Rasprave Instituta za Hrvatski Jezik i Jezikoslovlje (Jan 2010)
Contrastive Analysis of Phrasemes Containing Zoonymic Components in the Croatian and Czech Languages
Abstract
The paper analyses phrasemes in the Croatian and Czech languages that contain zoonymic components from the contrastive point of view. Phrasemes containing a zoonymic component are probably the largest thematic group in Slavic phraseology, probably because of the fact that animals have always been man’s closest companions. Considering that zoonymic phraseology encompasses a broad range of different meanings, this paper will focus on those phrasemes whose meanings are connected to the concepts of human attributes, states, appearance and treatment of food and drink. At the same time, we explain the symbolism of each animal, since this enables us to understand the background of individual meanings of phrasemes. The paper also includes a contrastive analysis of selected Croatian and Czech phrasemes with an emphasis on the aforementioned concepts in which similarities and differences are determined.