Sujungiamasis ryšys terminuose: terminai su jungtukais „ir (ar)“, „ir (arba)“

8 8 Asta Mitkevičienė Conjunctive connection in terms: terms with conjunctions ir (ar), ir (arba) doi.org/10.35321/term26-05 Connective relationship in terms: terms with conjunctions and (or), and (or) ASTA MITKEVIČIENĖ Institute of Lithuanian Language Annotation The article analyzes one type of terms with connecting elements – terms with alternative conjunctions. The research material is taken from the term bank of the Republic of Lithuania. The aim of this article is to identify the formal structure of terms with alternative conjunctions and (or) connecting elements, the semantic relationships between these elements and to discuss the terminological value of such terms. KEY WORDS: compound term, conjunction, conjunction, semantic relationship, equation, hyperonym, hyponym. Abstract The article analyses one type of terms with coordinate constituents, that is to say, terms with alternative conjunctions. The research material was taken from the Term bank of the Republic of Lithuania. The article is aimed at determining the features of the formal structure of the terms with coordinate constituents joined by alternative conjunctions ir (ar/arba) “and/orˮ, the semantic relations between these constituents and discussing the terminological value of such terms. KEYWORDS: complex term, coordination, conjunction, semantic relation, co-hyponym, hyperonym, hyponym. Defining the boundaries of a term in discourse is one of the most difficult terminological issues. The terms used are often combined into one construction, become uniform parts of the sentence, therefore their elements are omitted (ellipse). And this is a common thing in the usage of terms. The term variants researcher Béatrice Daille classifies the combination of independent terms in a text as lexical variation (see Daile 2017: 58–61). When searching for terms, defining them, selecting them, such usage causes difficulties, because it is necessary to decide whether a certain construction is one, two or several terms. This is particularly important when automatically determining deadlines (see bielinskienė et al. 2015: 60, 64). On the other hand, as can be seen from the territory of the Republic of 8 9Terminologija | 2019 | 26 minų bankas (hereinafter referred to as the LR Terms Bank), standardized (established) terms may have elements linked by a connective link1. In other words, these are only a matter of textual usage, minai patenka į vartoseną, jie atsiduria greta sujungiamųjų konstrukcijų, not of nomination. This article discusses terms that are linked by a join relationship. Due to the abundance of material, we have limited ourselves to one, but representative and peculiar type of such terms – terms with alternative conjunctions and (or) and and (or), which have not been studied so far. The research material was taken from the LR term bank, where 199 terms of this type were found (only approved and submitted terms were calculated, the repetition of terms was taken into account). What is the difference between terms with alternative conjunctions – the constituent (and) and the distinguishing (or, or) – conjunctions? Firstly, because the elements connected by these conjunctions denote concepts or things that can be both together (logical conjunction) and separately (disjunction), such as a fruit and/or berry freezer, cf. aviation warning and control system (conjunction), cocoa powder with flour or starch (disjunction)2. The terms with alternative conjunctions and/or the sources of the terms included in the LR Terms Bank are various legislative acts (from the largest fields identified by the bank such as environment, economy, energy, finance, communications, culture, gambling and lotteries, standardization and metrology, health, education and science, transport, public safety, agriculture, fisheries and food) and only four terms – dictionaries of terms (metrology, telecommunications) or translation standards (building ventilation, gas cylinders). This indicates that such expression of terms is more typical of administrative than scientific term resources. of course, this cannot be strictly stated – it is necessary to review more sources of terms3. The aim of this article is to identify the formal structure of terms, whose connecting elements are linked by alternative conjunctions and (or / or), the semantic relationships between those elements and to discuss the terminological value of such terms. 1 As early as 1968, K. Gaivenis distinguished the term model “conjugative noun word combination (noun) + noun (noun)” as a fairly productive grammatical configuration of three-word terms (see Gaivenis 2014: 43–44). 2 The examples of terms presented in this article, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the LR terminų bankas. No distinction shall be made between terms and nomenclatural names. 3 In the EU term database IATE it was expected to find a number of terms with conjunctions and (or), and (or) (it was tried to search for these conjunctions separated by a slash), but the assumption was not confirmed – only one term (not even a term, but the name of the convention) with and (or) and 9 – with and (or) was found. Among the last 9 were the abbreviations and the name of the protocol. 9 0 Asta Mitkevičienė Connective relationship in terms: terms with conjunctions ir (ar), ir (arba) STRUCTURES OF TERMS Most of the time, alternative conjunctions are used to connect secondary elements of terms (a), much less often – main (b), e.g. : (a) (1) a betting and/or totalising agent, (2) a diving and/or diving pool, (3) a burial and/or resting site; (b) (4) recreational buildings and/or facilities, (5) plants and/or plant products infected by harmful organisms. The minimum possible length of terms of the first type (a) is three (three-word terms) or five elements, if we count the official words. The second type (b) – two and four elements, respectively4. In the LR terminology bank, several dozen terms of the first type (a) of such volume were found (and the same terms form several groups of semantically related terms, when only the main elements of the terms differ5, e.g.: transportation of weapons and (or) ammunition, holding of weapons and (or) ammunition, carrying of weapons and (or) ammunition), and the second type (b) was not found at all. The examples given (b) show that the elements of terms linked by a connective relationship have a common dependent element. In the study material, all the main elements of terms connected by alternative conjunctions have such element6. It may be assumed that that common element, such as the public [supply of drinking water and/or wastewater treatment], is necessary to establish the linking term. Alternative conjunctions are used not only to connect individual words, but also to connect a word with a combination of words (e.g. 2-3) or combinations of words, e.g. prevention of money laundering and/or terrorist financing. In the latter example, the elements connected by hyphens can be considered as independent compound terms – money laundering and terrorist financing are also included in the LR term bank. Since only approved or proposed terms are examined here (the principles of accuracy and clarity have been followed in the definition of terms), it is usually not difficult to understand from the structure of the term and the meanings of the individual elements which element unites which element.4 Due to the subject of the article, it seems appropriate to indicate the number of words that make up two terms each (see umbrasas 2013: 113 for more details on the different calculation of elements of composite terms). 5 In the study material there are almost three times fewer different connecting points than the terms themselves – 69. 6 The secondary elements of terms linked by a connective link always have at least one element in common, namely the main element of the term. 9 1Terminologija | 2019 | 26 to the subject. For example, a certificate of quality of precious metals and/or gemstones is a combination of the compound term precious metals and the monosyllabic term gemstones (not *precious gemstones, although it is grammatically possible to reconstruct this way). The longest term of the structure in question consists of 14 elements, or 16 words, representing the qualifying interest in the authorised capital and/or voting rights of the management company of the collective investment undertaking for informed investors. There is no shortage of somewhat shorter deadlines. There are 30 terms with 10 or more elements and 57 terms with 10 or more words. According to a study conducted by Alvydas umbrasas in 2013, the longest approved term in the LR term bank consists of 18 words (see umbrasas 2013: 113). In most cases, the alternative switches are nouns or noun combinations, much less often adjectives, e.g. low and/or medium pressure gas pipeline designer; verbs, e.g. support for the preparation and/or updating of a local development strategy, or participants, e.g. area of forest planted and/or fertilized; an adjective and a noun, e.g. certification of organic and/or exceptional quality agricultural and food products. Term elements linked by alternative conjunctions are connected to both the main term element (a) and the secondary term element (b), e.g. : (a) the buyer and/or processor of cereals; (b) an undertaking importing petroleum products and/or oil. This is sometimes only apparent from the definition of the term, for example, coastal and/or inland fishing vessel: “a boat or other watercraft not exceeding 12 metres in length intended for coastal and/or inland fishing”. On the other hand, the definitions may place the emphasis elsewhere. If a word, to which the connecting elements of the term are connected, has more dependent elements, it is likely that those connecting elements are connected not to the word but to the word combination, especially if that word combination is a term, e.g. capital deepening of the sea and / or seaport waters. In LR terminų bankas you can even find terms with two alternative conjunctions and/or: a) authorisation for the temporary import and/or supply and/or use of a veterinary medicinal product not authorised in the Republic of Lithuania; (b) tobacco products; and 9 2 Asta Mitkevičienė Connective connection in terms: terms with conjunctions ir (ar), ir (arba) (or) promotion of the purchase and/or consumption of related products. but even from these two examples it is clear that there are different patterns of terms: either three identical elements of the term are connected by these repetitive conjunctions (open conjunction) (a), or one pair of alternative conjunctions connects two elements, and the other pair connects the other two (so the conjunctions are not repetitive), and one pair of elements is grammatically subordinate to the other (b). In a very general and conditional way it is possible to represent the relationship of terms: (a) A and (b) B and (c) b) c and (ar) D → A and (ar) b A variant of the first model (a) – listing – may be considered to be the closed link model A, b and/or c, e.g. control of tobacco, tobacco products and/or related products. Alternative junctions connect only two members of the path enumeration, e.g. handling information, data, documents and/or copies thereof – A, b, [c and/or D]. The second linking node model (b) is close to the model c and (or) D → A and b, e.g. tear gas and/or smoke grenades and ammunition, as well as c, D → A and/or b, e.g. innovation of fisheries, aquaculture product and/or service, somewhat further away from c and D →... → A and (or) b, e.g. recipient of documents and/or messages sent through the national electronic document and message delivery system. OPTIONS In the research material, two heading terms were found, which differ only in the distinctive hyphens and are variants of one term: greenhouse creation and / or management project / greenhouse creation and / or management project. When comparing terms, it has been observed that the elements of terms sometimes vary: (a) the conjunctions are different: fruit and/or berries / fruit and/or berries; (b) there is a difference in the order of the linking elements: petroleum and/or petroleum products/petroleum products and/or petroleum7. The first is purely linguistic variation, and the second depends on extralinguistic factors – the concepts named by the term, the logical sequence. In LR terminų bankas, the short form is indicated in the articles for some terms of the investigated type, which usually do not have alternative conjunctions. The short forms show that the elements with alternative conjunctions are replaced: 7 Differences in the grammatical form of the elements are not taken into account here, as they are determined by the main element of the compound. 9 3Terminology | 2019 | 26 in the framework or in a specific document a) platesniu terminu, kuris terminų straipsnių rengėjams jų terminų appears to be perceived as sufficient, for example, the payback period instead of the payback period for the investment of the natural gas transmission and/or distribution system operator. Such a relationship between a term and its short form is sometimes called hyperonymic variation in terminology and is considered a contextual phenomenon; (b) an abbreviation, such as R&D service provider instead of research and/or experimental development service provider. The abbreviation no longer represents an alternative. ISO 1087-1: 2000 and 704:2009 standards distinguish two main groups of conceptual relationships: 1) hierarchical relationships (familial and parthonymic) and 2) associative relationships. The typology of the Scandinavian terminologist Anita Nuopponen, who has developed the classification of conceptual relations, refers to two broadest categories of relations – related (logical)8 and ontological relations (Nuopponen 2014). Ontological relationships include both parthonomy and associative relationships. In particular, the works of A. Nuopponen (2011, 2014) are mainly used here to describe the relationships of the connecting elements of terms, only because the article deals with language units, and not the concepts themselves, where possible, linguistic terms hyperonym, hyponym, equonomy, etc. are used, rather than the corresponding logical terminology. The words or combinations of words in the terms connected by alternative conjunctions are usually (the conjunctive connection itself indicates this) semantically equivalent or at least perceived as such. Therefore, the connecting elements of such terms as suspension drip into the trachea and (or) bronchi, betting and (or) totalizer point, low and (or) medium pressure gas pipeline customer can be considered equations (cohyponims). Less frequently, such connecting points are related9, i.e., the econyms are explicit, e.g.: mixture of fertilizers and/or fertilizer products, planting and/or grassing forest area. 8 Econominal relations are also classified as relative relations. In the context of language, the relational relationships of concepts are represented by hyperonymic/hyponymic relationships of terms. 9 Evalda Jakaitienė (2010) as one of the types of systemic word relationships distinguishes derivative (operational) relationships. 9 4 Asta Mitkevičienė Connective connection in terms: terms with conjunctions ir (ar), ir (arba) According to Agnė bielinskienė’s research, 73% of the collocations of the connective link with the conjunction and the elements are linked by econyms (bielinskienė 2010: 98). They are considered equations because they have a common hyperonym, and the hierarchical equation seems not to be taken into account (see Jakaitienė 2010: 115). In terminology, equations are traditionally understood as terms of the same level. It is not always possible to say exactly whether the equivalent words or word combinations in the systems of concepts that go through the connecting elements belong to the same sublevel of the system, to the same classification of concepts – for this it is necessary to see the place of the concepts named by the research terms and their elements in the systems of concepts. It is clear from the research material that the connecting elements also refer to things that do not have the same basis (not the same classification), e.g. an inshore and/or inland fishing vessel (see sea fishing), capital costs of regulated services and/or products (see classification of goods and services10). A. Nuopponen distinguishes between the generic diagonal relation (Nuopponen 2014: 7) and indirect relative coordination (Nuopponen 2011: 7). This relationship connects terms of different abstraction levels belonging to the same system. This would be a kind of indirect equation. The research material shows that when creating terms, semantically unequal elements are also combined, by which concepts of unequal semantic scope are named. One of these is the obligation to pay tax and/or social contribution. In the Law on Tax Administration of the Republic of Lithuania, taxes include, for example, state social insurance contributions11, and therefore the ratio of connecting elements in such a context is closer to hyponymous than econominal. There is an interesting relationship between the words in the conjunctives of the term potato and/or vegetable storage farm. The term potato is a hyponym of the term vegetable, but here it either (a) is distinguished from other hyponyms and equated with a hyperonym (probably because of the lack of uniformity of the legal regulations), or b) the hyperonym vegetables represents the equations of the term potato – *other vegetables. These are either hyperbolic or hyperbolic-hyperbolic. 10 Access via the Internet: https://vpb.lrv.lt/lt/veiklos-sritys/prekiu-ženklai/preku-ir-paslaugu-klasifikacija. 11 “The state social insurance contribution has the characteristics of a state tax or subsidy rather than an insurance contribution” (VZ dictionary). 9 5Terminology | 2019 | 26 related), it is not clearer – the question remains daržovių sandėlis ir bulvių sandėlis apibrėžtis (patys terminai pažymėti kaip unanswered whether potatoes are stored in the vegetable store. Similarly, it would be possible to interpret the connecting elements of the term pledge and / or mortgage secured creditor’s claims, e.g. mortgage “pledge of immovable property guaranteeing the fulfilment of a debt obligation when the pledged property is not transferred to the creditor” VLEe. However, if you look at the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania, subordination is not visible: mortgage – “right in rem to another person’s immovable property, which secures the performance of an existing or future financial obligation, when the pledged property is not transferred to the creditor” (art. 4.170 of the Civil Code), and pledge – “right in rem to another person’s movable property and property rights, which secures the performance of an existing or future financial obligation” (art. 4.198 of the Civil Code). There is a logical sequence in time between some of the connecting elements, which allows us to talk about phase relationships, e.g.: grain buying and/or processing company, insurance and/or reinsurance group. On the other hand, in the latter example, a hyperonymic relationship can also be seen if reinsurance is considered a type of insurance. The term reinsurance itself is not included in the LR term bank, but in the IATE database reinsurance is defined as a form of insurance. The article “Reinsurance” in VLEe states that in most Western European countries reinsurance is an independent insurance branch. Partonymic relationships (of whole and part) can be seen between the connecting elements of the water body and/or its water (e.g., use of the water body and/or its water), gardens and/or landscapes (e.g., manager of gardens and/or landscapes). Several other more prominent types of domain ontological relationships are: • origin relationship (raw material and product12): oil and/or petroleum products installations; • local relations (object and location): brown state of a nuclear power plant and/or its site (see nuclear power plant site); • reinforcement (accessory) relationship (object and accessory): holding a weapon and (or) ammunition; 12 Ms Nuopponen distinguishes this type of relationship as distinct from parthenonymal relationships (see, inter alia, the judgments of 19 March 2011, Nuopponen, C‑135/10, EU:C:2011:177, paragraph 12, and 19 March 2011, Nuopponen, C‑136/10, EU:C:2011:107, paragraph 12). Nuopponen 2011: 8; 2014: 7). 9 6 Asta Mitkevičienė Connective relationship in terms: terms with conjunctions ir (ar), ir (arba) • Representation relationship (object and representative): a specialist providing assistance to the child and/or his/her representatives; • contractual relationship: a state and / or municipal controlled entity. The semantic connection between the words or word combinations that go through the connecting elements of the term sometimes appears to be more distant. As an example, the term "immortalization of burial and/or site of discovery of remains" can be taken. If we compare the semantics of burial and the discovery of remains, they will seem quite distant, although thematically they are related. By reconstructing the missing element and then comparing the word combinations burial place and the place of discovery of the remains, an econymy relationship could be seen between them. ALTERNATyVuS CONSOLIDATION Most of the terms in the LR Terms Bank with alternative conjunctions are noun compounds or noun constructions13, except for use in the trachea and/or bronchi, although not all terminologists would recognize such a construction as a term. In Lithuanian linguistics, there is no unified opinion on conjugative compounds – in some works they are distinguished, in others word forms connected by conjugation are not considered compounds (for a brief overview see Holvoet 2003: 177; for more details see bielinskienė 2010: 16–19). If we were to follow the latter position, the question would arise as to what syntactic construction should be considered terms whose main elements are connected by a connective link. Terms with alternative conjunctions appear formally, semantically and pragmatically as constructions of composite terms (see Figure 1), e.g.: possession of a weapon and (or) ammunition “holding, carrying, storing, using a weapon and (or) ammunition” possession of a weapon and ammunition14 possession of a weapon or ammunition ← possession of a weapon vs. possession of ammunition 13 In Lithuanian terminology, composite terms are traditionally defined as combinations of words, and the concept of a chain of word combinations is usually not used (see Labutis 1976: 60; 2002: 51). In ↑ the opinion of Gintautas Akelaitis, “not all three-word terms, especially polyword terms, can be considered compounds” (Akelaitis 2008: 6), unfortunately, this statement has not been further developed. 14 Here and hereafter, terms are divided into structurally and semantically possible, but not necessarily actually used or recorded terms.