LETTER-SYMBOL AND WORD WITH LETTER-SYMBOL IN THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE

Abstract

The functioning of non-lexical and semi-lexical units in the language of science and their systemic connections constitute an urgent problem of terminology due to the lack of a unifi ed position of researchers on this issue and the unexplored linguistic material. The purpose of the article is to form an idea of the systemic properties of units of this type; the object of study is the letters of the Greek alphabet (partly also Latin letters) as part of words with letter-symbols and names of letters. The methods of word formation analysis, analysis of terminological defi nitions, methods of corpus linguistics, elements of quantitative analysis are used. The study highlights the main functions of alphabetic symbols in the language of science (symbolic and numeral in two varieties: denotative and referential). Attention is drawn to the system and functional properties of symbols that bring them closer to linguistic signs. The main object of analysis is the words with letter-symbols. We have noted the regular variation of “grapheme / grapheme name” in the composition of words with letter-symbols. According to the results of the diachronic analysis, we consider the common language to be the source of this variation, and the consequence is the transition of semi-lexical units into composite words or phrases. We have found functional equivalence relations between terminological phrases with symbolic words and composite words with lettersymbols derived from them; between words with letter-symbols and terms-phrases with root morphemes-grapheme names. We have established the existence of a derivational potential in alphabetic symbols and grapheme names and studied the realization of this potential. We found word-formation nests that arose on the basis of words with letter-symbols, and nests based on related morpheme names of graphemes. The most powerful are the nests of the symbols; the nests contain chain and fan relationships; the maximum depth is 4 steps. The main means of word formation of derived words with letter-symbols is ellipsis in combination with composition, in the nests of related root morphemes – affi xation and composition. As a result of the study, we note the blurring of the boundaries between syntactic, lexical and semi-lexical units of special languages, as well as the possibility of replenishing their lexical and morphemic fund in the process of changing the functioning of semi-lexical units.