Folk Praseologisms with the Preposition “az” in the Poetic Language of Loiq Sherali: from Colloquial Speech to Literary Imagery

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of folk phraseological units with the preposition “az” in the poetic language of Loiq Sherali (1941–2000). Based on the material from “Farhangi iborahoi khalqi” (Dictionary of Folk Phrases) and poetic texts from 1959–1966, a comparative analysis of colloquial phraseologisms and their possible poetic analogues was conducted. The results of quantitative analysis reveal the absence of direct lexical borrowings (0 matches in a corpus of approximately 50 pages), while demonstrating active use of the same grammatical model “az + noun” for creating original poetic images. It has been established that the folk phraseological model is not quoted but creatively reinterpreted through processes of lexical substitution, semantic inversion, and metaphorical expansion. Colloquial phraseologisms are functionally replaced by individually-authored stable poetic expressions that become markers of Loiq’s idiostyle. Basic concepts of folk phraseology (dil / heart, ob / water, daryo / river, roh / path, yod / memory) are preserved but receive philosophical-lyrical reinterpretation. The research demonstrates the mechanism of synthesizing folk linguistic intuition with the requirements of high literary style in twentieth-century Tajik poetry