Plant names in the mirror of compound nouns. A diachronic study of german compounds consisting of three nouns 

Abstract.

PLANT NAMES IN THE MIRROR OF COMPOUND NOUNS. A DIACHRONIC STUDY OF GERMAN COMPOUNDS CONSISTING OF THREE NOUNS

Olena Biletska

Department of Romance and Germanic Philology and World Literature, Vasyl’ Stus Donetsk National University, Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

Abstract

Background: Today, compounding has become the most productive source of nominal word formation in the German language. Around 2/3 of the German vocabulary consists of nominal compounds, 11.8% are three- and multi-component compounds. Many scientific studies focus on the study of compound words, but compound plant names are not often the subject of linguistic analysis, which determines the novelty of the present scientific study.

Purpose: The study presents diachronic analysis of lexical changes in the German language, with a particular focus on the compounds consisting of three nouns that plant names represent. The aim of the study is to analyze the structural and semantic features of three-component compound plant names in the Middle High German and to trace their development in the contemporary German language.

Results: The dominant model of three-component compound plant names is compound nouns are partitive compounds. Compounds that have the same structure and meaning in both periods of German language development make up half of the entire corpus. More than 30 % have simplified their structure and have two-component equivalents in contemporary German.

Discussion: The research is devoted to lexical changes in the German language as an example of language evolution and highlighted the development of the middle high German three-component compound plant names. Prospects for the future research is to include other developmental periods of the German language in the investigation of the dynamics of three-component compound plant names.

Keywords: Middle High German, word compounding, compounds consisting of three nouns, plant name.

Vitae

Olena Biletska is Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Foreign and Slavic Philology, Associate Professor at the Department of Romance and Germanic Philology and World Literature, Vasyl’ Stus Donetsk National University.

Correspondence: o.biletska@donnu.edu.ua 

Article.

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