stress structure of their base. For instance, the insertion of the suffix –s in rulers
does not change the stress structure since the main stress remains on the initial syllable. Second, the suffixes are always unstressed as in pennilessness.
Derivational suffixes have the characteristics of stress-shifting in two aspects. First, the stress structure of the base is different from that of base word without a
suffix. For instance, the word ‘atom initial and a’tomic penultimate are
different in stress placement. Second, suffixes may bear the main stress of the resulting words. The suffixes
–ee and –ese as in em,ploy’ee and ,Japa’nese bear the main stress. It is noted that the syllables of these stressed affixes are heavy.
4 Stress Placement
Giegerich 1992: 183 makes the classification of stress placement simpler by classifying them into final and non-final stress. In dealing with the stress
assignment, syllable weight plays a significant role. Final stressed syllable is always heavy, just as there is no stressed final syllable which is light. In
bisyllabic words which enable the words to have two stresses, both primary and secondary stressed syllables are heavy. The secondary stress may occur on the
initial syllable only when the syllable is heavy. For instance, , ho’tel and ,bam’boo
have two stressed syllables in syllable initial secondary and final primary. According to the syllables weight, both primary and secondary stress are heavy
syllables. Besides, Giegerich 1992: 184 also notes that heavy initial syllables do not necessarily have secondary stress as shown in
ob’scure not ,ob’scure. Three criteria
are presented to sum up the Giegerich‟s explanation about final stress. First, if the syllable weight in bisyllabic words is a light-heavy
syllable, there assigns a final stress. If the bisyllabic words have heavy-heavy syllable, there is a stress pattern variant of secondary-primary and primary-
secondary. Second, final stress in English normally occurs in verbs and adjectives. Final stress in Nouns is rare, yet it is usually found in loanwords. Third, final
stress can be used to differentiate between noun and verb in English. Nouns normally have non-final stressed syllable, while verbs normally have final stressed
syllable. Non-final stress is common in English nouns. In non-final stress, the final
syllable does not have stress. Since the last syllable does not bear any stress, the stress is assigned in the second and third syllable from the last. In word stress, the
number of syllable is counted from the end of the word. The word to’mato has a
stress in the second syllable from the last syllable so called penultimate syllable. The word „cinema has a stress in the third syllable from the end called
antepenultimate syllable. The regularities of the non-final stress presented by Giegerich 1992: 187
are as follows. Stress is assigned on the penultimate syllable if the syllable is heavy. If the penultimate is light, stress is assigned on the antepenultimate
syllable. If the penultimate syllable is light and the word does not have antepenultimate syllable, stress falls on the penultimate.
e. Word Category
When talking about words, it is essential to discuss the word category of an individual word. Furthermore, the ability to differentiate the lexical category of a
word or commonly known as word category is very demanded for language users.
The language users should know which ones are categorized as nouns, which ones are regarded as adjectives, verbs, adverbs, or prepositions.
Started by distinguishing between content words and function words, Finegan 2004:
185 suggests that content words “have meaning in that they refer to objects, events, and abstract concepts; are marked as being characteristic of
particular social, ethnic, and regional dialects and of particular contexts; and convey information about the feelings and attitudes of language
users.” Besides, Aronoff Fudeman 2011, 42-43 mention the member of content words and the
examples such as nouns baby, bargain, adjectives peaceful, bright, verbs publicize, sleep, and adverbs readily, carefully. Function words also have
meaning, however it is in different ways from content words Finegan, 2004: 185. Additionally, Aronoff Fudeman 2011, 42-43 suggest that function
words are defined based on their function. According to them, members of this category are pronouns I, him, our, determiners the, an, a, prepositions in, by,
demonstratives this, those, verbs am, was, and adverbs very, not. Similarly, Radford et al. 2009: 129-132 suggest that content words belong
to lexical categories which consist of five word classes, namely nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. According to them, nouns refer to concrete
objects, verbs refer to activities, adjectives refer to properties that people or things have, adverbs usually modify a verb, and prepositions relate people, objects, and
events dealing with time and position. In terms of function words, Radford et al. 2009: 132-134 suggest that function words belong to functional categories such
as demonstratives this, that, determiners the, a, lexical verbs is, can, pronouns we, us, and conjunctions but, or.
f. Meaning Identification in English Blends
The meaning of blends is identified according to the meaning relation between its two source words. Since blends are seen as shortened compounds
Plag, 2003: 122, the way on how to identify the meaning of blends is similar to compounds. In general, the meaning of compounds is divided into two major
types, namely endocentric and exocentric meaning Szymanek, 1989: 48-50. Similar to compounds, endocentric meaning in blends denotes the meaning
construction in which the meaning is derived from the elements of blends. Thus, it is said that the meaning is inside blends. On the contrary, exocentric meaning is a
meaning construction in which the meaning is outside blends. The classification of meaning into endocentric and exocentric is not enough
to describe the meaning sufficiently. Therefore, Szymanek 1989: 50 yields two minor types, namely appositional and copulative compounds dvandva.
Appositional compounds refer to compounds which have different descriptions for one entity. The examples of this type are boy servant, girl slave, and woman
doctor. Although they are quite similar to endocentric compounds, they are different in terms of reversibility. The components of appositional compounds are
reversible. Accordingly, boy servant and servant boy are the same. Copulative compounds are compounds which have two semantic heads denoting different
entities. Compounds like Austria-Hungary, sofa-bed, and speaker-listener are the examples of copulative compounds.
g. The Timeline of English Blends
According to Lehler 2007: 116, a number of blends were recorded around 15
th
century, yet now they do not exist anymore. However, there are a number of blends which are still used until now. These blends were derived from 19
th
century. They are brunch breakfast x lunch, 1896 MW, slanguage slang x language, 1879 MW, bodacious bold x audacious, 1832 MW, chortle chuckle
x snort, 1872 MW, and correctitude correct x rectitude, 1893 MW. Nevertheless, blends derived from 20
th
century are more popular. Blends such as motel motor x hotel, 1925 MW, transceiver transmitter x receiver, 1934 MW,
permafrost permanent x frost, 1943 MW, fantabulous fantastic x fabulous, 1957 MW, dramedy drama x comedy, 1978 MW, gasohol gas x alcohol, 1975
MW, skort skirt x short, 1951 MW, palimony pal x alimony, 1979 MW, and cafetorium café x auditorium, 1852 MW are still used until now. At that time,
people did not notice that they were originally blends. Instead, people considered them as normal words.
Inevitably, entering the era of 21
st
century, blends are much more common and popular. Precisely, the number of blends increases rapidly during these last
twenty years. It is evident that 21
st
century is the era where communications and technology underlie people‟s life and culture. It does not only affect the habit of
people, but also the lexicon of people. Many words are created and added to the lexicon of people. The English language used by people in this era of
communications and technology is considered as so called the era of modern English.
The rise number of blends in modern English is somewhat determined by people‟s awareness of the phenomena of blending. Unlike in the past in which
blends were neglected, blends are now regarded as funny, creative, and trendy words. Furthermore, they are used to gain people‟s attention in advertisements and
media. Since many people are aware of blends, they realize that to make a blend they need to combine two or more words and shorten part of them. People start to
make blends and throw them into public. Moreover, social media play an essential role to popularize blends to the world.
h. The Distribution of Blends in Modern English in Terms of Domains
The following Figure 2.1 illustrates the distribution of blends categorized in ten domains in the rise of modern English. These ten domains are geography and
ecology; hybrid; media; medical; organizations, companies, and brand names; politic and economy; arts and popular culture; science; technology; and
transportation. Examining the figure, it can be inferred that the most popular domains are media, popular culture, and technology, which are represented by
399, 360, and 144 blends respectively. On the contrary, blends which are derived from the name of organizations, companies, and brand names and things related to
transportation are the least popular. The distribution of blends based on domains can be seen in Appendix 1.
