Neosemantization in “Joke dictionaries”

Abstract

The article examines the phenomenon of secondary nomination (neosemantization) in “Joke Dictionaries”. Such words are most common on the pages of humor in periodicals. The basis for the study of the phenomenon was the materials of the column of the same name in the magazine “Perets”, the newspapers “Silski Visti”, “Literary Ukraine” and others. Some of the neosemanticisms are also published by humorist writers in the form of books or presented on specialized literary portals. The purpose of this research is to investigate neosemantization in “Joke Dictionaries”, hence the subject of research is the author’s neosemantisms with a humorous basis. Such words pose a problem for scientific understanding, since they did not attract the attention of linguists before. The most expedient, and therefore the main method, is descriptive. The novelty of the article is that for the first time neosemantisms are described and an attempt is made to classify them by meaning.

In the results of the study, it was found that words most often acquire new meanings with the help of neometaphorization and paronomasia, as well as the decomposition of a simple word into two consonant roots. However, a certain number of such innovations can be considered not too successful from the point of view of semantics, when the author looks for seemingly consonant words, but this consonance is not enough to create a successful new value. An interesting way of creating such lexical units is to interpret words of foreign origin as composites or abbreviations with paronymic or homonymous meaning. The question of the connection between the meanings of neosemanticisms and jargonisms (slangisms) remains open. The results of the study show that the authors explain the same word in different ways: in some cases the new meanings are identical or close, in others they are different depending on the author’s vision. In some cases, the author may interpret the word in different ways, publishing these meanings in different editions or releases; because of this, the issue of plagiarism is important, although it can be argued that the absolute majority of coincidences (if not all) are accidental. Sometimes the formed lexemes are characterized by enantiosemy. Since this section is quite regular in the latest editions of these publications, in the future it is possible to study more words in greater detail and compile a dictionary of humorous neosemanticisms.