Title of the article:

TO THE STUDY OF TRANSLATION DECISIONS OF SLAVIC BOOKMEN IN RENDERING GREEK COMPOSITES: THE PLACE OF MULTI‑WORD NOMINATIONS

Author(s):

Valeriya S. Efimova

Information about the author/authors

Valeriya S. Efimova — DSc in Philology, Leading Researcher, Head of the Department of Slavic Linguistics, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky Ave, 32A, 119991 Moscow. Russia.
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000‑0001‑5921‑8475
E-mail: valeriefimova@yandex.ru

Section

Philological sciences

Year

2024

Volume

Vol. 74

Pages

pp. 100–114

Received

February 13, 2023

Approved after reviewing

September 10, 2024

Date of publication

December 29, 2024

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2024-74-100-114

Index UDK

811.16

Index BBK

81 + Е 91

Abstract

The paper is to study the methods of rendering Greek composites (compound words) in the most ancient Slavonic translations of the 9th – 10th centuries. The Greek linguistic conceptualization of the world, different from the Slavonic one, was reflected in the abundance of composites in the Greek originals of Old Church Slavonic texts. The desire for accuracy in translating composites prompted Slavic bookmen to create numerous Old Church Slavonic new formations — both composites and multi-word names. The study focuses on analyzing the mechanism of rendering Greek composites by multi-word names. This procedure is considered in terms of compounding in the broad sense of the word as a special kind of morphemic calquing, in which Greek morphemes-components of composites are rendered by separate Slavic words. The paper shows basing on the material of Old Church Slavonic translations somewhat later than the translation of the Gospel and the Psalter, that the Slavic bookmen displayed considerable masterhood in conveying the semantics of the components of the Greek composites. As a rule, they managed to capture not only the general meaning of the composite but also semantic nuances. Multi-word names could later become fixed in the lexical inventory of the language but could remain hapaxes (neologisms used only once). The study reveals a tendency to prefer the rendering of Greek composites over Old Church Slavonic composites, especially in later translations.

Keywords

Slavic Bookmen, Translation Decisions, Greek Composites, Old Church Slavonic Language, Multi-word Names.

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