ONYMIC BINOMIALS IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN MEDICAL NOMENCLATURES

Abstract

General framework: onymic binomials are lexical structures composed of two
elements (a proper name and a common noun) that constitute a lexical unit with a
fixed form and a meaning that does not result from the sum of the meanings of the
components.
Objectives: to classify on the basis of linguistic criteria and to describe the particular
structures of onymic binomials in the English and Romanian medical nomenclature
Methods: onymic binomials were selected from corpora used in two monographic
studies developed between 1996 and 2019 and published in July 2021. Manual
selection was supplemented with examples recorded from searches of the following
electronic resources: PubMed, Web of Science, Semantic Scholar and Elsevier.
Science direct.
Results: Onymic binomials are constructed with various types of anthroponyms and
toponyms. The descriptive forms distinguish, on the one hand, between nominal
and genitival constructions and, on the other hand, between the types of common
nouns used, namely those belonging to the main lexical background, or to semitechnical, technical and super-technical words.
Limitations: The study was not compiled with the aim of inventorying the total
number of active onymic binomials in English and/or Romanian medical
nomenclature, as they are so numerous that they could cover the pages of a
specialized dictionary.
Conclusions: Although the English and Romanian languages belong to different
branches of the Indo-European trunk, the onymic binomials studied revealed
common features, visible both in the proper noun and in the common noun, as well
as particularities dictated by the syntactic context in which they appear, which may
cause confusion with impact on oral communication.