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Where New Words Are Born: Distributional Semantic Analysis of Neologisms and Their Semantic Neighborhoods

arXiv 2001.07740 ↗First posted 21 Jan 2020cs.CLcited by 17

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Abstract (arXiv)

We perform statistical analysis of the phenomenon of neology, the process by which new words emerge in a language, using large diachronic corpora of English. We investigate the importance of two factors, semantic sparsity and frequency growth rates of semantic neighbors, formalized in the distributional semantics paradigm. We show that both factors are predictive of word emergence although we find more support for the latter hypothesis. Besides presenting a new linguistic application of distributional semantics, this study tackles the linguistic question of the role of language-internal factors (in our case, sparsity) in language change motivated by language-external factors (reflected in frequency growth).

Key facts. Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 21 Jan 2020.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 2; 2022: 3; 2023: 2; 2024: 7; 2025: 0; 2026: 3.

17 papers.

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  1. 2023Can Large Language Models Transform Computational Social Science?cited by 245
  2. 2024NEO-BENCH: Evaluating Robustness of Large Language Models with Neologismscited by 19
  3. 2021Conceptual similarity and communicative need shape colexification: an experimental studycited by 14
  4. 2021Quantifying Cognitive Factors in Lexical Declinecited by 8
  5. 2024Silent Signals, Loud Impact: LLMs for Word-Sense Disambiguation of Coded Dog Whistlescited by 7
  6. 2023PWESuite: Phonetic Word Embeddings and Tasks They Facilitatecited by 6
  7. 2024Survey in Characterizing Semantic Changecited by 5
  8. 2024Verbing Weirds Language (Models): Evaluation of English Zero-Derivation in Five LLMscited by 5
  9. 2024Automating Sound Change Prediction for Phylogenetic Inference: A Tukanoan Case Studycited by 4
  10. 2022Tracing Semantic Variation in Slangcited by 3
  11. 2022Networks and Identity Drive Geographic Properties of the Diffusion of Linguistic Innovationcited by 1
  12. 2024The Role of Network and Identity in the Diffusion of Hashtagscited by 1
5 more
  1. 2026Metaphors' journeys across time and genre: tracking the evolution of literary metaphors with temporal embeddingscited by 1
  2. 2022Non-Parametric Temporal Adaptation for Social Media Topic Classificationcited by 0
  3. 2024Detecting Turkish Synonyms Used in Different Time Periodscited by 0
  4. 2026From sunblock to softblock: Analyzing the correlates of neology in published writing and on social mediacited by 0
  5. 2026KoNeoBench: A Curated Evaluation Dataset for LLM Understanding of Korean Neologismscited by 0