Malabarísticos and incuadrables: On some non-frequent neological processes for the formation of new adjectives

Abstract

Traditionally, adjectival neology has been envisioned as a group of stable morphological processes, from a formal and semantic point of view that generated meaning units and easily predictable structures. However, it is not difficult to find adjectives neologisms that question this supposed stability. Based on a corpus composed by journalist texts written up during five years in a concrete geographical context (Castilla y León, Spain), this article analyses a group of processes of adjectival neological formation, based in the suffixation, the prefixation, and the composition. The formal and semantic structure of the resulting adjectival neologisms question the traditional postulates about the formation of this type of units, at the same time that shows the existence of new processes of lexical creation. To conclude, a series of causes that may underlie the variety of reviewed processes are suggested.