Neologisms in the French language in the field of ecology in 2024-2025 (a review of explanatory dictionaries)

The aim of the study is to identify the semantic and word-formation features of neologisms in the field of ecology in the French language based on the analysis of new vocabulary included in the explanatory dictionaries Le Petit Robert de la langue française and Le Petit Larousse illustré in 2024–2025. The article examines 18 new ecological terms extracted from the online versions of these French-language dictionaries, providing their translations and interpretations. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the identification of the most productive word-formation models and the structural and semantic characteristics of French ecological neologisms that have enriched explanatory dictionaries over the past two years. The analysis of neologisms in terms of their word-formation potential demonstrated that the creation of new ecological nominations follows traditional derivational models typical of the French language. Semantically, three subgroups of neologisms are distinguished: words denoting phenomena and objects harmful to ecology; words reflecting environmental protection measures; and neologisms representing human lifestyles in the context of attitudes toward nature conservation. By formation type, ecological neolexemes are divided into derivational, semantic, and borrowed neologisms. The results showed that lexical neologisms prevail over semantic ones, affixation is the most productive method of word formation, while abbreviation and semantic derivation are the least productive.