EPONYMS IN THE CHEMICAL TERMINOLOGY OF THE MODERN ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN LANGUAGES

Abstract

The article deals with structural and functional semantic peculiarities of eponymic terms different in character, reasons for emergence and conditions of functioning in Ukrainian and English languages.

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to define the role and the place of eponyms in chemical terminology in the English and Ukrainian languages and to study their lexical-semantic and pragmatic peculiarities.

The paper achieves the following objectives: 1) defining the role and the place of eponyms in chemical terminology in the English and Ukrainian languages; 2) a comprehensive research of the structure and functions of eponymic lexemes; determining their productive models; 3) the study of semantic peculiarities of eponymic chemical terms with the aim of summing up and classifying them into thematic groups; 4) analyzing lexico-semantic processes which accompany the creation and functioning of eponymic terms; revealing their lingual pragmatic peculiarities at the stage of formation and functioning; 4) discussing the prospects of chemical terms standardization in English and Ukrainian.

Methods. The specificity of the object and the purpose of the research led to the use of the descriptive method that involves linguistic observation, comparison and generalization. Application of the semantic, componential (for definition and description of the semantic structure of the lexical units collected for research), motivational (for revealing the type of their motivation), morphemic (for establishing the structural characteristics of terms) methods of analysis contributed to the solution of the set tasks. The method of contrastive linguistics, methods of comparative and historical-etymological analysis were also applied.

Results. The research shows that modern English and Ukrainian chemical terminology represents a dynamic and open system connected with the development of scientific apparatus of chemistry and other natural science branches. On the basis of semiotic approach English and Ukrainian eponymic terms are presented as an integral dynamic system stipulated by a complex of factors of lingual and extralingual character being of national cultural value.

Conclusions. The chemical terms have, to a large extent, been agreed, and are used almost universally throughout the English-speaking world and in Ukraine. There is, however, a need today for standardizing, both nationally and internationally, some of the eponymic terms.