XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

In the process of learning a foreign language in the military professional sphere, we faced the need to translate professionally oriented texts from both Russian into English, and from English into Russian. However, we encountered a number of difficulties, especially when translating professional terminological combinations. For an adequate translation, we needed knowledge of the grammatical features of the language, in particular of word composition. Many scholars touch more and more on the issues of term formation, and the development of the language in this direction makes it possible to enrich the language fund. For different specialties, there are terms that, in turn, make many phenomena quite understandable. Therefore, we decided to consider this problem and highlight the main ways of forming terms concerning military specialty. Based on the dictionary of military vocabulary, we consider ways of forming professionally terminological combinations.

The aim of our study is to consider ways of word formation, since knowledge of the rules of word formation can allow us to understand unfamiliar terms in a professionally oriented text.

To study such an interesting topic as word formation, we are going to pay attention to the concept of a productive word stem.

Productive word stem is a stem from which the word is formed. As a rule, this stem can be free or bound, but it is not isolated, because the latter cannot be productive [1, p. 35].

By its morphological composition a productive word stem can be simple and complex. A simple productive stem contains only one morpheme. A complex one has two root morphemes.

Word-formation model shows word building in every particular case and helps to create the same meaning by the same means. It is generally recognized that today the most productive means of word formation are: affixation (stem + affix), compounding (stem + stem), conversion (Verb > Noun or Noun > Verb), reversion (stem + quasi-affix), word blending (connection of stem fragments) and abbreviation [1, p. 35].

Traditionally three groups of word formation methods are defined depending on the result – the word production, which includes affixation, reversion and conversion (the result is a derivative word), compounding (the result is a compound word) and reduction (the result is reduction, acronyms).

In this investigation the attention is paid to compounding.

Compounding is the expansion of the initial lexical unit, adding to the productive stem of an affix morpheme, or another stem. This way of forming new words can be conveyed by the formula “stem+stem”, as a result of which a compound word is formed. Compounding can be applied to simple stems, as well as to a simple stem and a derivative one. The stem compounding method can be neutral when both stems are joined “word-to-word”, or using a connecting element. However, there are complex words, at first glance formed using the same model, in which the second component does not correspond to the general one.

Compounding often acts as a means of creating a productive stem for the further process of word formation. The word obtained in this way can be subjected to conversion, reversion or affixation, as a result a new, derivative word is formed.

Using the continuous sampling we have chosen the words, which consist of 2 stems, that is, they are formed by compounding. We have studied the Dictionary of Military Terms (by Richard Bowyer) [2] in order to search for the terms formed by compounding and identify the most productive stems.

The examples of stems and the terms formed by compounding are the following [2]:

Air – aircraft, aircraftman, Air Force;

Battle – battleship, battlefield, battledress, battlecraft, battleground, battle readiness;

Blood– bloodbath, bloodshed, bloodthirsty;

Bomb– bomb bay, bombshelter;

Counter – counter-air, counterattack, counterfire, counter-strike;

Fall – fallout;

Field– field marshal, battlefield;

Fight – fight back, fighter-bomber;

Fire – ceasefire, firearm, firebomb, firebreak, firefight, firepower, fire team;

Flag– flagship;

Front– frontline, front line;

Gun – gunfire, guncrew, gunlayer, gunship, gunsight, gunwale, machine-gun;

Mine – mine-free, mine clearing, mine detector, minefield, minelayer;

Rear – rear-admiral, rearguard;

Rifle – rifleman;

Service – serviceman

Having analyzed the dictionary of military terms Dictionary of Military Terms (by Richard Bowyer) and having chosen suitable examples, we have made the following conclusions.

There are a lot of terms in the military sphere which are formed by compounding.

The considered examples allowed us to choose the most productive stems which are components of the terms formed by compounding. They are:

Mine

Fire

Battle

Thus, the research shows that compounding is an important way of word formation in military terminology.

References:

Eliseeva V.V. Lexicology of the English language / V.V. Eliseeva. – St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University, 2003. – 44 p.

Bowyer R. Dictionary of Military Terms / R. Bowyer. – London, 2007. – 288p.

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