Standard units of measurements.

Units of measurement are abbreviated when used with numerical values but are not abbreviated if used without numerical values. The following are some standard abbreviations of units of measure.

C	Centigrade	F	Fahrenheit	K	Kelvin
in.	inch	cu. in.	(or in.^3)	s	second
m	meter	cm	centimeter	kg	kilogram
A	ampere	mol	mole	L	liter
rad	radian	C	coulomb	V	volt
J	joule	Hz	hertz	W	watt
s	second	M	molar	cd	candela

Blends are amalgamations of parts of different words, such as smog (smoke/fog) or modem (modulator/demodulator).

Thus, different types of abbreviations used in scientific texts save time and space, and make long names of organizations and long technical terms easier to remember and less tedious to refer to repeatedly in an extended piece of writing such as an article or textbook.

However, unnecessary abbreviations which can confuse a reader should be avoided, if possible. In the contexts, if the abbreviation is not a very common one, the long name or technical term is often given in full at the first mention, with the abbreviation in brackets after it. After that just the abbreviation is used.

In texts and reports other than manuscripts intended for publication in a scientific journal, there is a glossary of abbreviations. A glossary allows the reader to quickly access the full term if there is uncertainty. However, a glossary never replaces the introduction of the abbreviated term in the text; it is provided in addition to the individual definitions rather than instead.

 

Internationalisms

Clarity and stability of technical-science texts determines the abundance of internationalisms of different origin. Most of them are Latin (basis, area, crisis, idea, operate, cultivate, admit, superior, dependant, permit, educate) or French by origin (police, regime, parachute, chassis, chauffeur, fuselage), though there are also Greek (drama, enigma, hero), Italian (citadel, granite), Dutch (dock, brandy), Spanish (comrade, armada, infanta), Russian (beluga, degot, vorvan, rouble), German (bottle, blitz, quartz).

Though one should not confuse the notions “internationalism” and ‘borrowing”. It is true that in the scientific texts borrowings play an important role, especially borrowings from Latin and Greek. Most of these words spread and became internationalisms.

However, internationalisms are not always direct borrowings, and not every borrowing is an internationalism. Generally international lexical units are considered to be a part of borrowings. Though some researchers deny this kind of identification. Internationalisms are an actual interlanguage category of synchronywith its specific characteristics, while borrowings are of diachrony. And this methodological difference is of the principle character.

Thus, internationalisms are a special category of terms ontologically connected with borrowings, though they must be considered in a synchronic aspect, but not in a diachronic one.

The most inclusive of the present-day definitions of internationalisms is: «internationalisms are lexical units that function in several (more than three) world languages and are similar in their phonetic, graphical and semantic forms which is the result of the language contacts; they denote concepts of science, technology, business, politics, art, communication means, which are common and shared by many cultures.

When studying international words one should dwell on international morphemes and stems on the basis of which a great number of internationalisms appeared. Generally it refers to international terms of classic origin.

In European languages there are derived and underived stems, suffixes and prefixes. Underived stems consist of only a root, derived ones have at least one word-formative affix (prefix, suffix, postfix). These elements do not exist in our mind as separate ones but are perceived as a part of a word. ‘ Transiting from one language to another in international lexemes, these elements are able to combine with national elements creating “hybrids”. Classic stems mixed with national ones in such a way make composites of hybrid type, for example: radioset, microwave, telescreen, autoroad.

The most widely used are suffixes of Greek and Latin origin that spread as a part of europeisms and іn many languages have a status of suffixes which are actively applied for the construction of new words. The examples of such suffixes can be: -tion, -ics, -ant, -ent, -ive, -ar, -al, -ture, -ism,-ment (international, political, multiplication, ultraviolet, argument, cybernetics, consultant, student, collective, seminar, hospital).

International prefixes of Greek and Latin origin are not very numerous in comparison with the suffixes, and their spreading abilities are more limited due to the absence of prefixion in some language families. The following prefixes are used to make derived international terms: inter-, poly-, co-, pre-, anti-, de-(di-), meta-, multi-, bi-, super-, ultra- (interphase, polytron, cohesion, precipitator, detector, ultrasensitive).

International underived stems (roots) are much more widely spread in European languages. In many cases they can be found in international words together with specifically national derivational morphemes. International roots can not only be singled out but can participate in word building, thus forming the basis of derived international words. The most universal Greek and Latin stems used in international compound terms are: aero-, bio-, geo-, hydro-, micro-, morpho-, tele-, photo-, electrо-, -gramm-, graph-, graphia-, auto-, agro-, anthropo-, archeo-, biblio-, vibro-, video-, hypo-, homо-, demo-, zoo-, cardio-, kilo-, macro-, metro-, nitro-, -logue, -logy, -scope, -phobia, etc.

Thus studying internationalisms, we can see that they very often have the same derivational elements, the knowledge of which gives an opportunity to understand other constructions that consist of them. In many cases it can help to define the meaning of these words.

 

Neologisms

 

The development of science and technology resulted in the coinage of new words and terms in every language. These new coinages are named neologisms, or innovations (from Greek neos «new», logos «word»).

Neologisms are words and phrases coined to name some new (not known before) things and concepts. These are words and word-combinations which native speakers of a language consider new ones either in their form or meaning.

Neologisms appear in the language by means of:

- word-formative derivation (forming the new words from morphemes that already exist in the language using well-known patterns);

- semantical derivation (giving to an existing word a new second meaning, based on resemblance of a newly denoted phenomenon with some known one);

- borrowing the words from other languages, dialects, jargons, etc.

Thus, neologisms can be divided into:

- lexical (new words);

- phraseological (new set expressions);

- semantic (new lexico-semantic variety of a set expression). Semantic neologisms are the words that have been in use in the language for a long time already but that acquire new meanings now.

“Word-formative (or derivational) innovations” must be considered a separate category that materializes in new word-formative elements (ideally, they are also represented by new word-formative patterns). The role of each productive affix must be thought to be more important in comparison with the role of a lexical or phraseological neologism because each word-formative model gives birth to numerous lexical neologisms and expands word-building possibilities (cyber-: cybercash, cybercommuter, cyberinvesting, cybersurf; nano-: nanothermometer, nanooptics, nanoanything; -ware: software, hardware, treeware (друкарські видання).

The creation of neologisms is usually caused by the necessity of giving names to new things, phenomena, concepts which are the result of constant development of economy, science, culture; the result of an increase in the intensity of communication with other nations and states. Modern scientific and technical terminological systems are most actively enriched with new coinages: cyberspace, dot-com-era,on-line company, blogosphere, neuroeconomics, culturnomics, etc.These are lexical neologisms that perform a nominative function. This group also includes the words coined from lexemes that existed in the language before: corporate – corpocracy («корпократія» - влада корпорацій у сучасному світі), Wal-Mart (мережa торгівельних підприємств) – Wal-Martian (людина, що зазвичай купує товари в такій крамниці); word burst (неологізм – різке зростання частотності вживання слова за конкретний період часу) – bursty words, word burstiness, etc.

Besides lexical innovations used for naming things, neologisms are coined to substitute an old name for a new, more accurate, more comprehensive one, the one that to a greater extend corresponds to phonetic, lexical, word-formative and other norms of the language.

As neologisms are a historical category their belonging to the passive vocabulary is not eternal. They are accepted as new words until the things they name become widely used. Since this time they are no longer neologisms. The further use of neologisms is justified if there is a necessity of their performing either communicative, nominative or figurative functions. When there is no such a necessity, the new coinage is needless and has no prospect of coming into the active vocabulary of the language. It also happens when neologisms do not correspond to the lexical system of the language, or to its grammatical structure, or phonetic patterns.

Speaking is the sphere in which neologisms constantly appear. They are not fixed anywhere, as a rule, and are quickly substituted for new ones. Sometimes they come to the literary variety. Individually author’s neologisms are often found in the literary (belles-lettres) style, especially in poetry, more seldom – in journalistic genres which are close to literary ones. Author’s neologisms make the text emotionally expressive. Therefore, for non-literary styles author’s neologisms are not typical because expressiveness is excessive and unnecessary in this case.

Talking about author’s neologisms we can’t but mention the term “occasionalism”, the phenomenon which requires special attention. Some reseachers believe that the terms “author’s neologism” and “occasionalism” are synonyms: «Author's, individual-stylistic, occasional neologisms follow certain aims. One of their peculiarities is that the laws of certain language units formation are broken during creating them". Individually author's neologisms (occasionalisms) are words created by writers and poets with the aim of making the text more expressive”.

Rozental and Golub claim that «…we should distinguish author's neologisms from occasionalisms – words created «occasionally», in certain conditions of speech communication, which contradict the language standard and differ from usual ways of word formation in the language».

Thus, we admit that author's neologism is a word or word's meaning, created by the writer, poet, publicist for defining new or invented phenomena of reality, newly invented things or terms. The book as the source of information has less feedback with the reader in comparison with newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. Correspondingly, the author should choose the language means more thoroughly so that the reader could be able to understand the information the author is conveying to him. Using certain language means takes on special significance when the author doesn’t only use the native language vocabulary but also invents new words to denote the events created by him and stated in his work. The author’s aim is to convey the matter of the object, notion or occurrence, which is clear in his mind but not yet known to the reader, in the briefest but most valuable language form.

So, occasionalisms (from Latin occasionalis – “accidental”) are words that are coined according to the models existent in the language, but that are not in wide use.

Occasionalisms are of individual character, used in the definite context that gives an opportunity to reveal their meaning. As opposed to neologisms, occasionalisms are said to be of a “one-time” character.

The term «occasionality» is relative in a way. In fact, all new units start their life as “occasionalisms” as they appear in a certain act of speaking. However, a great number of lexical units that appeared “occasionally”, came into common use and got into the active vocabulary of the language. Occasional were once considered the words cyberspace, couch potato, soap opera, etc. Lexical units become common if they define the concepts connected with essential present-day problems. The scope of popularization through mass media and advertising helps the words to come into wide use, too.