Analysis of the structural and semantic features of multicomponent terms in English (in the sublanguage of biotechnology)

Abstract

This work is devoted to a comprehensive study of structural and semantic features of multicomponent terms (hereinafter MCT) in the English sublanguage of biotechnology. This sublanguage or language for special purposes began its formation relatively recently and includes the vocabulary of such subject areas as bionics,   biopharmacology,   nanomedicine, cloning and others. Studying features of MCT Drozdov, Greenev and Egorshina reveal that multicomponent terms are so prevalent in the technology sector primarily at the expense of their integrity. The analysis of three-, four-, five- and six- component terms of biotechnologies sublanguage revealed the predominance of three-component terms with a tendency to increase the number of components in the term due to the constant complication of the conceptual field. Such a process is caused by the desire for the accuracy of meaning expression, since it is known that with the increase in the number of components in the MCT, the degree of its polysemy decreases, which is important in the presence of a rapidly growing number of terms in this sphere.