Productivity of affixes in neo-folk-medical terms: comparative and quantitative research on derivational models

Abstract

This article represents a comparative-quantitative research, aiming to identify the most productive derivational models, suffixes, and prefixes used in the adaptation of traditional folk medicine terms, as used within the context of modern alternative medicine. The current research uses a trilingual corpus, consisting of more than 600 neo-folk medicine terms, to compare the productivity of affixes used within the context of English, Uzbek, and Russian languages. The results of the research identify the suffixes “tion,” “ment,” and “ization” as the most productive affixes used within the context of modern alternative medicine. Moreover, the research identified the prefixes “bio-,” “phyto-,” and “neo-” as essential tools for the creation of innovative terminological models. The current research, which is based on the principles of corpus linguistics and derivational morphology, represents a comprehensive analysis of the affix productivity used within the context of the aforementioned linguistic systems, which can be used for the creation of practical recommendations for the standardization of the terminology used within the context of alternative medicine. The results of the research identified the agglutinative morphological structure of the Uzbek language as a significant factor for the evolution of folk medicine terminology.