Blends with Two Splinters
base. However, this type of inserting blends is called blends with infixation because it resembles the process of infixation in the word-formation process.
Szymanek 1989: 65 defines infixation as “a morphological process whereby a
bound morpheme inflection or derivational is inserted into the base form usually, into a root-
morpheme”. Thus, in this process, an infix is inserted in the middle of a word. Infixation is habitually found in compounds rather than in
blends. The examples of infixation in compounds are al-bloody-mighty and kanga-bloody-roo. From these examples, it can be seen that that the lexeme
bloody is inserted into the words almightly and kangaroo to make compounds al- bloody-mighty and kanga-bloody-roo Szymanek, 1989: 65
The realization of infixation in blends is quite different from the regular rule of infixation
in “normal” words. In blends, deleting process preserves in order to keep the nature of blends, in which it combines words and deletes parts of them.
Therefore, the infixation in blends consists of two processes such as deleting elements of one source word and then inserting elements of another.
Blends with infixation can be explained as follows. SW1 acts as a base form wh
ich an “infix” is inserted into, while SW2 acts as an “infix” which is inserted in the middle of SW1. As the compensation of the loss of parts of SW1, the second
word must substitute the omitted part. Through this process, the second word acts as an
“infix”. The following table 4.2 gives information about blends with infixation and the morphological process which is in charge.
Table 4.2 Blends with Infixation
No. Blends with infixation Morphological Processes
1. adorkable
adorable x dork a-dorable
a-dork-able deleting dor
inserting dork 2.
adverteasement advertisement x tease
adver-tisement adver-tease-ment
deleting tise inserting tease
3. ambisextrous
ambidextrous x sex ambi-dextrous
ambi-sex-trous deleting dex
inserting sex 4.
autopathography autobiography x pathology
autobi-ography auto-path-ography
deleting bi inserting path
5. baseketball
basketball x baseball basketball
base-ketball deleting bas
inserting base 6.
chortle chuckle x snort
chuckle ch-ort-le
deleting uck inserting ort
7. diworsify
diversify x worse di-versify
di-worse-ify deleting vers
inserting worse 8.
edvertorial editorial x advertisement
edit-torial advert-torial
deleting edit inserting advert
9. enculturement
enlightenment x culture en-lightenment
en-culture-ment deleting lighten
inserting culture 10. engayed
engaged x gay en-gaged
en-gay-ed deleting gag
inserting gay 11. homosinuality
homosexuality x sin homo-sexu-ality
homo-sinu-ality deleting sex
inserting sin 12. hypathenuse
hypotenuse x path hy-potenuse
hy-path-enuse deleting pot
inserting path 13. janky
junky x stank junky
j-ank-y deleting unk
inserting ank 14. procrapstinate
procrastinate x crap pro-crastinate
pro-crap-tinate deleting cras
inserting crap 15. refirement
retirement x fire re-tirement
re-fire-ment deleting tire
inserting fire 16. reintarnation
reincarnation x tarnish reincar-nation
rein-tar-nation deleting car
inserting tar 17. ridonkulous
ridiculous x donkey ri-diculous
ri-donk-ulous deleting dic
inserting donk
As seen in Table 4.2, it is always SW1 which becomes the base which an “infix” is inserted into. The underlined segments in SW1 show that they are
deleted right after the infixes are put in the middle of the base. It is because as the consequence of deleting segments, SW1 needs substitution of parts from another
one. The substitution comes from SW2 segments in italics in which it becomes an “infix” which is then put in the middle of the base SW1.
Examining examples in Table 4.2, in ambisextrous ambidextrous x sex, the SW1 ambidextrous acts as the base, while SW2 sex acts
as the “infix”. The process is that the part in SW1 dex is deleted so that the part in SW2 sex can be
inserted in the middle of SW1 to substitute dex. Another example is the blend enculturement enlightenment x culture. In this example, the part of SW2 culture
substitutes the part of SW1 lighten. In procrapstinate procrastinate x crap, the part in SW1 cras is omitted so that the part of SW2 crap can be inserted in the
middle of SW1.