How did COVID-19 impact the use of Japanese complex words with masuku ‘mask’ in 2020?

4.1 Compounds: overview

As Namiki and Kageyama (2016) note, non-Sino-Japanese-based compounds in Japanese are right-headed (cf. Williams 1981). Compounds with masuku ‘mask’ can be classed as non-Sino-Japanese-based, because they have an English loanword as a component. Therefore, I analyse them as right-headed for both X-masuku (shiro-masuku [white-mask] is a kind of ‘mask’) and masuku-Y compounds (masuku-erabi [mask-choosing] ‘choosing masks’ is a kind of ‘choosing’). This implies that compounds with masuku ‘mask’ form part of a network of words under right-headed compounds, as represented in Figure 1, assuming a hierarchical lexicon as posited in construction morphology (Booij 2010a). For ease of referencing, the hierarchy is divided into “levels”.

Figure 1:

Network of compounds with masuku ‘mask’.

In Figure 1, the top node contains an abstract schema for nominal compounds. Both components, X and Y, are variables, and part-of-speech category is indicated as N, given in subscript, covering nouns and verbal/adjectival nouns. The first level contains less abstract constructional schemas (represented within the angle brackets) which yield instantiations. Masuku-Y compounds appear on the left side of the network in the second level (marked by the ovals), and X-masuku compounds appear en masse in the third level on the right side of the network (marked by the rectangle).

4.2 Masuku-Y compounds

The first level of the hierarchy in Figure 1 contains constructional schemas such as those seen in (1a).

In (1a), the left of the double-headed arrow represents the form, and the right represents the meaning of the form; the subscript letters indicate the correspondence between the form and the meaning. Schema (1a) is partially abstract. While it contains a variable X, the head noun Y is specified as kēsu ‘case’, and the semantic relation between X and kēsu is specified as “for”. Sem stands for the meaning of X, which should be a tangible object. Schema (1a) is assumed to be part of the knowledge of language users based on several well-entrenched instances, such as megane-kēsu ‘glasses case’ and sumaho-kēsu ‘smartphone case’. Replacing X in (1a) with another word leads to the creation of a new compound. This is an example of a schema-based coinage, where language users access a constructional schema, (1a), to create a new compound such as masuku-kēsu ‘a case for masks’, seen in (1b) (cf. Booij 2019: 386). The example of masuku-ken ‘mask ticket’ in Figure 1 is another instance of a schema-based coinage where masuku ‘mask’ is used; this particular compound was created in response to mask shortages and refers to tickets to obtain masks that were issued by the local government.

A notable point about the masuku-Y compounds is that each is a hyponym of a different head noun, such as kēsu ‘case’ and ken ‘ticket’. This implies speakers access a different constructional schema to create each new masuku-Y compound. From a bird’s-eye view (Figure 1), a host of different constructional schemas line up in the first level of the hierarchy to the left, and from each, a branch shoots down to contain the instantiation of a new masuku-Y compound in the second level.

The drastic increase of the types of masuku-Y compounds in the 2020 data suggests the pandemic created a need to communicate on diversified situations and products involving masks. The data included tokens from different semantic groups, such as supply and demand (masuku-kizō ‘mask donation’), wearing (masuku-gimu ‘mask obligation’, masuku-kyohi ‘mask refusal’, masuku-keisatsu ‘mask police [self-righteous citizens who confront others to point out the improper wearing of their masks]’), related products (masuku-piasu ‘pierced [accessory] for masks’), life (masuku-seikatsu ‘mask life’), policy (masuku-gaikō ‘mask diplomacy’), health/beauty (masuku-are ‘rough dry skin [caused by wearing a] mask’), eating (masuku-kaishoku ‘dining together [while wearing a] mask’), among others.

4.3 X-masuku compounds

Unlike the masuku-Y compounds, the constellation of X-masuku compounds forms a small hierarchy of its own, on the right side of Figure 1, marked by the green rectangle with snipped corners, with the instantiations indicated by the brown rectangle. The first level contains a partially abstract constructional schema, shown in (2).

In (2), the only concrete item is the information of the head noun, masuku ‘mask’, leaving the semantic relation underspecified as “related to”, and the content of the non-head unspecified as X_i (sem _i). I posit this schema because I consider the X-masuku compounds are first grouped into conceptual subcategories, building on an insight from Radden and Panther (2004: 5) – “A compound evokes a conceptual network, or Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) (Lakoff 1987: 147)” – whereby a compound like screwdriver is associated with a network of concepts such as shape and material, and “certain elements of the ICM [are chosen] as components for the naming process” (2004: 7).

I suggest the term masuku ‘mask’ evokes conceptual ‘mask’ subcategories, such as material and maker. Only a few of these (material, purpose, and manner in the data set) were foregrounded before the pandemic, but more appeared as the pandemic continued, including maker, design, performance, wearer, shape/size, and colour (see Figure 2 for comparison). ^[4] For instance, the colour category was previously backgrounded because the prototype of Japanese masks is white; therefore, there was no particular need to communicate about the mask’s colour. As the situation changed, however, there was a need to distinguish colour.

Figure 2:

Examples of X-masuku compounds (2019 vs. 2020) classified into conceptual subcategories.

I assume each subcategory is defined in terms of a constructional schema, which language users access to coin new X-masuku compounds. Schema (3) shows the schema for the colour category, which leads to new coinage (with a mundane level of creativity), including kuro-masuku ‘black mask’ and pinku-masuku ‘pink mask (to promote cancer awareness)’, the co-hyponyms within the colour subcategory.

The dramatic increase in the number of types of X-masuku compounds in the 2020 data suggests the appearances of masks diversified, and most were given new names (see Figure 2), including meishi-masuku [name card-mask], a mask onto which one’s business card is printed in large font, and tēburumanā-masuku [table manner-mask], a mask with a handle to cover nose and mouth when talking while eating. These examples are nonce-compounds, but they give a glimpse into how people strive to adapt to new situations, in this case, innovating new types of masks.

4.4 Blends

Blends refer to “a combination of two or more forms, at least one of which has been shortened in the process of combination” (Algeo 1977: 48), as in brunch < breakfast + lunch. Although there were only 10 types (159 tokens) of blend-based words in the data, one is of great import, as it showcases how new words were born in 2020. The word in question is Abenomasuku (146 tokens),^[5] which refers to “one of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s signature COVID-19 policies of distributing two cloth masks per household as stores across the nation faced a shortage” (Osumi 2020). Alternatively, it can refer to the cloth masks themselves. While the coiner remains unknown, social media quickly disseminated “#Abenomasuku” when the policy was announced on 1 April 2020 (Wright 2021: 461). The coinage involved several characteristics that kindled the imagination of the populace: for example, the announcement was taken as an April fool joke; the two-per-household distribution was unwelcome, as it did not help families with three or more members; the mask was too small to cover the entire area of the mouth, nose, and chin.^[6] The hash-tagged coinage underscores not only pragmatic motivation, as it satirically criticizes the policy, but also sociocultural motivation, as it represents the group voice of the Japanese citizens who are affected by the lack of masks but are striving to wear them – properly-sized ones.

Abenomasuku appears to be an analogical formation modelled after Abenomikusu ‘Abenomics’,^[7] a blend of the family name of the prime minister at the time, ‘Abe’, and the final syllables of economics, as in (4a).^[8] It refers to the economic policies implemented by the government led by Mr. Abe and is a mock coinage based on an English “politician’s name + (o)nomics” blend, such as Obamanomics (Obama + economics) and Trumponomics (Trump + economics; cf. Bauer 2006: 77). As seen in (4b), in Japanese orthography, Abenomikusu ‘Abenomics’ is written using katakana (used to represent foreign words), even though the former prime minister’s family name would be normally written in kanji (Chinese characters used for content words), implying that Abenomikusu is conceived as a new independent foreign word.

In Abenomikusu, the element no is simply a phonological sequence that originates in economics, bearing no meaning. But this no is reanalysed as the Japanese genitive particle no (‘of’), creating a possessive phrase – Abe no mikusu, literally ‘Abe’s mikusu’ – even though mikusu is a non-word. Then, mikusu “mics” is replaced by masuku ‘mask’ (a pun based on a coarse phonological similarity between the two), creating a licit noun phrase, Abe no masuku, meaning ‘Abe’s mask’. This phrase would normally be written as “阿部のマスク”, combining kanji for Abe, hiragana (often used to write grammatical elements) for no ‘of’, and katakana for masuku ‘mask’, and pronounced as a phrase with two phonological units, as in [[Abe no] [masuku]].^[9] But the newly coined term, Abenomasuku (アベノマスク) is represented by katakana, in parallel with Abenomikusu (アベノミクス), and accented as a word, as in /Abenoma^↓suku/ (with the location of the pitch accent is indicated by the down arrow after the accented vowel /a/).

Notably, Abenomasuku participated in the development of further neologisms. As the Abenomasuku masks started to be circulated, -nomasuku became a “splinter” (Berman 1961: 279):^[10] “a part of a word that, due to some reanalysis of the structure of the original word, is interpreted as meaningful, and is then subsequently used in the creation of new words” (Bauer 2006: 77). Differently stated, the splinter -nomasuku was used to create new blends and adopted into a new constructional schema, as in (5).

As shown in the second and third lines of (5), the form-meaning representation contains information on phonology and orthography: the sequence is accented as a word, and the entire sequence is to be written in katakana. That language users had knowledge of this schema is evidenced by various new coinage in the data, including seijikanomasuku ‘politician’s mask’ and anenomasuku ‘my sister’s mask’.

As more varieties of the -nomasuku blends circulated among the speech community, further neologisms developed, as in (6a). Although this is a nonce-formation, it should be noted here, as it illuminates another way a network of words expands in response to a newly created sociopolitical/sociocultural environment.

Example (6a) shows a creative instantiation of (5), where no, with the literal meaning ‘of’, is replaced by another sequence to, with the literal meaning ‘and’, and X is replaced by ame ‘candy’, creating a new form ametomasuku (アメトマスク) ‘candy-and-mask’. It is a product name (candies and a mask that are gift-packed together), coined by a Japanese sweets company in an attempt to improve in-store sales that plummeted after the “stay home” call from the government.^[11]

The linguistic acuity of this coinage is that the coiner not only detected the phonological similarity between Abe and ame ‘candy’ (the company’s product) but also innovated a new variant by replacing the particle-like no with another particle, to ‘and’. This illustrates that the development of a new network of words occurs in two ways. On the one hand, co-hyponyms can be created from a constructional schema by paradigmatically replacing the variable with another word based on (5), and on the other hand, a new word can be created via analogy as in (6a). The eventual circulation of more instances of the same kind can spur the rise of a new constructional schema (6b), leading to potential coinage of co-hyponyms of (6a), such as mametomasuku ‘beans and masks’ (unattested), as a name for bean sweets gift-packed with a mask.

A graphic representation of the processes creating ametomasuku from the English X-(o)nomics blends is shown in Figure 3: the part above the thick line represents the pre-pandemic word formation, and the part below the thick line represents the mid-pandemic evolution of -nomasuku blends.^[12]

Figure 3:

Partial sketch of expansion of nomasuku blends.