The Symbol Salt and Its Reflection in the Russian Phraseology

Salt is a culturological, pragmatically important notion, hence its physical characteristics and associative bonds are reflected in numerous linguistic means of naming. Polysemantic lexeme salt has a huge phraseological
potential. The article deals with a fragment of the wide phraseological cluster with the initial word in its fi rst meaning “white crystalline substance with sharp, specific taste that is used especially to season or preserve food”
in the national Russian language. Phraseological units with the component ‘salt’ in this meaning cover big semantic space. They reveal what characteristics of salt, real or attributed, are topical for native speakers, develop symbolic
meanings and become a basis of creating new phraseological units. The paper shows phraseological units that refl ect the importance of salt as a symbol of hospitality, wealth, constancy and fidelity. Salt is also viewed as
an amulet and a symbol of blessing and thankfulness. The article also contains phraseological units that demonstrate the importance of salt for a person in general, the units that emphasize the harmfulness of the excessive amount of salt or view it as a symbol of curse. The article considers the factors of phrase creation activity of the word salt. The material of analysis is phraseological units of different types including proverbs and sayings extracted by continuous sampling method from dictionaries of literary language, dialect dictionaries and from the Internet resources that reflect the colloquial speech of native speakers.