Novel Slovenian COVID-19 vocabulary from the perspective of naming possibilities and word formation

Abstract

We analyze a sample of novel Slovenian vocabulary related to COVID-19, focusing on naming possibilities and word-formation processes. We grouped previous descriptions of COVID-19 vocabulary and extended the list with a semi-automated selection based on embedding-based keyword expansion. In terms of naming possibilities, the analysis shows that a large majority of COVID-19 lexemes were created through derivation, showing high productivity and language vitality in Slovenian, and that a smaller number of examples are set phrases and neosemantisms, as well as explicit borrowings, whereas calques were not a productive strategy. From the point of view of the word-formation system, it is mainly possible to distinguish infix compounds, ordinary derivatives, and compositions. The most productive substructure is the root morpheme korona, which produces most of the infix subordinate compounds, but also higher-order adjectival derivatives (e.g., koronski ‘corona’) and compositions (e.g., protikoronski ‘anti-corona’). Otherwise, infix subordinate compounds turn out to be the most productive word-formational type. The most productive derivatives are adjectival and nominal derivatives with the suffix -ost, and these are also the ones that show the most frequently confirmed combinatorics of the suffix -en- + -ost.