St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies 63 Panel Four. The Languages of Afghanistan and the Liminal Areas... researchers who consider the relationships of such phraseological units as those between the forms of use of different lexical units 1 . Having considered all existing classifications, we arrive to the conclusion that in the Shughni language there are the following types of formation of phraseological units of antonymic nature. 1. Alternation of a verbal or nominal component in expressively marked antonyms: xu wazn patêwdow ‘to lose weight’; xu wazn zê ẋ tow ‘to gain weight’; nek-dil ‘kind’, ‘noble’, literally “[having] a kind heart”; bad-dil ‘evil’, ‘angry’, ‘envious’, literally “[having] an evil heart”, etc. 2. Antonymic phrase formation with negative verbal particles na, ma, no ( xu yil-pil binêstow ‘to lose head’, literally “to lose your brains”; xu yil-pil no- binêstow ‘to get to grips with one’s mind’, ‘come to oneself’). 3. Prepositional antonymic phrase formation. In the formation of phraseological units of this group, a key role is played by prepositions, for example: be xud sitow , literally “To lose one’s temper”, “to faint” = ba xud yatow , literally “come to yourself”, etc. 4. Antonymic phraseological pairs (a+a 1 , a 1 +b 1 , aa 1 , aa 1 , ab 1 +ab 1 , ba 1 + ab 1 ). This group includes phrases where two lexemes with contrasting meaning or two phraseological pairs are contrasted: 1) when one phrase is opposed by meaning to the other, we get a radial construction (a+a 1 , a 1 +b 1 ), and when paired synonymous phrases are opposed to each other, we get a linear construction (also aa 1 , aa 1 , ab 1 +ab 1 , ba 1 + ab 1 )). 2 In the Shughni language these phraseological units are formed with the conjunction at (- yat after vowels), or a negation form nа-na , and with the help of the opposition in meaning described above: yoc at ẋ ac ‘impatient’, literally “water and fire”; na xurd-at, na xu šêx-ard ‘unskillful’, literally “neither for yourself nor for your sheh (friend)”; na pi bel boft at, na pi anjān ‘useless’, literally “neither for a spade nor for a rope”; azůd můnda, azam růnda ‘for nothing’, ‘do something without any result’, literally “tired from here, sacked from there”, etc. Antonymic pairs in the phraseological phrases of this type are mostly found in proverbs and sayings. 5. Simple antonymic formation. This group includes all other semantic phraseological antonyms of the Shughni language: xu u ẋ tar xu vīdow ‘to come to your senses’, literally “to bring your brains to yourself”; xu yil-pil binêstow ‘to lose your head’, literally “to lose your brains”; isob nist ‘ very many’, literally “countless”; angi ẋ t isob ‘very few’, literally “finger counting”, etc. The essence of phraseological and lexical antonymy lies in the fact that semantic units are opposed here, either on the basis of antonymic connections of individual components of a phraseological unit or of two units: čor taraf qiblā ‘wherever’, ‘where you may want’, literally “four sides to Qibla”, fuk půndenen čūst ‘ a hopeless situation’, literally “all the roads are blocked”. 1 Molotkov A. I. Osnovy frazeologii russkogo iazyka. Leningrad: Nauka, 1977. P. 161–162. 2 Vvedenskaia L. A. Sinonimicheskie pary antonimov // Russkii iazyk v shkole. № 4, 1969. P. 107–109.