Types of Compound Word-Formation in Medical Terminology (On the Material of the German Language)

Abstract

The aim of the study is to optimize the classification of the types of the compound word-building with components of Greek and Latin origin; the research is based on the sample of 2882 substantive compound terms of the German clinical terminology. The researches apply the descriptive analytical and quantitative methods to the study. It is stated, that the words with complex morphemic structures can be formed by composite and non-composite types of word-building. The paper presents the complex classification of different ways of the compound word-formation considering following criteria: the type and the base of the word-formation process (morphological and morphological-and-syntactic ways of the compound word-formation), the number of the word-building processes, taking place within the compound word-formation (pure and mixed types of the compound word-formation). The analysis of the material reveals the dominance of the morphological compound word-building. In the medical terminology the following subtypes of the compound word-formation are distinguished: stem + terminological element, term + term, stem + term, with the latter two to be the most productive.The use of terminological units as structural elements of compounds and their employment in classification allows to avoid excessive extension of stock of morphemes used in the so-called intermediate zone. Further arrangement of word-building patterns is carried out according to the genetic criterion. In German clinical terminology the dominance of hybrid terms with German components has been established; among homogeneous compounds the terms consisting of Greek rather than Latin or German components are more widely represented. The proposed classifications are applicable to the material of medical terminologies in other languages and enable their accurate comparison.