A Rhapsody of Words! Word formation in Shakespeare’s neologisms

Abstract

As the world commemorates the 400th anniversary of the passing of William Shakespeare, I find it fitting that my thesis examines the Bard’s status as a word coiner and his use of word formation methods to form the neologisms. My thesis answers the following three questions: 1. To what degree has William Shakespeare’s status as a coiner diminished due to the results of new research? 2. Do words coined in the corpus of Shakespeare’s texts reveal any recognisable trends with regard to the word formation methods used? 3. Did Shakespeare strategically choose a certain category of character to give tongue to his neologisms? The aim of the thesis is to establish Shakespeare’s status as a neologiser, identify any discernible trends in his use of the methods of word formation available to him, and examine if the poet had a conscious strategy when distributing his neologisms among the different characters in his plays. My research for the thesis is primarily based on the OED Online ‘First Cited in Shakespeare’ list of 2015/2016. Some data is also obtained from the Open Source Shakespeare database.