Occasionalism (Philology): Methods of Formation

Lecture

Nonce-formation (occasionalism) (from Lat. occasionalis «occasional» ← occasio) — an individual-authorial neologism created by a poet or writer in accordance with word-formation models existing in the language and used exclusively within the conditions of the given context as a lexical means of artistic expressiveness or language play. Occasionalisms usually do not gain wide currency and do not enter the vocabulary of the language.

Occasionalisms rarely pass into common usage, and in this lies their principal distinction from ordinary neologisms. They usually retain for a long time their coloring of imagery and individuality and are appropriate only in individual works, where they perform a definite artistic function — as expressemes — deliberately created (occasional) expressive means (the second essential distinction of occasionalisms from neologisms).

Occasionalisms usually represent words ( «verse» , «night letter» , «madly sobbing» ), but the use of individual forms as new words is also possible ( «owls» , «savya» instead of the literary «sava» ; «statuy» instead of «statuya» ) as well as word combinations ( «the spokes tremble» , «storms of rockets» ). Most often they are formed by writers, which is why they are otherwise called authorial, individual-stylistic neologisms . They acquire the significance of poetic tropes

Ways of creating an occasionalism

Traditionally, three main ways of forming an occasionalism are distinguished:

I. The use of affixal means inherent in the given language;

The forming base may be any part of speech. The word-forming formants are all affixes: prefixes, suffixes, confixes .
For example:

verbal base + pref. za-/pere-/roz-/ot-/do-/ob-/pod-: perezavtrakivali, otnotovyvali, prisposablivalis’, porozhdalis’, proryvali .
verbal base + confixes: pref. pere-/ob-/ot-/u-/po-/roz- and suf. -y-: peresmeivat’, skromit’, razdelit’, obintiligentit’ .
nominal base + suf. -ivk-/-stv-/-ovich-/-ts-/-ann-/-enn-/-izm-/-ost’-: kislovka, smetanovka, babushki, viskakovich, repatriatsiya, kombanirovanie, omedlenie, podonkizm, litsemerie .
nominal base + pref. anti-/ne-/bez-/sub-/vy-/ekstra-: antigolos, bezumie, mladenets, antipapa, submissiya, vyuchnik, ekstranogi .
adjective = preposition + noun + suf. -n-/-sk-: bezoboynoe, besputnoe, donebesnoe, donikonovskoe, sverkhreynskoe, sverkhnauchnoe .

II. Semantic reinterpretation of words, sayings, idioms, or morphemes already existing in the language;

Phraseological contamination (from Lat. contaminatio — mixing) is the crossing of two or several idioms within a single expression. A writer resorts to contamination in cases where the phraseological sources that attract him by their aptness and imagery do not satisfy him in their traditionalness, their habitual usage, or do not correspond to the goals of linguistic economy.
For example, the idiom it stings the eyes , when contaminated with the idiom sore spot , acquires in its new form ( a prickly-sore mug ) a new, phraseologically conditioned meaning. Compare in context: They took on increased obligations. But there are few children. The rye is prickly-sore, no place for you here, they don’t break bones… All, to a man (VZR: 389).
Verbal idioms mainly arise when one of the components of a common verbal idiom is replaced by another word not yet established in this expression: on the basis of the idiom to catch crows (in the sense of «to be inattentive») a new formation is formed, to catch sparrows . The variant created in this way remains close in its meaning to the phraseological turn of phrase.

On the basis of a phraseological allusion, a number of occasionalisms are formed, having the following most regular types of semantic nuances:

Intensification of a feature – gray-gray antiquity (VZR: 14). Here the idiom gray antiquity acquires the capacity for separate reproduction.
The highest degree of manifestation of a feature — from the most ancient of antiquities (D: 220). The writer selects this peculiar form of the phraseological turn of phrase in contrast to the common Ukrainian expression from ancient times .
Actualization of synonymic connotations — to fight emptyheadedly (TM: 194). The variant created in this way remains close in its meaning to the phraseological turn of phrase an empty head . Motivations by another idiom close in meaning, wind in the head , are also possible here. Compare in context: — You have wind in your head, but my head has its own theory about everything. Have you been at war long? – Since the first day. – And no use at all. A foolish thing — to fight so emptyheadedly .
Abstraction of meaning – hither-and-thither-ness (D: 106). The model for this transformation was the idiom hither and thither , which also entered the context, cf.: they were carried about the marketplace hither and thither, criss-cross, and were whirled about in such arbitrary hither-and-thither-ness that it was impossible to make anything out .
Characterizing nuance – report-mongers (YaB: 11). The idiom to account for oneself , which served as the basis for the transformation, does not have such an expressive pejorative connotation as the occasionalism. Compare in context: All the report-mongers of my time destroyed me in their writings .
Foregrounding of a feature of a word against the background of a phraseologically conditioned meaning – heel-lickers (D: 536). The form heel-lickers arose on the basis of the verbal idiom to lick someone’s hands (feet, heels) or to lick someone’s boot-tops . Compare in context: The prince must spend his whole life turning among such boot-lickers and heel-lickers as follow him .
Metaphorical transfer of meaning, e.g.: …he swayed forward to where, mockingly, a chalky-pale horse’s head with black empty sockets looked at him and bared its teeth, like death itself (D: 46). Cf.: idiom white as chalk → free combination pale as chalk → occ. chalky-pale .
Connotation of triumph: The march of the prisoners was brought up in the rear by mysteriously-menacing people (D: 305). Here the occasionalism mysteriously-menacing contains an allusion to the established expression to harbor a threat.

III. Actualization of foreign-language elements, as well as elements of non-literary vernacular, territorial dialects, and professional and social jargons.
Reminiscences — a deliberately repeated element of someone else’s language in a new context (often also in a new external form of a compound word carrying an additional semantic-stylistic and ideological load) become the basis of a poetic effect. Such formations generate the expressiveness of irony and disdain, which, on the one hand, relates to one side of the compound word, and on the other — to the general semantics
of someone else’s verbal image . of a novel , in which is raised the problem of «the heroic citizen, who rode for three days in a train car with starving goats» » . the occasionality of super-compound words rests simultaneously on both the external and the internal form of these formations.

The components of the composite are dissimilar in stylistic register, i.e. they form an internal cross-stylistic contrast: — You wanted to go into the corps artillery, but ended up in the anti-tank. Like our Cossack: he wanted the coastal artillery, but ended up in the land-based-murderous (NO: 308); Don’t they say that at the research institute of Design-Cow-Milk-Farm-Milking a farm of the future has already been designed, which will eat only concentrated feed and yield only concentrated output (VZR: 270); an abstractly-meaninglessly-philosophical conclusion (PZT: 468).
The components of the composite form an internal semantic contrast based on the social gradation of the object being named: Here he rose above the corporal’s-sergeant’s worldview, above the ages! (NO: 272); …and with these student-lecturer-associate-professors we hurry to a date (ZPV: 227).
Three-component formations, formed on the basis of common-language two-component compound words logically correlated with a third component, cf.: coal basin → coal-and-railway spirit (Yu: 23); high salary → high-salaried position (ZPS: 38). Their original and at the same time transparent content is precisely calculated for the aesthetic consciousness of the people of the given historical epoch.

Word formation; word formation (branch of linguistics)
Basic concepts	units of word formation nest category model pair paradigm series type chain motivated word motivating word back-formation stem productivity word-formation meaning word-formation motivation word-formation system compound word formant
Methods	abbreviation abbreviation truncation affixation postfixation prefixation suffixation compounding fusion transposition adverbialization adjectivization verbalization conversion numeralization predicativization pronominalization substantivization univerbation
By parts of speech	verbs interjections pronouns modal words adverbs predicatives adjectives function words nouns numerals
Accompanying morphonological phenomena	augmentation merging of morphs truncation alternation
Other concepts	augmentative diminutive cognate words occasionalism paired words potential word neologism word-formation dictionary word blending tatpurusha
See also	word formation in the languages of the world
morphology derivation derivative