[eng] This work focuses on the study of tendencies in dictionarisation by lexical innovation process. It aims to analyse, from an overall perspective, which processes generate the highest number of words that can be included in the standard dictionary of the Catalan language (DIEC2). DIEC2 is a prescriptive dictionary produced by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC) and, therefore, the intention behind it is to sanction some words and reject others on grounds of criteria relating to their adequacy for use. Thus, this work will analyse each of the lexical innovation processes, from the formal ones, such as affixation and compounding, to semantic change, syntactic change and borrowing, to see which ones are more dictionarisable.
This work draws on the approach taken by the project entitled Neologismes per a l’actualització del diccionari normatiu [Neologisms for the Purpose of Updating the Standard Dictionary] (NADIC). It is, therefore, a highly descriptive study giving an account of the word formation processes that have generated various neologisms that, according to the project’s criteria, are the best candidates for the purpose of updating the standard dictionary. The study is divided into two large sections. The first section (§ Dictionarisation by lexical innovation process) focuses on a quantitative analysis, which consists of studying the data on the presence of each of the word formation processes in the corpus of neologisms for the purpose of updating the dictionary. In this section, we will establish the percentage for which each process accounts, and analyse any changes by comparing its presence in the corpus of neologisms to its presence in the definitive corpus resulting from the application of the different criteria. The second section (§ Lexical innovation processes: between inclusion in and exclusion from the dictionary) consists of studying each of the processes and giving an account of the main distinctive features to ascertain why each process has a tendency towards or a resistance to dictionarisation.
Lastly, we conclude the study by asserting that word formation processes can be classified by their tendency towards or resistance to dictionarisation. Thus, some mechanisms, such as semantic change and affixation, tend to generate words that meet a higher number of criteria for inclusion in the dictionary, whereas others, such as borrowing and vernacular compounding, resist dictionarisation because they generate units that do not always fulfil the minimum criteria for inclusion in the dictionary. In this respect, it is important to highlight that there are three essential factors for determining whether the processes tend towards dictionarisation: the productivity of the process, and both the frequency and stability in use of the units it generates.
This study also draws attention to the fact that the task of updating a dictionary – and especially standard dictionaries – is crucial to ensure that the speaker perceives language as a changing entity. Ultimately, updating a dictionary also means updating a language and giving it a sense of completeness. In short, we propose a study that analyses the tendency towards dictionarisation by each of the lexical innovation processes, based on the data from the NADIC project and not from DIEC2. Consequently, this does not allow us to fully extrapolate results, but it does enable us to present some patterns. These will be useful for future studies, and can be taken into account to rethink the lexicographical task.