Our worries about ‘nonce’. Something more than a terminological problem

Rolando Bacchielli

Our worries about ‘nonce’. Something more than a terminological problem

Rolando Bacchielli

Abstract

This paper wants to call the attention of the linguistic and literary community to the need of reconsidering the notion of nonce and its relationship to parole, linguistic pragmatism and lexical innovation. Nonce is a creative act of thinking and language. It is a variable that can become an important ingredient of linguistic expression. The real issue that this paper intends to raise, therefore, is that nonce language should be held in greater consideration in the studies of the growth of English. Neither
historians of the language nor descriptivists have ever tried to evaluate how relevant nonce has been in the development of the English lexicon and to what extent it has improved its operative force.

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References

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