examine this, blends were classified into four major word categories, namely noun blends, adjective blends, verb blends, and adverb blends. For examples, after
checking dictionaries and examining the context in which blends occurred, these ten blends seen in Table 3.1 such as plumcot, paratroops, Chermany, desknote,
autopathography, workaholic, floptical, photopia, biathlete, and duralumin were considered as nouns, henceforth noun blends. Twiddle was considered as verb,
henceforth a verb blend. Second, blends were classified according to the word category of the source
words, such as a noun + a noun, a verb + a verb, an adjective + an adjective, an adjective + a noun, a noun + a verb, and so forth. The blend plumcoat combined
two nouns plum and apricot. The blend Floptical combined flop noun and optical adjective, twiddle joined two verbs twist and fiddle together, and
duralumin combined an adjective durable and a noun aluminium. Accordingly, the results and frequency of each category of blends were included in following
Table 3.3. Finally, plumcot, paratroops, Chermany, desknote, autopathography, workaholic, photopia, and biathlete were written as [N N]N, floptical as [N A]N
belongs, twiddle as [V V]V, and duralumin as [A N]N.
Table 3.3 . The Scheme of Word Category in English Blends
No Word Category
Adjective Blends
Noun Blends
Verb Blends
Adverb Blends
Total Percentage
1. A + A [A A]
2. A + N [A N]
3. N + A [N A]
4. N + N [N N]
5. V + V [V V]
6. …
The third analysis was a prosodic morpology analysis. The analysis of prosodic morphology was conducted to answer the third research problem which
questioned about phonological characteristics of elements retained in English blends. The phonological characteristic which could be observed in blends is the
stress assignment. Therefore, this research focused on the characteristics of the stress assignment in blends. This analysis involved three procedures.
First, the stress of each source word and resulting blend were assigned with the help of dictionaries. The researcher used
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 8
th
edition to check the stress of source words. Meanwhile, the stress of resulting blends was checked with the help of seven online dictionaries where
blends were taken from. They are Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Collins Dictionary, Cambridge, Word Spy, Rice University Neologisms Database, and Urban
Dictionary. It was noted that it was possible that the phonetic transcription which also contained stress placement of resulting blends was not always available in
these online dictionaries. When it happened, the stress of resulting blends was assigned from the beginning following the stress placement rule.
Second, the thorough investigation was conducted to find out the correspondence between stress in resulting blends and those in the source words.
The primary stress of resulting blends could be equivalent to primary stressed syllable, secondary stressed syllable, or unstressed syllable in the source words.
Examining the example number 8 in Table 3.1, the primary stress of pho’topia
‘photo x u’topia fell on the penultimate syllable. Therefore, it was equivalent to the primary stressed syllable of the second source word
u’topia. It could be said that the primary stress in blend
pho’topia corresponded to the primary stress in
the second source word u’topia. Another example was „floptical ‘flop x
‘optical as seen in number 6 of Table 3.1. In ‘floptical, the primary stressed syllable in the blend corresponded to the primary stressed syllable in the first
source word ‘flop. It could be said that it preserved the primary stress of the first
source word. Third, the results were then put into following Table 3.4. The table recorded
the frequency of the distribution of primary stress in English blends in a numerical data.
Table 3.4 The Distribution of Primary Stress in Resulting Blends according to the
Combining Patterns Types of
Blends First Source Word SW1
Second Source Word SW2 1
st
SW1 SW2
1
st
2
nd
unstressed 1
st
2
nd
Unstressed type A
type B type C
type D type OV0
type OV1 type OV2
The fourth analysis was a semantic analysis. It investigated the patterns of meaning in English blends. Two steps were needed to conduct this analysis. The
first step was studying the meaning relation among the components of blends. The second step was classifying blends based on the logical relation of its component.
There were four types of blends according to the logical relation among source words. First, when the relation was between a head and a modifier, it belonged to
endocentric blends. In other words, one source word became the head and the
other became the modifier which gave information about the head. For example, the blends paratroops parachute x troops, floptical flop x optical, and biathlete
biathlon x athlete fitted into this type since they had a head-modifier relation. Paratroops were kinds of troops, while floptical and biathlete were kinds of flop
and athlete respectively. Second, when a blend had two semantic heads with the same word category referring to different entities, it belonged to copulative
blends. The examples of this category were Chermany China x Germany and twiddle twist x fiddle. In these blends, the word category of the source words
was the same. Chermany referred to both China and Germany and twiddle referred to twist and fiddle. Third, when the blend had two semantic heads with
the same word category referring to the same entity, it belonged to appositional blends. Different with copulative blends, appositional blends required the mix of
the source words. In other words, the half part of one source word combined with another half part of another, so that the resulting blends belonged to one entity.
The examples of this type were plumcot plum x apricot and desknote desktop x notebook which could be seen in Table 3.1. Plumcot was the hybrid of plum and
apricot, while desknote was the combination of desktop and notebook. Fourth, when the meaning of blends did not result from its components, it belonged to
exocentric blends. As seen in Table 3.1, photopia photo x utopia belonged to exocentric blend. It was because photopia was neither a photo nor a utopia.
Rather, it was a day vision.
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS
This chapter portrays the analysis of English blends using primary data. It consists of four major parts. Each part elaborates the finding of each research
problem. Since this study has four research problems, there are four parts in which each part represents one research question. The first part discusses the combining
patterns observed in English blends. The second part presents word categories of English blends. The third part discusses the phonological characteristics of
elements which are retained in English blends. The last part talks about patterns of meaning in English blends.
A. Combining Patterns of Blends
This research used 1197 blends as the primary data. As mentioned in the previous chapter, blends are created by combining two or more words to become
one word and at least one part is shortened. Thus in the process of creating blends, they may combine contiguous parts. According to the analysis of the data, blends
however are not always the result of combining contiguous parts. Rather, some blends are noncontiguous, meaning that one part may be inserted in the middle of
another. Therefore, generally blends are classified into contiguous and noncontiguous blends.
The following Table 4.1 is the summary of all blends which are grouped in terms of combining patterns. As shown in the table, the number of contiguous
blends is the most numerous. Out of the 1197 data, it approximates 1170 blends
67
and makes up 98 . This result indicates that most blends are created by combining the contiguous parts. In contrast, noncontiguous blends are considered
as minor blends. They only include 27 blends and only make up 2 . It suggests the idea that blends which insert one part to the middle of another are very rare
and limited. Finally, it is obvious that blends are most likely to be formed of contiguous segments rather than inserted segments.
Since the number of contiguous blends is numerous, the classification is then divided into various categories. The categories are based on the combining
patterns of blends. By using the combining patterns proposed by Algeo 1977 suggested by Hong 2004 and notion of splinters proposed by Lehler 2007,
contiguous blends are classified into three categories, namely blends with overlapping, blends with clipping, and blends with clipping and overlapping. In
terms of the number of splinters, they are divided into three categories. They are blends with zero, one, and two splinters Lehler, 2007.
Noncontiguous blends, however, are subject to analyze despite the limited number. They show own characteristics which make them worth analyzing.
Furthermore, they can be split into two categories based on their nature, namely blends with infixation and blends with interfixation. The discussion of these two
types of noncontiguous blends is presented in the different section of this chapter.
Table 4.1 Distribution of Blends based on Combining Patterns
General Category
Category of blends Types of Combining
Pattern Frequ
ency Contiguous
blends 0 splinter Blends with
overlapping complete
overlap OV0
103 1 splinter Blends with clipping whole + last
A 193
first + whole B 119
Blends with clipping and overlapping
whole + last OV1a
154 first + whole OV1b
115 2
splinters Blends with clipping first + last
C 252
first + first D
63 Blends with clipping
and overlapping first + last
OV2a 166
first + first OV2b
5 Non-
contiguous blends
Blends with infixation insert infixes
E 17
Blends with interfixation insert
interfixes F
10 Total
1197
The following paragraphs present the description and explanation of each pattern, starting from the general classifications: contiguous and noncontiguous
blends. After that, it goes to more specific discussion of combining patterns.
1. Contiguous Blends
Referring to the previous chapter, blends are said to be the result of morphological process in which two or more words join together and at least one
of them is shortened. Hence, the process of blending resembles the process of clipping in terms of deleting parts of words. From this process, splinters are
formed. In this regard, splinters refer to part of source words which are retained in blends Lehler, 2007: 116.
After examining the data, it is evident that contiguous blends are formed of one or two splinters. Nevertheless, some of them do not have splinters so that they
are classified as blends with zero splinter. Contiguous blends with zero splinter mean that the segments of both source words overlap one another, so they do not
need to clip some segments. The following Figure 4.1 is the distribution of contiguous blends dealing with the number of splinters. The figure portrays three
categories of blends, namely blends with zero, one, and two splinters.
Figure 4.1 Distribution of Contiguous Blends based on Number of Splinters
Figure 4.1 above presents the percentage of each category dealing with number of splinters occurred in contiguous blends. It shows that a greater
percentage of blends are found in blends with one and two splinters. For example, stalkerazzi stalker x paparazzi and bustaurant bus x restaurant are
blends with one splinter, whereas slungry sleepy x hungry and fertigate fertilize x irrigate are blends with two splinters. In stalkerazzi and
bustaurant, they retain razzi and staurant as splinters. On the other hand, slungry has sl and ungry and fertigate has ferti and igate recognized as splinters.
Comparing to blends with one and two splinters, the percentage of blends with one splinter is slightly larger than the percentage of blends with two
9
50 41
0 splinter 1 splinter
2 splinters
splinters. Acording to the data, blends with one splinter account for 50 , while blends with two splinters make up 41 . It signifies that people have a tendency
to create blends by combining parts of one source words as in jazzercise jazz x exercise, mancation man x vacation, and agritourism agricultural x
tourism rather than parts of both source words as in agflation agriculture x inflation, brinner breakfast x dinner, and brogards brother x regards.
Conversely, there is a smaller percentage of blends with zero splinter. In other words, the number of blends which do not preserve any splinters in their
formation is limited. The percentage is very small, only making up 9 . Blends with zero splinter indicate that there is no splinter in its formation at all. Rather, it
undergoes the process of overlapping the similar segments possessed by both source words. Therefore, it creates overlapped segments. As a result, the similar
segments are completely overlapped, thus no splinters remains. Accordingly, blends with zero splinter are understood as blends which do not have any
splinters. For instances, chairobics chair x aerobics, guyliner guy x eyeliner, and cutensil cute x utensil do not have clipped segments. In a certain extent,
they have similar sounds among two source words which enable them to overlap one another. The overlapped segments are written in bold. In chairobic, the
overlapped segments are air in chair and aer in aerobics due to the similar sounds. The segments uy in guy and eye in eyeliner are similar so they overlap one
another. In the same way, the blend cutensil has similar sounds of ute and ut which make them overlap one another.
Overall, it suggests the idea that vast majority of blends are more likely to be built of clipped segments so called splinters rather than overlapped segments.
