The evaluative prosody of forms of government and power: '-cracy' and '-archy', is this prosody inheritable and what are the implications for translation?

In the first part I discuss the methods used and observations which emerged from a couple of lessons I taught at the Scuola Superiore per Interpreti e Traduttori of the University of Bologna (SSLMIT), in which my students and I examined the evaluative prosodies of a number of items relating to forms of power, namely items which end in the word particles -cracy, -cratic, -archy, -archic. I then describe some of the further research and teaching I carried out on these topics. I investigated in particular whether new, ad hoc formations based on these particles, for example liberalocracy, in some way inherited the – generally negative - evaluative tendency. I hypothesise that this semi-hidden critical connotation may be the very reason for such items being coined. Finally I look at the potential for irony in the invention and use of such items, and speculate that research into the use of lookalike particles to the ones discussed here in other languages could be of interest to translators.