Remarques sur le vocabulaire néologique chez Nicolae Filimon et I.L. Caragiale: emprunt lexical, calque, adaptation
Remarks on the Neologistic Vocabulary in Nicolae Filimon’s and I.L. Caragiale’s Writing: Lexical Loan, Loan Translation, Adaptation

Summary/Abstract: A case study on the entrance into the Romanian language of neological vocabulary (coming from Romance, especially French sources), over a long period in the 19th century, the present paper deals with the dynamics of that phenomenon in both quantitative and qualitative terms, focusing on the manner in which the words in question were adapted. The examples, drawn from the best-known pieces of prose writing by two prominent authors of the 1848-1890 period, N. Filimon and I. L. Caragiale, illustrate the degree of formal and / or semantic adaptation, the word formation mechanisms involved, as well as the relative status that such neologistic terms have gained in Romanian. The textual observations were likely to demonstrate that the neologistic terms that gained “full citizenship” in the language make up a prevalent category, no less than a number of derivational patterns (e.g., the suffix -itate < Fr. -ité, or Lat. -itatis). Other terms were preserved only in certain fixed phrases. Some meanings are rarely used today, while a number of lexical items have continued in Romanian only as obsolete terms. The cases of superficial formal adaptation (including phonetic and morphological aspects) are quite numerous. However, the most interesting part of the corpus lexical under analysis is the cases of calque (either semantic, structural, phraseological or grammatical). Sometimes, we deal with direct translation of phrases, starting from foreign models. Unlike the prose writings authored by Nicolae Filimon, I. L. Caragiale’s work offers the full image of French neologisms massively entering modern Romanian; the sheer size and the linguistic-cultural implications of this lexical influence would deserve a separate study. It can be noted that Caragiale, the great Romanian classic, did not let himself be carried away by the Frenchified torrent – which is mainly shown by his often ironic attitude. Many of the cases of calque that are exemplified are words and phrases that have not been preserved in Romanian: they have proved mere lexical ephemeral lexical items – very much like many anglicisms today.

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