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proverbs should be regarded as a subtype of phraseological units
and studied together with the phraseology of a language is a
controversial one.
Professor A. V. Kunin includes proverbs in his classification
of phraseological units and labels them communicative
phraseological units. From his point of view, one of the main
criteria of a phraseological unit is its stability. If the quotient of
phraseological stability in a word-group is not below the
minimum, it means that we are dealing with a phraseological unit.
The structural type – that is, whether the unit is a combination of
words or a sentence – is irrelevant.
The criterion of nomination and communication cannot be
applied here either, says Professor A.V. Kunin, because there are a
considerable number of verbal phraseological units which are
word-groups (i. e. nominative units) when the verb is used in the
Active Voice, and sentences (i. e. communicative units) when the
verb is used in the Passive Voice. E. g. to cross (pass) the Rubicon
– the Rubicon is crossed {passed); to shed crocodile tears –
crocodile tears are shed. Hence, if one accepts nomination as a
criterion of referring or not referring this or that unit to
phraseology, one is faced with the absurd conclusion that such
word-groups, when with verbs in the Active Voice, are
phraseological units and belong to the system of the language, and
when with verbs in the Passive Voice, are non-phraseological
word-groups and do not belong to the system of the language.
One more argument in support of this concept is that there
does not seem to exist any rigid border-line between proverbs and
phraseological units as the latter rather frequently originate from
the former (e.g. the phraseological unit the last straw originated
from the proverb The last straw breaks the camel's back; birds of a
feather from the proverb Birds of a feather flock together, to catch
at a straw (straws) from A drowning man catches at straws).
Besides, some proverbs are easily transformed into phraseological
units (e.g. Don't put all your eggs in one basket > to put all one's

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