What are the principles behind turning foreign language words into verbs?(e.g. ググる and サボる)


I have a decent grasp on the basics, but I'm not quite clear on the details.
Anyone know?




We can find several patterns in these derivations:

  1. Long words are often clipped:

> ハーモ **ニー** → ハーモ  
>  スターバ **ックス** → スターバ  
>  サボ **タージュ** → サボ

  2. Long vowels (with `ー`) and geminate consonants (with `ッ`) are shortened:

> グ **ー** グル → ググル  
>  コピ **ー** → コピ  
>  ハ **ー** モ → ハモ  
>  スタ **ー** バ → スタバ  
>  パニ **ッ** ク → パニク

  3. If final ル is already present, it is reanalyzed as る:

> ググ **ル** → ググ **る**  
>  トラブ **ル** → トラブ **る**  
>  ダブ **ル** → ダブ **る**

  4. Otherwise, final る is added:

> ハモ → ハモ **る**  
>  コピ → コピ **る**  
>  サボ → サボ **る**  
>  スタバ → スタバ **る**  
>  パニク → パニク **る**

Most of these verbs end up 3 moras long counting the final る. A few end up 4
moras long, or occasionally even longer.

This process is relatively productive colloquially, but most of the words
people invent this way don't catch on, and only a few become well-established
words. Some have been very successful, though, like your example of ググる.

These patterns aren't absolute, but they describe most of these derivations
pretty well. There are exceptions. For example, people have said both ローソる
(from ローソン), keeping its long vowel, and the shorter ロソる you might expect from
the patterns described above.

Interestingly, these verbs always conjugate as consonant-stem verbs (五段動詞),
even with examples like コピる that could conceivably be interpreted as vowel-
stem verbs (一段動詞).

Learners are generally not advised to coin words like this themselves.




We can find several patterns in these derivations:

  1. Long words are often clipped:

> ハーモ **ニー** → ハーモ  
>  スターバ **ックス** → スターバ  
>  サボ **タージュ** → サボ

  2. Long vowels (with `ー`) and geminate consonants (with `ッ`) are shortened:

> グ **ー** グル → ググル  
>  コピ **ー** → コピ  
>  ハ **ー** モ → ハモ  
>  スタ **ー** バ → スタバ  
>  パニ **ッ** ク → パニク

  3. If final ル is already present, it is reanalyzed as る:

> ググ **ル** → ググ **る**  
>  トラブ **ル** → トラブ **る**  
>  ダブ **ル** → ダブ **る**

  4. Otherwise, final る is added:

> ハモ → ハモ **る**  
>  コピ → コピ **る**  
>  サボ → サボ **る**  
>  スタバ → スタバ **る**  
>  パニク → パニク **る**

Most of these verbs end up 3 moras long counting the final る. A few end up 4
moras long, or occasionally even longer.

This process is relatively productive colloquially, but most of the words
people invent this way don't catch on, and only a few become well-established
words. Some have been very successful, though, like your example of ググる.

These patterns aren't absolute, but they describe most of these derivations
pretty well. There are exceptions. For example, people have said both ローソる
(from ローソン), keeping its long vowel, and the shorter ロソる you might expect from
the patterns described above.

Interestingly, these verbs always conjugate as consonant-stem verbs (五段動詞),
even with examples like コピる that could conceivably be interpreted as vowel-
stem verbs (一段動詞).

Learners are generally not advised to coin words like this themselves.

