Morphological Structure of Neologisms During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Pauline Jonnah  Gocotano,

Morphological Structure of Neologisms During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Discipline: Education

Abstract:

The emergence of neologisms has always been an interesting phenomenon as it demonstrates the dynamism of language. This study intends to determine the neologisms during COVID-19 Pandemic through morphological analysis. This study argues that the neologisms that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the morphological structures that formed the new words. It further claims that the morphemic facilities of the neologisms follow the general systems of English vocabulary. Specifically, this study involves textual analysis to determine the morphological structures encompassing new words' formation. The data used in analyzing the morphological structures of COVID-19-related neologisms are Internet articles that introduce the new terms created because of the coronavirus outbreak. Findings reveal that most of the neologisms are content words such as nouns. The common word formations involved in the neologisms are blending, compounding, affixation, borrowing, clipping, and antonomasia. Moreover, most neologisms follow the compound structure of the free and bound morphemes. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that the neologisms formed during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal the morphemic structures of the neologisms follow the general structures of English vocabulary, specifically on thecombination of free and bound morphemes.

References:

Aitchison, J. (2001). Language change: Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Akmajian, A. (2017). Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. Cambridge:MIT Press.
Bauer, L. (2007). Linguistics Student's Handbook. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Becker, A. (2020). COVID-19 crisis catalog: A glossary of terms. Texas Medical Center. URL:https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/05/covid-19-crisis-catalog-a-glossary-of-terms/ (accessed: 8 December 2020).
Bizhkenova, A. & Sagima, S. (2017). Neologisms in present-day German: an investigation into the productivity of word formation types. Journal of Fundamental Applied Sciences 9 (7S).982–96.
Burridge, K. & Alexander, B. (2016). Understanding language change. USA: Taylor & Francis. Crowe, M. (2020). Coronadodge,' 'isobar,' and 'jumped': Linguist catalogs more than 1K words from the pandemic. Company news HQ. URL: https://www.companynewshq.com/coronavirus-news/coronadodge-isobar-and-zumped-linguist-catalogs-more-than-1k-words-from-pandemic/(accessed:8December2020).
Crystal, D. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics 6edn. London: Blackwell Publishing.
Crystal, D. (2010). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language is a Dictionary of the Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Durham, G. C. (2018). Back Formations and Neologisms. 3 Quarks Daily. URL: https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2018/09/back-formations-and-neologisms.html(accessed:12December2020).
Halliday, M. (2013). Introduction to Functional Grammar. English Journal. USA: New York.
Janssen, M. (2005). Between Inflection and Derivation Paradigmatic Lexical Functions in
Morphological Databases. London: Blackwell Publishing.
Krishnamurthy, S. (2010). The chutnification of English: An examination of the lexis of Salman
Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Journal of Social and cultural studies. 13(1) 11-28.
Shahlee, S. & Mustaffa, R. (2019). Neologisms in social networking among youths. InternationalJournal of Multidisciplinary (TIJM). http://tryakshpublications.com/journals/single/Multidisciplinary.