A contrastive study of proverbalization

This article deals with a linguistic phenomenon which, in analogy with the well established term ‘pronominalization’, may be called ‘proverbalization’. In comparison with its counterpart in the nominal sphere, this phenomenon, despite its crucial importance to any language possessing the verb category, has received little attention in modern linguistic research. The article compares, synchronically and diachronically, the proverbal systems of English, French and Swedish. In order to obtain maximal analytic efficiency, by excluding factors not directly relevant to the purpose of the analysis, the article focuses on one particular case of proverbalization, namely the one in which it occurs in a comparative clause as a result of this clause having a verb identical to that of the main clause but taking an object different from that of the main clause verb: X – V1 – O1 – Comparative Connector – X/Y – V1 – O2.