Occasional Transformations of Bulgarian Phraseological Units Containing a Name of a Garment Or Part of a Garment

Abstract

The paper offers an analysis of occasional transformations of Bulgarian phraseological units containing a name of a garment (‘пола’, ‘риза’, ‘гащи’, ‘балтон’) or part of a garment (‘джоб’, ‘ръкав’). Examples excerpted from the Bulgarian press and social media between 2012 and 2023 reveal occasionalisms that have occurred through wordplay, atypical lexical substitution, structural or syntactic modifications. The study shows that lexical substitution is the most common way of modification, while double actualization of semantics appears rarely. The studied transformations may possess significant expressive or stylistic value, however there are no indications for their extended usage in the contemporary Bulgarian language.

Keywords

• occasional transformation
• bulgarian phraseology
• garment
• variants