Differentiation of the Language Proverbial Stock

The author describes the principles of differentiation of units of the language proverbial stock. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that in modern paremiology as a linguistic discipline there is no unambiguous understanding of the grounds on which proverbs should be classified and what types and classes should be distinguished. The purpose of the study is to determine the relevant criteria for differentiating the language proverbial stock and to identify the most significant types of proverbs. The study has shown that it is advisable to differentiate the language proverbial stock according to both linguistic criteria (In the descriptive, diachronic, comparative, typological aspects) and extralinguistic (In the linguacognitive, linguacultural, sociolinguistic aspects). In the linguistic sense, the most significant types of units in the language proverbial stock are figurative, reinterpreted, idiomatic (In semantics), monopredicative, uncomplicated, variable (In structure), unlimited in use in speech, expanded in scope of use, polysituational (In functioning), evaluatively connoted, expressively not marked (In style), discursive origin, original, not subject to historical dynamics (In genesis and history), correlative, analogous, non-equivalent (In comparison with other languages), similar in formal linguistic properties and unique in terms of content (according to typological characteristics). In the extralinguistic sense, these are proverbs that conceptualize and/or model the linguistic picture of the world (In terms of the method of cognitive representation of reality), express cultural codes, social stereotypes and axiological dominants (In terms of the nature of reflection of national or ethnic culture), included in the language minimum and basic stock (In terms of popularity and relevance in society). It is promising to describe units of various types in the proverbial stock of different languages.