B. This cargo ship is carrying coal to Liverpool.
The first thing that captures the eye is the semantic difference of the two word-groups consisting of the same essential constituents. In the second sentence the free word-group is carrying coal is used in the direct sense, the word coal standing for real hard, black coal and carry for the plain process of taking something from one place to another. The first context quite obviously has nothing to do either with coal or with transporting it, and the meaning of the whole word-group is something entirely new and far removed from the current meanings of the constituents.
V.V. Vinogradov spoke of the semantic change in phraseological units as “a meaning resulting from a peculiar chemical combination of words”. This seems a very apt comparison because in both cases an entirely new quality comes into existence.
The semantic shift affecting phraseological units does not consist in a mere change of meanings of each separate constituent part of the unit. The meanings of the constituents merge to produce an entirely new meaning: e.g. to have a bee in one’s bonnet means “to have an obsession about something; to be eccentric or even a little mad”.
In the traditional approach, phraseological units have been defined as word-groups conveying a single concept (whereas in free word-groups each meaningful component stands for a separate concept).
It is this feature that makes phraseological units similar to words: both possess semantic unity. Yet, words are also characterized by structural unity which phraseological units lack being combinations of words.
Most Russian scholars today accept the semantic criterion of distinguishing phraseological units from free word-groups as the major one and base their research work in the field of phraseology on the definition of a phraseological unit offered by Professor A.V. Koonin, the leading authority on problems of English phraseology in our country: “A phraseological unit is a stable word-group characterized by a completely or partially transferred meaning”.
The definition clearly suggests that the degree of semantic change in a phraseological unit may vary (“completely or partially transferred meaning”). In actual fact the semantic change may effect either the whole word-group or only one of its components. The following phraseoloical units represent the first case: to skate on thin ice (= to put oneself in a dangerous position; to take risks. – Rus. быть на грани опасности; играть с огнём); to wear one’s heart in one’s sleeve (= to expose, so that everyone knows, one’s most intimate feelings – не уметь скрывать свои чувства; что на уме, то и на языке); to have one’s heart in one’s mouth (= to be greatly alarmed by what is expected to happen. – Rus. струсить; душа в пятки ушла).
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