NEOLOGISMS OF CONTEMPORARY GERMAN THROUGH THE LENS OF THEMATIC DIFFERENTIATION (BASED ON THE ONLINE CORPUS «DIE WORTWARTE»)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/gph2026.858-859.76-85Keywords:
neologism, lexical composition of a language, German language, online dictionary, thematic differentiation, thematic group, frequencyAbstract
The present article provides a systematic analysis of neologisms in contemporary German from the perspective of their thematic differentiation, based on data from the online corpus "Die Wortwarte." The relevance of the study stems from the intensive processes of lexical renewal driven by globalisation, socio-economic and technological changes, as well as the lack of a unified approach to defining the concept of "neologism" and its classification in modern linguistics.
The objective of the research is to identify, systematise, and conduct a quantitative and semantic analysis of thematic groups of neologisms in modern German. The empirical material under consideration comprises 1,089 neologisms that have been selected from the "Die Wortwarte" corpus for the year 2020. The present study employs a combination of methods, including descriptive analysis, linguistic analysis, component analysis, analysis of dictionary definitions, and statistical procedures, to determine the distribution of neologisms across thematic groups.
The findings indicate that nouns represent the predominant part-of-speech category within neologisms. The thematic domains that have been identified as being the most productive are "Health" and "Economy". The intensification of neological processes during the analysed period is largely attributed to the impact of the COVD-19 pandemic, which stimulated the emergence of numerous lexical innovations in medical, social, and economic contexts.
The study also demonstrates that lexical enrichment occurs primarily through borrowings, particularly from English, as well as through internal word-formation processes. The findings reveal key trends in the development of contemporary German vocabulary and confirm the uneven distribution of neologisms across thematic categories.
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