Kategoria intensywności we frazeologii języka polskiego i rosyjskiego

The work is devoted to one of the semantic categories, and investigation of its projection in phraseological units in the Polish and Russian language. The analysis conducted concerns an attempt to indicate types and means of reflecting intensity in the polarized semantic space, limited by antonymic pairs of adjectives naming a given feature. Some of the points of a created semantic space take on their own verbalization on the linguistic level. Their greatest density, which is proved by the semantics of intensity, takes place near polar points. The semantic features in focus can be added by means of units of different language levels, phraseologisms included. The material analysed derives from lexicographic sources: phraseological, explanatory and comparative dictionaries. The notion of phraseology is understood here in broad terms, that is, it takes into account stable comparative constructions, collocations, and probably a series of compounds not fully or partially phraseologised. Adjectives correspond to given notions and form linguistic units naming certain features, in the areas (categories) of “space”, “time”, “speed", “quantity”, “power”, “sensibility”, “state”, and “assessment”. Intensity refers to the quantitative value which affects units referring to physical characteristics. It is much more difficult to find it in the units to which quantitative value is ascribed. In the analysis of phraseologisms the author uses an onomasiologic approach (from the notion to the name) because it is the actual reality and phenomena taking place in it, by means of their denotations, that have an influence on the meaningful content of linguistic units. The research method constituted the principle of comparing units which possess a lower level of intensity with the ones characterized by a bigger intensity, such as ładna jak lalka -*■ piękna jak lalka', cienki jak włos -» cienki jak włosek, cienki jak włosek -* cieniutki jak włosek, jasne jak słońce -* jasne jak słońce na niebie, etc. The very method allows for both the establishment of the same intensity in JF. and the identification of its degree. The mechanism of intensity increases functions in linguistic units of different levels, but its investigation has never been the subject of analysis in the literature