Naming targets as the sphere of interaction of semantic transfer and word formation

Julia Petrakova

Minsk State Linguistic University

Abstract

Semantic transfer and word formation both use the already existing lexical units as naming sources in order to react adequately to the diverse naming demands of the language user. The research aims to answer the question about the distribution of onomasiological targets between semantic transfer and word formation produced from the most frequent German body part terms. The interaction of semantic transfer and word formation manifests in different lexical categories that become the result of naming processes. Moreover, word formation, due to the dominating status of composition in German, reveals a higher diversity of naming targets than semantic transfer does. Both naming ways can also interact while producing the same word, when word formation is accompanied by semantic transfer. The interaction of these naming ways in the sphere of targets is of a complimentary nature.

Keywords:

word formation, semantic transfer, naming targets, interaction, distribution