IDIOM БОГЪ ВѢСТЬ/ВEДАЕТ/ЗНАЕТ I BOG ZNA U RUSKOM I SRPSKOM JEZIKU
THE IDIOM OF БОГЪ ВѢСТЪ/ ВЕДАЕТ/ ЗНАЕТ and BOG ZNA IN RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this article is the idiom БОГЪ ВѢСТЪ / ВЕДАЕТ/ ЗНАЕТ, that is, БОГЪ ВѢСТЪ / Bog zna in Russian and Serbian. In the first chapter, which deals with the origin and genesis of the expression, the evidence of its biblical origin is given, while the process of its development as a phrase, its course and the reasons for the emergence of a new meaning of the idiom in communicative use are explained. The second chapter provides an analysis of the idiom from a paradigmatic aspect. Its lexical, morphological and stylistic variants are analyzed. The third chapter deals with the status of the idiom черт/бес/леший ЗНАЕТ in the Russian language, i.e., джବ¬vo zna (will znati, bi znao) in Serbian and its relationship to the idiom Бог весть/ ведает/ знает, that is, God knows. Descriptive, phraseological - monolingual and translation dictionaries - both contemporary and historical - were used as the basic corpus in the research. As an additional corpus, we used our own file created on the basis of excerpts of examples from literary and artistic works and epic poetry. The National Corpus of the Russian Language (NKRJ) served us as a basic check of the functioning of idioms in context. The application of the diachronic, contrastive and descriptive method on the aforementioned corpus was aimed at discovering the origin and genesis of the idiom highlighted in the title. The idiom Бог весть/ ведает/ знает, or else, Bog zna belongs, thematically, to the group of idioms with a component theonym. Despite its high frequency, as far as we know, there has been no special study that would deal with its origin and functioning in either Russian or Serbian. In terms of the phraseological units that deal with the topic ofsacred phraseology, which in its composition contains the component Bog (God), or similar phrases, there are many works on biblical phraseology, in which idioms are mentioned that are the subject of our attention. However, we did not find any works that specifically deal with the origin of the idiom Bog zna (God knows) and its development in language. The largest number of phraseological units with the component Bog (God) by origin are addresses to the deity: trivial greetings, sayings, oaths, curses, and thus, speech acts in which people address a higher power on different occasions or mentions the name of God in different situations. Although the Christian church is not favorable towards mentioning the name of God without need, the prevalence of different idioms with the mentioned component in most languages is very large. Our preliminary research shows that the mentioned idiom is widespread in all Slavic languages (and not only in them), so it could be said that this phenomenon is a linguistic or a phraseological universal. In the first part of this work, the biblical origin of the idiom is proven by applying diachronic and contrastive analysis. From the quote used in the Gospel according to Luke, it can be seen that the expression is used in its literal meaning: God knows / God sees, that is, God is a witness. This literal meaning of the biblical expression, which explicitly expresses one of the attributes of the Christian God as all-seeing, all-knowing, served as the first step in the phraseologisation of the expression. Both of its components continue to retain their lexical meaning, but in addition acquire an intensifier function, similar to the words: really, really, undoubtedly. The intensifier function that the idiom later developed can already be sensed in the Biblical context, where after the component God it is explicitly reflected by the particle že. Phraseologisation of the Biblical expression "Bog vȇ", i.e., "God knows" took place at the moment when the literal meaning of the expression gained additional pragmatic content, that is, when in the end the text began to be used to amplify or emphasize the meaning, to have the function of an intensifier, or else the addition of the words just, really, without a doubt or really. This is also demonstrated by the syntactic position of the expression, which can be found both at the beginning of the statement and in the interposition, where the comma is singled out on the letter as an inserted unit that has no syntactic function or action in the sentence, and as is well known, this is a characteristic of all sentences. The new word bôgznā 'really, surely, definitely, in fact' was created from the aforementioned expression in Serbian during its historical development, the archaic meaning of which is recorded only in older dictionaries. (RJAZU I, 475; Rečnik SANU I, 684, Stevanović I, 41). Its second meaning, which in our opinion appeared later, is recorded in all modern dictionaries: bôgznā for expressing uncertainty, indeterminacy: who knows, no one knows, it is not known I.e. God-wouldknow, God-asks you (Dictionary SANU I, 684; Dictionary SJ, 97) The new meaning of the expression Bog zna (God knows) ʽno one knows, it is not known, it is unknown', which is highly frequent and overwhelming in contemporary use in all Slavic languages and which ¬ already lexicographic sources, it was created as a new stage in its development. This meaning arose in communicative use at the moment when the expression began to be used as a ready-made formula - an answer in a reply to a question to which the communicator does not know or does not want to give an answer. Based on the semantic interpretation of the expression in Dal's dictionary, the gradual development of the expression in communicative use is illustrated: Бог весть, Бог знает – я не знаю (God knows, God knows - I don't know) (Dal, 65). The original communicative use of the expression Bog zna is being reconstructed, that is, we examine the emergence of its new meaning "no one knows, it is not known, it is unknown". In our opinion, the process of phrasing went in this order: I don't know → who knows → nobody knows → (only) God knows. It is interesting that the newly acquired meaning is practically antonymous in relation to the above-mentioned and described first meaning of the expression God knows 'really, really, certainly, undoubtedly'. The answer to the reason for its creation lies in the fact of the recognition that only God knows, that is, this kind of answer gives exclusivity to God as omniscient, all-seeing and the only one who can do so. knowledge is available and the limitation of human understanding of the world and the things in it is acknowledged: I do not know that → no one knows that → but only, exclusively God knows. Both in Russian and in Serbian there are lexical variants of the idiom "God knows" that more precisely refer to this new meaning "no one knows, it is not known, it is unknown" : Один Бог знает (ведает), Одному Богу известно, or, in Serbian, samo, sa¬mi, jedan Bog zna. The lexical variants of the mentioned idioms, which in addition to the key component Bog (God) have the attributes один, jedan, (one), which themselves suggest the Biblical fact about the all-knowing God and the limitation of human knowledge. It was precisely emphasizing this seed of exclusivity of God's knowledge that enabled the emergence of the new meaning of the idiom: only God knows → no one but God knows →'no one knows, it is not known, it is unknown'. As additional proof that the newly created meaning of the idiom is an answer, the reply to the question is demonstrated by an example from the Serbian language with the lexical variant Boga pitaj (lit. Ask God) meaning ʽno one knows, it is not known, it is unknown' It is highly frequent in modern Serbian, and it was created by replacing the verb component of the expression in which instead of the 3rd form present singular of the verb znati (to know) we have the 2nd form imperative singular of the verb pitati (to ask). In this way, the Biblical expression that is used in the initial stages as a kind of analytical intensifier with the primary meaning of affirmation or confirmation of the views expressed, emphasizing the truth of the statement, acquires a completely new meaning in teh communicative context - the opposite meaning of uncertainty, indeterminacy and doubt. This phenomenon of a kind of enantiosemy of expressions is not foreign to idioms that are used in communication and that have a predominantly modal meaning. In the second part of the paper, on the basis of checking the lexicographic description of the idiom in various descriptive and phraseological - monolingual and translation dictionaries - both contemporary and historical, we ideitify the paradigmatic relations of the idiom in both contrasting languages. Its numerous lexical, morphological and stylistic variants are analyzed. The National Corpus of the Russian Language (NKRJ) was used to make a basic check on the functioning of idioms in context. A detailed analysis of the aforementioned sources presents the paradigmatic relations of idioms in both Serbian and Russian. A certian level of lexical variation in the analyzed idiom is present in both languages. Some variants are present in both languages, which is due to extra-linguistic reasons, i.e. the identical conception of the assumed attributes of God. There are, however, also differences caused by linguistic variation, as is most obviously he case with verb variation. In Russian, older Slavic verb forms have been preserved in the idiom, while in Serbian these forms have become archaic, and certain innovations have appeared.The third chapter deals with the status of the idiom черт/бес/леший знает in Russian, that is, đavo zna (će znati, bi znao) in Serbian (Eng: the Devil knows, will know, would know) and its relationship to the idiom Бог весть/ ведает / знает , that is, God knows. And the synonym of the idiom God knows expressed by its axiological antonym ‒ demononym đavo/черт (the Devil) also has a number of lexical variants in the two compared languages and they are often semanticized in the dictionaries in the same vocabulary, from which it follows that they are treated as its variants. We present arguments according to which the above mentioned idioms, despite their identical global meaning and syntactic structure, should be recorded separately, due to their different connotative values and the pragmatic potential and function resulting from them. The semantics of the expression Бог весть/ знает is identical to the semantics of the idiom черт знает, with the same syntactic structure, which unequivocally proves that it is an idiom of a structural-semantic model, but, on the other hand, despite the fact that both idioms have an identical global meaning, in the key component of the expression Бог i черт (God and the Devil) are made distinct, and are actualized today in the process of communication despite the phrasing of the meaning of the original expression. It is precisely this transparent internal form that causes a double actualization of the idiom in use and which means that the mentioned idioms in a specific context usually differ in their connotative value. Ta The different connotations of the idioms Бог знает and черт знает were created as a set of expressive (metaphorical and evaluative) elements related to the key components of the idiom, i.e. God or the Devil, The analysis of numerous examples of the contextual use of the two idioms in our literature confirms that apart from the meaning of uncertainty or doubt, which they have in common, they clearly also differ from each other in the connotative sphere. The idiom Бог знает (God knows) is used predominantly in situations that are accompanied by, if not positive, then at least neutral pragmatic content, while черт знает (the Devil knows) give rise to uncertainties and ambiguities, but often also expresses anger, displeasure, resignation or even rage. This type of differentiated relationship between the idiom and the component theonym and demonym can also be applied to the similar idioms used in Serbian.

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