A Case Study of the Productivity of the Prefix Cyber- in English and Greek Legal Languages

The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of the Greek language on modern legal languages in the United Kingdom and United States of America. The focus is placed on terms with the prefix cyber- of Greek origin that have recently enriched the English legal languages in connection with the fact that certain new phenomena (legal institutions) have been regulated by laws as a result of the development of new technologies. Therefore, the authors have investigated the occurrence of terms with the prefix cyber- in legislation and other legal texts. Apart from the analysis of borrowings in the English legal languages, the authors have also investigated the occurrence of equivalent terms in Greek and Cypriot legislation and other genres of legal texts. Furthermore, the analysis involved the investigation of the occurrence of terms with the analysed prefix cyber- in European Union legislation and terminological databases (mostly IATE) to find out whether the borrowings may become internationalisms of Greek origin. Furthermore, the authors have also investigated whether for those terms with a prefix of Greek origin there are synonyms in the languages under scrutiny of non-Greek origin.