Free word groups and phraseological units

1.4.The theory of phraseology by S. Bally

The founder of the theory of phraseology is the Swiss linguist of French origin Charles Bally (1865-1947). Bally was the first to systematize word combinations in his books Essay on Stylistics and French Stylistics [Bally Ch., 1905,1909]. Bally included a chapter on phraseology in his style books.

In the first book, he distinguished four groups of phrases: 1) free phrases (les groupements libres), i.e. combinations devoid of stability, decaying after their formation; 2) the usual combinations (les groupements usuels), i.e. phrases with a relatively loose connection of components that allow for some changes, for example, une grave maladie - a serious illness (une dan-gereuse, serieuse maladie - a dangerous, serious illness); H) phraseological series (les series phraseologiques), i.e. groups of words in which two adjacent concepts merge almost into one. The stability of these turns is fixed by the primary use of words, for example, remporter une victoire - to win, courir un danger - to be in danger. These combinations allow the components to be rearranged; 4) phraseological unity (les unites phraseologiques), i.e. combinations in which words have lost their meaning and express a single indecomposable concept. Such combinations do not allow re-grouping of components. Thus, Bally distinguishes word combinations according to the degree of stability: combinations in which there is freedom of grouping of components, and combinations that are deprived of such freedom. Balli only sketched these groups, but did not give them any detailed description.
In his later work "French stylistics" Bally considers the usual combinations and phraseological series as intermediate types of word combinations and distinguishes only two main groups of combinations: 1) free combinations and 2) phraseological unity, i.e. phrases, the components of which, constantly used in these combinations to express the same thought, have lost all independent meaning.
The whole combination as a whole acquires a new meaning, not equal to the sum of the values ​​of the constituent parts. The point indicates that such a turnover can be compared with a chemical compound, and emphasizes that if the unity is sufficiently common, then, obviously, in this case the combination is equal to a simple word. Balli put the phraseology of a phrase depending on the presence of an identifier word.
These thoughts of Bally later formed the basis for the identification of phraseological mergers and the development of the theory of equivalence of phraseological units to a word (see § 4). Since Ballie's time, the study of phraseology has made great strides. But the work of a great scientist, written at the dawn of the study of phraseology, contributed to the further development of phraseological research. Balli's concept is discussed in many works. We indicate only some of them [Vinogradov, 1947 (a), p. 342-344; Budagov, 1961, p. 5-16; Amosova, 1963, p. 5-6; Ku-ning, 1966; Nazaryan, 1976, p. 16-19].