Formation of “Good” and “Bad” Words in French

Abstract

The article is a presentation of complex formations containing the elements bon, mauvais, bien, and mal, both from a morphological and semantic points of view. The examples, taken mainly from Le Petit Robert and from the specialised website Les expressions françaises décortiqués, have been classified into derived, compound forms, expressions, and locutions. The fact of observing the modification of meaning brought about by the addition of the cited lexemes (independent or linked) constitutes the essential object of this text. The elements bon, mauvais, bien, and mal often lose their primary meaning in the word-formation process and simultaneously create formal and semantic neologisms with diverse functions, e.g., phatic (bonjour, bon appétit), euphemistic (malvoyant) or pejorative (bonasse). Both the created lexemes and the phrastic units containing the quoted formants belong mostly to the basic stock of French vocabulary with a significant frequency of use. Some French derivatives and compounds have equivalents in Polish (bona, dzień dobry, dobrobyt).