WORD COMBINATION AND ABBREVIATION AS THE COMPLEX-TYPE COMPONENTS IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

Abstract 
 Background. Not only word can be considered as a nominative unit of some language according to the adepts of word-centrism. Such a unit is reasonable to be considered as a certain invariant capable of containing characteristics of a word and its forms or characteristics of a word combination and its forms respectively. Nominativeness and semantic-grammatical identity of all the forms of different form and structure are the main factors to identify a linguistic invariant. Thus, it turns to be an abstract unit being separated from all its implementations; it acts as something general being present to some extent in a set of homogeneous specific units with the status of its variants or doublets. Invariants are always represented by their modifications.
 Purpose of the paper is to analyze features of abbreviations as one of the linguistic implementations of the complex-type nominathemes. The purpose has stipulated the following tasks: 1) to study motivation relations established between a word combination and its condensed equivalent; 2) to describe criteria of identity of a nominatheme with its modifications – word combinations and abbreviations.
 Methods. The research has involved a series of methods being in compliance with its topic, i.e.: method of continuous sampling to accumulate actual material; method of distributive analysis to differentiate the concepts; and descriptive method to describe and generalize the status of the units under consideration.
 Results. We tend to determine abbreviations as the words appeared as a result of verbal – synthetic – modification of a word combination, which have identical lexical and grammatical meaning as well as syntactic function and which are the result of an abbreviation process. Relations between an abbreviation and its corresponding word combination are understood as the equatable relational (form-generating) ones under conditions of semantic identity. There is a series of intralinguistic and extralinguistic reasons of the formation of abbreviations, which are similar to the formation of univerbs as well. Firstly, that is compression in word formation that is explained by the law of saving of linguistic means; it is especially clear in the colloquial speech. Secondly, it is motivated by the origin of new phenomena that require certain determination. Thirdly, there can be some reasons to change a name of something already existing. That can be stipulated by the factors from the sphere of politics, economics, communication etc. Fourthly, that is the striving to save linguistic efforts of speakers. Fifthly, it is a manifestation of compensator properties of a linguistic system.
 Discussion. A nominatheme is the main linguistic unit to be analyzed; the unit is capable of containing characteristics of a word combination and its form respectively. Eight structural varieties of a nominatheme have been singled out, along with which generally 14 varieties are available. Abbreviations as the units, in which nominathemes with a dominant-word combination of a complex type are implemented verbally, make up a great share of such structural invariants, namely: 1) word combination + abbreviation + elliptic univerb; 2) word combination + word combination of a juxtaposition-abbreviation type + elliptic univerb; 4) word combination + abbreviation-type composite + abbreviation + elliptic univerb; 5) word combination + abbreviation-type composite + elliptic univerb + elliptheme (main word) + abbreviation; 6) word combination + abbreviation-type composite + elliptheme (main word); 7) word combination + elliptic univerb + abbreviation + compressive univerb; 8) word combination + elliptic univerb + abbreviation-type composite + elliptheme (main word); 9) word combination + elliptic univerb + abbreviation + elliptheme (dependent word); 10) word combination + word combination of a juxtaposition-abbreviation type + elliptic univerb + elliptheme (main word).
 Keywords: complex-type nominatheme, abbreviation process, abbreviation, word combination, identity.