What term describes the effect where a seemingly neutral word can have positive or negative associations due to frequent collocations?

• A. Deixis
• B. Word boundary
• C. Liason
• D. Semantic Prosody

Answer: (D)

Semantic prosody is the idea that a word can pick up positive or negative feeling from the company it keeps in typical collocations. A word that seems neutral can sound hopeful, alarming, or critical because it often appears with surrounding words that carry a strong evaluative charge. For example, a noun might frequently occur with adjectives like “serious,” “deadly,” or “dangerous,” which colors it with negativity, or with verbs like “celebrate,” “beat,” or “enjoy,” which lends it a positive tint. This coloration comes from repeated patterns in real language use, not from the word’s dictionary definition alone.

That’s why the concept fits exactly: it’s about how surrounding language influences the perceived meaning or attitude of a seemingly neutral word. The other options aren’t about this attitudinal coloring. Deixis concerns context-dependent pointing like this or that; word boundary deals with where one word ends and another begins; liaison refers to linking sounds or to a kind of coordination, rather than to evaluative shading by collocations.