COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH, SPANISH, LATIN AND UKRAINIAN SOMATIC IDIOMS BASED ON THE OPPOSITION "TOP – BOTTOM"

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of somatic idioms of English, Spanish, Latin and Ukrainian languages, which are based on the opposition «top – bottom». The special significance of the vertical axis in a person's perception of the world is due not only to cultural factors, but also to biological ones. The human body itself is organized vertically, which makes this axis a natural basis for structuring space and defining its dimensionality. The inclination to vertical perception of space can also be explained by anthropocentrism, the main criterion of which is a man at the centre of the universe. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson claim that spatial features can be transferred to other concepts and phenomena, forming so-called orientational metaphors. The binary opposition «top – bottom», like other spatial oppositions, can perform the function of one of the classifiers, which allow expressing less obvious paired relations of the type: «good – evil», «soul – body», «conscious – subconscious» and others. With the help of orientational metaphors in many cultures, physical, emotional, social states of a person, spatial characteristics of concepts and phenomena can be expressed. The linguistic picture of the world reveals the connection of the spatial orientation «top – bottom» with the idea of «positive» and «negative» in the mind of a native speaker. The metaphorical meanings of some verbs describing the movement «top – bottom», as well as the meanings of some other parts of speech, which characterize the position on the corresponding point of the vertical axis, correlate with the rating scale «good – bad» (in cases where such an association is possible). An upward movement is most frequently evaluated positively. Idioms are considered as a constituent element of building a picture of the world, where the experience of native speakers is recorded. Orientational metaphors based on the opposition «top – bottom» are used as a tool for conceptualizing the inner world of a person. With their help, various aspects of life, such as physical condition, emotions, and social status, are described in many cultures. These metaphors make it possible to equate spatial characteristics with evaluation: upward movement is most often evaluated positively, and downward movement is often associated with negative phenomena.