Blends in English word formation

Cannon, Garland

doi:10.1515/ling.1986.24.4.725

Cited by 75 publications

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“…The sheer variety of English word blends does not bode well for a general theory of their structure (Cannon 1986) and promotes taxonomic analyses, with corresponding descriptive statistics (e.g. Algeo 1977;Cannon 1986).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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To “brunch” or to “brench”: some aspects of blend structure

Kelly¹

1998

Linguistics

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Three studies demonstrate that aspects of English blend structures like "brunch" are quite predictable from cognitive and linguistic principles. The first study analyzed the order in which words are represented in blends and found that three variables that predict word order in conjunctive phrases like "smoke and fog" also predict the order in which word components appear in blends like "smog." In particular, the first word represented in blends tends to be higher in frequency, contain fewer syllables, and denote more prototypical category members than the second word. The second study examined the boundaries between blend components and found that they fall primarily at major phonological joints, such as syllable, onset, and rime boundaries. Breaks at onset-rime boundaries were more than four times more common than breaks at body-coda boundaries, thus supporting an onset-rime representation of English syllable structure. The third study showed that the phonemes involved at the juncture between blend components tend to be phonologically similar, which might be used to emphasize the teasing nature of blends. More generally, the studies illustrate the promise of taking hypothesis-testing approaches to blend structure rather than the taxonomic approaches common in prior investigations.Some English words are formed by snipping components from existing words and stitching the components together either through simple concatenation or through concatenation coupled with overlap of shared phonological segments. Thus, "smog" was created by joining the /sm/ of "smoke" with the /ag/ of "fog." The shared /el/ of "melt" and "weld," on the other hand, was flanked by /m/ and /d/ to form "meld" Although the English lexicon contains hundreds of such blend words, there has been little discussion about factors that might influence their structure. For example, one could say "foke" instead of "smog" or "brench" instead of "brunch." Idiosyncratic aspects of blends could certainly be Linguistics 36-3 (1998), 579-590 0024-3949/98/0036-0579 © Walter de Gruyter Brought to you by | University of Queensland -UQ Authenticated Download Date | 6/23/15 6:49 AM

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, "damn" and "hang" combined to form "dang" rather than "hamn" because the latter could be confused with "ham." Other than this general bias against creating homophones, however, Bauer (1983: 235) states that blend formations are "random" and "fairly arbitrary" (see also Cannon 1986 for a similar conclusion).…”

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confidence: 99%

To “brunch” or to “brench”: some aspects of blend structure

Kelly¹

1998

Linguistics

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“…Blends are formed by fusing stems together, e.g. brunch from breakfast+lunch or arpi'ax 'smog' from arafel+pi'ax 4 fog+soot' (Algeo 1977, Aronoff 1976, Cannon 1986, Marchand 1969, Nir 1976). This device is relatively new in Hebrew, with a few random examples attested to in previous historical periods of the language, e.g.…”

Section: Backformation In Language History Some Scholars (Eg Marchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internal Structure Constraints on New-Word Formation Devices in Modern Hebrew

Ravid¹

1990

Folia Linguistica

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This study investigates new-word formation devices in Modern Hebrew, focusing on those devices which seem to be more productive than others. It links together a number of processes which superficially seem unrelated, thereby providing an explanation to the question of productivity. We classify Modern Hebrew new-word formation processes into the following: (i) Non-linear Processes -Root & Pattern Affixation and Acronym Formation; (ii) Linear Processes including Linear Affixation and Backformation; Blending and Clipping; (iii) Zero Conversion. The central claim of this paper, expressed in the Structure Constraint, is that internal structure is a main factor in Modern Hebrew morphological typology and a direct cause of productivity: Structure-preserving devices manifest "natural productivity" and are used by all Speakers, whereas structure-violating ones are less productive and are likely to be employed in a deliberate manner by mature sophisticated Speakers to the exclusion of children and less well-educated Hebrew Speakers. The structure claim is examined in both child language and mature linguistic Systems. Hebrew and English, genetically nonrelated languages, are compared, demonstrating that the Structure Constraint (SO) is language-specific rather than universal. Folia Linguistica XXIV/3-4 0165-4004/90/24-289 $ 2-(C) Mouton/de Gruyter, Berlin -Societas Linguistica Europaea Brought to you by | University of Queensland -UQ Library Authenticated Download Date | 6/18/15 4:45 PM 290 1.0 IntroductionHebrew lexical items are known for their non-linear structure, exemplified in kesem 'magic', kosem 'magician', maksim 'charming', kasum 'charmed, magic', all sharing root q-s-m l (Berman 1969,1987, Gezenius 1910, Ravid 1978, Schwarzwald 1974. This paper focuses on a language-specific principle which derives from this fact, the Structure Constraint (SC), which requires that productive Modern Hebrew word-formation devices yield structured Output.The study analyzes 7 word-formation processes: Non-linear Affixation, Acronym Formation, Affix Concatenation, Backformation, Blending, Clipping and Zero-Conversion, in terms of the SC, demonstrating that internal structure is a main factor in Modern Hebrew morphological typology and a direct cause of productivity: Structure-preserving devices manifest "natural productivity" and are used by all Speakers, whereas structure-violating ones are less productive and are likely to be employed in a deliberate manner by mature sophisticated Speakers to the exclusion of children and less well-educated Hebrew Speakers.Hebrew forms are in broad phonemic transcription, with consonantal roots indicated by means of the historical elements attested in conventional orthography. Thus, for example, we use broad phonemic transcription for the verb kara 'tore', while its root is represented äs q-r-A, Standing for the historical Segments indicated by , and respectively. The voiceless palatal fricative is represented by 5; the voiced palatal fricative is represented by Z\ the voiceless ph...

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“…Cannon 1986;Fradin 2000;Kelly 1998; Lehrer1996) are mainly concerned with a variety of patterns of how the source words are spliced in the blend. In these studies, the attempts to sort out the patterns of word blending show blends to be a largely unpredictable category with no or very little observable regularity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Words with Final Combining Forms in English. A Case for Blends in Word Formation

Tomaszewicz

2008

Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

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Morphological theories that assume all word formation to consist in concatenation of morphemes run into difficulties stating the defining properties of the notion of final combining forms that can be used as constituents of novel words. The novel words under consideration are of two types: (a) nouns ending in forms like -ology, -ography, -ometer, -crat, -naut, -phile; (b) nouns ending in forms like -(a)holic, -(a)thon. Forms of type (b) are only roughly identifiable due to their indeterminable size of segmental material. In this paper the notion of final combining form is called into question and ultimately rejected on the grounds that words allegedly built with final combining forms of type (b), when analysed within the theory of universal, ranked and violable constraints in its OO Correspondence version, conform to the defining properties of blends.

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Blends in English word formation

Cited by 75 publications

References 0 publications

To “brunch” or to “brench”: some aspects of blend structure

To “brunch” or to “brench”: some aspects of blend structure

Internal Structure Constraints on New-Word Formation Devices in Modern Hebrew

Novel Words with Final Combining Forms in English. A Case for Blends in Word Formation

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