Yp1-03(2) Idioms: Motivation and Etymology Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij and Elisabeth Piirainen Abstract

3. Aspects of etymology

3.1. Historical and etymological research on phraseology

The aims of historical comparative approaches to phraseology are many, ranging from uncovering the etymological origin or the initial form of single phrasemes to reconstructing former stages in the development of a phraseological system or entire domains that were previously culturally significant. This branch of research has to rely on cooperation with culturally-oriented academic disciplines other than linguistics (e.g. folklore, mythology research, ecclesiastical history) and incorporate dialectal and historical language varieties as well as comprehensive extra-linguistic material.

First, it is crucial to discriminate between historical research and etymological analysis. As for historical research, there is a certain tradition in Slavic languages. Since the 1960s, several studies have analyzed dialectal and ethnographic material in order to reconstruct the phraseology of a Proto-Slavic variety (Tolstoj 1973) and aspects of early religious and mythological concepts of folk culture. Using variants or (quasi)-synonyms of a given phraseme in many dialects and related languages as a starting point, Mokienko (1989) develops structural semantic models. This approach finds expression in further diachronic studies, above all in the historical-etymological dictionary of phrasemes (Bierich et al. 2005).

In contrast to that, other significant etymological studies start from the particular phrasemes themselves in order to advance to their real origins or sources. Recently, Wanzeck (2003) has given a coherent description of the etymology of idioms containing color words in historical and current language. Starting from the lexicalized meaning of the phrasemes, the study centers on the question of how the color adjectives took on their phraseologically bound meanings. Exhausting the written sources from the very beginning and considering their cultural and historical contexts, the author succeeds in clarifying the true etymology of many phrasemes that became obscure in the course of history. For example, she was able to illuminate how the German idiom (8), completely opaque until then, came into being.

(8) German einen blauen Montag machen

“to make a blue Monday”

‘to skip work on Monday’
Since medieval times there was a “blue mass” (German blaue Messe) that was said for the deceased of the craftsmen’s guild on a particular Monday. It was also named blauer Montag, after the priest’s blue vestment, since with regard to ecclesiastical history blue was the color of fasting and mourning. Through various social historical circumstances, the meaning shifted from ‘requiem mass on a Monday’ to ‘Monday off’ (Wanzeck 2003: 156–211).

The example shows that knowledge of the etymology mostly has no effect on the way speakers deal with an idiom. Unlike with idioms that are obviously transparent (e.g. because of a well-known underlying source frame), play on words with the historical meaning of blue (the color of the priest’s vestment, ecclesiastical color of mourning) would not be possible.

Important for our research are the questions: what is the true etymology in each individual case? How does this “true” etymology correlate with the synchronic motivation? And what is the role of folk etymology in those cases in which the true etymology does not work?