Chemical terminology and its pluses

Knowledge is given to man in the form of language. Natural and artificial languages of science are used to express scientific knowledge. The chemical language also belongs to them, which contains special terminology, nomenclature and symbolism. Unlike the language of chemical science, school chemical language is simpler. Without it, learning the basics of chemistry is impossible. With the help of a chemical language, chemical concepts are transmitted and assimilated, various methods of cognitive activity necessary for the learning process are mastered.

Knowledge of chemical terminology, the ability to interpret terms and names both from an encyclopedic point of view and from the point of view of their etymology, contribute to a more conscious mastery of chemical concepts and laws, the development of interest in chemistry. When introducing every new term into everyday life, it is necessary not only to understand the meaning of a word, but also to remember it as a literal whole, and also to clarify the origin.

Behind every word lies a concept. Concepts can be informative, covering the entire amount of a person’s knowledge of a given subject, and formal, closely related to the meanings of words. Substantive concepts are stored in the human mind “folded”. We do not appeal to them unnecessarily. For example, when we mention air, we do not mobilize our entire supply of information about it, but operate with only one word “air” as a carrier of a formal concept.

Language enters into science primarily as a terminology. The term (Latin terminus - limit, border) - a word or a combination of words that accurately denotes a particular concept used in science, technology, art.

A continuous increase in the volume and complication of the content of scientific information actualizes an in-depth and multidimensional study of scientific terminology, defining new tasks and approaches.

One of the most important tasks in modern conditions is the transformation of the "information-terminological explosion" into a controlled process, which is based on the standardization and unification of terminology. The theory and practice of term-creation attracts the attention of not only linguists, but also specialists in the relevant branches of knowledge, as well as international organizations involved in standardization of terminologies. Chemical terminology is in this sense the clearest example. Work on its streamlining, systematization and unification at the international level began as early as the middle of the 19th century.

Chemical terminology occupies an exceptional place among other terminological systems, being the most international and one of the most significant in volume. With the rapid development of chemistry, the process of generating names in this field of knowledge is happening at an increasing rate.

Terminology is a holistic dynamic system, which in functional terms is a system of means of expression, serving one purpose - to ensure the effectiveness of communication in a special field. The word-formation system in a language as applied to a special area of its implementation has a number of features. The purposeful nature of the terminological nomination dictates the choice of optimal language means for expressing special concepts. On the basis of the general word-formation fund, its own terminological word-formation system is formed, selecting from it such techniques, methods and means of wordformation, with the help of which the communicative and informational tasks of professional and scientific communication are most rationally performed.

Even J. Vandries, a famous French linguist, argued that “not a single word stands alone in the speaker’s mind. We always strive to group words, to discover new connections connecting them. Words are always associated with any nest of words through their semantics or morpheme”.

A term is a “special type of word” that not only correlates with the concepts of a specifically organized branch of knowledge, but also enters into systemic relations with other similar units of the language, forming together with them a special system - terminology. According to the definition of Professor O.S. Akhmanova, “the terminology of a particular scientific field is not just a collection (list) of terms, but a semiological system, that is, an expression of a certain system of concepts, which in turn reflects a certain scientific worldview.”

The establishment of system-forming relations between terms is one of the main stages of a systematic study of terminology, because these relationships help to reveal its internal organization, visualize how it is organized, and determine its properties. Only by approaching the terminological vocabulary as a system and studying it, we can highlight the essential and characteristic in it and describe its composition, following the internal connections between its elements.

Obviously, the principle of consistency is one of the basic principles of organizing terminological vocabulary. A terminological system is a complex whole, consisting of designations of scientific and professional concepts of one particular area of knowledge, organized into a single whole by a combination of relationships and dependencies.

According to the substantive features, chemical vocabulary is divided into general scientific, intersectoral and chemical terms proper. A characteristic feature of chemistry is the presence of a special semiotic system: symbols and formulas.

Based on logical system-forming relationships, chemical terms are combined into conceptual and thematic groups: material, substance; processes, operations; tool, tool; characteristic, property, condition; quantities.

Each of the conceptual and thematic groups is characterized by a special hierarchical structure peculiar to it, which is determined by the hierarchical structure of the chemical objects themselves. The action of word-forming system-forming connections has a twofold orientation. Terms are grouped into word-building nests based on the commonness of the root morpheme, as well as into categories and types based on the values of word-forming formants (from Latin formans - generatrix). This is most clearly expressed in nomenclature names, where there is a significant number of formally classifying elements (prefixes and suffixes) that carry encoded information.

The origin of the word and a description of its relationship with other words of the same language or other languages is the science of etymology (Greek etymologia from etymon - truth, the true meaning of the word and logos - concept, teaching). In other words, etymology is a section of linguistics that examines the origin of words, their initial structure and semantic relationships.

The purpose of the article is to identify the structural-semantic and informative properties of the dictionary of chemical terms, to establish the features of their formation based on the distinction between autonomous and non-autonomous terms, to determine the valence properties of the supporting and 5 modifier components of composite and nominal phrases and to identify the features of their meaningful organization in the dictionary chemical terms.

To achieve this goal, a whole range of research tasks was solved:

• 1)    the structural and morphological structure of chemical terms has been established;

• 2)    a description of simple derivatives / affixal, composite and collocative terms is given;

• 3)    a corpus of autonomous chemical terms, represented by a dictionary entry, and non-autonomous terms, which are used only as components of simple derivatives / affixes, composite and phrasing terms, is identified;

• 4)    the corps and structural-morphological features of valence and nonvalence vocabulary are installed;

• 5)    the valence indices of the support and modifier components of ambiguous chemical terms are identified;

• 6)    the substantive parameters of valence and non-valent vocabulary are identified (profile vocabulary, industry, general scientific and common vocabulary);

• 7)    the structural and substantial organization of the standard dictionary of chemical terms is revealed.