Peculiarities of compound plant genera names' formation in Lithuanian and Latvian languages

The article analyses compound plant genera names in Lithuanian and Latvian in the three volume publication “Flora of the Baltic Countries” (1993–2003) according to their word formation, and their similarities and differences are established. The study includes 118 Lithuanian and 209 Latvian compound plant genera names out of 430 Lithuanian and almost 460 Latvian plant genera names. There are six types of compound plant genera names in Lithuanian and Latvian languages, in accordance with the part of speech of their first and second component: Compound words with two substantive components constitute the largest group of plant genera names. About 30% of Lithuanian plant genera names of this type and 10% of Latvian languages often have the second common component žolė (žalė). The first component of two Lithuanian and seven Latvian plant general names are proper nouns (Lithuanian Jonas, Latvian Janis, Mara), and their second component denotes a plant. Compound words that consist of the first adjectival component and the second substantive component have the first component which quite often means colour. Most word formation processes are very similar in both languages, where compound is made up of two nouns. The first component of compound in Lithuanian and Latvian which is found in a few compounds usually contains the name of an animal. Compound words that contain an adjective and a noun are particularly characteristic for Latvian plant genera names. Two Lithuanian and 5 Latvian plant genera names have a numeral as the first component, and a noun – as the second. 10 Lithuanian plant genera names are formed from a noun and a verb. This type is untypical for plant genera names in the Latvian language