Blends: an intermediate category at the crossroads of morphology and phonology (original) (raw)
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This article presents an approach to the resolution of a much discussed problem of morphological classification of blend words and their distinction from the neighbouring morphological categories such as clipping compounds. The research focuses on novel coinages and takes a data-driven approach to study the interaction between the form and the meaning of blends/clipping compounds. A multifactorial analysis of formal and semantic properties of these words is undertaken, as a result of which phonological and structural differences between blends and clipping compounds are explained using formal and semantic factors.
Unpacking contemporary English blends: Morphological structure, meaning, processing
It is not coincidental that blend words (e. g. nutriceutical ← nutricious + pharmaceutical, blizzaster ← blizzard + disaster) are more and more often used in media sources. In a blend, two (or sometimes more) words become one compact and attention-catching form, which is at the same time relatively transparent, so that the reader or listener can still recognise several constituents in it. These features make blends one of the most intriguing types of word formation. At the same time, blends are extremely challenging to study. A classical morpheme-based morphological description is not suitable for blends because their formation does not involve morphemes as such. This implies two possible approaches: either to deny blends a place in regular morphology (as suggested in Dressler (2000), for example), or to find grounds for including them into general morphological descriptions and theories (as was done, using different frameworks, in López Rúa (2004b), Gries (2012), Arndt-Lappe and Pl...
Shouldn't it be breakfunch? A quantitative analysis of blend structure in English
2004
The present paper investigates the word-formation process of blending in English. Following a brief review of several previous classificatory studies, the paper analyzes the orthographic and phonemic structure of blends on a quantitative basis. The main factors to be discussed are (i) the amount of information each source word contributes (following Kaunisto 2000a(following Kaunisto , 2000b and (ii) the similarity of the source words to the blend. Several points of critique concerning previous analyses are raised and improved upon by introducing reliable ways of operationalization and statistical testing. The results show that the amount of material contributed by the words is determined by the degree of recognizability of the source words and that the similarity of source words to the blend plays a vital role in blend formation. The paper concludes by further validating these results on the basis of a comparison of intentional blends to speech-error blends and pointing out potentially rewarding avenues of further research that is currently being conducted.
The Prosody and Quantity of English Compounds
Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 2015
Following the earlier works of Booij (1985) and Nespor & Vogel (1986) I provide further evidence that English compounds are made up of prosodic words. The length of the first components must be preserved because of the principle of strict cyclicity - the first components in English are identical to basic lexical forms. In some other languages, as for example in Serbian, the length of the first components may be shortened because the inclusion of linking vowel can contribute to the building of the required ’derived environment’ (Kiparsky 1985). The invoking of the strict cyclicity condition is however necessary only in case when the accented syllables in English are not necessarily closed as claimed by J.C. Wells in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary.
Blending is a type of word formation in which two or more words are merged into one so that the blended constituents are either clipped, or partially overlap. An example of a typical blend is brunch, in which the beginning of the word breakfast is joined with the ending of the word lunch. In many cases such as motel (motor + hotel) or blizzaster (blizzard + disaster) the constituents of a blend overlap at segments which are phonologically and/or graphically identical. In some blends, both constituents retain their form as a result of overlap, e.g. stoption (stop + option). The examples above illustrate only a handful of the variety of forms blends may take, more exotic examples including formations like Thankshallowistmas (Thanksgiving + Halloween + Christmas). The visual and audial amalgamation in blends is reflected on the semantic level. It is common to form blends meaning a combination or a product of two objects or phenomena, such as an animal breed (e.g. zorse, a breed of zebra and horse), an interlanguage variety (e.g. franglais, which is a French blend of français and anglais meaning a mixture of French and English languages), or other type of mix (e.g. a shress is a type of clothes having features of both a shirt and a dress).