Актуализации на фразеологизма „Има нещо гнило в Дания“ – контрастивен анализ
Updating the Phraseme „Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark“: A Contrastive Analysis

Summary/Abstract: This study examines a contrastive analysis of the updates of the phraseological unit Има нещо гнило в Дания / Je něco shnilého ve státě dánském in contemporary Bulgarian and Czech. Based on an extensive corpus of media texts from 2002 – 2026, it demonstrates that the expression – originally a quotation from Hamlet – remains a vivid and productive unit in both languages. The analysis identifies five types of updates in the predicate part (negation, positive substitution, modalisation, intensification, pluralisation) and ten types of updates in the adverbial part, which emerges as the main centre of variation. While the predicate part is relatively stable in both languages, the adverbial component shows significant differences: Bulgarian prefers the simple toponym (в Дания) and contrastive substitutions, whereas Czech preserves the syntactic model ve státě [X]ADJ, resulting in a rich array of geographical, institutional, and abstract substitutions. The study also highlights the importance of metalinguistic commentary, which refers to the origin of the phraseological unit and often relativises its relation to contemporary Denmark. The findings confirm that the expression functions as a flexible tool for criticism, irony, and social commentary, with its updates reflecting the differing linguistic traditions and cultural contexts of Bulgarian and Czech.

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