CHANGES OF THE CONCEPT “ARBEIT” AT THE BACKGROUND OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PHRASE FORMATION PROCESSES

Abstract

This article belongs to the area of cognitive researches. It covers the verbalization of the idea of labour in the German worldview and the changes in this idea observed during the 20th century. The main research material are the phraseological units with the core lexeme “Arbeit” which originated due to primary and secondary phrase formation processes. In the article special attention is paid to the phraseological units which emerged as a result of semantic and semantic-structural transformations accompanied by complex modification of meaning. Among the changes observed in phraseological meaning the author focuses on cognitive-semantic alterations which can be explained through the reconstruction of conceptual metaphor or metonymy forming the basis of a phraseological unit. While studying the history of changes in Germans’ attitude to labour the author involves historical and sociological data, identifies the prevailing trends in these changes, explains how they brought to life various phrase formation processes, both primary and secondary. The author arrives at a conclusion about a relation between the emotivity modification caused by semantic-structural transformations of phraseological units and the historical changes in the phraseological stock of German language. The article expands the ideas of extralingual factors which determine semantic and semantic-structural transformations of phraseological units and their influence on the changes in the phraseological stock.