Libfix

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In linguistics, a libfix is a productive bound morpheme affix created by rebracketing and back-formation, often a generalization of a components of a blended or portmanteau word. For example, walkathon was coined in 1932 as a blend of walk and marathon,[1] and soon thereafter the -athon part was reinterpreted as a libfix morpheme meaning "event or activity lasting a long time or involving a great deal of something".[2][3] Words formed with this suffix include talkathon, telethon, hackathon, and so on. Affixes whose morpheme boundaries are etymologically based and which are used in their original sense, are not libfixes.

History[]

Splinters were defined by Berman in 1961 as non-morphemic word fragments. This includes not just libfixes, but also word fragments which become words, like burger (< hamburger), flu (< influenza), and net (< network).[4][5][6]

The name libfix was coined by Arnold Zwicky in 2010 as a blend of "liberated" and "affix" specifically for splinters used as productive morphemes.[7]

Criticism[]

Some of these formations have been considered barbarisms by prescriptive writers on style,[8] though other writers have praised them. Speaking of the -tron suffix, a philologist commented:

I once heard an unkind critic allude disparagingly to these neologisms as dog-Greek. To a lover of the language of Sophocles and Plato these recent coinages may indeed appear to be Greek debased. More appropriately, perhaps, they might be termed lion-Greek or chameleon-Greek. They are Neo-Hellenic in the genuine Renaissance tradition.[9]

Examples[]

Each example gives the affix, the source word(s) from which it was formed, the meaning, and examples.

This list does not include:

  • affixes based on English words like tech or burger used literally, even if they are shortened forms, in this case, for technology and hamburger;
  • affixes which are aligned in form and meaning with their etymological source, like -(o)cracy or -orama in cyclorama and diorama from ὅραμα 'spectacle'; motorama is a portmanteau of motor and orama, not a compound of mot- and -orama;
  • words which have been separated from phrases, e.g. fu from kung fu.

English[]

Suffixes[]

-ana < Virgiliana (Latin, then French)[10]
things related to a given person, place, period
Churchilliana, Americana, Victoriana
-ase < diastase
an enzyme
lactase, polymerase
-cast < broadcast
a kind of broadcast
newscast, narrowcast, webcast
-cation < vacation
kinds of vacation
staycation, girlcation
-copter < helicopter
having a spinning rotor allowing for flight
gyrocopter
-core < hardcore
aesthetic
speedcore, grindcore, cottagecore, bardcore
-dar < radar
the skill of detecting qualities or things
gaydar, humordar, Jewdar
-erati < literati
groups of people with common interests
digerati, glitterati
-gate < Watergate
a scandal
gamergate, troopergate; see List of "-gate" scandals
-(m)(a)geddon < Armageddon
major disasters (usually facetious)
snowgeddon, carmageddon
-kini < bikini
type of bathing suit
monokini, tankini
-(i/e/a/∅)licious < delicious
a high degree of some property (usually jocular)[11]
bootylicious, babelicious, yummalicious, sacrilicious, crunchalicious
-(o)nomics < economics
an economic policy or philosophy
Reaganomics, freakonomics
-ola < pianola (?)
used to form commercial products; later, for forms of bribery[12]
Victrola, moviola, shinola; payola, plugola
-oma < carcinoma, sarcoma (-ομα is a suffix for deverbal nouns)
a kind of tumor, swelling, or cancer
melanoma, adenoma, papilloma
-ome, -omics < genome, genomics, trichome
a map of a biological system; and other uses in biology
connectome, proteome; biome, rhizome, vacuome
-on < electron (see also -tron)
an elementary particle or quasiparticle
proton, neutron, meson, phonon, etc.; see List of particles
-(o)rama, -o-rama < panorama, diorama, cyclorama (all modern coinages based on the Greek word ὅραμα orama 'something that is seen')
a spectacle or event, also an augmentative
Cinerama, Bananarama, Foodarama
-preneur < entrepreneur
an entrepreneur in some domain
intrapreneur, ecopreneur, mompreneur
-tard < retard, a pejorative term for a mentally disabled or stupid person
people who are foolish or stupid; pejorative
fucktard, libtard
-(a)thon, -a-thon < marathon
things that last a long time or require remarkable endurance
walkathon, telethon, hackathon
-tron < electron[8]
a kind of vacuum tube; a subatomic particle; a device
magnetron; positron; cyclotron
-verse < universe
the collection of all things in a category, or a fictional universe
blogoverse, Twitterverse, Whoniverse
-wich < sandwich
sandwich
fishwich, hamwich, snackwich
-zilla < Godzilla
monstrous, scary, or large things; can function as an augmentative and pejorative
bridezilla, Mozilla


Prefixes[]

alt- < alternative (usually written with a hyphen)
outside the mainstream
alt-rock, alt-right
cyber- < cybernetics
issues or policies related to computers
cyberspace, cybercrime
eco- < ecology
related to the environment, to ecology, or to sustainability
eco-terrorism, eco-nationalism, eco-investing
econo- < economics
related to economics; economical, inexpensive
econometrics (not *economometrics), econophysics; econobox
glut- < gluten, glutamic acid
related to the amino acid, glutamic acid
glutamine, glutamate
heli- < helicopter
types of helicopters; things related to helicopters[13]
helibus; helipad, heliport, helidrome, heliborne
petro- < petroleum, not rock
things related to petroleum
petrodollar
syn- < synthetic, synthesizer
synthetic; related to (musical) synthesizers
syngas, synfuel, syncrude, Synclavier

Italian[]

Suffix[]

-opoli < Tangentopoli 'Bribesville'
a scandal
Bancopoli, Calciopoli

Bibliography[]

  • Bernard Fradin, "Combining forms, blends, and related phenomena", in Ursula Doleschal, Anna M. Thornton, eds., Extragrammatical and Marginal Morphology, LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics 12 (2000), ISBN 3895865907, papers from a workshop in Vienna, 1996, p. 11-59 full text
  • Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin, 1922, 19:13-15
  • Muriel Norde, Sara Sippach, "Nerdalicious scientainment: A network analysis of English libfixes", Word Structure 12:3:353-384 doi:10.3366/word.2019.0153.
  • Yuval Pinter, Cassandra L. Jacobs, Max Bittker. "NYTWIT: A Dataset of Novel Words in the New York Times", Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (Barcelona), p. 6509–6515, December 8-13, 2020. full text
  • Neal Whitman, "A linguistic tour of the best libfixes, from -ana to -zilla, The Week, September 17, 2013.
  • Arnold Zwicky, "Playing with your Morphology", Language Log, August 28, 2006

Notes[]

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, 2009, s.v. walkathon
  2. ^ Merriam-Webster dictionary online s.v. -athon
  3. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1972, s.v. -athon
  4. ^ Laurie Bauer, "The borderline between derivation and compounding", p. 97-108 in Morphology and its Demarcations, Selected papers from the 11th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2004
  5. ^ J.M. Berman, "Contribution on Blending", Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 9:278-281 (1961) (not seen)
  6. ^ Ingrid Fandrych, "Submorphemic elements in the formation of acronyms, blends and clippings", Lexis: Journal in English Lexicology 2 (2008) doi:10.4000/lexis.713
  7. ^ "Libfixes", Arnold Zwicky's Blog, January 23, 2010
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b Tom McArthur, ed., The Oxford companion to the English language, 1992, ISBN 019214183X, s.v. 'Greek', p. 453-454
  9. ^ Simeon Potter, Our Language, 1950, as quoted in Tom McArthur, ed., The Oxford companion to the English language, 1992, ISBN 019214183X, s.v. 'Greek', p. 453-454
  10. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1884, s.v. ana, suffix
  11. ^ Zwicky, 2006
  12. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. -ola suffix 2
  13. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. heli-, combining form
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