PRODUCTIVE WORD-BUILDING PATTERNS OF ENGLISH NEOLOGISMS REGISTERED ON THE WEB-SITE WWW. WORDSPY.COM
The aim of this article is to have a closer look at new words which are constantly replenishing all the existing languages due to a very rapid development of different spheres of human activities. The English language is no exception in this case. Among multiple sources of neologisms we have chosen the Web-site www.wordspycom. and, in particular the vocabulary segment dating to 2014. The main common types of word-building (affixation, compounding, shortening, conversion) are in the focus of our attention in this article. Besides it deals with the productivity of the above-mentioned types as compared to the 1980–1990. So, the linguistic analysis has proved that compounding remains the most productive word-building pattern, shortening ranks second, affixation – third and conversion – fourth. This enables us to assert that compounding still remains the leading word-building pattern whereas affixation and conversion have lost their lead. It is relevant to mention that the following patterns of compounds («N + N = N», «A + N = N») and conversion (N → V) are still as productive as they used to be. As for affixation the most widely-spread prefixes are the ones of Latin origin (gero-, anti-, phyto-, pre-) and the most frequent suffixes are –ist(a), -er, -y, -ie.