Novelty Neologisms
Neology is the subbranch of lexicology which studies coinage. Neologism is the creation of a new lexical item, as response to changed circumstances in the external world, which achieves some currency within a speech community; also called coinage.
Main ways of neologism development:
Semantic neologism - a lexical unit existing in the language can change its meaning to denote a new object or phenomenon (to cowboy " to drive recklessly", shit "something excellent");
Transnomination -a new lexical unit can develop in language to denote an object or phenomenon which already has some lexical unit to denote it (slum > ghetto > inner town/city);
Proper neologism - a new lexical unit can be introduced to denote a new object or phenomenon (yarg "a mild white moist cheese made in Cornwall; thigmorphogenesis).
Semantic groupings of neologisms appeal to such aspects as:
computerization (PC, neurocomputer, software, vapourware);
linguistics (machine translation, corpus, interlingual);
sciences and humanities (eye-scanner, telemonitory unit);
social life (muppie "middle-aged urban professional people", survivor "someone belonging to the lowest layers of society", emulator "someone who tries to prosper in life and imitate hose who they want to belong", jet set "those who can afford travelling by jet planes all over the world enjoting their life");
criminalization (stocking mask);
higher society (dial-a-meal, dial-a-taxi);
teenagers' lingo (Drugs! "OK!"; sweat "a marathon");
everyday life (slimster “one-piece bathing suit”, macrobiotics "raw vegetables, crude rice", bumbag "a small bag worn on the waist', pants-skirt "a combination of a mini-skirt and pants", dangledolly "a dolly-talisman dangling in the car before the windscreen")
Neologisms can be subdivided into:
phonological neologisms are formed by combining unique combinations of sounds, the so-called artificial neologisms (rah-rah "a short skirt worn by the girls during parades");
borrowings belong to phonetic neologisms, or strong neologisms (perestroika, geige "Chinese perestroika")
semantic neologisms (to cowboy " to drive recklessly", shit "something excellent");
syntactical neologisms do not belong o the group of strong neologisms, they are built on patterns existing in the language;
morphological(word-building) neologisms are compounds of affixed words of different types;
phraseologicalneologisms (forming word-groups).
Types of coinage
|
class |
group |
subgroup, or type of formation |
illustrations | ||
|
phonetic |
artificial |
rah-rah, "a type of skirt", yecky/ yucky "repulsive" | |||
|
phonetic borrowing |
solidarnosc (Polish), dolce vita (Italian), Berufsverbot (German) | ||||
|
morphological |
compound |
neutral |
to catlick "to wash the dishes carelessly"; selflife "term of validity", free-fall "a sudden severe decline, esp. in stock-market proces, which shows no sign of stopping"; materclass; Amerenglish "Ameican English" | ||
|
particle compound |
in-"modern, the most fashionable" |
in-crowd; in-group, in-language, in-thing | |||
|
-in "protest, strike" |
sit-in "a strike when workers remain at their working places"; laugh-in "organized laughing during a speech"; read-in "competition of reciters" | ||||
|
block compound |
spelt with a break |
pile up "traffic jam'; trade off "exchange, substitution" | |||
|
affixed compound |
rubber-neck "a tourist who remains in the coach and is not curious about the country"; white-collardom; topsy-turvidom; righ-wingish; show-offy | ||||
|
identical meaning component |
-basher (bang+smash) |
IRA-basher "person who is against IRA"; Paki-basher "a person who is against Pakistan" | |||
|
-manship"ability, skill, knowhow" |
lifemanship "ability to prosper in life'; showmanship "skill to show off" | ||||
|
-hop"to move from place to place very quickly" |
to job-hop; to tavern-hop; to bed-hop | ||||
|
conversion |
to Micky-mouse, to hero-worship; to frontpage | ||||
|
backformation |
to freeload < freeloader, freeloading "about people who go to receptions of different types to have free meals"; to baby-sit < baby-sitter; to bird-watch < birdwatching; to massproduce | ||||
|
analogy |
|
snowmobile (automobile); danceaholic (alcoholic); moneygram (telegram) | |||
|
-free "devoid of what is expressed by the first component" |
waste-free; alcohol-free; nuclear-free; E-free"without additives" | ||||
|
-friendly |
ozone-friendly; planet-friendly; audience-friendly; customer-friendly | ||||
|
-happy"fond of what is expressed by the first component" |
travel-happy; queue-happy; power-happy | ||||
|
-proof"defended from what is expressed by the firs component" |
germ-proof; burglar-proof; depression-proof | ||||
|
-oriented |
money-oriented; computer-oriented; change-oriented; leisure-oriented; job-oriented | ||||
|
-wide; -intensive |
personnel-wide, Industry-wide; profit-intensive, neologism-intensive, labor-intensive | ||||
|
terminological neologism, or neo-classical |
built on the pattern of Latin or Greek compounds |
[Gr. aer "air"] > aerogram, aeronaut, aerospace, aerocapture; [Gr. mania "madness"] > discomania, Beatlesmania | |||
|
syntactical |
with conjunction stems of different types |
middle-of-the-roader; no-where-goer; roam-a-phone; do-it-yourselfer; me-too-ism; me-first-ism; here-and-now; all-or-none; hard-to-get | |||
|
shortened or abbreviated forms |
kidvid "a child who is a compulsive watcher of TV or video"; vid "short video film"; sexploitation (sex + exploitation); resto (restaurant); dinky (dual income no kids yet); super G (super giant slalom); SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) | ||||
|
phraseological |
phraseological units with transferred meanings |
fudge and dodge "avoidance of definite decisions"; to nose out "to find out"; talk'n chalk "traditional method of teaching" | |||
|
set non-idiomatic expressions |
Rubic's clock/ cube; acid rain; a whizz kid"a very clever and ambitious young man, who makes a quick pogress in his career" | ||||
|
substitutions |
elder → older |
older (in the family and in the age) | |||
|
such →that |
that kind of… | ||||
|
so → that |
not that simple | ||||
|
as…as → not this |
It can't be this cold tomorrow | ||||
|
typical → very much |
This is very much the case. | ||||
|
to have → to get |
He got his hair cut. | ||||
|
to be → to get |
to get born; to get caught in a heavy rain | ||||