To the Question of Antonymic Relations in English, French and German Term Systems of Urban Ecology

Abstract

The purpose of this article is a comparative structural and semantic analysis of the antonymous relations of the terms of urban ecology in English, French and German. The analysis is based on one of the urban ecology sections of “physical factors of urban pollution”. Identifying similarities and differences in the terminological systems allows us to bring the basis for a comparative-typological study of terms, both in the field of lexical semantics and in the field of lexical morphology. In modern linguistics, the question of the existence of antonymous relations in terminological systems is debatable. As you know, science has repeatedly stated that antonymous relations are not inherent in the terms, and it is indicated that it is more of simple division, delimitation of concepts, rather than their opposition. These ideas are typical for such scientists as L. O. Novikov or L. A. Bulakhovsky, who denied the existence of monosyllabic antonyms. But according to today's leading scholars, lexical antonymy is inherent to the scientific language even more than to the literature language. The antonymy is even more specific to terminological units than synonymy or polysemy. The phenomenon of terminological antonymy is quite widespread in terminological vocabulary, the only question is which of these varieties are inherent to the scientific field. According to V. P. Danylenko, “two structural types of antonyms in the language of science are used – lexical and word-forming”. The lexical type of antonymy is quite widely represented in the studied term system. Central to determining the lexical antonymy of the terminology of urban ecology is the concept of opposition. The logical basis of antonymy is formed by incompatible opposite species concepts (contrasting and complementary). The contrary difference is expressed by highly symmetric members of an ordered set (contrasting species concepts), between which there is a middle intermediate term. As you can see, in the compared versions of the studied urban ecology terminology, the picture is almost the same. The word-forming type of antonymy is expressed through the regular use of prefixes. Most often there is an alternation of prefixes with its absence. The only difference is that in English and French such prefixes have not completely lost their own meaning. The vector difference is also manifested. The only difference is that such prefixes have not completely lost their own meaning and in some cases are written with words not together, but through a hyphen. The study presented allows us to conclude that antonymic relations are inherent in the term system of urban ecology and play a significant role in structuring the concepts of given scientific field. So, if the synonymy inherent in this terminology to some extent deprives it of its accuracy, introduces variability into it, the antonymous relations, on the contrary, are the manifestation of its consistency and integrity.