When neologisms don’t reach the dictionary: occasionalisms in Spanish

Page 333-341
Author Pedro Bueno Ruiz
Title When neologisms don’t reach the dictionary: occasionalisms in Spanish
Abstract In this research we have analysed a type of neologism that does not become part of the common speech and so has no chance of being incorporated into a general language dictionary: the occasionalisms. They have been defined by several authors as volatile language events difficult to detect and typified by their context-dependency and language creativity. With this research we intend, on the one hand, to contribute with the description of the theoretical concept of neologism by defining one of the groups that are obtained following the lexicographical criterion and, on the other hand, to play a part in the definition of occasionalisms by finding regularities and their tendencies in formation processes and in formation rules. The data we have used belongs to the Neómetro database and applying the methodology described below we have obtained an occasionalism corpus. After analysing the data, we can confirm that occasionalisms are not linguistic random acts and they are lexical units that fulfil an expressive function in a specific context.
Session Lexicological Issues of Lexicographical Relevance
Keywords occasionalism; nonce-word; neology; lexicographical criterion
BibTex
@inproceedings{ELX2020_2021-034,
address = {Alexandroupolis},
title = {When neologisms don’t reach the dictionary: occasionalisms in {Spanish}},
isbn = {978-618-85138-1-5},
url = {https://www.euralex.org/elx_proceedings/Euralex2020-2021/EURALEX2020-2021_Vol1-p333-341.pdf},
language = {en},
booktitle = {Lexicography for {Inclusion}: {Proceedings} of the 19th {EURALEX} {International} {Congress}, 7-9 {September} 2021, {Alexandroupolis}, {Vol}. 1},
publisher = {Democritus University of Thrace},
author = {Bueno Ruiz, Pedro J.},
editor = {Gavriilidou, Zoe and Mitsiaki, Maria and Fliatouras, Asimakis},
year = {2020},
pages = {333--341},}
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