Possibilities of terminological interpretation and lexicographical reflection of potential words

The article deals with some theoretical and practical aspects of studying the potential words that are presented as a category of the lexical stratum of the language. The term “potential word” is considered in the light of functional temporality and with some relevance of its referent reflection in the language and speech. Controversial issues of “potentiality” representation are clarified and it is stated in the article that a “potential word’ as a notion under study conceptually belongs to a lexicographical layer of the language but not to speech, and it is supported with rather few cases of a potential word presence in the dictionaries. Having analyzed registration practice in the Ossetian Orthography Dictionary the authors state the necessity to keep to a set of factors in lexicographical presentation of “future” and “possible” words, as the dictionary contains vocabulary of a specific period, and inclusion into its lexicographical list the words that haven’t yet appeared in the language might reflect the actual vocabulary of the time in edition in the wrong way. According to the authors the original understanding of the term “potentiality” as an opportunity for a word to appear makes it evident that only a word-forming nest may be registered in the dictionary.