LEXICAL BLENDING AS A MECHANISM OF LEXICAL INNOVATION IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH

Аннотация:

Lexical blending, a non-canonical yet increasingly prolific word formation process, occupies a significant role in the evolution of contemporary English. By integrating segments from two or more lexemes into a novel, semantically cohesive unit, blending serves as a locus of linguistic creativity and socio-cognitive relevance. This study investigates the morphological structures, phonological constraints, and semantic mechanisms underlying blend formation. It also explores the cognitive operations facilitating blend comprehension and the sociolinguistic contexts driving their proliferation. Drawing on recent examples from corpora and digital discourse, this paper demonstrates that lexical blending is not merely a peripheral phenomenon but a productive, rule-governed, and socially salient mechanism of neologism.