Idiomske skupine s egocentričnom orijentacijom
Idiomatic groups with egocentric orientation

Summary/Abstract: Given the fact that idiomatic groups offer an authentic image of the objective world and serve as a sort of translators of the specific culture, this paper deals with idiomatic groups with egocentric orientation that might show specifics of the Bosnian language. This paper deals only with this orientation since it is unlikely that in Bosnian language we can find many signs of different kind of orientation (allocentric and geographic) – which means that the egocentric perspective is the usual perspective for Bosnian language speakers. The analysis shows different transpositions of meaning of the lexical units that are connected to space. Many idiomatic groups will most likely show that space is used in non-transpositional meaning, but also it is highly likely that space will be used in qualitative correlations. Most of the languages probably contain a dominant egocentric orientation. In this context, the Bosnian language is a prototype. The quality of the left and right is based on a horizontal perspective. This is also shown by the number of idiomatic groups that use the left‑element. In other words, the left side anticipates the right side, which means that the meaning of the right side is correlatively derived from the meaning of the left side. In support of this finding, the idiom ustati na desnu nogu, registered only in speech and e-corpus, arose directly from the lexical potential of the adjective left in the idiom ustati na lijevu nogu, which is confirmed in all dictionaries of phraseology. This paper shows that left and right are used in the meaning of place and quality. The second group of idiomatic groups gathered around the contrast up and down shows the signs of vertical axis, and therefore their use of the quantitative relations. Quantity is expectedly polarized according to the desirability of higher and the undesirability of lower quantity. In a broader perspective, this can be connected with the connotations of left and right. These idiomatic groups also show the meanings of place and quality. The third idiomatic groups examined in this paper is concentrated around the contrast between outside and inside, and they again indicate the importance of the horizontal-qualitative perspective of space. However, it should be underscored that this group shows the shift of the center of idiomaticity towards the pairing of voice concordance of other non-adverbial constituents. Nevertheless, these idiom groups also articulate a contrast that can be easily associated with the relationship between light and dark, left and right, up and down.

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