წამლების დასახელებები: ეტიმოლოგია, სემანტიკა და სტრუქტურა

Abstract

It is widely known that pharmaceutical remedies also referred to as drugs, are substances used to prevent or treat diseases. Drugs are obtained from various plants, animals and chemical substances. The paper focuses on the linguistic analysis of the names of drugs, avoiding as much as possible any medical information. Thus, the research embraces the etymology, semantics and word structure of certain drug names. The empirical material consists of the most widespread and well-known names of drugs. The data have been obtained from various internet resources, medical books and personal experiences of being ill. In the process of research, drug names were analyzed based on the following semantic components: the organ the drug is aimed to cure; the disease, for the treatment of which the drug is used; the chemical substance the drug contains; the plant the drug is made of; the animal from which the medical substance has been obtained; the names taken from ancient myths, the names of Gods or Goddesses used in the names of drugs; the inventor of the pharmaceutical remedy and the place of production. The names of drugs are also classified based on the word structure. As simple words are extremely rare among the names of drugs, the paper concentrates on derived and compound words as well as abbreviations.