In-neologizmi fil-Malti: il-lingwa bhala ghodda minghajr fruntieri

Abstract

This study focuses on neologisms in Maltese whose diverse word formation strategies, namely the root-and-pattern morphology and concatenative morphology, offer wide possibilities for analysis. In short, the term neologisms refers to newly coined words in a language (Kilgarriff 2008). Neologisms in English include lactivist (n.) and mansplain (v.) whilst neologisms in Maltese include stessu ‘selfie’ (n.) and kejkina ‘cupcake’ (n.). The linguistic mechanisms through which these neologisms are created are numerous and give way for the language to grow and to adapt over time. In fact, on one hand, there are arguments for neologisms and their full potential in breaking language barriers, but on the other there are arguments claiming that neologisms are imposed and ephemeral. Examples from everyday life and from the different types of neologisms are explained and the productive mechanisms through which they are created in Maltese are brought to light. The MLRS Corpus also provides numerous examples for this study. Therefore, through this study I will address: (i) the definitions of neologisms and their applicability in Maltese; (ii) the mechanisms through which neologisms are formed; (iii) the relevance of neologisms in widening our vocabulary.