The polysemantic ratio within the transport terminology megasystem is investigated. It was determined that the intersystem polysemy is a natural phenomenon for terminology as an autonomous subsystem of the modern Ukrainian language. Unlike the intersystem polysemy, the specified intrasystem polysemy in terminology science is interpreted as a negative phenomenon, which complicates communication.
For example, the intersystem polysemy terminology unit transmission in in the article of the Explanatory Polytechnic Encyclopedic Dictionary (2000 edition, chief editor O. Ishlinskyi) is specified to have 2 meanings: 1) “mechanism that is used to transmit motion, usually rotational, with the conversion rate and the corresponding torque change”; 2) “free forging operation that lies in the offset of the blank along its longitudinal axis.” The Explanatory Definition Dictionary of the modern Ukrainian literary language there are recorded 5 meanings, but there are none of those recorded in the Explanatory Polytechnic Encyclopedic Dictionary – “free forging operation that lies in the offset of the blank along its longitudinal axis.” Thus, the language has 6 meanings of the word transmission. Therefore, on the formal level, without taking into account the number of meanings that turned out to be different in three editions, the analyzed terminology-words are polysemantic.
Such words as cheek, cuff, shoulder, beads, chain, candle, glass, shirt, frame, rack, shaft, hoist, arm, well, pass, hair, cover tape, which are independent or form terminological terms (inflammatory candle emulsion well, hairs incandescent lamps rear position lamps, colon tape, cover the filter) are referred to polysemantic terms of the automotive terminology system. Involvement of common words in the process of creating terms is always one of the most common means of terminology formation. Most often a word that is already used in the active vocabulary either acquires in the scientific and technical language a new meaning or transfers the existing one to the newly created object. Thus, according to this method mono-semantic words acquire additional lexical-semantic variants of words and their structure becomes complicated.
So, one of the significant shortcomings of the automotive terminology that is difficult to be removed is the intra and inter-sectoral polysemy that experts beginners can be lead to inaccurate understanding of denoted concepts of the terminology system and therefore treated as undesirable for science and technology phenomenon, but the language of science cannot be a closed system, the polysemantic relationship will further arise, so the demand for unambiguous terms can only be realized within a certain terminology system.