N-lecticity of terms

Kostas Valeontis Hellenic Society for Terminology (ELETO)

Karamanlaki 18, GR-11253, Athens, GREECE E-mail: valeonti@otenet.gr

ABSTRACT In this paper the term term means "term or name" covering both general and individual

concepts. According to the number of words in a term, it may be one-word (monolectic) or

multi-word (polylectic). This paper examines N-lecticity of terms, that is the number N of

words contained in each term, and studies the distribution of terms with respect to their N-

lecticities, both within a language and between different languages.

The subject field under study is ⟨telecommunications⟩ and the relevant corpus consists of 3198

trilingual entries in the term base TELETERM which contain internationally standardized

equivalent terms in the languages Greek (GR), English (EN) and French (FR). Each entry

corresponds to one and only one concept.

Both absolute and percentage distributions of terms with respect to their N-lecticities are

calculated and corresponding diagrams are given (how many monolects, dilects, trilects etc.).

Key-words: concept, term, equivalent term, N-lecticity, monolect, polylect, isolect

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0 Introduction

In this paper we conduct a comparative examination of the term length (in words) of

equivalent terms in Greek, English and French, in a corpus of 3198 trilingual entries of

the term base of telecommunication terms TELETERM1. The full entries of the term

base are quadrilingual (English, Greek, French and German), but we examined the

three languages only: Greek (GR), English (EN) and French (FR). All English and

French terms have been standardized by the International Electrotechnical

Commission (IEC) in the International Standards listed in table 1 with their

corresponding Greek standards, which have been produced by MOTO2. Thus, the

whole work has been done on a large sub-domain of telecommunications, whose

concepts have been internationally standardized.

Table 1 List of the International Standards and corresponding Hellenic Standards, whose terms were studied

No Code number of the International

Standard

Title of the International Standard Code number of the Hellenic

Standard 1 IEC 50701 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter

701 – Telecommunications, channels and networks ELOT 1300.01

2 IEC 50702 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 702 – Oscillations, signals and related devices

ELOT 1300.02

3 IEC 50704 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 704 – Transmission

ELOT 1300.04

4 IEC 50712 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 712 – Antennas

ELOT 1300.12

5 IEC 50714 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 714 – Switching and signalling in telecommunications

ELOT 1300.14

6 IEC 50715 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 715 – Telecommunication networks, teletraffic and operation

ELOT 1300.15

7 IEC 50716-1 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 716-1 – Integrated services digital network (ISDN) - Part 1: General aspects

ELOT 1300.16-1

8 IEC 50721 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 721 – Telegraphy, facsimile and data communication

ELOT 1300.21

9 IEC 50722 International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Chapter 722 – Telephony

ELOT 1300.22

1 www.moto-teleterm.gr 2 MOTO: The Permanent Group for Telecommunication Terminology, a Working Group under the Technical Committee

“Telecommunications” (TE-T), a founding Collective Member of ELETO (Hellenic Society for Terminology). MOTO operates under the responsibility and support of OTE (Hellenic Telecommunications Organization) the latter being in formal cooperation with ELOT (Hellenic Organization for Standardization).

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1 Terms and concept definitions

For the purposes of this paper the following concept definitions apply:

1.1 name: verbal designation of an individual concept [3]

1.2 term: verbal designation of a general concept in a specific subject field [3] NOTE – In this paper by the designation term we mean «term or name» thus covering individual concepts too.

1.3 term element: morphological part of a term conveying meaning [2] NOTE – A term element may be a morpheme, a word or a phrase.

1.4 morpheme: smallest indivisible term element [2]

1.5 word: term element capable of existing as a separate unit in a sentence [2]

NOTE – A written word is marked off by spaces or punctuation marks before and after. Two words

connected by a hyphen are considered to form a single word. Two words separated by a dash or a

slash are not considered to be a single word.

1.6 root: morpheme which forms the etymological basis for a whole family of words

in one language or in several languages [2]

1.7 simple term: term containing only one root [3]

1.8 complex term: term containing two or more roots [3]

1.9 monolectic term, one-word term, single-word term, monolect; 1-lect: term

containing only one word

NOTE – A monolectic term may be a simple term or a complex term.[10]

1.10 polylectic term, multi-word term, polylect: complex term containing two or

more words [10]

NOTE – A polylectic term is a complex term.

1.11 N-lectic term, N-lect: term containing N words

NOTE – a 1-lect, 2-lect, 3-lect, 4-lect, 5-lect, 6-lect, 7-lect, 8-lect... is, correspondingly, a monolect,

diect, trilect, quadrilect, quinlect, hexalect, septilect, octalect, ...

1.12 N-lecticity, term length in words, N: the number of the words contained in a

term

NOTES

1 – The N-lecticity of a monolect is 1, the N-lecticity of a dilect is 2, etc.

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2 – Two or more terms having the same N-lecticity are isolectic terms or isolects.

1.13 term component: part of a complex term which is a term in itself or represents a

characteristic within the underlying concept system [1] [10]

NOTES

1 – A term component may be formed by one or more term elements.

2 – In this paper we use a vertical bar (|) to separate the term components. If the separation is

between whole words the vertical bar is both preceded and followed by a space character ( | ).

1.14 immediate component: one of the – usually two – term components into which

a complex term can be analyzed in the first stage of terminological analysis [1]

[10]

NOTE – According to its order an immediate component may be a 1st or a 2nd component;

according to its meaning an immediate component may be a determined component, a determining

component, or a non-characterizable – i.e. neither determined nor determining – component.

1.15 determined component, D: immediate component of a complex term which –

usually – represents a genus of the concept designated by the complex term [1]

[10]

NOTE – An example of determined component: sound absorption | coefficient

1.16 determining component, d: immediate component of a complex term which

represents the delimiting characteristic which converts the genus to species [1]

[10]

NOTE – Examples of a determining component: sound absorption | coefficient, average | sound

absorption coefficient

1.17 non-characterizable component: immediate component of a complex term

which is neither a determined component nor a determining component

1.18 terminological category: category into which a term is classified according to

the existence and order of its immediate components [10]

NOTE – The terminological category may be:

– ST: Simple Term (There are no immediate components in a simple term);

– NC: complex term with Non Characterizable immediate components;

– dD: complex term with its immediate components ordered as: determining component – Determined component

– Dd: complex term with its immediate components ordered as: Determined component – determining component.

EXAMPLES

– ST: EN power; FR puissance; GR ισχύς;

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– NC: EN man-|machine; FR homme-|machine; GR ανθρώπου-|μηχανής

– dD: ΕΝ multi|plexer; FR multi|plexeur, GR πολυ|πλέκτης, – Dd: EN angle | of arrival; FR angle | d'incidence; GR γωνία | άφιξης.

1.19 The “Analogue Rule” of Naming: a rule for secondary term formation (in a

target language) formulated as follows: When forming a term in a language

(target language) in order to name a new concept that has been primarily named

in another language (source language), the namer’s first choice should be to

apply a term-formation mechanism analogous to the term-formation mechanism

used for the source language term. [7]

2 Distribution of terms with respect to their n-lecticity

Depending on the definition of word (1.5) and the terminological analysis in all three

languages, the N-lecticity of each term was derived by counting its words, according to

the following rules.

1. First, from each trilingual entry of term base TELETERM belonging to any of thesources in Table 1 the preferred term was kept; i.e. the first term in the fields ofEnglish, Greek and French terms.

2. If the field of the English term contains an acceptable English synonym too, on the basis of which synonyms have been formed in the fields of the Greek and French terms, then a separate record was created with those three terms.

3. Records containing terms with symbols not pronounced as regular words (e.g. 1/f noise) were omitted.

4. Items connected by a hyphen were considered as a single word (e.g. analog-to-digital).

5. Items connected by a dash were considered as separate words (e.g. amplitude–frequency diagram). The dash was not counted.

6. The articles: ο, η, το, ... in Greek, a, an, the in English and un, le, la, ... in French were counted as separate words even in case of an elision, where a final vowel has been omitted and replaced with an apostrophe (τ' , l', ...). NOTE – The articles play an important role in polylectic terms for the correct designation of concepts; e.g. the definite article – in all three languages – often denotes an individualconcept.

7. The English preposition of and the French preposition de (or d' ) designating a genitive case were counted as separate words.

8. The initialisms and acronyms are considered as words and were counted.

9. Items connected by a slash (/) were considered as separate words (e.g.amplitude/frequency characteristic). The slash was not counted.

10. Where there were terms with integrated numerals and also their synonyms with the corresponding expressions in words, only the verbal synonyms were kept (e.g. from the synonyms 2-wire and two-wire only the second was kept.

Thus, out of 3500 entries from the sources in Table 1 contained in TELETERM a

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corpus of 3198 trilingual correspondences of standardized equivalent terms were

derived, on which measurements were made, that is a corpus of 3198 concepts

designated by 3 x 3198 = 9594 terms in all three languages.

Table 2 – General distribution of terms according to their N-lecticity (over a total of 3198 terms in each language)

N-lecticity Ν

Number of Greek terms

Percentage of Greek

terms

Number of English terms

Percentage of English

terms

Number of French terms

Percentage of French terms

1 684 21,39 638 19,95 630 19,70 2 1604 50,16 1665 52,06 784 24,52 3 698 21,83 697 21,79 996 31,14 4 145 4,53 135 4,22 424 13,26 5 44 1,37 37 1,16 204 6,37 6 14 0,44 14 0,44 99 3,09 7 3 0,09 5 0,16 38 1,19 8 6 0,19 5 0,16 13 0,41 9 0 0,00 2 0,06 5 0,16 10 0 0,00 0 0,00 3 0,09 11 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 12 0 0,00 0 0,00 2 0,06

Σύνολα: 3198 100,00 3198 100,00 3198 100,00 Σύνολα: 6939 Greek words 6961 English words 8965 French words Σύνολα: 63020 characters 55470 characters 66416 characters

Table 2 gives the general distribution of terms with respect to their N-lecticity,

separately for each language, both in numbers and in percentages (%) over the

totality (3198) of the terms in each language.

As derived from Table 2, the totals of the 3198 terms from each language show a word

analogy: EN:GR:FR = 6961:6939:8965 = 1,00:1,00:1,29. If the terms are printed the

resulting printed text extent analogy is: EN:GR:FR = 55470: 63020: 66416 =

1,00:1,14:1,20.

The data in Table 2 are graphically represented by the diagrams of Figure 1, both as

numerical distributions and as percentage distributions of terms with respect to their

N-lecticity.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 1

Table 2 and the diagrams of Fig. 1 show that the distributions of English and Greek

terms with respect to their N-lecticity are similar with a maximum at N=2, while the

distribution of French terms is shifted towards bigger N-lecticities (term lengths) with a

maximum at N=3; in other words, among the three languages, French tends to be more

“polylectic”.

An important observation is that from the totality of terms in each of the three

languages the monolectic ones (Ν=1) are only about 20 % (Greek: 21,39 %, English:

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19,95 %, French: 19,70 %), while the remaining 80 % are polylectic (Ν>1).

In the distributions of the Greek and English terms, most frequent are the 2-lects

being about half of the terms (50,16 % and 52,06 % respectively), followed by the 3-

lects and (somewhat less) the 1-lects and, after them, the 4-lects, 5-lects, 6-lects, ...

The most polylectic Greek terms are six 8-lects, while the most polylectic English terms

are two 9-lects. In the distribution of the French terms, most frequent are the 3-lects

being about ¼ of the terms (24,52 %), followed by the 2-lects and the 1-lects, and,

after them, τα 4-lects, 5-lect, 6-lect, ... The most polylectic French terms are two 12-

lects.

3 Isolecticity of terms

To examine the isolecticity of terms, all terms which are isolectic in all three languages

(GR-EN-FR isolects) were counted, both as numbers and as percentages; counted

were also all the terms which are isolectic in each pair of languages (GR-EN isolects,

GR-FR isolects, EN-FR isolects). The results are given in Tables.3 and 4, while the

corresponding diagrams are shown in Figure 2: a) as numbers, b) as percentages (%)

of the totality of terms (3198), and c) as percentages of the totality of the isolects in

each category. In the bilingual monolectic isolects (N=1) we observe that the results for

the language pairs are: GR-EN: 18,36 %, GR-FR: 16,85 %, EN-FR: 16,23 % of the

terms, while the trilingual monolectic isolects are 15,82 % of the terms (less than the

minimum pair value). In the bilingual dilectic isolects (N=2) the GR-EN pair has a value

44,40 %, i.e. more than double of each value of the other two pairs, but again the

trilingual isolecticity is limited by the smallest value of the pairs (EN-FR). Analogous

relations are found in the trilectic isolects and so on. The dominance of the pair GR-EN

is observed in all N-lecticities, while the values of the other pairs are clearly smaller,

and even smaller than those values is the value of the trilingual isolecticity.

Overall, in GR-EN pair 81,52 % of the terms are isolectic, in the GR-FR pair 45,59 % of

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the terms are isolectic and in the GR-FR pair 43,87 % of the terms are isolectic.

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Table 3 – Distribution of isolects with respect to their N-lecticity, over the totality of terms

N-lecticity

N

GR-EN-FR _Number of

isolects

GR-EN-FR _Percentage of

isolects

GR-EN _Number of

isolects

GR-EN _Percentage of

isolects

GR-FR _Number of

isolects

GR-FR _Percentage of

isolects

EN-FR _Number of

isolects

EN-FR _Percentage of

isolects

1 506 15,82 587 18,36 539 16,85 519 16,23 2 590 18,45 1420 44,40 643 20,11 630 19,70 3 155 4,85 502 15,70 218 6,82 207 6,47 4 20 0,63 74 2,31 40 1,25 37 1,16 5 2 0,06 14 0,44 10 0,31 5 0,16 6 2 0,06 6 0,19 7 0,22 3 0,09 7 0 0,00 2 0,06 0 0,00 2 0,06 8 0 0,00 2 0,06 1 0,03 0 0,00 9 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00

1275 39,87 2607 81,52 1458 45,59 1403 43,87

Table 4 – Distribution of isolects with respect to their N-lecticity, over the totality of isolects in each category N-lecticity

N

GR-EN-FR _Number of

isolects

GR-EN-FR _Percentage of

isolects

GR-EN _Number of

isolects

GR-EN _Percentage of

isolects

GR-FR _Number of

isolects

GR-FR _Percentage of

isolects

EN-FR _Number of

isolects

EN-FR _Percentage of

isolects

1 506 39,69 587 22,52 539 36,97 519 36,99 2 590 46,27 1420 54,47 643 44,10 630 44,90 3 155 12,16 502 19,26 218 14,95 207 14,75 4 20 1,57 74 2,84 40 2,74 37 2,64 5 2 0,16 14 0,54 10 0,68 5 0,36 6 2 0,16 6 0,23 7 0,48 3 0,21 7 0 0,00 2 0,08 0 0,00 2 0,14 8 0 0,00 2 0,08 1 0,07 0 0,00 9 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 10 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 11 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 12 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00

1275 100,00 2607 100,00 1458 100,00 1403 100,00

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 2

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Figure 3

The distribution in Figure 3 shows the percentage of trilingual isolects at each N-lecticity for

each language. As shown, the trilingual isolects are about 74 – 80 % of the monolects in

each of the three languages. At higher N-lecticities (N>1) the trilingual isolects of GR and EN

are approximately equal. The dilectic trilingual isolects of FR are about 75 % of its dilects,

while those of the other two languages are about 35 %; at higher N-lecticities the

corresponding percentages of FR are lower than those of GR and EN.

4 N-lecticity spectra of telecom monolects, dilects and trilects of English as a source language when rendered in Greek and French as target languages

Table 5 and Figure 4 charts provide another comparative picture of the three languages.

Since, in the subject field under consideration, the source-language is mainly English, we

examine how English terms having a given N-lecticity (1, 2 and 3) are rendered with Greek

and French equivalent terms distributed (dispersed) to other N-lecticities too; in other

words, what are the N-lecticity spectra of the English monolects, dilects and trilects when

rendered in Greek and French.

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Table 5 – N-lecticity spectra of the English monolects, dilects and trilects when rendered in Greek and French

N-lecticity N

EN monolects (638)

EN dilects (1665)

EN trilects (697)

GR equivalent

terms

FR equivalent

terms

GR equivalent

terms

FR equivalent

terms

GR equivalent

terms

FR equivalent

terms 1 587 519 84 97 11 7 2 43 54 1420 630 129 89 3 8 55 158 707 502 207 4 0 8 3 155 45 212 5 0 1 0 57 9 109 6 0 1 0 16 1 50 7 0 0 0 3 0 22 8 0 0 0 0 0 1

Σύνολα: 638 638 1665 1665 697 697 As shown in Table 5 and Fig. 4, for the corpus of 3.198 terminological entries under

examination, the English monolects, dilects and trilects in their biggest parts (percentages

about 92 %, 85 %, 72 % correspondingly) are isolectized in Greek. In French, isolectization

is more limited (about 81 %, 38 %, 30 %, correspondingly) and the N-lecticity spectrum is

broader.

In other words, every 100 telecom concepts designated with English monolects, 92 of them

are designated with Greek monolects, 7 of them are designated with Greek dilects, and 1 of

them with a Greek trilect. Accordingly, 82 of them are designated with French monolects, 8 of

them are designated with French dilects, 9 of them are designated with French trilects, and 1

of them with a French quadrilect.

Every 100 telecom concepts designated with English dilects, 85 of them are designated

with Greek dilects, 10 of them are designated with Greek trilects, and 5 of them with Greek

monolects. Accordingly, 43 of them are designated with French trilects, 38 of them are

designated with French dilects, 9 of them are designated with French tetralects, 6 of them

are designated with French monolects, 3 of them are designated with French pentalects, and

1 of them with a French hexalect.

Every 100 telecom concepts designated with English trilects, 72 of them are designated

with Greek trilects, 19 of them are designated with Greek dilects, 6 of them are designated

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with Greek tetralects, 2 of them with Greek monolects. and 1 of them with a Greek pentalect.

Accordingly, 30 of them are designated with French trilects, 30 of them are designated with

French tetralects, 16 of them are designated with French pentalects, 13 of them are

designated with French dilects, 7 of them are designated with French hexalects, 3 of them

are designated with French eptalects, and 1 of them with a French monolect.

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 4

Synoptically, in their majority all three categories of English terms (monolects, dilects, and

trilects) are rendered with corresponding Greek isolects, whose color on the relevant

English–Greek “pie” in Figure 4 is dominant. That is not the case with French terms; except

English monolects, where on the relevant English–French pie one color (monolects) is

dominant, English dilects and trilects produce English–French “pies” containing significant

areas in other colors too.

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Table 6 – Examples of equivalent terms from the corpus of the 3.198 TELETERM entries examined

N-lecticities

English term Greek term French term

1-1-1 antenna ST κεραία ST antenne ST

1-1-1 super|directivity dD υπερ|κατευθυντικότητα dD super|directivité dD

1-1-2 time|-slot dD χρονο|θυρίδα dD créneau | temporel Dd

2-1-1 crosstalk | meter dD διαφωνιό|μετρο dD diaphono|mètre dD

2-1-3 assembly | language dD συμβολο|γλώσσα dD langage | d' assemblage Dd

2-2-2 direct | call dD άμεση | κλήση dD appel | direct Dd

2-2-2 focusing | reflector dD εστιάζων | ανακλαστήρας dD réflecteur | focalisant Dd

2-2-2 telephone | bell dD κουδούνι | τηλεφώνου Dd sonnerie | téléphonique Dd

2-2-2 telephone | circuit dD τηλεφωνικό | κύκλωμα dD circuit | téléphonique Dd

2-2-3 response | cycle dD κύκλος | απόκρισης Dd cycle | de réponse Dd

2-2-3 telecommunication | circuit

dD τηλεπικοινωνιακό | κύκλωμα Dd circuit | de télécommunication

Dd

2-2-4 pulse | width dD εύρος | παλμού Dd largeur | d'une impulsion Dd

2-3-3 upper | sideband dD άνω | πλευρική ζώνη Dd bande latérale | supérieure Dd

2-3-5 frequency | bandwidth dD εύρος ζώνης | συχνοτήτων Dd largeur de bande | de fréquences

Dd

3-3-3 elementary | electric dipole

dD στοιχειώδες | ηλεκτρικό δίπολο dD doublet électrique | élementaire

Dd

3-3-3 antenna | switching matrix

dD μήτρα μεταγωγής | κεραίας Dd grille | d'antenne Dd

3-3-3 corner reflector | antenna

dD κεραία | δίεδρου ανακλαστήρα Dd antenne | en dièdre Dd

3-3-4 amplitude | sound spectrum

dD ηχητικό φάσμα | πλάτους Dd spectre acoustique | d'amplitude

Dd

3-3-5 antenna | input impedance

dD εμπέδηση εισόδου | κεραίας Dd impédance d'entrée | d'antenne

Dd

4-4-4 equivalent isotropically radiated | power

dD ισοδύναμη ισοτροπικά ακτινοβολούμενη | ισχύς

dD puissance | isotrope rayonnée équivalente

Dd

5-5-5 integrated | digital transmission and switching

dD ενοποιημένη | ψηφιακή μετάδοση και μεταγωγή

dD transmission et commutation numériques | intégrées

Dd

9-8-12 reference apparatus | for the determination of transmission performance ratings (ARAEN)

Dd συσκευή αναφοράς | για τον προσδιορισμό των επιδόσεων μετάδοσης (ARAEN)

Dd appareil de référence | pour la détermination des affaiblissements équivalents pour la netteté (ARAEN)

Dd

On Table 6, there are shown some examples of the most frequent (in each case) term

correspondences in the corpus of the 3198 trilingual entries studied. The three N-lecticities of

each correspondence are shown in the 1st column; the English term is shown in the 2nd

column, followed by its terminological category (dD or Dd) in the 3rd column; the Greek term

is shown in the 4th column, followed by its terminological category in the 5th column; the

French term and its terminological category are shown on 6th and 7th columns. The

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terminological analysis of the terms into their immediate components reveals their formation

mechanism. It is noticeable that all Greek and French terms in the table the Analogue Rule of

Naming has been applied. These correspondences explain exemplarily the elements and

forms of the previously presented distributions. Thus, for example:

– the two rows of Table 6 with N-lecticities 1-1-1 explain the trilingual isolectization of

monolects. Next row (with N-lecticities 1-1-2) explains further English–Greek

isolectization in monolects, and also the “source” of French dilects corresponding to

English and Greek monolects, which is due to the fact that an English or Greek complex

monolect is analyzed to a dilect in French.

– the four rows with N-lecticities 2-2-2 explain the trilingual isolectization of dilects. Next

two rows (with N-lecticities 2-2-3) explain further English–Greek isolectization in dilects,

and also the “source” of French trilects corresponding to English and Greek dilects,

which is due to the fact that: in Greek, the indefinite genitive case is rendered with one

word, whereas in French it is formed by adding the word “de” that was counted as a

separate word.

– the three rows with N-lecticities 3-3-3 explain the trilingual isolectization of trilects.

Next two rows (with N-lecticities 3-3-4 and 3-3-5) explain further English–Greek

isolectization in trilects, and also the “source” of French tetralects and pentalects

corresponding to English and Greek trilects, which is due again to the presence of the

word “de” in French.

NOTES

1 Of the totality of 3198 French terms, 1186 (37 %) contain the preposition de at least once; out of these 130

terms contain the preposition de twice, having the form x de y de z with Ν ≥ 5. Participation of the French

articles (le, la, les, l’) were observed in 95 terms. The word du was observed in 27 terms and des in 47 terms.

The preposition à was observed in 226 terms, while the preposition au was observed in 14 terms.

2 Participation of the English preposition of was observed in 70 English terms, while the article the was

observed in 17 terms and the article a(n) in 12 terms.

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3 Participation of the Greek articles το and την was observed in 8 Greek terms, while participation of the articles

τού, της, των of the definite genitive was observed in 18 terms.

5 Most important conclusions

Measurements carried out on a set of 3198 trilingual (English, Greek, French)

correspondences of internationally standardized terms designating a specific set of concepts

belonging to various sub-domains of telecommunications (term base TELETERM) have

given the following results:

a. English and Greek have approximately equal total numbers of words, whereas French has

29 % more. If the terms are printed, the extent of the Greek text will be 14% greater than

that of the English text, while the extent of the French text will be 20 % greater than than

that of the English text.

b. The distribution of terms with respect to their N-lecticity is approximately the same in

English and Greek, while in French a significant shift to more polylectic terms is observed.

c. The percentage of the monolectic terms of each language is approximately 20 % of its

terms, while the remaining 80 % are polylectic.

d. The greatest percentage of terms both in English and in Greek is that of the dilects, while

in French it is that of trilects.

e. The greatest trilingual isolecticity is observed in monolects. The greatest bilingual

isolecticity is observed in the English–Greek pair (about 82 % of all the terms).

f. With English as source language, the N-lecticity spectrum of English monolects, dilects

and trilects when rendered in Greek – due to high isolecticity – extends mainly over the

corresponding N-lecticity, whereas when rendered to French the relevant spectrum

spreads to greater N-lecticities.

g. Generally, regarding N-lecticity of terms, we can say that Greek and English designate the

concepts of the corpus under consideration in a similar way, whereas French designates

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exactly the same concepts by more polylectic terms.

REFERENCES

[ 1] International Recommendation ISO R 1087:1969, Vocabulary of Terminology.

[ 2] International Standard ISO 1087:1990, Terminology – Vocabulary

[ 3] International Standard ISO 1087-1:2000 – Terminology work – Vocabulary – Part 1:

Theory and application.

[ 4] International Standard ISO 1087-2:2000 – Terminology work – Vocabulary – Part 2:

Computer applications.

[ 5] International Standard ISO 704:2000, Terminology work - Principles and methods

[ 6] Valeontis K., Zeriti K., Nikolaki A., The Greek complex term and the use of the genitive

case as the determining component, a publication which was awarded an Honourable

Mention under the 2000 International Awards of the International Information Centre for

Terminology (Infoterm).

[ 7] Valeontis K., The “Analogue Rule” a useful terminological tool in interlingual transfer of

knowledge, 2nd Terminology Summit, Barcelona, 2004 (English full version:

http://www.eleto.gr/download/BooksAndArticles/AnalogueRuleOfNaming-

Ed2_EN_EAFT.pdf, English poster paper:

http://www.eleto.gr/download/BooksAndArticles/AnalogueRuleOfNaming-

Ed2_EN_EAFT_poster.pdf

[ 8] Valeontis K., The “analogue rule” a useful terminological tool in interlingual transfer of

knowledge, Infoterm Newsletter, issue INL 117, 2005.

[ 9] Crystal David, A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (4th edition) (translated in Greek

by G. Xydopoulos), PATAKIS, 2000

[10] Valeontis K., One concept – One term – How many words ? N-lecticity of terms [in

Greek], Proceedings of the 8th Conference “Hellenic Language and Terminology”,

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Athens 2011.

(http://www.eleto.gr/download/Conferences/8th%20Conference/Papers/8th_06-

32_ValeontisKostas_N-lecticityOfTerms_Paper_V12.pdf ).