DECEPTIVE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE GREEK AND LATIN FORMATIVES IN THE KAZAKH LINGUISTIC TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

While compiling a trilingual dictionary of the Greek and Latin terminological elements, the formatives VOC-, CATA-, and ONOMAS-/ONOMAT- turned out to be candidates for reverse configuration. The Kazakh material demonstrated the productivity where the English and Russian examples did not show it. The analysis of seven sources did not prove this hypothesis, as the formative was fully the part of the borrowed word. The Kazakh case endings, number markers, and derivational elements were attached to the full word, while the formative did not function as free morphemes. The same diagnostic criterion turned out to be weak for Kazakh because of this regular suffixation, which caused the deceptive finding. We have not observed the reverse configuration; the items represent not exceptions from the typological asymmetry but the separate category, the complete borrowing mistaken for productive derivation. The research findings are methodologically significant for terminography of languages with different types of inflection.