Lapsen kielen uudissanat

• Anneli Lieko

Avainsanat: lapsenkieli, sananmuodostus (ks. myös johto-oppi), uudissanat

Abstrakti

Neologisms in child language (englanti)

4/1998 (102)

Anneli Lieko

NEOLOGISMS IN CHILD LANGUAGE

The article presents neologisms created by Finnish children in spontaneous speech and examines how they differ from the neologisms of other European children. Most of the data is derived from the spontaneous speech of one Finnish child at the age of 1;7&endash;5;0. Additional data consisted of neologisms used by other Finnish children. The principles by which these neologisms are formed are compared with the principles found for neologisms created by other children (Clark 1981, 1982, 1993, 1995; Becker 1994).

The neologisms examined are those words which deviate from adult language which the child has formed either by derivation (hiiht 'to ski'> hiihtimet 'sukset' ['skis']), compounding (huppu+rattaat 'hood'+'pram' > huppurattaat 'kuomuvaunut' ['hooded pram']) or using a completely new sequence of phonemes (tinksitt 'to chop up a potato so that the fork clatters against the plate'). The Finnish children's neologisms were mostly derivatives and compounds, as are Finnish neologisms in general. The proportion of each of these varied in the different sets of data. Neologisms were created for all word classes, but most new derivatives and compounds were nouns (61%). Dozens of derivational suffixes were used; the most common were the nominal suffixes -Us and -in, the adjectival suffixes -mpA and -inen, and the verbal suffixes -tA and -UtU-.

The principles outlined by Clark (1993) largely on the basis of Indo-European languages, and which she regards as universals, do not in themselves appear to suit the description of Finnish children's word formation. The neologisms of the children studied by the writer also reveal language-specific and individual differences. What could be regarded as a universal feature is that the children create new words using the same means, mainly derivation and compounding. Neologisms were also created in different languages for the same categories of meaning, to express a tool, a person, an action or event. However, closer examination revealed, for example, a language-specific aspect whereby English children, for instance, create plenty of neologisms using conversion, whereas Finnish children use conversion very little. Furthermore, Finnish children quite naturally form new deverbal nominals (incl. names of tools, people and actions), whereas for English children this is extremely rare.

Contrary to the principle of productivity, the Finnish children used not only productive derivational suffixes but an abundance of completely unproductive derivational suffixes, possibly because of their greater morphological and semantic salience. Neither did the Finnish children observe the principle of 'one form - one meaning', but instead, and in contrast to the children studied by Clark, created several neologisms of different constructions for the names of people and tools, for instance. The same meanings were expressed in different ways, with derivatives and compounds, and several different derivational suffixes were used to convey the same sense of meaning.

The data, which was collected over several years, also demonstrated that the principles of forming neologisms change as the child's cognitive abilities and language skills develop. This is seen in the development of more complex forms of neologisms: conversion appears very early in derivatives, whereas later on, derivatives always contain a clear derivational suffix. The modifier in compounds is initially only a stem, but later it can be a derivative or sometimes an inflected form. At first, the child chooses a derivational suffix on the basis of semantic or formal transparency, whereas later it is productivity that is decisive. Cognitive development brings semantic changes in the grounds for naming referents: the same referent is given names on different grounds at different times. According to the study material, and contrary to the views of, for example, Nelson (1974), Kauppinen (1992) and Elbers (1988), functionality can not be regarded unambiguously and certainly not exclusively as the basis for naming; instead, neologisms are also created on the basis of, for example, external appearance and sound, and familiar words already present in the lexicon.