How proper names enter the lexicon – From the Central Intelligence Agency to CIA: the reduction of full denominative expressions interpreted as a means to achieve (greater) lexicalization
This paper analyses the integration of proper names into the lexicon when they are reduced to initialisms, acronyms and clippings. We confirm their apparently abnormal inclusion in “common” dictionaries, despite their not being semantically or referentially modified, and analyse their distribution c...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3
2022-12-01
|
| Series: | Lexis: Journal in English Lexicology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/lexis/6672 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | This paper analyses the integration of proper names into the lexicon when they are reduced to initialisms, acronyms and clippings. We confirm their apparently abnormal inclusion in “common” dictionaries, despite their not being semantically or referentially modified, and analyse their distribution compared to that of other reduced units, marked abbr. in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (our corpus of reference). We notice a strong tendency to include reduced names of institutions (hybrid between animate and inanimate reference, mostly collective). We then discuss the reasons for their inclusion in dictionaries, which we take to be a sign of their lexicalization, and conclude to an extreme illustration of opacification, demotivation and wordification, all of which achieved via reduction. Beyond the simple orthographic and phonological form these reduced proper names assume, we also show via a case study that their syntactic and semantic profile differs slightly from that of their full forms, which further justifies their differentiated lexical treatment. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1951-6215 |