Socio-Historical Determination of Phraseme Use in Glagolitic Wills from the Western Islands of the Zadar Group

Abstract

This paper examines phrasemes found in Glagolitic wills from 17th and 18th century from the western islands of the Zadar group. Although a phraseme as a set of words acquires a new meaning, the lexical semantic component does not become irretrievable because the semantic picture remains, that is, the background picture that motivates the phraseological meaning. Grouping the phrasemes into concepts, the author wants to fathom the testator’s knowledge of the world and its conceptual structure in order to show the cultural and historical aspect of life in the North Dalmatian islands of that period.