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.

b. Blends with Interfixation

Blends with interfixation can be regarded as the process of interfixation in its formation of blends. It is because it resembles the process of interfixation. Melcuk 1982: 86 as cited in Szymanek 1989: 64 defines an interfix as “a confix morph which precedes a root morpheme and follows another root”. According to him, it is a vocalic or less frequently consonantal linking element which appears in certain types of compound words. Treated as a linking element, it does not have any semantic meaning. Interfixation usually occurs in compounds Szymanek, 1989: 64. He provides some examples such as interfixation in Polish and Germany. In Polish, the interfix –o- is inserted between two roots as in sc-o-kret screwdriver. In