Strong Emotions Refl ected in Phraseology: Marginal Behaviour as a Symptom

The study contributes to the analysis of bodily symptoms of emotions
in phraseology. The image component of the semantics of some idioms describing
emotions contains a description of a body system dysfunction as a
symptom, e.g. потемнело в глазах от страха, ярости, злости, ненависти
(everything went black because of fear, rage, malice, hate); дыхание
перехватило от волнения, зависти, смеха (excitement, envy, laughter took
one’s breath away); бросило в жар (sb. feels hot all over), опустились руки
(to drop one’s hands). In our previous work [Kozerenko 2018] all possible
emotions were studied as well as multiple systems of the human body and
various types of their dysfunction that are used in the description of emotions
by means of phraseology. In this work the idioms that contain description
of a fully marginal behaviour in their image components of semantics
are discussed: биться головой о стену (to beat one’s head against the wall),
заламывать руки (to wring one’s hands), волком выть (to start howling, to
moan and groan), [хоть] ложись да/и помирай (there’s nothing left but to
lie down and die) etc.