The Transgression of Word-Formation Rules as a Sign of Linguistic Change in Catalan: The Case of -isme, -itis, and -metre

Abstract

In Catalan, -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’ create new words that do not follow the WFRs described in grammar books and dictionaries. As a result, these lexical innovations, such as panxacontentisme (panxacontent ‘carefree’ + -ism ‘-ism’), titulitis (títol ‘certificate’ + ‘-itis’), and emocionòmetre (emoció ‘emotion’ + -metre ‘-meter’), tend to be considered transgressive. The main aim of this paper is to provide a close review of grammar books and dictionaries among other sources to compare the rules described in the literature and the data provided by the bank of neologisms of the Observatori de Neologia. Since language changes and variations are inherent phenomena of any living language, the deviation experienced by these bound morphemes could be conceived as an example of linguistic change and not only as a one-time transgression. In addition, in order to check whether these linguistic changes are specific to the Catalan language, I reviewed some English, French, and Spanish literature. Finally, a set of diachronic corpora, that covers the time span from the 11th century until the present day, is used to study the first examples of these phenomena in the Catalan language. The results point out that in Catalan, these changes can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century, and that they cannot be considered language-specific, since they affect the different languages under study.

1. Introduction

Morphology, understood as the branch of linguistics that deals with ‘the structure, form, or variation in form (including formation, change, and inflection) of a word or words in a language’ (Oxford English Dictionary), does not only provide word-formation rules (WFRs) to describe existing words, but also to create new words. From a diachronic point of view, the lexicon of a language is characterized by its tendency towards stability, to ensure communication, and a tendency to change, to reflect the variations experienced by society and to adapt to different communicative situations (Guilbert 1975). In more detail, new words are created to either refer to new realities, to communicate with more precision, in the interest of the economy of language, to play with words, to cause a particular effect on the receiver, and so on (Matoré 1952; Guilbert 1975; Cabré 1989; Mounin 1990; Sablayrolles 1993; Sablayrolles 2000; Mejri 2005; Alves 2015; Cabré 2015; García Platero 2015; Winter-Froemel 2018)1. Consequently, lexical changes and variations are considered the most common type of linguistic change. As the members of a linguistic community acquire a set of lexical items (or vocabulary), and unconsciously they also learn the WFRs of their native language, speakers are able to generate these new words. Speakers can either combine different words, for example, to create native and syntagmatic compounds; or combine a root and an affix or a combination form, such as in prefixation, suffixation or neoclassical compounding.2

However, some lexical innovations may deviate from these rules: even if “word-formation rules (WFRs) typically undergo a number of general constraints or more specific restrictions conditioning or limiting their productivity” (Gaeta 2015, p. 859), speakers can break these rules to create new words. Regarding WFRs, Gaeta (2015) distinguishes between six domain-specific restrictions related to the different levels of linguistic analysis, that is, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic restrictions. For example, in English the suffix -able only combines with transitive verbs; hence, constructions like visitable and observable are possible, whereas *goable and *lookable, are not possible, despite having a similar meaning, because go and look are intransitive (Gaeta 2015, p. 870). Another example is the prefix un-, which can only be used with verbs displaying a meaning that can be reversed, as in unfold or unscrew, but the forms *unswim or *unkill are considered semantically unacceptable since the verb swim and kill do not admit a reverse interpretation (Gaeta 2015, p. 871). Some unacceptable formations, however, are used by speakers. This is the case of rumourology, which contains the ending combination form -(o)logy, used to create nouns such as biology (bio- + -logy), understood as ‘the branch of science that deals with living organisms […]’ (OED), or musicology (music + -ology), referred to ‘the branch of knowledge that deals with music […]’ (OED). Rumourology, however, does not refer to a science or discipline. In this case, the semantic restriction is broken, and it is therefore considered a transgressive neologism, since it deviates from the WFRs. In addition, these types of creations are usually perceived as expressive words, either because they are used in colloquial contexts, or because they contain subjective connotations.

This paper focuses on the use of the suffix -isme ‘-ism’, and the ending combinations forms -itis and -metre ‘-meter’ to create new words in Catalan that break the expected WFRs, such as panxacontentisme (panxacontent ‘carefree’ + -ism ‘-ism’), titulitis (títol ‘certificate’ + ‘-itis’), and emocionòmetre (emoció ‘emotion’ + -metre ‘-meter’). The aim of this work is to show that these transgressive lexical innovations are the result of new productive rules in Catalan word-formation due to linguistic change. To that end, I offer a thorough description of these forms, as well as a diachronic analysis of the productivity of these types of creations. Moreover, I check if other languages also show this linguistic change, with special emphasis on Spanish and English due to language contact, and also French.

Despite loanwords being the most common type of borrowings, other linguistic elements, such as affixes and combination forms can also be taken from other languages (Seifart 2013; Eliasson 2018; Bernal 2022). In fact, the linguistic change experienced by -itis has been addressed in different languages, such as Catalan (Observatori de Neologia 2004; Bernal 2022), Spanish (Julià Luna 2015; Llopart-Saumell forthcoming), French (Grand Robert 2021), English (Lüdeling and Evert 2005; Díaz-Negrillo 2014; OED 2021), and German (Lüdeling and Evert 2005). This would point out that the variations experienced by -itis cannot be considered language-specific, since they impact different Romance and Germanic languages that use the modern medical Latin form of -itis. In fact, Bernal (2022) comes to the conclusion that -itis, which in Catalan (and in the other languages mentioned above) is now also used to create general words that are not related to the medical field, is a suffix borrowed from English. In this work, I study the introduction of this change in Catalan in more detail, by using diachronic data from corpora.

Lexical innovations containing the combination form -metre ‘-meter’ have also been the object of interest of the study of linguistic transgression. The use of this suffix in words that do not refer to technical concepts has been observed in both in Catalan (Observatori de Neologia 2004; Bernal and Milà-Garcia 2021) and Spanish (Llopart-Saumell forthcoming). The change in use that this combination form has undergone can also be observed in other languages, for instance Italian (Iacobini 2004). In general, neoclassical compounds are used in specialized domains, even if some extended uses in non-specialized fields have also been observed (Iacobini 2004, p. 69; Díaz-Negrillo 2014, pp. 5–6); however, some other changes have been detected that affect productivity, linking elements and combinatorial possibilities (Iacobini 2004; Observatori de Neologia 2004; Díaz-Negrillo 2014; Bernal et al. 2016), as well as pragmatic effects (Observatori de Neologia 2004; Provencio Garrigós 2009; Bernal et al. 2016; Llopart-Saumell 2021; Bernal 2022; Llopart-Saumell forthcoming).

Finally, the suffix -isme ‘-ism’ has also showed a deviation from WFRs both in Catalan and Spanish. According to lexicographical sources, it creates nouns that tend to designate a ‘theory, school, or artistic movement’ (GDLC 1998), as in comunisme ‘comunism’, budisme ‘budism’, or romanticisme ‘romanticism’; however, the transgressive neologisms take bases that are typically used in common and everyday language. Consequently, they show some type of pragmatic effect and are likely to be used in informal contexts (Colín Rodea 2003; Observatori de Neologia 2004; Bernal and Sinner 2013; Llopart-Saumell and Freixa 2017; Llopart-Saumell forthcoming).

2. Materials and Methods

First, in order to confirm that some lexical innovations created with the suffix -isme ‘-ism’ and the combinations forms -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’ deviate from the norm, I describe the WFRs in Catalan that are relevant to these bound morphemes. The sources used for this purpose are either lexicographical references, such as the Diccionari de la llengua catalana by the Institut d’Estudis Catalans (DIEC 2007) and the Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC 1998) by Enciclopèdia, or grammar books, such as the Gramàtica de la llengua catalana (GIEC 2016). After explaining the meaning of these bound morphemes, as well as the productivity constraints and restrictions by means of some explanatory examples, I present instances of neologisms in context that transgress the WFRs. The transgressive neologisms analyzed in this article come from the bank of neologisms of the Observatori de Neologia (BOBNEO 2021), a research group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. The BOBNEO contains approximately 60,000 different lexicographical neologisms used in the media (from general newspapers and magazines to radio programs) from 1989 until 2022. The lexical units collected in this data bank are considered lexicographical neologisms, because they are not registered in the main general dictionaries in Catalan, that is, the DIEC, a prescriptive dictionary (the Institut d’Estudis Catalans sets the linguistic norm for Catalan), and the GDLC. Once these examples are presented, I define the restriction that is transgressed, according to Gaeta (2015), and I provide an analysis. Additionally, I also analyze information from other academic articles and books devoted to new word-formation patterns with -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’.

Since this paper also seeks to explain if other languages break these rules, the WFRs governing these bound morphemes are also reviewed for English (the most influential language worldwide nowadays), as well as Spanish and French (since, similarly to Catalan, they are also Romance languages). At this point, I revise the main lexicographical references in these languages to see if the new word-formation patterns have already been registered in the following dictionaries: the Oxford English Dictionary (OED 2021), for English; Le Grand Robert de la langue française (Grand Robert 2021), for French; and the Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE 2014) of the Real Academia Española, for Spanish. When necessary, a set of corpora are also contrasted to provide further examples, such as the Reference Corpus of Current Spanish (CREA 2021).

The last step of this analysis consists in studying these transgressions from a diachronic perspective. For this, I refer to three diachronic corpora in Catalan (from the 11th century until now). In first place, the Computerized Corpus of Old Catalan (CICA n.d.), ranging from the 11th until the 17th century; secondly, the Computerized Corpus of Modern Catalan (CIGCMod n.d.), which contains texts from the year 1601 until 1832; and, finally, the Computerized Textual Corpus of Catalan Language (CTILC 2021), which covers the period from 1833 until the second decade of the 21st century. The CICA and the CIGCMod are part of the projects Old Catalan Grammar and Modern Catalan Grammar, carried out at the University of Alicante (UA) and the University of Valencia, with the collaboration of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB); all three corpora were designed with a specific aim: to enable research on grammar. Ultimately, it is important to point out that they aim to balance out the representativity of each corpus, especially with regard to geographical variation (with texts written in different Catalan speaking areas), and text type variation (with texts from different genres).

3. Results

The results are divided into three different sections. The first one focuses on the data from Catalan. The second section shows whether the transgressions observed in the creation of lexical innovations in Catalan are also found in some of the languages of contact, such as English, French, and Spanish. Lastly, the third section provides a diachronic overview of these transgressions in Catalan by means of three diachronic corpora that cover the time span from the 11th century until the present day.

3.1. WFRs and Examples in Catalan

The results that derive from the study of WFRs and examples in Catalan are divided into three subsections, and each of them is devoted to a specific bound morpheme. The first subsection focuses on -isme ‘-ism’, the next subsection focuses on the combination form -itis, and the last one is devoted to -metre ‘-meter’.

3.1.1. -isme ‘-ism’

The Catalan suffix -isme ‘-ism’ comes from the Latin -ismus (GDLC; OED), which means either ‘movement’, ‘current’, ‘doctrine’, ‘ideology’, ‘system’, or even ‘sport’. Consequently, it creates words such as optimisme ‘optimism’, intervencionisme ‘interventionism’, romanticisme ‘romanticism’, terrorisme ‘terrorisme’, nacionalisme ‘nationalism’, or piragüisme ‘canoeing’ (GIEC; GDLC). This suffix can be added either to nominal or adjectival bases, as in terrorisme, where the base is a noun (terror) or nacionalisme, where the base is an adjective (nacional ‘national’) (GIEC). Another feature of this type of nominalization is that, in general, the suffix -ista ‘-ist’ can be added to the base morpheme instead of -isme to refer to the followers, supporters, or members of these movements; therefore, it can create words such as optimista ‘optimist’, intervencionista ‘interventionist’, terrorista ‘terrorist’, nacionalista ‘nationalist’, or piragüista ‘canoeist’.3

More recently, there has been a usage in Catalan of novel words in informal contexts that only refer to a made up trend or an attitude by adding the suffix -isme ‘-ism’. These creations can be distinguished from the traditional nominalizations with -isme ‘-ism’ because the base is usually a word from familiar everyday language, such as in cunyadisme, from the nouns cunyat ‘brother-in-law’ or cunyada ‘sister-in-law’, or facilisme, from the adjective fàcil ‘easy’. In some cases, it can also apply to colloquial or slang words, as in col·leguisme, from the base col·lega ‘buddy’, or titafredisme, based on the colloquial phraseological unit tita freda, which literally means ‘cold dick’:

(1)

O donar lliçons des de la suficiència incompetent o del cunyadisme il·lustrat [or to teach a lesson from the incompetent self-importance or from the erudite cunyadisme ‘brother-in-law + -ism’] (La Vanguardia, 5 May 2020).

(2)

Jo defenso la política econòmica de Zapatero, amb un argument. Perquè, és a dir, el facilisme és que tots siguem unànims en criticar-la [I defend Zapatero’s economic policy with an argument. That is because facilisme ‘easy + -ism’ is that we all criticize it] (“Els matins”, Catalunya Ràdio, 21 September 2009).

(3)

En qualsevol cas, sembla que el petó a la boca com a senyal de col·leguisme és present en la nova política d’esquerres [in any case, it seems that a kiss on the mouth can be a sign of col·leguisme ‘buddy + -ism’ among the new left-wing politics] (La Vanguardia, 4 March 2016).

(4)

Segurament que aniríem més enllà a l’hora d’analitzar el Noucentisme, més enllà de la rima fàcil ―usada per Alzamora― d’associar-lo a titafredisme i a feixisme de baixa intensitat [it is very likely that we could go further when it comes to analyzing the Catalan cultural movement called Noucentisme. Way beyond the easy route ―used by Alzamora― to associate it with titafredisme ‘cold dick + -ism’ or with a low-key fascism] (Avui, 9 May 2006).

According to the productivity restrictions established by Gaeta (2015), the transgression shown by these lexical creations is mainly pragmatic. These resulting forms have the same semantic reference as the non-transgressive ones, because they could be tagged as a type of current, movement, or ideology. Nevertheless, the intention is to create an ironic and humorous effect by combining familiar, colloquial, and even slang words with the suffix -isme ‘-isme’, one of the most productive suffixes in Catalan (Observatori de Neologia 2004). In fact, from the 7848 neologisms created by suffixation that are registered in the bank of neologisms of the Observatori de Neologia, 737 contain the suffix -isme ‘-ism’, which represents a 9.39% of the total, whereas 1114 contain the suffix -ista ‘-ist’, which amounts to a 14.19%. Since the bank of neologisms contains written and oral texts from different media (newspapers, magazines, radio programs, etc.), this could explain the creation of many lexical innovations referring to fake ideologies and their followers, mainly in the areas of politics and society. The pragmatic change experienced by this suffix can also be identified in the lexical innovation bonrotllisme, which contains the colloquial syntagmatic compound bon rotllo ‘good vibes’. In a perception experiment that focused on the study of connotations in neologisms, the item bonrotllisme was classified by participants as pertaining to the informal register, containing personal nature as opposed to objective nature, and expressing a subjective opinion (Llopart-Saumell 2021).

3.1.2. -itis

The combination form -itis, from the Greek -ítis, means ‘inflammation’, such as in bronquitis ‘bronchitis’ or apendicitis ‘appendicitis’ (DIEC). In the DIEC, a general dictionary, all 136 words containing this combination form appear alongside the thematic tag “medicine and pharmacology” because they refer to a pathology; specifically, an inflammation that affects an area of the anatomy. The resulting forms of this pattern tend to be the same in different languages, since they come from medical Latin (OED; Grand Robert). More precisely, the use of -itis in medical Latin, in the sense of ‘inflammation’, was taken as it is analogous to the name of some diseases in Greek that contained this form, such as arthritis ‘disease of the joints’, or nephritis ‘disease of the kidneys’ (OED). Some examples in Catalan are colitis (col-, combination form from Greek kõlon ‘colon’ + -itis) (GDLC), which means ‘inflammation of the colon’ (DIEC); gingivitis (Latin gingiva ‘gums’ + itis) (GDLC), ‘inflammation of the gums’ (DIEC); or sinusitis (Latin sinus ‘sinus’ + itis) (GDLC), ‘sinus inflammation’ (DIEC). The base of these nouns is either a word referring to parts of the body that comes from Latin, such as gingiva ‘gums’ in gingivitis, and sinus ‘sinus’ in sinusitis, or a combination form from Greek, such as col- (from Greek kõlon ‘colon’) in colitis.

Lately, however, some new words created with -itis do not refer to an inflammation, and the base is not a word or a combination form referring to the anatomy or belonging originally to Latin or Greek. Some examples from Catalan are abracitis (abraçada ‘hug’), dissenyitis (disseny ‘design’), inauguracionitis (inauguració ‘inauguration, opening’) or madonnitis (from the proper noun Madonna), some of which show a vocalic reduction of the base (underlined in the following examples), as mentioned by Bernal (2022, p. 12):

(5)

No només la reina Isabel és reticent a l’abracitis [Elizabeth II is not the only one who is reluctant to abracitis ‘hug + -itis’] (La Vanguardia, 21 August 2016).

(6)

Fa uns anys que l’Ajuntament de Barcelona va patir un (enèsim) atac de dissenyitis i va inventar una bandera de la ciutat [some years ago, the City Council of Barcelona suffered an (umpteenth) attack of dissenyitis ‘design + -itis’ and it invented a flag for the city] (Avui, 12 March 2009).

(7)

No resultarà rar si dic que tinc la impressió que la política mallorquina no sembla tan afectada pel mal de la pedra, terrible malaltia dins de la política del Principat, amb la seva inauguracionitis corresponent [it is not strange to say that I have the impression that Majorcan politics does not seem affected by the so called “stone illness”, a terrible disease among the regional politics, with its own inauguracionitis ‘inauguration + -itis’] (Avui, 28 April 1999).

(8)

Si pateixes madonnitis i estàs boig per la deesa del pop, Madonna, et donem l’oportunitat de participar en el nou i original club, especialment fet per a tu [if you suffer from madonnitis ‘Madonna + -itis’ and you are crazy about the goddess of pop, Madonna, we offer you the opportunity to participate in this new original club, which has been created especially for you] (Avui, 5 February 1997).

In this case, the restriction that has been broken is mainly semantic, since the resulting lexical innovations do not refer to an inflammation of any type, and consequently, cannot be considered medical terminology. In fact, this new pattern of -itis means ‘an exaggerated passion or fondness toward something or someone’ (Bernal 2022, p. 9). As a result of this semantic change, pragmatic restrictions are also broken. They become marked words from a stylistic point of view belonging to informal and colloquial contexts, as they show ironic, humorous, or ludic intentions (Bernal 2022, p. 9). Finally, it can also be reported that this pattern also shows a morphological change since, semantically, the bases are not words referring to anatomy, and etymologically, they are not from medical Latin or Greek. In fact, the bases belong to heterogeneous semantic fields and can either be created in Catalan or come from another language (loanwords, and neoclassical compounds) and belong to different parts of speech: mainly nouns, such as in geografitis (geografia ‘geography’); adjectives, as in gandulitis (gandul ‘lazy’); and proper nouns, for example, in guardiolitis (Guardiola, referring to Pep Guardiola, former coach of Barcelona and current coach of Manchester City).

3.1.3. -metre ‘-meter’

The combining form -metre ‘-meter’ means ‘measure’, as in taquímetre ‘tachymeter’, and audiòmetre ‘audiometer’ (DIEC). Generally, -metre ‘-meter’ is attached to other neoclassical forms, such as taquímetre ‘tachymeter’, which contains the combination form taqui-, from Greek takhýs ‘fast’ (GDLC); in audiòmetre ‘audiometer’, the ending form -metre ‘-meter’ combines with audio- from the Latin audire ‘to listen’ and it refers to the sense of ‘hearing’ and ‘audition’ (GDLC). Regarding the productivity of -meter in Catalan, 215 words created with this combining form are registered in the DIEC. All of them contain a thematic tag other than “general lexicon”, such as “metrology”, the ‘science that studies the system of weight, dimensions, and measures’ (DIEC), and other tags that refer to specialized domains, such as “medicine and pharmacology”, in acúmetre ‘acoumeter’ (‘device to measure visual acuity’ (DIEC)); “chemistry” and “physics”, in evaprímetre ‘vaporimeter’ (‘device to measure the intensity of evaporation’ (DIEC)); or “electrical engineering”, as in vúmetre ‘VU meter’ (‘device to measure the volume of a soundwave signal’ (DIEC); therefore, -meter creates specialized words related to different sciences or technologies. Nevertheless, there are some lexicographic neologisms in Catalan that are not registered in the DIEC, where -metre ‘-meter’ is added to an existing word that, although it might keep the reference to measure, does not belong to a specialized domain. This is the case of cagòmetre (cagar ‘to shit’), emocionòmetre (emoció ‘emotion’), globusdoròmetre (Globus d’Or ‘Golden Globe award’), or insultòmetre (insult ‘insult’):

(9)

I recordo que a Madrid l’entorn de Florentino ja es va inventar el cagòmetre per intentar frenar el Barça de Guardiola, amb resultats indescriptibles [and I remember that, in Madrid, the environment of Florentino had invented a cagòmetre ‘to shit + -meter’ to try to stop Barcelona Football Club with indescribable results] (La Vanguardia, 24 February 2014).

(10)

Un magnìfic emocionòmetre per saber en quin punt ens trobem [a superb emocionòmetre ‘emotion + -meter’ to know at which point we are] (Cultura/s, 25 April 2020).

(11)

El seu marit en la ficció, Leonardo DiCaprio, té moltes opcions d’afegir una quarta candidatura a l’Oscar a les tres que ja té (totes sense premi), però no en té gaires de guanyar, segons el globusdoròmetre [Leonardo DiCaprio, who acted as his husband in this film, has many possibilities to add a new Oscar nomination to the three he already has (with no awards yet), but not many possibilities to win, according to the globusdoròmetre ‘Golden Globe award + -meter’] (La Vanguardia, 23 January 2009)

(12)

El que passa és que aquestes empreses ja tenen l’insultòmetre carodià que els vessa, per tant ni sumarà ni restarà en el seu nivell de desacreditació que Prisa parli bé d’ell [the thing is that the Carodian insultòmetre ‘insult + -meter’ of these companies is already full. For this reason, it will not increase nor decrease the level of discreditation he already has, even if Prisa speaks well of him] (Avui, 1 May 2005).

In these cases, the change experienced by -metre ‘-meter’ is again not semantic since these lexical innovations preserve the sense of ‘measure’, even if they do not refer to an existing device designed for this purpose. In fact, the measurement that the new words refer to is taken holistically, but not quantitively, because they do not refer to a real device or tool. There are some new designations that do refer to a particular device or machine, but they do not belong to specialized contexts in the field of science or technical science. One example is xutòmetre, an inflatable soccer free kick goal with targets of different points and sizes (Diputació de Barcelona)4. As for aplaudímetre, in some contexts, it also refers to a real device that ‘measures the duration and intensity of the applauses’ (CCMA 2006).

(13)

Un cop oberts els accessos, els socis i aficionats podran gaudir d’una actuació del grup infantil Macedònia i de diverses activitats infantils i familiars (un xutòmetre, un 3 × 3 de futbol, un taller de perruques, etc.) [once the access is open, the members and the fans will enjoy a performance by the children’s group Macedònia and many children’s and familiar activities (a xutòmetre ‘to shoot + -meter’, a football 3 × 3, a wig workshop, etc.)] (Ara, 13 May 2011).

(14)

L’aplaudímetre estableix, al final del congrés, la popularitat dels polítics i dels seus discursos, mesurant la intensitat i la durada de les ovacions [an aplaudímetre ‘clapometer’ establishes, at the end of the conference, the popularity of politicians and their speeches, since it measures the intensity and duration of the ovations] (Avui, 11 October 1995).

Morphological restrictions are also broken here, because the bases are not words or combination forms from Latin or Greek, but existing words in Catalan or from other languages of contact. The bases of these resulting forms can either be nouns, emocionòmetre (emoció ‘emotion’); verbs, cagòmetre (cagar ‘to shit’); or proper nouns globusdoròmetre (Globus d’Or ‘Golden Globe award’). In all these cases, they maintain the medial connecting vowel between the two components of the compound. Finally, a pragmatic change also takes place, as the words resulting from this new pattern are generally used in informal and colloquial contexts. They can be considered expressive, since they show irony and humor as well as pejorative connotations. In this sense, the bases for some of these lexical innovations are also colloquial or slang words.

3.2. WFR and Examples in Other Languages: English, French, and Spanish

In this section, I examine whether the transgressions of WFRs observed in some bound morphemes in Catalan might also be experienced in other languages. Each subsection is devoted to one of the three morphemes under analysis: -ism, -itis, and -meter.

3.2.1. -ism

In English, French and Spanish, the suffix coming from Latin -ismus (-ism, in English; -isme, in French; and -ismo, in Spanish) is used to create nouns that refer to a doctrine or movement. This is supported by different lexicographical sources.

In English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED):

2a.

‘Forming the name of a system of theory or practice, religious, ecclesiastical, philosophical, political, social, etc., sometimes founded on the name of its subject or object, sometimes on that of its founder’ (OED). For example, Buddhism, Catholicism, Liberalism, or Puritanism.

2b.

‘More of the nature of class-names or descriptive terms, for doctrines or principles […]’ (OED). For example, agnosticism, feminism, imperialism, or romanticism.

In French, as it appears in Le Grand Robert de la langue française:

• ‘[…] il forme des termes politiques et sociaux, avec la valeur axiologique de «système d’opinions» ou de «attitude, tendance»; des termes de philosophie, de religion ou de science («doctrine» ou «croyances»); des termes littéraires et artistiques («écoles, tendances») [it creates political and social terms, with the axiological value of “system of opinions” or “attitude, tendency”; philosophical, religious, or scientific terms (“doctrine” or “beliefs”); literary or artistic terms (“school, tendencies”)].’ (Grand Robert).
• ‘Une deuxième valeur du suffixe est celle d’«attitude et activité» conforme à la tendance ou au modèle qu’exprime la base (bovarysme, constructivisme, etc.) ou favorable à une personne, un groupe humain, etc. (américanisme […]) ou «activité quelconque» (canoéisme, etc.) [a second value of this suffix is “attitude and activity” according to the tendency or model expressed by the base (bovarism, constructivism, etc.) or favorable towards someone, a group of people, etc. (Americanism […]) or “any activity” (canoéisme ‘canoeing’, etc.)]’ (Grand Robert).

Finally, regarding the Royal Spanish Academy’s Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE):

1.

Forma sustantivos que suelen significar ‘doctrina’, ‘sistema’, ‘escuela’ o ‘movimiento’. Socialismo, platonismo, impresionismo [it creates nouns that tend to refer to “doctrine”, “system”, “school”, or “movement”. Socialism, Platonism, impressionism].

2.

Forma sustantivos que significan ‘actitud’, ‘tendencia’ o ‘cualidad’. Egoísmo, individualismo, puritanismo [it creates nouns that refer to “activity”, “tendency”, or “quality”. Egoísmo ‘selfishness’, individualism, puritanism].

3.

Forma sustantivos que designan actividades deportivas. Atletismo, alpinismo [it creates nouns that designate sporting activities. Atletismo ‘athletics’, alpinism].

 

[…]

5.

Forma sustantivos que designan ‘situación’ o ‘condición’. Marginalismo, pauperismo [it creates nouns that designate “situation” or “condition”. Marginalism, pauperism].

Since the different languages analyzed here share the use of the same suffix from Latin, it is not surprising that they also create lexical innovations that break the pragmatic restrictions on productivity. In fact, the OED includes this information as the note of sense 2b:

“These lead the way to nonce-formations of many kinds, often humorous, of which the following are specimens, chiefly from newspapers: anti-slaveryism, anti-state- churchism, anti-whole-hogism, can’t-help-myself-ism, know-nothingism, Little-Ped dlingtonism, L.S. Deism (after deism), nothing-arianism, 19th-century-ism, other- ism, P.R. B-ism, Primrose-leaguism, red-tapeism, Rule-Britanniaism, self-ism”

(OED).

The examples included in the note are described as nonce formations since they tend to be ephemeral lexical innovations to satisfy the expressive intention of a particular communicative act. Moreover, some of them can be considered as belonging to informal or colloquial contexts, such as can’t-help-myself-ism, which contains a verbal phraseological unit as the base of the word. In French, the Grand Robert does not explicitly include this information, even though it mentions that it is a very productive suffix and some of the examples provided demonstrate this pragmatic effect:

• […] un des inventeurs du dilettantisme, du je m’enfichisme, de beaucoup de mots en «isme» à la mode chez nos snobinettes […] [one of the inventors of dilettantism, of je m’enfichisme ‘I-don’t-care-ism’, and of many words with -ism that are fashionable among snobs] PROUST, Sodome et Gomorrhe, Pl., t. II, p. 876. (Grand Robert).

In Spanish, no information is given about this possibility. Nevertheless, some instances are already registered in the dictionary. This is the case of buenismo (bueno ‘good’ + -ismo ‘-ism’), which was included in DLE, in 2017, with the pragmatic remark “mainly used with a derogatory sense”.

3.2.2. -itis

Both the Oxford English Dictionary, for English, and Le Grand Robert, for French, include two different uses of -itis, one from the medical domain, and another from general language. The first one creates nouns that designate an ‘inflammation’, such as in appendicitis, bronchitis, gastritis, or pneumonitis (OED), in English, and angiocardite ‘angiocarditis’, bronchite ‘bronchitis’, hépatite ‘hepatitis’, and méningite ‘meningitis’ (Grand Robert), in French, where -itis takes the form of -ite. This sense is also registered in the Diccionario de la lengua española, for Spanish, which provides examples such as otitis and hepatitis (DLE); however, only in the English and French lexicographical sources can the non-medical use of -itis be identified:

‘In irregular trivial use applied to a state of mind or tendency fancifully regarded as a disease’ (OED). For example, in fiscalitis, suffragitis, bushrangeritis, or electionitis.

‘Ce suffixe médical (grec -itis) est parfois employé pour désigner des habitudes, des manies, que l’on compare plaisamment à des maladies. Ex.: adjectivite (R. Le Bidois), n. f., «manie d’employer les adjectifs»; réunionite, «manie d’organiser (ou de participer à) des réunions» (this medical suffix (Greek -itis) is occasionally used to designate habits, obsessions, that can be compared humorously with diseases. Ex.: adjectivite ‘adjective + -itis’ (R. Le Bidois), f. n., “an obsession with the use adjectives”; réunionite ‘meeting + -itis’, “an obsession with the organization of (or participation in) meetings”).’

(Grand Robert)

In both sources, there are examples of this type of creation that are registered in an independent entry. An example in English is telephonitis, in which -itis is attached to the noun telephone. The first use of this word appeared in The New York Times in 1902, since this word was originally and chiefly used in the United States, meaning ‘a compulsive desire to make telephone calls’. Furthermore, this entry shows some other pragmatic remarks referring to the register, since it is used in a “colloquial and humorous” sense (OED):

(15)

“Telephonitis is a widespread disease among businessmen in the down-town district”.

In French, the word réunionite, which is made up from réunion ‘meeting’ + -ite ‘-itis’ is registered in Le Grand Robert with the sense of ‘goût exagéré pour les reunions; abus des reunions’ (‘exaggerated taste for meetings; excess of meetings’) (Grand Robert), and it was first used mid-20th century. It also has a pragmatic remark to specify that réunionite is used ‘plaisant: emploi qui vise à être drôle, amusant, mais sans ironie’ (‘humorous: use that is aiming for being funny, entertaining, but without irony’) (Grand Robert).

Although in Spanish, this use of the bound morpheme -itis is not mentioned in its lexicographical entry, some of the examples given represent its non-medical meaning (Llopart-Saumell forthcoming). This is the case of titulitis (título ‘title’, ‘certificate’ + -itis), defined as the act of ‘giving excessive importance to titles and study certificates to ensure someone’s knowledge’ (DLE). The pragmatic remarks refer to the colloquial and derogatory use of titulitis. The first occurrence of this word also comes from the press, since it was first used in 1980 in the Spanish newspaper El País (CREA):

“No entiende, en un primer momento, el sentido de la expresión titulitis, con la que nos referimos en España a la excesiva demanda de títulos de carácter universitario, pero acaba señalando que “en la Unión Soviética también se vivió en cierto modo este problema […]” [Initially, he does not understand the meaning of the expression titulitits ‘certificate + -itis’, which is used in Spain to refer to the excessive demand of university certificates. However, at the end he points out that “in the Soviet Union they also used to have this problem”].”

Julià Luna (2015) also makes a distinction between the specialized pattern and the colloquial and humorous pattern, which she refers to as “an exaggerated attitude towards a particular reality” (Julià Luna 2015, p. 151).

3.2.3. -meter

In the aformentioned English, French, and Spanish dictionaries, the combination form -meter is registered with the sense of ‘measure’ (Grand Robert) or, more precisely, of ‘measuring instrument’, such as in densimeter or urinometer (OED); graphomètre ‘graphometer’ or inductomètre ‘inductometer’ (Grand Robert); pluviómetro ‘pluviometer’ or termómetro ‘thermometer’ (DLE). Although the OED’s definition mentions, in brackets, that -meter can appear in domains other than the technical and scientific (“also in extended uses”), it displays no example of this extended use in the 301 entries that contain this combination form. In French, however, the word applaudimètre ‘clapometer’, from the verb applaudir ‘to clap’, is registered in Le Grand Robert with the sense ‘appréciation des applaudissements, du succès (d’un spectacle, d’un personnage officiel, etc.) comme par une machine’ (‘assessment of the applauses, the success (of a show, a VIP, etc.) as if it was a machine’) (Grand Robert), identified for the first time in 1950. This definition confirms that applaudimètre does not refer to a measuring instrument (although this type of instrument now exists), but with the use of the combination form -mètre ‘-meter’, it only pretends to do so. This entry also contains a pragmatic remark to point out that this word is an example of language playfulness. Clapometer can be found in other English lexicographical resources than the OED; in the Cambridge Dictionary (Cambridge University Press 2021), it is defined as ‘a device used to measure how popular someone or something is by the amount that people clap, especially on television programs’, and examples are provided:

(16)

The audience loved his performance and the needle on the clapometer shot up.

(17)

The winner of tonight’s talent contest will be decided by clapometer.

The webpage Lexico, powered by Oxford (Lexico n.d.), points out that the first English use of this word dates back to the 1970s in the British magazine TV Times. The Spanish equivalent of applaudimètre and clapometer is also used with the form aplaudímetro and it was first documented in the press in 1994 (CREA). As I mentioned above, this example can also be found in Catalan, both under the form aplaudímetre and aplausòmetre (BOBNEO). According to all the data in the different languages, it is plausible that the French word applaudímetre is the seminal item of this new pattern of -meter out of the languages analyzed so far. In fact, the combination form -meter is conceived as a borrowing from French -mètre (OED):

“The generation of scientific and technical terms containing this element appears to have originated in Middle French in the second half of the 16th century. The seminal item was perhaps altimètre (originally an adjective designating a geometrical instrument, probably borrowed from or formed after post-classical Latin altimeter […]”

(OED)

In English the first use of the combination form -meter is not registered until the 17th century. For example, in thermometer, graphometer, or pantometer; all of them, however, were based on French models.

3.3. A Diachronic Overview

The Computerized Corpus of Old Catalan (CICA n.d.) ranges from the 11th to the 17th century. It contains 18 words that end with -isme ‘-ism’, but no instances of words created with -itis or -metre ‘-meter’. Most of the words ending in -ism are not created with the suffix, but rather come from Latin. That is the case of critianisme (also the forms crestianisme, chrestianisme; spelling variants from Catalan cristianisme) ‘Christianity’, from Latin christianismus; or criptojudaisme ‘Crypto-Judaism’, from the Late Latin judaismus (GDLC).

The next period, from 1601 to 1832, is registered in the Computerized Corpus of Modern Catalan (CIGCMod). It contains 5 words that end in -isme ‘-ism’, but only judaisme ‘Judaism’ contains this suffix. In this corpus no examples could be found with the combination forms -itis nor -metre ‘-meter’.

Finally, the Computerized Textual Corpus of Catalan Language (CTILC), which goes from 1833 until the 21st century, does show examples created with -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘meter’, and across these words, there are instances of each of the three new patterns. Seven different lexical innovations are found with -itis (see

Table 1. Lexical innovations with the combination form -itis registered in the CTILC.

Word	Base Morpheme	First Occurrence (CTILC)
espanyolitis	espanyol -a ‘Spanish’	2000 [La cultura del gust als Països Catalans, Jaume Fàbrega]
intelectualitis	intel·lectual ‘intellectual’	1904 [Art i literatura, Joan Alcover]
localitis	local ‘local’	1974 [Butlletí de l’Institut d’Estudis Eivissencs]
opinionitis	opinió ‘opinion’	2011 [Ara newspaper]
reunionitis	reunió ‘meeting’	2010 [La gestió del temps, Iñaki Bustínduy]
subvencionitis	subvenció ‘subsidy’	1992 [Allò que no se sol dir de la normalització lingüística, Josep M. Aymà]
trampitis	trampa ‘trap’	1863 [El Mole]

).

The first example of this new word-formation pattern with -itis is from the second half of the 19th century, in 1863. The lexical innovation trampitis, from trampa ‘trap’, is used as an adjective in the noun phrase “especulador trampitis” (‘trapitis speculator’). This neologism appeared in the Valencian publication El Mole, considered to be “one of the first and most relevant journalistic publications in the Catalan language, which used a popular and modern linguistic model, based on contemporaneous popularist literature” (Martí Mestre 2018, p. 287). Martí Mestre (2018) carried out an analysis of the words created by suffixation in the Valencian press of the 19th century and based his study on El Mole. He points out that this periodical reflected not only the language of the time, but that it also contained lexical innovations created by using the internal word-formation mechanisms of Catalan (Martí Mestre 2018, p. 287). In his analysis of trampitis, the linguist details that -itis is indeed used in a humorous manner (Martí Mestre 2018, p. 309).

Another example of this new pattern, intelectualitis, is from the very beginning of the 20th century, in 1904, and it appears in a book about art and literature. The next cases of this pattern are not documented until the second half of the 20th century: localitis (local ‘local’), in 1974, and subvencionitis (subvenció ‘subsidy’), in 1992. The three remaining words, however, are from the 21st century: espanyolitis (espanyol -a ‘Spanish’), reunionitis (reunió ‘meeting’), and opinionitis (opinió ‘opinion’). In fact, reunionitis converges with one of the examples registered in the French dictionary Le Grand Robert, since it was first used in French during the mid-20th century and has been adopted by other languages, such as Catalan, Spanish (BOBNEO; Factiva), and even Portuguese. There are also cases in English (Factiva), although the word reunion is not as frequent as the unmarked form meeting (OED). As for the Catalan press between 1989 and 2021, the BOBNEO contains 37 different transgressive neologisms with -itis (types), with a total of 47 occurrences (tokens).

Regarding the combination form -metre, four different words are found in the CTILC (see

Table 2. Lexical innovations with the combination form -metre ‘-meter’ registered in the CTILC.

Word	Base Morpheme	First Occurrence (CTILC)
argentòmetre	argent ‘silver’	1986 [El somriure del tigre, Salvador Oliva]
escudellòmetre	escudella ‘porringer’, also a ‘Catalan traditional dish’	1902 [El poble gris, Santiago Rusiñol]
filosòmetre	filosofia ‘philosophy’	2004 [El poeta i altres contes, Vicenç Pagès Jordà]
viatjadròmetre	viatjar ‘to travel’	1917 [En Josepet de Sant Celoni, Santiago Rusiñol]

):

Two of the examples are from the beginning of the 20th century: escudellòmetre (escudella ‘porringer’, also a ‘Catalan traditional dish’), from 1902, and viatjadròmetre (viatjar ‘to travel’), in 1917. Both lexical innovations come from the literary works of the renown Catalan artist and writer Santiago Rusiñol, one of the leaders of Catalan Modernism. In fact, although escudellòmetre is not registered in the DIEC, it can be found in the GDLC with the following definition: ‘[u]tensil made of aluminum used by travelers, consisting of two or more recipients that fit together that includes an ethyl alcohol stove to prepare or heat up food’ (GDLC). Despite retaining the sense of ‘instrument’ or ‘tool’, the reference to ‘measure’ or ‘measurement’ is not present; therefore, it can be argued that escudellòmetre transgresses semantic restrictions. More occurrences of this form can be found in CTILC, most of them related to the domain of camping. For example, two occurrences come from the publications El camping (1934) and Camping (1964).

The other two examples were identified for the first time during the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the current millennium: argentòmetre (argent ‘silver’), in 1986, and filosòmetre (filosofia ‘philosophy’), in 2004. What both creations have in common is that they come from literary publications. Argentòmetre is used in the poetry book El somriure del tigre ‘The Tiger’s Smile’ by Catalan translator and poet Salvador Oliva. In each line where argentòmetre is used, a word with argent ‘silver’ as a base also appears, such as argenter ‘silversmith’, or a word that begins with argent-, such as Argentina (the Latin American country). In this case, the motivation to create argentòmetre is not semantic but mainly aesthetic, so as to create a rhetorical effect for the reader:

Sonet de l’argenter sense argent

L’argentòmetre diu que tu, d’argent,

en tens com de Malvines l’Argentina,

i, tot i ser argenter, tota la gent

diu que, en comptes d’argent, tens purpurina.

(El somriure del tigre, Salvador Oliva (1986))

Since the CTILC contains 2651 different lemmas created with the suffix -isme ‘-ism’, it has not been possible to specify the number of words that illustrate the new pattern of this suffix. In fact, this data confirms that the suffix -isme (‘-ism’) in Catalan is very productive, which also corroborates the findings provided by the literature reviewed so far, not only in Catalan, but also in the other languages analyzed in this study; therefore, it is not surprising that the new pattern of -isme ‘-ism’ that deviates from the pragmatic restrictions is also much more productive than that of -metre ‘-meter’ and -itis according to the results provided by the CTILC (see

Table 3. Some lexical innovations with the suffix -isme ‘-ism’ registered in the CTILC.

Word	Base Morpheme	First Occurrence (CTILC)
aniversarisme	aniversari ‘aniversary’	1991 [El Temps]
bonisme	bo ‘good’	1998 [Una política de civilització, Josep Subirats and Concepció Villar]
centrifuguisme	centrifugar ‘to spin’	1969 [Introducció a la història de la Corona d’Aragó, Joan Reglà]
cineclubisme	cine club ‘film club’	2011 [Ara newspaper]
devocionisme	devoció ‘devotion’	1926 [L’escultura catalana moderna, Feliu Elias i Bracons]
enxufisme	enxufe ‘connections’	1933 [Madrid, Josep Pla]
espanyolerisme	espanyol -a ‘spanish’	1946 [Quaderns de l’exili]
genialisme	genial ‘genius’	1971 [Miró llegit, Alexandre Cirici Pellicer]
grollerisme	groller -a ‘rude’	1917 [Les sirenes dels joves intel·ligents, Felip Cortiella]
guineuisme	guineu ‘fox’	1934 [Alt Pallars. Quinzenal portantveu del Centre Republicà Català]
jocfloralisme	Jocs Florals ‘Floral Games contest’	1980 [Literatura catalana dels anys setanta, Àlex Broch]
manipulacionisme	manipulació ‘manipulation’	1998 [Una política de civilització, Josep Subirats and Concepció Villar]
panxa-contentisme	panxacontent -a ‘carefree’	1922 [El novel·lista català Alfons Maseras, Cristòfor de Domènech i Vilanova]
panxisme	panxa ‘belly’	1937 [La ideologia i la barbàrie dels rebels espanyols, Ramon Vinyes]
projectivisme	projecte ‘project’	1966 [El poble gris, Josep Pla]
senzillisme	senzill -a ‘simple’	1927 [Visions de Catalunya, Joan Santamaria]
utilisme	útil ‘useful’	2011 [Adéu a la Universitat, Jordi Llovet]
xarlatanisme	xarlatà -ana ‘chatterbox’, ‘trickster’	1921 [Islamisme, Josep Carner]
xavacanisme	xavacà -ana ‘tasteless’	1876 [Teatre catalá, Francesc Ubach i Vinyeta]
xulisme	xulo -a ‘cocky’	1926 [Ramon Turró, Leandre Cervera]

).

The first word representing this new WFR dates from the second half of the 19th century (1876) and it was instantiated in the form xavacanisme (xavacà -ana ‘tasteless’). The base xavacà -ana is not registered in the DIEC because it is an adapted loanword from the Spanish chavacano, which was first used in Catalan texts in 1736 (GDLC). The origin of this word is uncertain (DLE), but originally it was used in Peninsular or Iberian Spanish to designate the ‘creole language based on Spanish, but with the grammatical structure of the native languages spoken in Mindanao and other islands of the Philippines’ (DLE). It is possible that after referring to this language, the adjective chabacano -na adopted a new general meaning used to qualify something or someone as ‘rude’ or ‘tasteless’ (DLE). In fact, this is the definition that appears in the Catalan dictionary, GDLC, and one that can be observed in the examples provided by the CTILC.

Instances from the first half of the 20th century are also frequent, and some of them contain a loanword as a base. For example, enxufisme (enxufe ‘connections’), xarlatanisme (xarlatà -ana ‘charlatan’), and xulisme (xulo -a ‘cocky’). Enxufisme contains the word enxufe, from the Spanish enchufe, in the sense of ‘position or destination that someone gets with no achievements, but thanks to connections or political influence’ (DLE), which is considered a derogatory word used in colloquial contexts (DLE). The lexical innovation xarlatanisme is made from xarlatà -ana, originally a loanword from Italian ciarlatano which is used in Catalan in the sense of ‘chatterbox’ and ‘trickster’ (GDLC). Finally, in xulisme, the word xulo -a, from Spanish chulo -a, is mainly used as an adjective with the sense of ‘cocky’ (DLE). Enxufisme and xarlatanisme come from the literary production of two renowned Catalan writers of the 20th century: Josep Carner and Josep Pla. Josep Carner was a poet, writer, and translator, considered to be the greatest exponent of the poetry of Catalan Noucentisme. Moreover, the novels written by Josep Pla are still among the most read in Catalan; in fact, he published a great deal of literary works and was awarded with most of the Catalan literary prizes of his time, such as the Sant Jordi’s novel award in 1951.

Among the different instances, the words also use bases other than a simple noun or an adjective. Some of them are made up from a verb, such as centrifuguisme (centrifugar ‘to spin’); a nominal compound, such as cineclubisme (cine club ‘film club’); or a proper noun, jocfloralisme (Jocs Florals ‘Floral Games’), that refers to a Catalan literary award.

4. Discussion

Linguistic change and variation are inherent features of any living language, and native speakers of a language do not speak the same way from one generation to the next. As a result, the linguistic norm of a language, which is not only understood as the prescriptive norm, but also as the normal production of the language system (Coseriu 1952, p. 51) might change as well. Regarding the lexicon, Dressler (1981, p. 427) declares that “the most common type of deviation are neologisms formed with productive word formation rules, which results in a deviation from lexical norms”; however, in this paper, I have studied lexical innovations in Catalan created with the suffixes -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’, that do not follow the WFRs since they deviate from the norm. The norm or, in this case, the WFRs, provide the pattern to create new words. Consequently, speakers know which morphemes can be added to a given type of base, what the resulting word would mean, what contexts it could be used in, and so on; however, the WFRs needed to create words such as caradurisme (caradura ‘rascal’ + -isme ‘-ism’), participacionitis (participació ‘participation’ + -itis), and il·lusiòmetre (il·lusió ‘excitment’ + -metre ‘-meter’), cannot be found either in grammar books or in dictionaries. For this reason, the resulting forms tend to draw speakers’ attention (Llopart-Saumell forthcoming).

The fact that these transgressions of WFRs in Catalan are becoming increasingly frequent in use, as they can be found in the bank of neologisms in the Observatori de Neologia, they call for a new status: not to be regarded as transgressions anymore, but as a sign of linguistic change. They should be considered new WFRs to be added to the morphology chapter of grammar books and dictionaries. The three diachronic corpora of Catalan that cover the time period from the 11th century until the second decade of the 21st century show that the examples of the new WFRs of -isme ‘-ism’ and -itis can be found as early as the second half of the 19th century, and -metre ‘-meter’ can be found from the very beginning of the 20th century. These first examples were mainly used in literary texts. Indeed, some of the first examples of these linguistic changes are found in the literary production of renowned writers and poets in the Catalan language, such as Santiago Rusiñol, Josep Pla, and Josep Carner. This corroborates that the poetic function of language, from Jakobson’s functions of language (Jakobson 1984), makes literary writing in Catalan the richest and most complete of languages:

En su actividad lingüística, el individuo conoce o no conoce la norma y tiene mayor o menor conciencia del sistema. [...] Los grandes creadores de lengua ―como Dante, Quevedo, Cervantes, Góngora, Shakespeare, Puskin― rompen conscientemente la norma (que es algo como el ‘gusto de la época’ en el arte) y, sobre todo, utilizan y realizan en el grado más alto las posibilidades del sistema: [...] un gran poeta ha utilizado todas posibilidades que le ofrece la lengua [Regarding the linguistic activity, speakers know or do not know the norm, and they have a higher or lower conscience of the (language) system. […] Those that are considered great creators of language, such as Dante, Quevedo, Cervantes, Góngora, Shakespeare, or Puskin, consciously break the norm (something that in art is understood as the ‘taste of the time’). They attain to the highest degree the possibilities of the system: […] a great poet uses all the possibilities offered by language].

(Coseriu 1952, pp. 59–60)

It is also true that the poetic function of language is used in some types of media texts or in certain sections of newspapers, especially in texts that belong to the journalistic macrostructure known as opinion journalism or journalistic commentary, as opposed to narrative journalism (Casals Carro 2011, p. 50; Martínez Albertos 1989, p. 64). These two macrostructures are devised to set apart opinion from information. In this sense, although the bank of neologisms from the Observatori de Neologia (BOBNEO) only uses texts from the press to identify the new units used in Catalan, it contains many examples of lexical innovations with -isme ‘-ism’, -itis, and -metre ‘-meter’ that follow the new WFRs of these bound morphemes. In other words, it is indisputable that the press is a useful text type to see how general language changes and evolves.

The findings in other languages show that the changes experienced by WFRs in the Catalan language are not language specific. On the one hand, the main dictionaries in English and French (OED and Grand Robert) hold explicit information about the use of the non-medical -itis to create new general words with a humorous pragmatic effect. In the case of -metre ‘-meter’, only the OED mentions that this combination form can be found “also in extended uses”, other than the scientific and technological domains, whereas in French, an example of this new WFR is already registered in Le Grand Robert: applaudimètre ‘clapometer’, and as such, it can be considered the seminal unit of this new rule. Finally, regarding the suffix -isme ‘-ism’, the OED specifies that it creates “nonce-formations of many kinds, often humorous, […] chiefly from newspapers”. In French, even if in Le Grand Robert there is no explicit information, some of the examples provided show this humorous effect. In Spanish, no explicit information can be found in the DLE, although it includes an entry with this new WFR, bonisme (‘good’ + -ism). These data reflect that this new pattern of -ism is also present throughout the languages reviewed in this paper.

The analysis of the changes experienced by these bound morphemes shows that, following Gaeta (2015), they break different types of restrictions. In general, all of them break the pragmatic restrictions because the resulting forms are used in general domains with a particular intention: to create a humorous effect on the receiver. In some cases, they also deviate from morphological restrictions, since the base morpheme does not correspond to the type of unit that the traditional bound morpheme usually combines with. This is a change that can either be related to the semantic domain of the base, as in the case of -itis or -isme, or to the etymology of the base, as happens with the combination forms -itis and -metre; however, only -itis deviates from its semantic restrictions because it loses the sense of ‘inflammation’, whereas the other two morphemes tend to retain the traditional meaning. This property of -itis, among others, encourages the hypothesis that -itis cannot be considered a combination form, but rather a new suffix taken directly from English, such as -ing and -gate (Bernal 2022).

In conclusion, all the data presented in this paper related to -isme, -itis, and -metre show that the supposed deviations of the WFRs experienced by these bound morphemes cannot be conceived as mere transgressions of the norm, but as changes experienced by the social or prescriptive norms of Catalan. The lexical innovations created using these bound morphemes cannot be considered individual transgressions, because they follow a particular pattern even if most of the resulting forms tend to be ephemeral.