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My impression was that many neologisms tend to provide a more specific meaning than the original, have a more limited application, and a less large sense than the origin-word.

But I have seen some exceptions.

Is there a linguistic constant or "law" about how the meaning of a word changes its specificity when it becomes a neologism in a different language?

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    The only "law" is that a word is used to mean what it is used to mean: its origin (whether inherited, borrowed, calqued, or coined from whole cloth) is irrelevant. Words are borrowed when somebody has a need to borrow them, and obviously this will often be to refer to something new to the culture, that brings its name with it; and the name may well have a more general meaning in the source language. But meanings of neologisms can often change - they can spread, narrow, or transfer metonymically, according to the needs of the speakers and the existing population of semantic space.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Feb 25, 2021 at 12:18
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    @ColinFine - Why not post an answer? I would like to have some examples of different needs and semantic spaces. My experience with a real such space made me think the specialization was a trend there.
    – cipricus
    Commented Feb 25, 2021 at 12:21
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    It stands to reason that a word is sometimes borrowed to fill a specific semantic gap, and that the source word will often have other meanings beside that specific gap; in such a case, the loan will likely be narrower than the source in meaning.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Feb 25, 2021 at 16:18
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    Neologisms and loanwords (borrowings) are quite different things. A neologism is a word or phrase which has recently been coined, that is, it is new in its own language. Loanwords are words that had already existed in their language, but later another language began using them. So, please, be more specific. Every recently borrowed loanword is a neologism for the language it was borrowed into, but not every neologism is a loanword since neologisms can be coined from the native language material, using native morphemes or words.
    – Yellow Sky
    Commented Feb 25, 2021 at 18:01

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