The Colours of Death: Phraseological Units with the Components Black and White in German and Bulgarian

This article offers a comparative study of German and Bulgarian phraseological units with the components black and white within the semantic field of death. The phraseological units were extracted from phraseological dictionaries and can be divided into full equivalents, semantic equivalents, and non-equivalents. The comparative study makes it possible to determine the common and specific features in the symbolism of the colours. The results reveal the predominance of similarities in the symbolism of black and white in the two languages. It is also noted that, in the phraseological units that have a component black or white, colour symbolism does not always play the dominating role for their motivation