Two-component attributive constructions in judicial procedure discourse

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1National Polytechnic University “Odesa Polytechnic”

2National University “Odessa Maritime Academy”

Two-component attributive constructions in judicial procedure discourse

1Borisenko T.I.,Associate Professor

at the Foreign Languages Department Odessa

2Tsinova M.V., Associate Professor

at the Foreign Languages Department

1Grodska E.B., Associate Professor

at the Foreign Languages Department Odessa

Abstract

The article presents the results of research carried out on the basis of the text corpus, which belongs to the legal type of discourse. The object of the study is one of the most frequent phenomena occurred in legal texts - two-component attributive constructions. There is an opinion among linguists that it is their prevalence that contributes to the formation of the main stylistic properties of the genre of legal documentation: conciseness and standardization of means of expression.

The goal of the article is to consider the set of statistical, lexical and grammatical features of two-component attributive constructions functioning in the text corpus of legal discourse. The research material was taken from the judicial documents of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the collection “Judgements of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization”. The text corpus was limited to 50 thousand tokens.

As a result of the study, it was determined that the discourse of legal documents is characterized by four types of two- component attributive constructions: qualifying, possessive with compound words as attributes, and constructions with abbreviations of the initial type as attributes - acronyms. Statistical analysis when calculating the frequency of use of attributes and kernels made it possible to identify typical and most frequent representatives in texts. The composition of lexical-semantic groups, which include attributes and kernels of two-component attributive constructions, is determined by the subject matter of the issues considered in judicial documents.

The results of quantitative, lexical and grammatical analyzes have led to the conclusion that the only type of such kind of constructions in which one can observe a direct connection between the lexical-semantic groups of attributes and key words and their morphemic-derivational characteristics are the ones (constructions) with nouns in the common case. They include the largest lexical-semantic groups (documents, statutes, procedures; time span; names of organizations, departments, etc.) and the words that have the most commonly used morphological form - without affixes or with the most frequent suffixes: -tion, -ity.

Key words: legal documents, word usage, possessive case, frequency of occurrence, acronym.

Анотація

Двокомпонентні атрибутивні конструкції у правовому дискурсі

Стаття представляє результати досліджень, що проводяться на основі текстового корпусу, якій відноситься до юридичного типу дискурсу. Об'єктом дослідження є одне з найчастіших явищ, що зустрічаються у правових текстах - двокомпонентні атрибутивні конструкції. Вважається, що саме їхня поширеність сприяє формуванню основних стилістичних властивостей жанру юридичної документації: лаконічності, та стандартизованості засобів вираження.

Метою статті є наступне - розглянути сукупність статистичних, лексичних та граматичних особливостей двокомпонентних атрибутивних конструкцій, що зустрічаються у текстових корпусах юридичного дискурсу. Матеріал дослідження було взято із судово-процесуальних документів Адміністративного трибуналу міжнародної Організації Праці (МОП) у збірнику “Judgements of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization”. Текстовий корпус було обмежено 50 тис. слововжитків.

В результаті проведеного дослідження було визначено, що для дискурсу судово-процесуальних документів характерні чотири типи двокомпонентних атрибутивних конструкцій: кваліфікативні, поссесивні конструкції зі складними словами у ролі атрибутів та конструкції зі скороченнями ініціального типу у ролі атрибутів - акронімами. Статистичний аналіз при підрахунку частоти вживання атрибутів і ядер дав змогу виявити типові та найчастотніші репрезентанти у текстах.

Склад лексико-семантичних груп, до яких входять атрибути та ядра двокомпонентних атрибутивних конструкцій, зумовлений тематикою питань, що розглядаються у судово-процесуальних документах. Результати кількісного, лексичного та граматичного аналізів дозволили дійти висновку, що єдиним типом двокомпонентних конструкцій, у якому можна спостерігати безпосередній зв'язок між лексико-семантичними групами атрибутів та опорних слів та їх морфемно-дериваційними характеристиками, є конструкції із іменниками у загальному відмінку. Вони включають найбільші лексико-семантичні групу (документів, статутів, процедур; відрізок часу; назва організацій, відділів та інших.) та слова слова, які мають найчастіше використовувану морфологічну форму - безафіксальну чи з найбільш частотними суфіксами: -tion, -ity.

Ключові слова: юридичні документи, слововживання, присвійний відмінок, частота зустрічальності, акронім.

Introduction

Problem statement. A significant frequency in the use of small syntax units in legal documents, and in particular attributive constructions, is very characteristic to the text peculiarities of this type of discourse. It is believed that it is their prevalence that contributes to the formation of the main stylistic properties of the legal documentation genre: conciseness, succinctness, standardization of expression means.

It should be noted that almost all studies carried out on the material of legal documents texts are limited to the sphere of the terminological system and are mainly focused on the lexical and semantic characteristics of legal terminology. This has led to the fact that the remaining units (including two- component attributive constructions), functioning in the texts of this discourse type, remain unexplored, which, in its turn, requires timely correction. Thus, it can be stated that there is an urgent need for a comprehensive analysis of two-component constructions, which are rather frequent phenomenon in the syntax of legal discourse, and, as we have already noted, are a kind of stylistic marker of this type of discourse.

The latest research analysis. As it was already mentioned, the main preferred topics of research performed on the basis of the texts of legal documents were the following - terms and their semantics, polysemy of terminological units, the terminological system of legal documentation, the reasons for the new terms emergence, etc. [1; 2; 3; 4; 5].

Moreover, it can be said that both linguists [6; 7; 8; 9] and lawyers, studying the details of legal texts in terms of their most productive usage in judicial practice [1; 2; 3] turned out to be interested in the results of the analysis of legal documentation texts. This is due to the fact that the younger generation of lawyers strives to use any career opportunity for their further career advancement. They point out that almost all studies are limited to the sphere of scientific communication, while other spheres of special language units functioning, such as professional, business and mass communication, including legal, are covered poorly.

Task statement. The performed analysis of the literature on the subject of legal documentation has determined the goals and objectives of the presented article. The purpose of the article is the following: to consider the set of statistical, lexical and grammatical features of two-component attributive constructions occurred in the text corpus of legal discourse. The corresponding analysis required: 1) to form a list of structural types of two-component attributive constructions (TAC) encountered in legal discourse; 2) to carry out statistical, lexical and morphological analysis of TAC inventory and present the results of a generalizing nature, taking into account all the types of performed analysis; 3) to determine the possible dependence of the lexical compatibility of attributes and kernel in TACs on their morphemic- derivational structure.

The material of the study is predetermined by the goals and objectives of the work and was taken from the judicial documents of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the collection “Judgements of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labor Organization”. The text corpus was limited to 50 thousand tokens. Here we can refer to the opinion of some well-known scientists [10], who argue that there is not always a need for analyzing of millions of tokens, but small samples play a significant role in the quantitative descriptions, since fast and reliable calculations of the usage frequency are possible.

The base material

Thus, two-component attributive constructions with attributes expressed by common case nouns prevail in this text corpus. 534 constructions were registered for 50 thousand word usages, which is 65% of the total number of two-component ACs, for example, duty station, record station, complaint compensation.

The saturation of texts with nouns is primarily explained by their informativeness [11;12], and the fact that they are able to create a conceptual and subject richness of the sentence [12], and this, as lawyers and linguists note, is caused by the need to convince the legitimacy of the actions taken by the court, a plaintiff or a defendant.

The second place in terms of usage frequency is occupied by the TAC group with left-sided components expressed by nouns in the possessive case, which is due to the peculiarity of the studied judicial and procedural discourse, that is an oral version of communication. They number 151 units, i.e. 20.% of the total number of two-component TACs functioning in the texts, for example, tribunal's view, Board's statute.

The third place is occupied by the TACs with attributes expressed in compound words, a total of 61 units, i.e. 8%, which are presented below in descending order of frequencies:

- noun + noun in the possessive case - 15 units, for example, Director-General's remarks;

- noun + noun in the common case - 12 units, for example, labor-management relations, lump-sum withdrawals;

- numeral + noun - 9 units, for example, ninety- day limit, two-year appointment;

- adjective + noun - 7 units, for example, longterm policy, short-time appointment;

- noun + participle 1 - 3 units, for example, profit-making basis.

Some types of TACs can be found in the text corpus with such low level of usage that, according to the laws of statistics, such units can be negligible. However, the authors came to the conclusion that these types of attributive constructions should also be mentioned in the description of the research results. Thus, we met the following constructions twice:

- adjective + participle1+ noun, for example, English-speaking countries;

- noun + verbal noun, for example, appeal proceedings;

- noun + (noun-noun), e.g. Deputy Director- General, Assistant Director-General.

The fourth group includes TACs with attributes expressed as acronyms in the possessive and common cases and having an initial abbreviation type, for example, ILO's reply, ILO's letter. The maximum number of characters that make up the abbreviations is six (UNESCO), the minimum is three (WHO). The correlate is found by the presupposition in the context. Forty units of this construction type were registered, which is 7% of the total number of two- component TACs functioning in the text corpus under study.

The results of the study have showed that in the texts of legal discourse the relationship between abbreviations is not always the same and is characterized by high mobility and instability. Signs of dynamic abbreviations can include their acquisition of the possessive case. In the analyzed text corpus there were cases when acronyms in the common and possessive cases could even be interchangeable, for example, EPO's reply = EPO reply; PAHO's practice, PAHO practice, which also indicates the variability and dynamism in the process of development of this TAC type.

A few more words on the theoretical aspect of TACs functioning with acronyms can be presented. Specialists in the field of theoretical grammar believe that most abbreviations exist only insofar as there is a full version of them. Indeed, the acronyms in question do not occur in context without a full version, which is given in the text every time it is mentioned. Thus, the full version is considered to be a primary option, and the abbreviated version as a secondary one. These abbreviations are at that stage of their development when the main variant is the full variant, and the abbreviation is the subordinate one. Nevertheless, in our text corpus we encountered several abbreviations that reached such stage of their development that it is the abbreviated version that becomes the main one and the terminological phrase gradually recedes into the background, for example, ILO, UNESCO, etc. lexical grammatical attributive text

After the set of structural types of attributive constructions was formed, the research proceeded to the next stages - determining the belonging of TACs to one or another lexical-semantic group (LSG), and then - describing their morphemic-derivational structure.

While analyzing two-component attributive constructions occurring in the texts of legal discourse, the authors proceeded from the thesis that attributive constructions (like all syntactic structures) represent the unity of colligation and collocation [14]. Since the semantic dependence of the components of attributive structures is regulated by the kernel of the construction, the lexical-semantic groups (LSGs) of key words are considered first.

The results of the analysis of the text corpus revealed that in the TACs with attributes in the common case, the key words denote: membership, for example, staff representatives; occupation, professional affiliation, for example, finance officer; the name of documents, statutes, procedures, for example, staff rules; the name of organizations, departments, services, for example, Appeals Board, Headquarter Board, employment branch; economic categories, for example, request pay; quantity, definition of a time interval, for example, time limit, time bar; nouns with the meaning of opportunity, for example, disposal facilities; intellectual activity and its results, for example, policy decision, staff activities; age, for example, retirement age; eligibility - property rights.

Then, in constructions with an attribute in the common case a quantitative analysis of the attributes was carried out and the most frequently used units were identified, which helped to narrow down the range of possible options for translating these elements. So, for example, the 'staff attribute is used in 79 cases. It defines nouns expressing membership, for example, staff member, staff representative, documents - staff rules, staff regulations. In the terms of usage frequency the second place is occupied by 14 temporal attributes. The attribute in this group is expressed by the word `time', and the kernel is expressed by a noun denoting time conditions: time limit, time bar, etc.

The third group includes attributive constructions with an attribute in the common case 'selection', which occurs 10 times in the corpus, but only with the kernel 'procedure'; attribute 'university' appears 9 times with the kernel 'degree'. TACs with 'language' attribute is used 9 times with 'qualification' and 'requirement' kernels.

Further on, TACs with the left-hand attribute expressed by nouns in the possessive case were analyzed. They are the ones that form possessive constructions, for example, the complaint's rejoinder, the tribunal's view, the Board's recommendation.

In order to determine the main representatives of this type of TACs, the units used with the highest frequency were identified. The most common of these is the 'complaint's' attribute, which occurred 78 times. Such high frequency of occurrence of this term can be explained by the fact that it expresses legal relations between two contracting parties, i.e. its extra linguistic nature. The words defined by this attribute are divided into the lexical-semantic groups, which denote: mathematical concepts `increment'; legal documents, e.g. applications, claims, letters; contracts, arguments, e.g. argument; legal acts, for example, appointment, rejoinder, contract, assertion, performance, failure, dismissal; words of the common vocabulary layer, for example,past, term, work, purpose.

The next group of TACs under study was the one with acronyms as attributes. Acronyms define nouns that denote administrative staff, such as APPL officials; contracting party relations, for example, EPO replies, FAO answer; intellectual activity and its results, for example, APPL work, EPO's observations, EPO's view; economic categories, such as, PAHO income, WHO earnings. In the process of analyzing the representatives of two-component attributive constructions, in which the attribute is expressed with the help of complex words, it was found that their functioning is so chaotic that they cannot be classified. Such picture is usually observed with low-frequency textual units, which occur with a low degree of probability. That is why it was decided not to present here the data of the study of the attributes and key words of this TAC type.

The description of the morphemic-derivative characteristics analysis of all four types of two- component attributive constructions was carried out in order to determine possible dependence of grammar characteristics on the lexical indicators of TAC representatives. However, the results of observations showed that only in one type of TACs - two-component attributive constructions with an attributive noun in the common case - the morphological structure is in close connection with the semantic characteristics of the representatives.

In this type of TACs both kernels and attributive components of constructions are overwhelmingly formed in a non-affix way, for example, staff rules, draft report, time bar, time limit. The suffix morphemes with which attributes are formed can be arranged in descending order of frequency as follows: -tion - 19, -ity - 15, -al - 12, -ice - 8, -ant - 6, -cy - 5, -ment - 4, -ance - 4, -ee - 3; -ure - 1, -cur - 1, -ary - 1.

First of all, the most productive suffix morphemes that are used with attributes were identified. It was found out that such morpheme in the text corpus is the suffix -tion. Attributes with the -tion suffix identify nouns denoting documents, e.g. administration directive, application form, application program; organizations, departments, services, for example, Regulation service, Selection Committee; terms expressing the attitude of the contracting parties, for example, termination indemnity, regulation procedure'; actions, such as 'termination work.

Next in terms of frequency usage is suffix -ity, which forms abstract nouns from the stems of adjectives borrowed from the Roman languages and having the meanings of state, quality, condition, sign, etc., for example, active - activity.

Suffixes -ice, -ance, -al/-el form a small group of attributes. Thus, suffix -ice occurs 8 times in the adjunct 'service' and defines only one noun 'regulations'; suffix -ance/-ence - appears 4 times in attributes formed from the verbs 'perform' - 'performance', 'refer'- 'reference'; -al/-elwas found13 times in attributes formed from the verbs 'withdraw' - 'withdrawal', 'appraise' - 'appraisal' and the noun 'person'- 'personal'.

Suffix -ee in the word in the word `employee ' - `employee s office' was found only 3 times. This suffix came to the English language from the French language as a part of French legal and administrative terminology that denotes objects of a legal or administrative event [15].

Conclusions

Thus, as a result of the study, it was determined that the discourse of judicial procedural documents is characterized by four types of two- component attributive constructions: qualifying

TACs, possessive TACs with compound words as attributes, and TACs with abbreviations of the initial type as attributes - acronyms. When calculating the frequency usage of attributes and kernels, statistical analysis made it possible to identify typical and most frequent representatives in text corpus. The content of lexical-semantic groups, which include attributes and kernels of two-component attributive constructions, is determined by the subject matter of the issues considered in legal documents. The results of quantitative, lexical and grammatical analysis led to the conclusion that the only type of TAC in which one can observe a direct connection between the lexical- semantic groups of attributes and key words and their morphemic-derivational characteristics are TACs with nouns in the common case. The largest lexical- semantic groups (documents, statutes, procedures; time span; names of organizations, departments, etc.) include words that have the most commonly used morphological form - without affixes or with the most frequent suffixes: -tion, -ity.

Further studies of the legal discourse are also supposed to be devoted to its syntax: units of small syntax - multicomponent attributive constructions, the structure of elementary sentences and the whole sentences.

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