Nominal prefix as a semantic constant in modern Russian and English languages

The purpose of this work is to clarify the specifics of the representation of the nominal prefix "itself" in Russian and English. The article attempts a deeper analysis of legal and psychological terms in the studied languages, which have an initial element of "self-" and have the highest degree of use over the past few years, in order to establish a more complete and relevant picture of the perception of these units in the minds of representatives of the compared linguistic cultures, as well as to detect the results of the influence of modern extralinguistic factors on the worldview native speakers of Russian and English. The subject of the study is legal and psychological terms in Russian and English at their current stage of development, containing the prefix "само-"/"self-".nThe research material was the legal and psychological terms of the Russian and English languages, which contain the prefix "self-". In accordance with the set goal, the comparative analysis method was used in the work. The scientific novelty of the study is due to the fact that in linguistics, for the first time, a semantic constant is studied in a comparative aspect as an element of legal and psychological terms in Russian and English. Russian linguistic worldview, the formant is found to be highly active in creating new or reviving existing concepts and phenomena, while the native Russian prefix prevails over the Greek-Latin equivalents. Neologisms with an incorporated element of "self-" were found, which is a confirmation of the high productivity of this unit. No such activity of the studied word-formation resource has been recorded in the English language. The identified equivalents of legal and psychological terms contain both the native English prefix self- and borrowed elements.