Առածի ու ասացվածքի սահմանման խնդիրը արդի լեզվաբանության հարացույցում

The article attempts to outline the approaches and theories proposed by a number of scholars regarding proverbs and sayings as linguistic units. The role of metaphor is emphasized in differentiating between these two units. As a defining feature of proverb, metaphor leads to a general meaning with the help of cognition. Proverbs and sayings imply a panchronic manifestation, indicating past experiences, defining the present context, and expressing the future. These language units are viewed as a combination of the universal, the national and the individual as they express universal truth and linguocultural identity. From the perspective of contemporary linguistics, proverbs and sayings are studied at the level of utterance within the framework of discourse analysis.