Abstract
A stone was endowed with special symbolic meanings in all religions. Set units with components камень, каменный were used in Old Slavonic manuscripts. Having special symbolic meaning and metaphorically used as parts of fi gurative sayings of religious character, they also reflected the realities of the medieval society. Some of the analyzed units appeared in the Old Testament (for example, gemstone, beat/stoned), while others were born later and were associated with the image of Jesus Christ (for example, serve a stone instead of bread, leave no stone unturned). Somehow or other, these set units stay in the phraseological corpus of Slavonic languages and continue to function successfully, keeping the genetic memory of certain historical events, personalities, customs. The analysis of set units with components êàìû and êàìåíú, functioning in ancient Slavonic texts made it possible to identify signifi cant facets of the sacred ideas of the medieval Christian about stone, often dating back to more ancient times. The image of stone, held in the semantics of the set units studied in the article, combines both positive and negative qualities from the native speaker`s point of view. The description of these qualities allows enriching the linguistic picture of the world of a medieval Christian.
Keywords
Μiddle Ages, Slavs, old Slavic language, medieval society, old Slavic texts.
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