Attributive chains (AC)

Attributive chains are compound phrases which consist of two or more nouns connecting logically with each other where the preposition «of» is absent. E.g.:

the reaction of catalysis - catalysis reaction

the solution of benzene - benzene solution.

As all compound phrases are formed in scientific literature with the help of genitive case (родительный падеж), most authors prefer to use attributive chains. To avoid the frequent repetition of the preposition «of» authors omit this preposition by transferring the word which must be after the preposition «of» at the beginning of a phrase. Let’s consider this process on the following example. At first we will translate all the words:

Горение жидкости ацетилена:

горение - combustion

жидкость - liquid

ацетилен - acetylene.

Now let’s translate this phrase using the preposition «of»: горение жидкости ацетилена - the combustion of the liquid of acetylene. Here we can see two prepositions «of». Such kind of phrase is not good for English style. To get rid (избавиться) of the excessive (чрезмерный) use of the preposition «of» we should put the word «acetylene» at the beginning. The word «acetylene» will be the first. Then after the word «acetylene» we must put the word «liquid». It will be the second word. And finally the word «combustion» will be the last one in this phrase. As a result we have the following word combination: acetylene liquid combustion.

Now let’s consider the translation of AC from English into Russian on the following example: magnesium oxide melting point.

At first of all we will translate all the words in this phrase:

magnesium - магний

oxide - оксид

melting point - температура плавления.

When we translate from English into Russian we should start our translation from the last word. The first word will be melting point - температура плавления, the second word will be oxide - оксид and the last word will be magnesium - магний and finally we will have the following phrase: температура плавления оксида магния.

Vocabulary:

to proceed - проходить, протекать

toluene - толуол

well - скважина

commercial - производственный

hydrocarbon - углеводород

data - данные

reduction - восстановление