Особливості словотворення неологізмів-іменників в українській мові ХХІ сторіччя

The article studies the main features of those newly coined noun word formations typical of 21st‑century Ukrainian. The research material comprises more than 2,000 new words registered by the author in Internet discourse (websites, blogs, social networks), various electronic and paper media, dictionaries of new vocabulary, some literary texts and partly items attested in colloquial speech within the specified period. The author analyses all possible ways of word formation characteristic of newly coined nouns in modern Ukrainian. The morphological way of forming noun derivatives has proven to be of significant dominance. The paper also analyses the most productive ways of noun‑neologism formation, namely: suffixation, prefixation, various types of abbreviation, and univerbation. It has been noted that within recent decades, a significant quantitative increase of the lexical units formed by word formation, stem formation, and telescoping has occurred. Within this period, the prefix‑suffix and non‑affix morphological subtypes of word formation are registered as being the least productive. Among the non‑morphological ways of word formation, lexical‑syntactic and lexical‑semantic ones (i.e., semantic derivation) are defined as the most productive. It is emphasized that extralinguistic factors are quite important in the processes of semantic neologism derivation, while often being viewed as dominant since, as is known, major changes in language occur in periods characterized by significant social dynamics such as times of revolutions, coups or military, interreligious and international conflicts, etc. The Russian‑Ukrainian war having caused the formation of a number of semantic innovations can serve as a valid illustration of this process. The paper also shows that conversion is typical only of substantivised adjectives, mainly of those denoting individual food joints, other buildings and venues. A characteristic feature of the derivational processes for the period under study is a significant activation of mixed word‑formation, since both the word building stems borrowed a long time ago and newly borrowed stems, word‑forming affixes and affixoids play an increasingly important role here. The paper also advances the notion that nominal innovations serve as important “signs of the present time” due to the primary influence of extralinguistic factors; with these nouns reflecting the linguistic creativity of the Ukrainian people.