Neologism is what we call a newly created word or a word that already exists in the language, but that takes on a new meaning. Therefore, the neologism can be:
phonological (imitation of a sound produced by beings or objects);
syntactic (derivation or composition process);
semantic (new meaning of the term that already exists); or
on loan (taken from another language).
Read too: Morphology - field of linguistics that studies the structure and formation of words
What is a neologism?
Neologism is the name given to a word newly created or to an existing word that takes on a new meaning. So sometimes, we end up creating a word or giving another meaning to an existing one, in order to express our thoughts more effectively.
Neologisms can arise in several ways:
resignification: a word that already exists in the language is re-signified, that is, it acquires a new meaning.
Loan: a term is borrowed and used in a cultural environment where it was not used before; it can be a regionalism, a technical term, a
slang or a foreign word.linguistic calc: the translation of an expression borrowed from a foreign language.
onomatopoeic process: words are created from the imitation of a sound produced by beings or objects.
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Types of neologism
O neologism can be classified into two types.
Formal or lexical
Is completely new word introduced in a language. Thus, the creation of this new term occurs in different ways, which allows us to subclassify this neologism into:
→ Phonological
word with feature onomatopoeic, that is, it imitates the sound of beings or objects, but also an existing word that has its original sound altered.
Examples: tchurma, tick-tock, meow, capritcho, zunzum, todxs, cocoricó, clique etc.
→ Syntactic
formed from process of derivation or of composition. Included in this type are also the words originating from acronyms.|1|
Examples: transcreation, auto-coup, anti-missile, megastore, microblouse, multimedia, nonfiction, post-Obama, prepaid, landless, petista, great goal, public phone, natureba, repeating, bartering, ufologist, motorcycle, suffering, funkeiro, roll etc.
→ on loan
Word taking ofloan from another language. Such a word can be written as in the original language, translated literally or adapted to the language that appropriated it. In Brazil, we call this adaptation “Portuguese”.
Examples: delete, online, skinhead, stressed, kit, fashion, hip hop, skyscraper, laser, scan, blog, fast food, pole position, tour, caviar etc.
Conceptual or semantic
attribution of a new meaning to words that already exist in the language.
Examples: square, cat, orange, tamarin, hairpin, provider, suitcase, staying, shack, bofe, zebra, etc.
Read too: What are the word formation processes?
Difference between neologism and foreignism
O neologism on loan it occurs when there is not, in the target language (the one that carries out the appropriation), a term or expression that is equivalent to the foreign word taken. For example, if we consider Portuguese as the target language, it is possible to say that there is no word in that language that corresponds to the term “laser”.
already the foreignism it is a language addiction and consists of the unnecessary appropriation of a term of foreign origin. After all, if there is an equivalent word in the target language, the use of a foreign expression is unnecessary. This is what happens, for example, with the words performance (performance) and pedigree (lineage or race).
See too: Most common vicious pleonasms in the Portuguese language
solved exercises
question 1 - (And either)
― You who are over 15 years old, remember when we used to buy bottled milk at the dairy on the corner? [...]
But you don't remember anything, man! Maybe they don't even know what a cow is. Nor what is milk. I'm saying this because just now I took a carton of milk — milk in a carton, imagine, Tereza! — on the back door and it was written that it is pasteurized, or pasteurized, I don't know, it has a vitamin, it is guaranteed by embromatology, it was enriched and the barter.
Is this really milk? In the dictionary it says that milk is something else: “White liquid, containing water, protein, sugar and mineral salts”. A food for no one to defect. The human being has used it for over 5,000 years. It is the only food only food. The meat is used for the animal to walk, the fruit is used to make another fruit, the egg is used to make another chicken [...]. Milk is just milk. Either take it or throw it away.
This one examining it well, it's just to get rid of it. There's lead, there's benzene, there's more water than milk, there's sawdust, I can swear there isn't even a cow behind this thing.
Afterwards, people still think it's strange that boys don't like milk. But how can they not like it? Don't like how? Never took! Moooooooo!
FERNANDES, Millôr. The State of S. Paul, August 22, 1999.
The word embromatology used by the author is:
A) a scientific term meaning study of bromates.
B) a composition of the slang term “deception” (deception) with bromatology, which is the study of food.
C) a combination of the slang term “deception” (deception) with lactology, which is the study of packaging for milk.
D) a neologism of organic chemistry that means the technique of removing bromates from dairy products.
E) a corruption of the agricultural term that means mechanical milking.
Resolution
Alternative B. In the text in question, the author created the syntactic neologism by composition “embromatology”, from the union of the slang “embromination” with the term “bromatology”, that is, science that studies food.
Question 2 - (And either)
carnival
chime rang
the deaf listened
And my corasamborim
Cuica moaned, was it mine when she walked past me?
[...]
ANTUNES, A.; BROWN, C.; MOUNT, M. tribalists, 2002 (fragment).
In the third verse, the word “corasamborim”, which is the combination of heart + samba + tambourine, refers, at the same time, to elements that make up a samba school and the emotional situation in which the author of the message finds himself, with his heart in the rhythm of the percussion.
This word corresponds to a (a)
A) foreignness, use of linguistic elements originated in other languages and representative of other cultures.
B) neologism, creation of new linguistic items, through the mechanisms that the language system makes available.
C) slang, which composes a language originated in a certain social group and which can be disseminated in a wider community.
D) regionalism, as it is a characteristic word of a certain geographic area.
E) technical term, as it designates an element of a specific area of activity.
Resolution
Alternative B. The word “corasamborim” is a syntactic neologism by composition, because, as the statement of the question makes clear, “it is the junction of heart + samba + tambourine”.
Question 3 - (And either)
TEXT I
An act of creativity can however generate a productive model. This is what happened with the word sambódromo, creatively formed with the ending -(ó)dromo (= race), which appears in hippodrome, racetrack, cartódromo, forms that designate cultural items of the high bourgeoisie. From then onwards, popular forms such as rangódromo, beijódromo, camelódromo began to circulate.
AZEREDO, J. Ç. Houaiss grammar of the Portuguese language. São Paulo: Publifolha, 2008.
TEXT II
Is there anything more absurd than calling a samba school parade a sambódromo? In Greek, -dromo means “running action, running place”, hence the words autodrome and racecourse. It is true that sometimes, during the parade, the school is late and is forced to run in order not to lose points, but it does not move with the speed of a horse or a Formula 1 car.
GULLAR, F. Available at: www1.folha.uol.com.br. Accessed on: 03 Aug. 2012.
There are word-generating mechanisms in languages. Although Text II presents a value judgment on the formation of the word sambódromo, the process of formation of this word reflects
A) the dynamism of the language in the creation of new words.
B) a new reality limiting the appearance of new words.
C) the inappropriate appropriation of word creation mechanisms by lay people.
D) the recognition of the semantic inadequacy of neologisms.
E) restriction in the production of new words with the Greek root.
Resolution
Alternative A. The process of formation of the word “sambódromo” reflects the dynamism of the language in the creation of new words, because it demonstrates that the language is alive, it is not static, it is always in motion, that is, in transformation.
Note
|1| According to the Doctor of Linguistics Expedito Eloísio Ximenes, the author Ieda Maria Alves, in her book Neologism: lexical creation, “presents the various resources that users of a language use to form new lexical items. [...]. For the author, syntactic neologisms are formed by prefixal and suffixal derivation, by coordinating and subordinate composition, and by acronyms or acronymics. They are called syntactic because the combination of their constituent members is not limited only in the lexical scope, but also at the phrasal level, there being a change in the grammatical class of the base word, when a prefix or a suffix is added”.
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
