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This paper attempts to shed some light on the problem of correlation of such ontological categories as quality, quantity and relation in similes. The matter in question is significant since it relates to the problem of anthropocentrism in language. It shows the speaker's attitude to the information encoded in a simile by consciously choosing a vehicle via measuring a tenor's salient feature against an implied abstract scale of objects, notions, phenomena, etc. that possess a particular quality to a certain extent. The nature of the ground of simile is described to be gradable, capable of being subjectively measured from the perspective of the speaker's environmental perception. The gradability of a shared feature shown as a scale of potential vehicles lends itself to the interpretation as a fragment of the linguistic worldview displaying a range of scale markers typical of a certain linguistic community in a certain historical period of time. The polar opposite notions on an implied scale are depicted to represent a (proto/stereo) type and an anti- (proto/stereo)type typical of certain linguo-cultural domains in a particular fragment of a linguistic worldview. By moving from the explanatory examples to the analysis of empirical material the author concludes that the categories of quantity, quality and relation are intrinsic in every simile and manifest themselves in the choice of a tenor-vehicle pair that do not exist within simile other than in relation to each-other. The material described in the article serves as an evidence of language dependence on historical and social parameters. The paper explains the mechanism of creation of the congruous and ironic similes according to the universal process of simile formation where the unity of quantity, quality and relation are the key factors of its existence.

Since simile in this paper is understood as a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared and not only as a construction corresponding to the formula X is like Y, the borderline between the semasiological (from form to content) and onomasiological (from content to form) approaches in respect to the analysis of simile is considered to be crucial. The article is devoted to the analysis of the existing formulas for simile that enumerate the elements in the surface structures of most similes and to the elaboration of a formula that would reflect the essence of the relationship of simile elements regardless of their formal expression. Taking into account existing linguistic studies of similes as well as the author’s own understanding of the problem, simile components are described which also have a symbolic reflection in the aforementioned universal formula for similes. Employing the method of conceptual analysis as well as the methods of description and interpretation, modelling and coding, the author devises a new formula for simile, representing all four of its constituents (a tenor, a vehicle, a comparison marker and a commonly shared salient feature). The devised formula is further subjected to analysis for the possibility of being applied to all formal types of simile. The presented formula of a universal character is essential to identify and analyse different types of similes without limiting research to the formations of a certain model. The formula is labelled universal because it characterizes similes regardless of their forms and languages in which they are used.

The paper treats simile as a category related to metaphor and comparison, being a kind of connecting element between an association (metaphor) and analytics (comparison). The three of them are considered to be universal and connected with the process of thinking with simile and metaphor sharing figurativeness while comparison and simile -- an explicit statement of (dis)similarity. At the same time, a number of differences between these formations are stated, which proves the existence of only certain points of intersection between the considered categories with an emphasis on their differential features. In particular, it is noted that the difference between metaphor and simile, among other things, is the secondary origin of the latter, its ability to explicate comparative relations, to shift the cognitive burden on the producer, a wider potential of comparative possibilities, the ability to appeal to the imagination, using intellect, as well as its narrative nature. The differences between comparison and simile are the capability of the latter to create a special poetic effect by comparing conceptually distant concepts with the non-parity of the salient feature, the tendency to idiomatization and expression of prototypical, sometimes even symbolic meaning, the irreversibility and asymmetry of simile, the possibility of its convertibility into a metaphor, impossibility of its empirical verification because of the coding of the producer's subjective reality, the ability to hyperbolize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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