Time in the Romanian imaginary (based on repeated discourse units)

Abstract

The article aims to describe the Romanian imaginary of time based on repeated discourse units
(proverbs, sayings, phraseological expressions), understood as “forms of linguistic memory” in the
Coşerian sense. The corpus consists of approximately 200 proverbs and expressions that explicitly or
implicitly conceptualise temporality, selected from classical collections, dictionaries of expressions,
and digital resources, by filtering units in which time is the semantic core rather than a peripheral
element. Methodologically, the study combines lexicographic inventory with an inductive
classification into semantic fields and a semantico-pragmatic analysis, at the intersection of cognitive
linguistics, linguistic anthropology and cultural semiotics.
The results outline several major thematic areas: time and destiny (“Nu-s vremurile sub cârma
omului…”, roughly “Times are not under man’s helm”), time as resource and irreversibility (“Timpul
nu așteaptă pe nimeni” – “Time waits for nobody”, “Apa trece, pietrele rămân” – “The water flows,
the stones remain”), cyclical time and the alternation of good/bad (“După furtună vine și vreme bună”
– “After storm fair weather comes”, „Ziua bună multă vreme nu ține” – “A good day doesn’t last
long”), processual time and patience („Cu vremea și cu încetul se face tare oțetul” – “With time and
patience even the vinegar turns strong”), the axiology of wasting time (anti-procrastination and
anti-haste proverbs) and the “never” register, expressed through impossible scenarios („La Paștele
cailor” – “At the horses’ Easter”, „Când a crește păr în palmă” – When hair grows in one’s hand”,
„Când va zbura porcul” – “When pigs fly”, functionally equivalent to English when pigs fly). The
general conclusion is that these units do not operate merely as expressive ornaments, but as nodal
points of a “cultural grammar” of time, articulating the relationship between ephemerality and
permanence, situated freedom and fatalism, patience and timely action. From an applied perspective,
the study anticipates a digital corpus of Romanian proverbs about time, integrated with
artificial-intelligence-based tools for semantic search, typological analysis and diachronic
visualisation.