Covid-19 Pandemic, an agent of productivity and creativity in English; a fiction or a reality.

Abstract

This paper discussed how Covid-19, a global pandemic has made the English Language more productive and creative despite its devastating effects on the world’s economy. Itwent further to look at the various word-formation processes such as clipping, acronyms, blending, derivation, back-formation, conversion, borrowing, compounding, coinage, affixation, and reduplication. The paper equally discussed some of the constraints or restrictionson word-formation rules in EnglishLanguage. In as much as the native speakers try to create new lexemes in order to broaden the scope of the lexicon of their language, certain uncontrollable factors prevent them from achieving their intended purpose. Technically, these predicaments are referred to as constraints or restrictions. Linguistically, these factors operate within the aspects of phonology, semantics, and morphology.The restrictions to productivity in the English Language are a phonological restriction, semantic restriction, morphological restriction, and synonymy blocking. The paper explained each of these factors and gave examples where necessary for a better understanding.Some of the new words and expressions coined within the era of the coronavirus were stated and explained accordingly. In a bid to vividly describe human activities and experiences in this era ofthe global canker, certain new words and expressions have been created for this purpose. The paper equally took into consideration the word class of the new words and expressions, the word category within which they fall into and the word-formation process used to create each of them.Finally, the study identifiedthe specific word-formation processes used in coining those new words and expressions as compounding, coinage, and prefixation. It was revealed that compounding as a word-formation process was used to create the highest number of new words, followed by coinage and lastly prefixation.In percentage wise, compounding had sixty-three point six four percent (63.64%), coinage had twenty-seven point two seven percent (27.27%) while nine point zero nine percent (9.09%) went to prefixation. The purpose of creating these new words and termswas to get adequate vocabulary to name and describe occurrences surrounding us in this time of the pandemic. ( Merriam-Webster’s Words of the Week, 24/12/2021)says that the new wordscreated within the era of coronavirus are: covidiot,covideo, covexit, the index case, index patient, patient zero, contact tracing, super spreader, community spread, social distancing, and self-quarantine. The study identified eleven (11) words/expressions as new terms created within the period of the pandemic. The descriptive research design was used as a design in the study to describe the new terms. Other potential researchers were recommended to investigate to find out the employment and economic empowerment of individuals in this era of the global epidemic since people were seen everywhere selling nose masks and hand sanitizers. The paper finally recommended that other interested researchers should find out why some word formation processes are so productive than others.