Terminologization of Coloronyms of Metal and Mineral Etymological Origin: Evolutionary Aspect

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of French coloronyms and their terminologization in different subtypes of scientific discourse. The research is based on coloronyms of mineral origin “(jaune / vert / brun / rouge d’)andalousite” and “quartz (blanc / rose)”, as well as those of metallic origin – “jaune d’or’ and ‘jaune / vert de chrome”. The authors carry out an etymological analysis of all the above-mentioned lexical units and consider the main tendencies of the terminologization of words with the semantics of colour in French scientific discourse. Peculiarities of terminologization of coloronyms of mineral origin are analyzed in scientific chemical and scientific geological types of discourse, whereas trends in the use of coloronyms of mineral origin are presented in scientific chemical and scientific physical types of discourse. The aim of the paper is to analyze the evolutionary tendencies of terminologization of French coloronyms in the subtypes of scientific discourse to describe their common and diverging properties at different levels, i.e. structural-semantic, morphological, and syntactic. The empirical material for the research comprises written scientific texts on chemistry (the electronic archive of scientific journals “Annales de chimie et de physique”), geology (the electronic archive of scientific publications “Planet-Terre”), physics (the electronic archive of scientific journals “Futura Sciences”). Methods of the research include etymological, component, structural-semantic, morphological, and syntactic analyses. Terminologization of coloronyms is a long-term continuous evolutionary discursive process that can be observed in French scientific discourse from the XIXth century till the present day. The authors investigate such evolutionary tendencies of coloronyms as emerging semantics of colour in lexemes that have not had it before, development of new structural-semantic models, rising numbers of morphological categories of colour terms, and acquisition of new syntactic roles, gradual process of semantic transformation of coloronyms. The transition of coloronyms from one subtype of scientific discourse into another with structural-syntactic forms, morphological and semantic categories preserved indicates the correlation between the discursive subtypes and the convergence of their functional properties at different levels of the language system. Despite this interdiscursive connectedness, each of the subtypes manifests distinct boundaries, which can be revealed through the study of the semantic specificity of coloronyms and their terminologization in scientific discourse.