The dictionary’s double “five” (on the 55th anniversary of the publication of the Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by Aleksandr Molotkov)

Abstract

The significance of lexicographic works is determined by their demand, the degree of satisfaction of user requests, and an innovative contribution to the general practice of vocabulary. However, there are dictionaries that contribute not only to lexicography proper, but also to the general theory of the language science. Among the latter are those which, according to the scientific ideas embedded in them, are ahead of their time; therefore, they can be objectively evaluated only after some time. Among them, of course, is the Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language edited by Aleksandr Ivanovich Molotkov. The dictionary was published exactly 55 years ago, in 1967. This article aims to assess the place and role of Molotkov’s Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Language in the formation and development of phraseological science and phraseography and its significance as a practical guide for different categories of users. This lexicographic project was designed in the middle of the 20th century, when phraseology was just establishing itself as a special scientific discipline and the need for a special dictionary was especially acutely realized. It was a project in which the main corpus of phraseological units of the Russian language would be presented in a systematized and lexicographically processed form. The project was successfully implemented primarily because it was based on the integral scientific concept developed by Molotkov, which allowed not only to objectively describe the phraseological unit itself as a special unit of the language and the composition of such units in the language, but also to develop the basic principles of the lexicographic representation of idioms in the dictionary taking into account the specifics of their form, content, and use in speech. The analysis presented in the article shows that in this dictionary such aspects of a phraseological unit as its form; lexical and grammatical meanings; lexical and grammatical properties; compatibility with words; stylistic, emotional, and expressive connotations; historical and temporal relatedness; the peculiarities of the correlation of phraseological units with each other in the form and content, in particular the phenomena of homonymy, synonymy and antonymy in the field of phraseology received an original theoretical and lexicographic development. The language material described in the dictionary made it possible to present the main body of Russian phraseology and to show the place of idioms in Russian vocabulary, the features of the correlation of idioms with each other and with other units. The dictionary clearly shows that a phraseological unit is a special unit of the language, which is categorically different from all other units of the language, including words and phrases, both in its formal and content properties, and in its functional role in the language, and in its use in speech. In the conclusion, the article notes that the scientific concept developed for this dictionary and put into practice in it has been further developed both in scientific writings and in dictionaries. The author declares no conflicts of interests.