the discrepancy of these small texts is verified objectively. Basic research metasigns are verbally explicated and empirically illustrated. The further investigation is being welcome.