Abbreviated words: New parameters of selection and description

Abstract

The article deals with the main theoretical statements, which have determined the new parameters of the selection and description of abbreviated words in the process of compiling the Russian explanatory dictionary of compound abbreviations. The abbreviations included in the dictionary card-fi le are analyzed. The article discerns the concepts of “univerbalization”, “univerbation”, “compression” and “condensation”. Th e author defi nes the word combination’s
idiomatization as the main cause of univerbalization, leading to the formation of abbreviations. The article suggests such concepts as “quasi-universalization”, which means word formation based on the models of univerbates’ fi nal structure; and “pseudo-universalization”, which is a secondary word combination expansion on the basis of words. The article presents the description of the category “formal onomasiological type of word formation” that can be explained as the combination of means, instruments and motivational basis of derivation. Abbreviation formal onomasiological types are defi ned in the following way: initial abbreviations, resulting from the words reduction of a derivative word combination to the first letters or sounds; compound abbreviated appellatives, created by replacing or imitating the replacement of a word with an abbroconstruct; and compound abbreviated onyms, constructed by means of abbroconstructs. The description object of the dictionary is complex abbreviated appellatives. The author recognizes diachronic abbreviations originated on the word combination basis and opposed to quasiabbreviations; synchronous abbreviations that have descriptive equivalents in the language synchronous position and they are treated as abbreviations, despite the fact of their origination from a word combination or a word. The study describes the concept of “decoding stimulus” that is an abbreviation decoding stereotype that forms the decoding polysemy of an abbreviation realized in its equivalence nest. In the conclusion the article presents the dictionary entry example.

Keywords:

abbreviated word, abbreviation, abbroconstruct, decoding stimulus, synchronous abbreviation, diachronic abbreviation