The food code of Greek phraseology: the phytonym "cucumber"

The article deals with the problem of the formation of the food code in Greek phraseology on the basis of the analysis of one of its components - the phytonym "cucumber". The food code is one of the components of the cultural code, which forms images and figurative systems expressed by the combination of linguistic means, and it is regularly reproduced in speech. Phraseological units (PU) are used as the material for research, for they play an important role in linguoculturology, as they create a special symbolism of the surrounding world. Among the other meanings of figurative nomination (e.g. various tropeic meanings like metaphors, comparisons, etc.), PU take on the functions of imaging and expressing the material, spiritual and language picture of the world of man and the nation as a whole. One of the most common cultural codes is the so-called food code, for the cooking, the gastronomy and food in general help us to designate a whole complex of different images (social, family, religious relations, perception of nature, etc.), which gives us a possibility for a detailed study of the lexico-phraseological composition of this code. From the point of view of semantic symbolism, phytonyms can be divided into constant and occasional. Constant ones were formed at the early stage of the formation of human consciousness and they are accessible to the understanding of different peoples and nationalities. Occasional phytonyms represent a reflection of the properties and qualities that the person attributes to phytonyms. Conventional symbols are inherent in the constancy and persistence of the feature, while occasional symbols, because of the dynamic character of their symbolism, narrow or broaden the field of their application, gradually losing associative connections. Different phytonyms form so-called figurative lexical-phraseological fields, where each lexeme appears in various meanings either occasionally or conventionally. The relevance and originality of this article are that for the moment no one has been engaged in the study of the food code on the material of Greek phraseology in Russian linguistics, and the material, collected as a result of studying the corpus of texts of the Greek language and of field research made directly with speakers, gives us the possibility for making conclusions, which describe another view on the Greek language picture of the world. As a result of the analysis, it has been identified that the phytonym "cucumber" as an element of the Greek food code and the component of the PU in the Greek linguistic consciousness has existed since ancient times, and is perceived primarily as the name of a food product, and not a plant. The phytonym "cucumber" realizes rich associative connections in the Greek language, which manifest themselves in various lexical-phraseological fields, such as "appearance of a person and body parts" (the most frequent, 5 PU and one metaphorical derivative), "behavior" (3 PU), "world perception" (3 PU), "interpersonal relations" (2 PU). At the same time, to a considerable extent, these PU have a conventional nature (we discern it primarily in the field "appearance of a person and a part of the body"), while occasional PU are only characteristic for the Greek language picture of the world.

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