To the Study of Rendering Greek Scientific Vocabulary in the Old Church Slavonic Texts: Complex Lexical Units

Abstract

The article discusses the mechanisms of rendering Greek scientific vocabulary through complex lexical units (composites and multi-word names). The main way of rendering Greek scientific terms were through various types of calquing. The formation of Old Church Slavonic composites and multi-word names by calquing have a lot in common. To calque Greek complex scientific terms, Slavic bookmen used morpheme-by-morpheme calquing and phraseological calquing, as well as a special kind of morpheme-by-morpheme calquing, in which the roots of the Greek composite are rendered by separate words of the phrase. At the same time, the “building material” of Slavic everyday vocabulary was used. The Greek “nominational ideology” was characterized by the formation of two-root composites even in the sphere of everyday vocabulary. The Slavic “nominational ideology” was expressed in the very rare formation of composites. However, in the sphere of scientific vocabulary, accuracy was required in rendering the meaning of a term, so Slavic bookmen strove to render the semantics of both roots or words of Greek complex lexical units as accurately as possible. The identification of multi-word scientific lexical units in Old Church Slavonic texts is a culturological and linguistic problem. Currently, there is no agreed-upon unified approach among researchers to the analysis of Old Church Slavonic texts in this aspect. The author believes that a multiword name as a lexical unit should nominate a single linguistic concept. To establish the nominated linguistic concepts, it is necessary to focus on the scientific conceptions of the authors of the Greek original texts of the Old Church Slavonic texts, and then on their interpretation by Slavic bookmen.

Received: 29.05.2025.
Revised: 22.08.2025.
Accepted: 16.09.2025.

Citation
Efimova V. S. To the Study of Rendering Greek Scientific Vocabulary in the Old Church Slavonic Texts: Complex Lexical Units // Slavic Almanac. 2025. No 3–4. P. 106–129 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2025.3-4.05