ENGLISH DENTAL TERMINOLOGY: FUNCTIONAL ASPECT

Abstract

The article deals with the study of dental terms in the English language. The final aim of the work is to study and analyze morphological features of the given group of medical terms. The research has been done on the basis of several dictionaries, namely Dental Dictionary, New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language, The Oxford English Reference Dictionary. The volume of investigated material is 200 terms, obtained by consecutive selection. Terminology constitutes the greatest part of every language vocabulary. It is also its most intensely developing part, the class giving the largest number of new formations. The following structural subgroups of the analyzed terms have been singled out: simple terms, compound terms, terminological word combinations. The vast majority of simple terms are expressed by nouns - 120, and only 10 are adjectives, such as buccal, lingual, mesial. Such grammatical expressiveness of the studied terms confirms the opinion of the researchers that the noun is a universal means for the transfer of all categories of terminological concepts, since this part of speech has a high degree of abstraction, which expresses technical objects, qualities and actions. The most common terminological phrases are two-word phrases, expressed by the combination of an adjective with a noun and two nouns. As for the semantic expression of components of terminological phrases, they are represented as combinations of the common word with the term (Local anesthetic); two terms (Periodontal pocket) or two common words (Bad Breath) that, in the context of a phrase, have the meaning of a term. Several areas of dentistry have emerged relatively recently and are actively developing now, contributing to the emergence of new terms. We see the prospect of further research in considering the structural parameters of dental terminology in English.