Semantic increments of colourative terminological elements in modern medical terminology

The aim of the article is to determine the semantic specificity of terminological units and their individual terminological elements, which have a direct or indirect colour indication or its absence. Colourative terminological elements denote such a specific property of medicinal objects, processes, or phenomena as colour (or lack thereof), and can also have additional connotations in the semantics of colour. In the process of material selection it has been revealed that a quite large number of medical terminological units in the modern Russian language are characterized by the presence of colourative semantics, i.e. the seme of colour designation. The article examines the semantic increments of the terminological elements-colouratives in medical terminology in the modern Russian language. 315 Russian-language medical terminological units with terminological elements-colouratives and more than 350 diverse contexts of their use have served as the material for the study. Research methods include continuous selection, context and content analysis, semantic analysis, descriptive method, as well as methods of quantitative calculation. In the course of the study, it has been determined that among the predominant colours used in the nomination of medical objects, processes or phenomena, the following are distinguished: red, white and black. To a lesser extent, yellow, dark blue / light blue, grey and green colours are represented within the selected terminology units, as well as an indication of the presence of several colors or their total absence. The abovementioned colours are verbalized by the traditional Russian-language and borrowed from Latin and Greek languages terminological elements-colouratives. Medical terms with colourative elements expressing other colours are presented in a much smaller quantity. In the course of the work, cases of both direct designation of the colour of a certain medical object or phenomenon, and its indirect, figurative, metaphorical and metonymic expression have been identified. The use of colourative terminology elements in the modern Russian medical terminology plays an important role both in diagnostic terms and in terms of communication between medical specialists.