Semantic Aspects in Comparing German and Polish Phraseological Units

This paper explains that the traditional semasiological presentation of idioms in dictionaries is not useful to describe phraseological near synonyms called quasi-synonyms or asymmetric polysems. The onomasiological approach to phraseological units is a better way to find semantic differences between phraseological false friends in two languages. The ariticle compares selected phraseological examples from bilingual dictionaries with its meanings in monolingual dictionaries. In this this way, the author demonstrates, among others, why the German idiom das Gras wachsen hören is not equivalent to the Polish analogical idiom słyszeć, co w trawie piszczy.

This paper explains that the traditional semasiological presentation of idioms in dictionaries is not useful to describe phraseological near synonyms called quasi-synonyms or asymmetric polysems. The onomasiological approach to phraseological units is a better way to find semantic differences between phraseological false friends in two languages. The ariticle compares selected phraseological examples from bilingual dictionaries with its meanings in monolingual dictionaries. In this this way, the author demonstrates, among others, why the German idiom das Gras wachsen hören is not equivalent to the Polish analogical idiom słyszeć, co w trawie piszczy.