Blending and Compounding in English Coroneologisms

Abstract

This article focuses on English coroneologisms coined during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to contextualise two of the main morphological mechanisms underlying the coinage of coroneologisms in non-specialised terminology, namely blending and compounding, I will discuss the whole spectrum of lexical items traditionally ascribed to these word-formation processes and their relation to other lexicogenetic mechanisms. The rapid shift in the status of the word corona from having its primary sense, "crown", in Romance languages prior to the pandemic, to being automatically perceived as a clipping of coronavirus in Romance and Germanic languages alike is illustrated, as well as the high frequency of COVID, among other base forms, in the coinage of numerous words in a matter of months. References will be made to the use of these neologisms in English and their adoption and adaptation into other languages.