occasionalism

English

Etymology

occasional +‎ -ism

Noun

occasionalism (countable and uncountable, plural occasionalisms)

  1. (philosophy, uncountable) A metaphysical doctrine that holds that all events are occasioned (caused) by God.
  2. (linguistics, countable) A nonce word.
    • 2010, Martin Haspelmath, Andrea D. Sims, Understanding Morphology, second edition, page 130:
      This measure stems from the observation that productive morphological rules are likely to produce occasionalisms, whereas unproductive rules are not likely to do so. Occasionalisms are thus particularly important for determining productivity.
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