Neologisms

Neologism is generally defined as a new word or a new meaning for an established word.

The coining of new words generally arises first of all with the need to designate new concepts resulting from the development of science and also with the need to express nuances of meaning called forth by a deeper understanding of the nature of the phenomenon in question. This first type of newly coined words, i. e. those which designate newborn concepts, may be named terminological coinages. Created in the language of science they penetrate into the sphere of publicistic, official and colloquial styles and because of their frequent usage lose their stylistic value.

New lexical units are also the result of a search for a more economical, brief and compact form of utterance which proves to be a more expressive means of communicating the idea. This type of neologisms, i. e. words coined because their creators seek expressive utterance may be named stylistic coinages. In the language of belle-lettres and publicistic style alongside with their nominative function they depict the peculiarities of the epoch, make the utterance sound solemn and official or on the contrary ironic and sarcastic.

A considerable layer of stylistic neologisms appear in the publicistic style, mainly in newspaper articles and magazines and also in the newspaper style – mostly in newspaper headlines:

Total Global Nightmare Financial Apocalypse. It's all the papers are going on about apart from the Daily Mail, which has had a small lesbian-shapedbee in its bonnet recently about Cynthia Nixon and Jodie Foster respectively. For goodness' sake! It's just lesbians. Get over it!

He will be performing his gig in real, human form on February 3 while gadgetologists translate his words and movements into a 3D computer version.

Among the examples of Ukrainian neologisms the words антипеспірант, фай, пейджинговий, інтерфейс, хакер, глобалізація, теледебати, гіпертекст, тег, etc. can be listed.

It is also worth mentioning that a lot of words which now form the neutral layer of vocabulary were once neologisms and had a definite author:

aлло – Sh. Bivor , from French “alons” which means “well”

газ – van Gelmont

мрія – Olena Pchilka

звіт – I. Verzhratskyy

чинник – I. Franko

енциклопедія – F. Rable

Separate type of neologisms, so called nonce-words, are individual coinages, i.e. words created to suit one particular occasion. Nonce-words remain on the outskirts of the literary language and not infrequently remind us of the writers who coined them. They are created to designate a subjective idea or evaluation of a thing or phenomenon and generally become moribund. They rarely pass into the language as legitimate units of the vocabulary, but they remain in the language as constant manifestations of its innate power of word-building.

Here are some of these neologisms which, by the way, have the right to be called so because they will always remain neologisms, i.e. will never lose their novelty:

Let me say in the beginning that even if I wanted to avoid Texas I could not, for I am wived in Texas, and mother-in-lawed, and uncled, and aunted, and cousined within an inch of my life (J. Steinbeck).

The past participles mother-in-lawed, uncled, aunted and cousined are coined for the occasion on the analogy of wived and can hardly be expected to be registered by English dictionaries as ordinary English words.

Here are some more examples of English and Ukrainian nonce-words, which strike us by their novelty, force and aesthetic aspect.

There is something profoundly horrifying in this immense, indefinite not-thereness of the Mexican scene" (Huxley).

That was masterly. Or should one say mistressly" (Huxley).

Surface knowingness (J. Updike).

А дівуля, дівчина, дівувальниця

До кожуха, кожушенка так і горнеться,

А бабуля, бабулиня, бабусенція

До дівчиська, дівчиниська так і тулиться –

Сиротина ж, сироту ля, сиропрашечка,

Бабумамця, бабутатко, бубусонечко... (І. Драч).

The creation of new words is the constant process in the development of any language. New, emotional and expressive neologisms are being actively created in everyday speech, but remain unfixed and disappear from the language.

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Barbarisms and foreignisms	\|	Slang, jargonisms, vernacular and vulgarisms

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