Variance phenomenon is characteristic of modern Ukrainian literary language which covers all its subsystems, terminology in particular. Traditionally variance in scientific and technical terminology is interpreted as a redundant phenomenon, however, it is recognized that there are variance names at different stages of development of a certain terminological system. The greatest number of variants is fixed in the period of national terminology formation as well as during establishment of new scientific fields. Appearance of alternate terms, competition for a place in scientific terminology is a sign of constant language development and its tendency to perfection.
The problem of terminological variance has been researched by many Ukrainian linguists, namely: L. Kucherenko, L. Malevych, S. Khudoleeva, etc.
The aim of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of syntactic variance on the material of Ukrainian sci-tech terminology, to find out the reasons for appearance of parallel names and possibility for their unification.
The main reasons for appearance of alternate variants among pure Ukrainian terms are the following: parallel use of outdated names along with modern ones; dictionaries fixing terms that were excluded in the 1930s; functioning in parallel with usual terms of names that do not correspond to the norms of the Ukrainian language. Appearance of some terms can be attributed to the word creation skills of some people that results in emergence of accidental variant terms that do not correspond to the norms of the Ukrainian language and, therefore, do not have right to exist.
With regard to the variant terms among foreign names, one can distinguish the following reasons for their appearance: 1) adaptation of the borrowed word to the phonetic system of the Ukrainian language; 2) influence of the intermediary language through which the word is borrowed; 3) the way of term borrowing (oral – written); 4) period when the term was transliterated [5, p. 128].
The majority of linguists agree with the idea that terminological variance should be unified. Therefore, it is necessary to limit widespread formal terminological variance and remove everything that contradicts the linguistic norms [9, p. 37].
Alternate terms function in different time periods and the periods of their existence are not the same. With time one normative term can be fixed or two can be used simultaneously. Some pairs of variant terms can be differentiated either according to their meaning, thus being transformed into synonyms, or to the field of usage, as non-normative variants are frequently used in the colloquial speech along with the normative ones.
Such variants have different life but the phenomenon of variance continues to exist in terminology despite requirements to avoid synonyms and variants in terms and attempts to standardize and unify terminology. Science and technology undergo constant development; new notions appear which leads to the appearance of new terms. Quantitative growth of term lexis takes place by means of native and borrowed language resources that result in new terms and their variants.
Taking into account functioning of alternate terms at all the stages of the Ukrainian sci-tech terminology development, the ultimate aim of terminology standardizing should not be the complete liquidation of variants that might badly influence performance of its functions by the terminological system, but improvement of the very system as an optimal way of communication for experts [6, p. 80].
Traditionally there are the following types among the alternate terms: 1) phonetic – sound variants of a term that do not violate the principle of similarity of its word-building structure, lexical and grammatical meaning [7, p. 9]: гіроскоп – жироскоп; 2) accentuating – modifications of one and the same term that differ in the place of stress: діоптрія – діоптрія; 3) word-building – one-stem derivatives built by means of variant suffixes (гартівник – гартувальник) and one-stem names where one and the same morph is combined with variant building stems (дифузійний – дифузний) [4, p. 21]; 4) morphological – words that are characterized by variance of grammatical categories at the level of gender or number [11, p. 388]: парафін – парафіна; 5) syntactic – word-combinations that differ between themselves either in the order of components or substitution of one forms of expressing syntactic functions with the other ones [8, p. 45]: польовий ефект – ефект поля.
Syntactic variants of Ukrainian scientific and technical terms most frequently are word-combinations that express the same notion, consist of the same components (words or stems) which are combined by different ways of syntactic connection (agreement and government) but have the same syntactic relations (attributive).
In terms of quantity, the largest among syntactic variants are the following parallels: noun (key word) + simple adjective (combined with the key word by means of agreement) and noun (key word) + noun (combined with the key word by means of government): базовий струм – струм бази [10, p. 583], викличне слово – слово виклику [10, p. 534], відповідна передача – передача відповіді [10, p. 357], вузловий граф – граф вузла [10, p. 96], електронна орбіта – орбіта електрона [10, p. 334], емітерний струм – струм емітера [10, p. 583], зв’язковий скремблер – скремблер зв’язку [10, p. 533], катодний струм – струм катода [10, p. 583], колекторний струм – струм колектора [10, p. 583], напруга бази – базова напруга [10, p. 301], напруга зсуву – зсувна напруга [10, p. 301], напруга шуму – шумова напруга [10, p. 301], польовий ефект – ефект поля [10, p. 674], розсіювальний центр – центр розсіювання [10, p. 640], ростова дислокація – дислокація росту [10, p. 123], теплова конвекція – конвекція тепла [1, p. 126], etc.
Presence of syntactic variants of this type is not an exclusive feature of terminology. Relative adjectives expressing attribute of an object as compared to another object, action, adverb etc. in a certain context are replaced with nouns in the form of genetive case. It should also be stressed that relative adjectives used in different language registers and not only in scientific register often acquire secondary and metaphoric meanings. For instance, the adjective базовий apart from the seme “adjective to база” means “нормативний, прийнятий за основу, еталон, стандарт” [2, p. 56]. That is why, базовий струм – струм бази, напруга бази – базова напруга can be interpreted in different ways.
The adjective відповідний cannot be considered only relative to the noun відповідь. Modern dictionary includes another definition: “що відповідає чому-небудь, відповідає якійсь мірі; який підходить, потрібний для певного випадку” [2, p. 177]. The adjective вузловий also acquires transferred meaning “головний, центральний” [2, p. 177].
The adjective польовий has several meanings: 1) adjective to поле // який росте, водиться в полі // характерний для поля; 2) пов’язаний з оброблянням поля, ниви; 3) який діє, використовується в бойових чи похідних умовах; 4) пов’язаний із діями у виїзних умовах; 5) те саме, що мисливський [2, p. 1039].
Thus, word-combinations with the above-mentioned adjectives should not be used in parallel with the names that consist of two nouns as relative adjectives have several meanings.
The following adjectives are deprived of secondary meanings that can cause unnecessary associations in the sci-tech style: зв’язковий, зсувний, електронний, емітерний, катодний, колекторний, розсіювальний, ростовий, тепловий, шумовий.
While showing preference to one variant, the following factors should be considered: 1) adjective construction has a more general meaning than word-combination with a noun performing the role of non-agreed attribute; 2) while acquiring secondary meanings sometimes relative adjectives cannot accurately express scientific notion; 3) word-combinations consisting of two nouns belong to stylistically neutral ones while adjective construction can be stylistically restricted [3, p. 149].
Dependent components in the composition of the syntactic variants of terms are eponyms and their adjectival derivatives, e. g.: бомівська дифузія – дифузія Бома [10, p. 127], ганнівський домен – домен Ганна [10, p. 132], гауссівський розподіл – розподіл Гаусса [10, p. 460], релеївська хвиля – хвиля Релея [10, p. 67], холлівський помножувач – помножувач Холла [10, p. 602], чебишевський фільтр – фільтр Чебишева [10, p. 625].
Use of parallels of this type is stipulated by the fact that the meaning of belonging in the Ukrainian language is expressed by possessive adjectives and nouns in the form of singular genitive case. Adjectives used in the word-combinations are included into the group of possessive-relative ones which combine in their semantics possessive and relative features [3, p. 147].
Use of these particular adjectives in sci-tech terminology is justified. Word-combinations бомівська дифузія, ганнівський домен, гауссівський розподіл, релеївська хвиля, холлівський помножувач, чебишевський фільтр do not express the idea of belonging to an individual but relation to the person who is an inventor of a device, creator of the theory, discoverer of a certain thing, etc.
While using these word-combinations one should remember that possessive-relative adjectives can metaphorize, thus acquiring qualitative meaning. For instance, Довженко став спадкоємцем великої шевченківської любови до України (Ye. Sverstiuk). Metaphoric meaning of the possessive-relative adjective can be rendered by means of comparative expression така любов, як у Шевченка.
Thus, in this case it is also better to use in scientific style a word-combination “noun + noun”, as these constructions have more specific meaning and do not acquire additional semantic shades due to adjective metaphorization. Besides, use of terms with eponyms is one of the distinguishing features of terminology. These names help unify terminology at the international level.
There are cases of parallel use of two- and three-component terms: noun (key word) + compound adjective (combined with the key word by means of agreement) and noun (key word) + adjective + noun: малопотужний транзистор – транзистор малої потужності [10, p. 589]. Two-component word-combination illustrates the tendency to shorten the term, while the three-component one provides more accurate name of the scientific notion.
There are syntactic variants of the following types: noun (key word) + simple adjective (combined with the key word by means of agreement) and noun (key word) + adjective + noun (combined with the key word by means of government): порівневий план – план за рівнями [10, p. 372], прогалинне кодування – кодування з прогалинами [10, p. 213], світловодна передача – передача по світловоду [10, p. 356].
In this case use of combinations consisting only of nouns is better. Although the adjectives in the above-mentioned names are not metaphorized, still combinations from two nouns express more specific meaning than adjective-noun constructions.
Summing up, syntactic variants of terms are characteristic of the modern Ukrainian scientific and technical terminology. When choosing a more suitable compound term one should take into account that the primary criterion must be its accuracy and correspondence to the designated sci-tech notion.