Lexical innovations (e.g., zero-derivations coined on the fly by a speaker) seem to bear semantic content. Yet, such expressions cannot bear semantic content as a function of the conventions of meaning in force in the language, since they are not part of its lexicon. This is in tension with the commonplace view that the semantic content of lexical expressions is constituted by linguistic conventions. The conventionalist has two immediate ways out of the tension. The first is to preserve the conventionalist assumption and deny that lexical innovations bear semantic content. The second is to dynamize the conventionalist assumption, that is, argue that presentations of unattested expressions trigger an augmentation of the standing semantic resources of the language and instantiate content as a result of this underlying update. Building on a comparison with the production of novel onomatopoeic words, iconic pseudowords and pro-speech gestures, the paper argues that the issue is best addressed by suspending the conventionalist assumption, and describes the metasemantic implications of the claim.

词汇创新（例如，说话者在飞行中创造的零导数）似乎具有语义上的内容。但是，由于这些表达式不是语言词典的一部分，因此它们不能根据语言中有效的意义约定来承载语义内容。这与普通的观点相矛盾，即词汇表达的语义内容是由语言惯例构成的。常规主义者有两种直接的解决方法。首先是保留传统主义的假设，并否认词汇创新具有语义内容。第二个是动态化传统主义者的假设，即认为未经证实的表达方式的出现会触发语言的常规语义资源的增加，并作为此基础更新的结果实例化内容。