(Topics in English Linguistics 82) Elisa Mattiello-Extra-grammatical Morphology in English-Mouton de Gruyter (2013)

Extra-grammatical Morphology in English
Topics in English Linguistics

82
Editors
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Bernd Kortmann
De Gruyter Mouton
Extra-grammatical Morphology
in English
Abbreviations, Blends, Reduplicatives,
and Related Phenomena
by
Elisa Mattiello
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-3-11-029386-9
e-ISBN 978-3-11-029539-9
ISSN 1434-3452
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Preface
The purpose of this book is to fill a gap in word-formation studies, specifi-

cally with regard to that part of morphology termed extra-grammatical. In
the past, phenomena such as clippings, acronyms, blends, and reduplicatives
were generally excluded from English grammars and major theoretical mor-
phological works, or else they were marginalised to a peripheral, irrelevant,
secondary role in morphology, subordinate to what is to be considered inside
morphological grammar. Recently, however, there has been a significant
increase in the attention devoted to phenomena that lie outside grammatical
morphology, probably as a result of their extensive use in the coinage of
neologisms in all languages, and especially in English. Yet these phenomena
have been hitherto investigated only individually by scholars, and more for
their relevance to the phonological system than as a set of processes that
pertain to irregular morphology.
The aim of the present volume is to explore morphological extra-
grammaticality thoroughly and systematically, and to define the topic not
only as the negative counterpart of grammatical morphology, but as a sub-
discipline per se, comprising a number of different phenomena worthy of
attention in English on account of their high frequency and wide exploitation
in many different fields and communicative settings. The data included dem-
onstrates the role of abbreviatory devices and similar creative processes not
only in informal language and oral communication, areas which have already
been noted in the literature, but also in more formal contexts, including pro-
fessional jargon and scientific discourse.
Many people have played a role in the writing of this book. First and
foremost, I would like to thank Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi, who has encour-
aged me and supported this project from the very outset. Her feedback and
insightful observations on earlier drafts of the manuscript have been invalu-
able.
Many thanks are also due to Wolfgang Ulrich Dressler for his useful re-
marks on the abbreviatory phenomena examined in chapter 3. I am also very
grateful to Roberto Peroni for his discussions and critical comments on the
theoretical chapter. Other people provided useful comments or information
at various stages of the project: Maurizio Gotti, Bernd Kortmann, Elke Ron-
neberger-Sibold, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, and the participants at several
vi Preface
conferences. Naturally, all remaining errors are solely my own responsibil-

ity.
I also wish to thank Antonio Bertacca, Marcella Bertuccelli Papi, and
Susan George for their constant encouragement and support in the course of
my work. I am also indebted to Stephen James Coffey, who patiently read
through the book and suggested many improvements as a native speaker of
English, excellent reviewer and experienced linguist. I also warmly thank my
postgraduate student Maria Letizia Malatesti for many discussions on the
subject.
I dedicate this book to my family and, in particular, to my three-year-old
daughter Matilde, who has amused me since the first months of her life with
creative formations, original reduplicatives, and abbreviations of all kinds.
Pistoia, November 2012

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1. Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.1. Lexical status of items . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2. Key references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3. Organisation of the work . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2. The theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1. Extra-grammatical formations in Generative Morphology . 20
2.2. Extra-grammatical formations in Naturalness Theory . . 22
2.2.1. Natural Morphology . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.2. Natural Phonology . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3. Extra-grammatical morphology . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.1. Extra-grammatical vs. expressive morphology . . 30
2.3.2. Extra-grammatical vs. marginal morphology . . . 32
2.3.3. Extra-grammatical vs. grammatical morphology . . 36
2.3.4. Grammaticality and regularity of extra-grammatical
morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.3.5. Extra-grammaticality and language change . . . 43
2.3.6. Fundamental notions . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3.7. Definition and properties of extra-grammatical
morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3. Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.1. Definition, delimitation, and classification . . . . . . 67
3.1.1. Definition of clipping . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.1.2. Delimitation: Clipping vs. other processes . . . . 70
3.1.3. Classification and structure of clippings . . . . 72
3.1.4. Definition of acronyms and initialisms . . . . . 82
3.1.5. Delimitation: Acronyms and initialisms vs. other
processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.1.6. Classification of acronyms and initialisms . . . . 87
3.1.7. Acronyms and initialisms: Further remarks . . . 93
3.2. Abbreviations as extra-grammatical phenomena . . . . 95
viii Contents
3.2.1. Irregularities in abbreviations . . . . . . . 97

3.2.2. Regularities in abbreviations . . . . . . . . 101
3.2.3. Predictability in abbreviations . . . . . . . 105
3.2.4. Criteria of well-formedness . . . . . . . . 109
4. Blends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.1.1. Definition and main features . . . . . . . . 112
4.1.2. Delimitation: Blending vs. other processes . . . . 115
4.1.3. Classification and structure of blends . . . . . 118
4.1.4. Blends: Further remarks . . . . . . . . . 125
4.2. Blending as an extra-grammatical phenomenon . . . . 127
4.2.1. Irregularities in blends . . . . . . . . . . 128
4.2.2. Regularities in blends . . . . . . . . . . 131
4.2.3. Predictability in blends . . . . . . . . . 135
5. Reduplicatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
5.1.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
5.1.2. Delimitation: Reduplication vs. other processes . . 146
5.1.3. Classification and structure of reduplicatives . . . 148
5.2. Reduplication as an extra-grammatical phenomenon . . 159
5.2.1. Irregularities in reduplicatives . . . . . . . 160
5.2.2. Regularities in reduplicatives . . . . . . . 162
5.2.3. Predictability in reduplicatives . . . . . . . 165
6. Minor phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

6.1. Back-formation: Definition, delimitation, and classification 170
6.1.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
6.1.2. Delimitation: Back-formation vs. other processes . 173
6.1.3. Classification and structure of back-formed words . 174
6.2. Back-formation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon . . 179
6.2.1. Irregularities in back-formation . . . . . . . 180
6.2.2. Regularities in back-formation . . . . . . . 182
6.2.3. Predictability in back-formation . . . . . . . 183
6.3. Infixation: Definition, delimitation, and classification . . 185
6.3.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Contents ix
6.3.2. Delimitation: Infixation vs. other processes . . . 187

6.3.3. Classification of infixes . . . . . . . . . 188
6.4. Infixation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon . . . . 192
6.4.1. Irregularities in infixation . . . . . . . . . 192
6.4.2. Regularities in infixation . . . . . . . . . 194
6.4.3. Predictability in infixation . . . . . . . . 196
6.5. Phonaesthemes: Definition, delimitation, and classification 198
6.5.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
6.5.2. Delimitation: Phonaesthemes vs. other
morpho(no)logical concepts . . . . . . . . 202
6.5.3. Classification of phonaesthemes . . . . . . . 202
6.6. Phonaesthemes as an extra-grammatical phenomenon . . 206
6.6.1. Irregularities in phonaesthemes . . . . . . . 207
6.6.2. Criteria for identification . . . . . . . . . 208
7. Extra-grammatical formations in use . . . . . . . . 210

7.1. Principles of contextual suitability . . . . . . . . 212
7.2. Typical contexts and domains . . . . . . . . . 215
7.3. Contextualising extra-grammatical phenomena . . . . 216
7.3.1. Clippings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
7.3.2. Acronyms and initialisms . . . . . . . . . 225
7.3.3. Blends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
7.3.4. Reduplicatives . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
7.3.5. Back-formation, infixation, and phonaesthemes . . 244
8. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Sources for data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Lexical index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Chapter 1
Introduction
Within a positive perspective, investigations of extragrammatical mor-

phology should not be restricted to a status of aftermath patchwork, but
should be elevated to the rank of a systematic study of basic questions
which are likely to illuminate research in morphology at large. (Dressler
2000: 8)
Extra-grammatical morphology is a term introduced by Dressler and Mer-

lini Barbaresi (1994: 3641) which partially overlaps with Zwicky and Pul-
lums (1987) expressive (vs. plain) morphology. It applies to a set of het-
erogeneous formations (of an analogical or rule-like nature) which do not
belong to morphological grammar, in that the processes through which they
are obtained are not clearly identifiable and their input does not allow a pre-
diction of a regular output. Widely accepted examples of extra-grammatical
morphological phenomena include: blends, acronyms, initialisms, clippings,
hypocoristics, reduplicatives, back-formations, and expletive infixes.1 In the
literature, these phenomena are classified among the language oddities by
Aronoff (1976: 20), included among unpredictable formations by Bauer
(1983: 232), considered of minor importance by Scalise (1984: 98), and as
part of word-creation by Haspelmath (2002: 25), and therefore dismissed
from grammatical morphology. Similarly, Huddleston and Pullum (2002:
1632) consider them to be both minor and marginal, since, unlike regu-
lar morphological phenomena, They do not yield words of a distinct mor-
phological structure or result in new combinations of independently mean-
ingful components. There are some writers, nonetheless, who view the
phenomena in a different light. Plag (2003: 117), for example, considers
them to be highly systematic products of word-formation deserving the
same attention and classification as rules. However, although extra-
grammatical operations may resemble morphological rules, Dressler and
Karpf (1995: 101) remark that their only unifying property is that some
principle of morphological grammar is violated. It is especially the latter
2 Introduction
remark and the distinction between extra-grammatical and grammatical

morphology that are the main focus of my investigation.
Extra-grammatical morphology is a recent area of research. Many studies
on extra-grammatical phenomena have appeared in the last decade and many
others are of imminent publication (e.g. Kilani-Schoch and Dressler; Philps;
the contributions in Renner, Maniez, and Arnaud). The growing interest in
extra-grammatical morphological phenomena principally arises from the
increasing number of novel words obtained by means of these non-rule-
governed mechanisms. The English lexicon, in particular, appears to be very
dynamic in terms of new accessions involving a large variety of word-
formation techniques, and of neologisms capable of covering changes in all
sectors of society. Recent examples spicing the news jargon are the lexical
blends Brangelina and Bennifer, respectively referring to the celebrity cou-
ples Brad PittAngelina Jolie and Ben AffleckJennifer Lopez, and the acro-
nyms POTUS and FLOTUS, used in news reports to refer to the President
and First Lady of the United States.2 In magazines, we often find attractive
headlines such as J. Lo Jennifer Lopez enjoys showing off her bling bling
flashy jewellery from Ben (People, 02 October 2003, in The Rice Univer-
sity Neologisms Database). Internet terminology is likewise involved in the
creation of new coinages, such as the blends netizen and netiquette (internet
citizen/etiquette), and e-voting, e-shopping, e-love denoting electronic
voting/shopping/love, all exhibiting recurring splinters (Lehrer 1996, 2007).
Nowadays, non-affixational word-formation processes (Plag 2003: 107)
are indifferently used in specialised and professional contexts, for example in
law (A.-G. Attorney-General), medicine (CAD Coronary Artery Dis-
ease; cf. Computer-Aided Design), and technology (wi-fi wireless +
-fi, after hi-fi, and later reinterpreted as a shortening of wireless fidelity,
OED3),3 as well as in advertising and the mass media (glam glamorous,
infotainment information and entertainment) (Ronneberger-Sibold 2008:
206207). A recent television advertising slogan states HIPHOPIZE YOUR
LIFE, from the brand name of a well-known watch. Another lexical domain
favouring the use of creative word-formation techniques is juvenile slang
(Mattiello 2008a), which includes a large variety of fashionable words, such
as beaulicious ( beautiful and delicious) and BRB ( Be Right Back).
Are all these neologisms extra-grammatical? Do they obey any rules of
English prototypical grammar? Can we identify any regularity or predict-
ability in their formation? These are some of the questions which are dealt
with in this book.
Although many papers, collections and forthcoming books are devoted to
the various extra-grammatical phenomena, there is no previous study which
Introduction 3
brings all the phenomena together and systematically investigates both their
irregularities and their regularities.
This book explores each phenomenon individually, but also makes inter-
nal comparisons between the various extra-grammatical operations, identify-
ing criteria of well-formedness and also principles of contextual suitability.
The aim is to motivate the preference for extra-grammatical formations over
regular ones, which may be observed in particular communicative contexts
and domains, both informal and technical.
In general, the present book aims to reopen and make a contribution to
the debate on the position that word-formation phenomena such as blend-
ing, alphabetisms and others occupy within the relevant morphological theo-
ries: namely, Generative Morphology (Aronoff 1976, 1983), Natural Mor-
phology (Dressler et al. 1987; Dressler 1999, 2005), Expressive (vs. Plain)
Morphology (Zwicky and Pullum 1987), and Extra-grammatical vs. Mar-
ginal Morphology (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Doleschal and
Thornton 2000).
More precisely, this book aims to show that, in contrast with what many
scholars claim (e.g. Aronoff 1976; Scalise 1984; Spencer 1991; Haspelmath
2002), extra-grammatical morphology is as worthy of morphological study
as grammatical morphology. In fact, a systematic study of the former may
allow a better understanding of the latter, and may therefore illuminate
research in morphology at large (Dressler 2000: 8).
At the same time, this book also argues against those who treat extra-
grammatical formations in the same way as grammatical ones (e.g. Cannon
1986, 2000; Bat-El 2000; Kemmer 2003), or who, like Plag (2003: 116
127), accommodate abbreviations of the type disco, NATO and USA within
grammatical word-formation (cf. Conti and Mattiello 2008; Mattiello
2008a).
The present volume illustrates in what sense blending, acronym forma-
tion, and related phenomena violate universal properties and principles of
grammatical word-formation, and are therefore separate from the module of
morphological grammar (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Dressler
2000). Furthermore, it reconsiders extra-grammatical morphological phe-
nomena in the light of their preferred patterns, especially as regards parame-
ters of naturalness (Dressler 2005), and offers a (hopefully) clear-cut and
thorough taxonomy covering the processes involved.
Some of the phenomena considered in this work, namely reduplicatives
and phonaesthemes, interface with both morphology and phonology, as their
formation mechanisms draw on both systems. Other processes, such as ac-
ronyms and blends, are also discussed in terms of their pronounceability
4 Introduction
(3.2.4, 4.2.4), and many regularities in blends are related to their phonologi-
cal structure (4.2.2). Phonological issues, therefore, are dealt with in this
work insofar as they are helpful in describing the processes, the regularities
and the well-formedness of extra-grammatical formations. The analyses,
however, primarily concentrate on their morphology, since acronyms,
blends, reduplication, and related phenomena have traditionally been de-
scribed as word-formation devices.
My primary concerns in this work, then, are the following: 1) the identifi-
cation of the qualitative differences between extra-grammatical morphology
and the prototypical core of morphological grammar, and 2) a fine-grained
analysis of certain morphological phenomena that in the literature are either
considered irrelevant to linguistic theory or else erroneously included within
the treatment of regular word-formation. The boundary between what is to
be considered inside and what is, by contrast, outside morphological gram-
mar is defined. This definition accounts, for example, for the inclusion
within grammatical word-formation of secreted combining forms of the type
-holic (computerholic) and -scape (skyscape), although these are marginal
in morphology, since, in Dresslers (2000: 7) terms, they are non-
prototypical and, in particular, transitional between derivation and
compounding. Unlike blends, which are extra-grammatical because they are
obtained by an abbreviation and/or fusion process in a way which is only
partially predictable, combining forms can be described by regular morpho-
logical rules, in that they involve a secretion process preserving some seman-
tic features of the base words (alcoholic, landscape) in a productive way
(Warren 1990: 119; Mattiello 2007: 123127; cf. Fradin 2000).
With these purposes in mind, I take into consideration key concepts such
as creativity (Ronneberger-Sibold 2008) and analogy (Kiparsky 1992;
Bauer 2001), and distinguish them from more stable notions, i.e. productiv-
ity and regularity (Plag 1999, 2003; Bauer 2001). Bauer (2001: 64) pro-
poses that creativity and productivity be considered as hyponyms of innova-
tion, to be distinguished according to whether or not regularity (rule-
governedness) is envisaged. In Plags (2003) approach, all word-formation
phenomena exhibit identifiable regularities. This issue, in fact, is a complex
one, since the majority of scholars do not agree with this line of reasoning
and consider clipping, blending, acronym formation, etc. as non-rule-
governed processes, thus making it impossible for analysts to predict and
explain the kind of formation patterns that might typically be involved. From
a morphological point of view, these processes are considered unpredictable,
in the sense that we cannot predetermine how much of the original lexeme
will be retained in the new formation, nor can we identify stable criteria
Introduction 5
according to which one type of word-formation mechanism is preferred over

another. Yet scholars such as Kelly (1998: 580) have asked whether any
general principles might explain why existing forms have prevailed over
other options.
In my analysis, I classify extra-grammatical phenomena such as abbre-
viations and blends as analogical in nature. Although they belong to non-
rule-governed morphological innovation, and basically lack generality and
absolute predictability, there are, however, formal similarities which allow
language users to coin new words on the basis of attraction to sets of forms
that have already emerged in the language and to which new forms can be
assimilated. The resulting words will either be nonce formations or neolo-
gisms (see Brinton and Traugott 2005: 45 for a distinction).
In this study, I borrow Kilani-Schoch and Dresslers (forth.) term ir-
regular regularity, introduced to define those recurrent patterns that depart
from the prototypical rules of morphological grammar. I find this term typi-
cally applicable to extra-grammatical morphological phenomena, whose
mechanisms are not rule-bound, yet which exhibit underlying preferences for
some recurring morphological patterns. What I wish to discover is whether
the regularities and tendencies of extra-grammatical operations can allow
stable predictions regarding their output, and whether there are clear criteria
which justify one choice or another. For each phenomenon being investi-
gated, I identify a number of defining criteria based on regularities, but at
the same time expect that only some of these will be fully applicable (partly
confirming Plags 2003 assumptions), while others will be disconfirmed by a
variety of counterexamples.
As an illustration, consider the phenomenon of blending.4 In my study,
blends are first of all distinguished from grammatical word-formation proc-
esses, and in particular, from compounds (Ronneberger-Sibold 2006). Like
compounds, they are made up of two or more bases, but, unlike them, the
bases are shortened in rather irregular ways (cf. Bat-El 2006), so that the
input is often barely recognisable from the output, and, vice versa, the out-
put cannot be totally predicted from the input.
However, there is also a certain amount of regularity in the formation of
blends, which has encouraged linguists such as Plag (2003: 126) to support
the contention that they should not be excluded from what has been
called grammatical morphology. The (irregular) regularity of blends is,
however, not ascribable to a proper rule. As we shall see in the relevant
chapter (chapter 4), Plags (2003) blending rule (AB + CD AD) is valid
only for prototypical blends such as beaulicious (called linear by Gries
2004a: 645), and has several exceptions, among which intercalative blends
6 Introduction
(chortle chuckle and snort), where the two words are so tightly inte-
grated (Kemmer 2003: 72) that there is no clear-cut distinction between the
various parts of the blend.
It will also be shown that the prevalence of some blending patterns over
others is not accidental, but principally motivated by criteria of well-
formedness such us analogy, pronounceability/euphony, recoverability, se-
mantic blocking, meaning prominence, saliency, and similarity. As we shall
see, they also tend to show preferences based on the Peircean semiotic prin-
ciples of iconicity/diagrammaticity, indexicality, transparency (vs. opacity),
biuniqueness, and figure/ground (Dressler 2005).
Blends are words obtained by fusing parts of at least two source words,
at least one of which is curtailed and/or there is a graphemic/phonemic over-
lap between them. Hence, they exhibit some sort of structural fusion, which
is reflected in their semantics; that is, beaulicious means both beautiful
and delicious, and infotainment includes both information and enter-
tainment in its meaning (cf. exo- vs. endo-centric blends in Bat-El 2006).
The formation of blends is therefore governed by the sub-parameter of con-
structional iconicity, in that their fusion in signans/form corresponds to fu-
sion in signatum/meaning.
Furthermore, blends tend towards transparency. Morphotactic transpar-
ency, which favours patterns where the beginning of at least one source word
is retained, holds in both beaulicious and infotainment, where the beginning
of a word is followed by the end of another. Yet patterns with two word
endings are not impossible in English (cf. Lehrer 2007), as netizen and neti-
quette demonstrate, but rather dispreferred because of the higher saliency
of word- and syllable-initial consonants (Thornton 1993: 147148). It
should be added that info and (the) net are no longer felt to be shortened
words, as they have now acquired more or less autonomous lexical status.
This facilitates the morphotactic analysis of blends such as infotainment
(info + entertainment)5 and netizen (net + citizen).
Morphotactic transparency also favours patterns which preserve as many
segments from the base words as possible. It is best illustrated by partial
(Thornton 1993) or overlap blends (Kemmer 2003), such as Bennifer and
Brangelina, where either the first or the second base is not shortened (Ben,
Angelina) and where there is an overlap between the source words (Benni-
fer, Brangelina). The tendency towards identity at the juncture of the source
words in a blend also facilitates recoverability, which is maximised in a
word such as slanguage, where the overlap admits the presence of both
bases in their full form.
Data 7
Many scholars try to provide motivations guiding these formations, or in-

ducing the preference for one structure over another. Kelly (1998), for in-
stance, tries to predict how components will be ordered in blends, what their
boundaries will be, and where exactly they will be joined, thus explaining the
production of brunch, rather than brench or breakfunch (see also Gries
2004a, 2004b). Syllabic structure and overlapping constituents are certainly
crucial to blending. Yet blends often violate prototypical or recurrent pat-
terns, for instance, by inserting one word into another, as in entreporneur,
where porn is intercalated within entrepreneur, thus violating a preference
for continuous constituents.
As we shall see, the segments and patterns of blends are too varied to
predict their final make-up; only tendencies can be identified. Indeed, predic-
tions are often confuted by examples which are only barely relatable to fixed
patterns, and where input is fuzzy or even unrecognisable and output is mo-
tivated solely by human language creativity. The dynamic character and
complex nature of blends admit no generative-like rules, or put even more
strongly, no general rules can be given; all cases are word-specific (Lehrer
1996: 363).
These are some indications of the issues confronted in this work. The
sources for examples, some key references, and the organisation of the work
as a whole are set out in the next three sections.
1.1. Data
Although the analysis of blends, acronyms and similar mechanisms carried

out in this work is basically qualitative, the database had to be extensive
enough to provide illustrative examples of all the various word-formation
techniques involved in English extra-grammatical morphology. Hence, my
database has been put together from a number of different sources and types
of source:
Previous studies (see the Key references in section 1.2 below);

Online dictionaries, databases, web pages, and encyclopedias. Espe-
cially, the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED23), the Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary, Benjamin K. Shislers online Dictionary of
English Phonesthemes, Jason A. Polkos Dictionary of Reduplicated
Words, John Kremers pages on Squeasel Words and Sing-song Words,
Suzanne Kemmers Rice University Neologisms Database and her col-
lection of Neologisms, the database Acronyms, Initialisms, Alphabet-
8 Introduction
isms and other Abbreviations, the web pages on BBC Learning Eng-
lish, and Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Further sources are listed
in the relevant section of the References.
The database contains a total of 1,871 examples, 535 of which are pure
clippings, clipped compounds, clipped names or hypocoristics, 278 are acro-
nyms and initialisms, 296 are blends, 360 are reduplicatives, 254 are back-
formations, 125 are infixed words, and 23 are phonaesthemes. All the exam-
ples (with the exception of hypothetical cases used to test predictability) are
reported in the Lexical index at the end of the book. This index is sub-
divided into categories, so as to facilitate consultation, and in the case of
infixation, there is a further sub-division according to the type of infix (63
expletive items, 26 -ma- items, 29 -iz- items, 5 -diddly- items, 2 -wait for it-
items). Within the category of reduplication, the shm-/schm- items (22) are
listed separately from the rest.
For many of the types of formation discussed, examples of authentic us-
age have been included. This data has been drawn from a variety of sources,
including films and television series, newspaper and magazine articles and
headlines, scientific journals, and the electronic archive Eur-Lex. Most of the
examples are to be found in chapter 7, which is a socio-pragmatic investiga-
tion of extra-grammatical formations, aimed at identifying the primary con-
texts and domains suited to such formations. The sources for this part of the
work are described at the beginning of section 7.3, and also listed in the
Sources for data section of the References.
1.1.1. Lexical status of items
In the database, I have included examples whose use is attested at least once
either in the relevant literature or in the various above-mentioned sources.
Needless to say, some of these formations are ephemeral creations, nonce
words or occasionalisms, rather than actual neologisms. In other words, the
database is heterogeneous, and includes both stable items (e.g. ad, ding-
dong, DNA, GP, and smog), and more ephemeral items. Examples of the
latter are the blends earthoon and moorth, which were suggested in 1964 by
the physicist George Gamow as names for the primordial body that vio-
lently split apart to become the earth and the moon (Bryant 1974: 178
[emphasis mine]; also in Bat-El 2006). Examples of more recent ephemeral
formations are the blends Go-Gurt and Wheatables, and the idiosyncratic
infixation porn-wait for it-ography used by a character in the sitcom How I
Key references 9
Met your Mother. Although ephemeral items and occasionalisms may be

unfamiliar to most native speakers, Baayen and Renouf (1996) propose that
pattern-based hapax legomena (or one-offs) are an important measure for
estimating the productivity of a morphological process, especially in terms
of type frequency. Thus, hapaxes can help to illustrate the range of patterns
which are of relevance to the analysis of extra-grammatical morphological
phenomena. This also underlines the methodological importance of recording
hapaxes, rather than just repeated lexical items.
A further point with regard to the database is the fact that, since mine is
not an exclusively synchronic, contemporary study, there are a number of
items in the database which are now considered old-fashioned, archaic, or
even obsolete. For instance, the acronym DORA and the reduplicative sea-
bee are historical formations (OED2), and cuz, from cousin, is obsolete
(OED2). Nor is the study confined to standard English. Thus, there are some
items which are held to be regionalisms, and others which are judged to be
dialectal or slang. For instance, Mex, from Mexican, is North American, and
stupe, from stupid, is labelled colloquial and dialect in OED2. There may
also be a mixture of the two axes (historical and non-standard), with some
items being both archaic and slang: for example, Archie, from the male fore-
name Archibald, is a historical slang clipping meaning an anti-aircraft gun
(OED2).
1.2. Key references
Before delineating the structure of the work, I would like to mention the
enormous and varied bibliography on the topics of extra-grammatical mor-
phology and creative phenomena. A seminal study including a clear-cut dif-
ferentiation between extra-grammatical morphology and morphological
grammar is Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994). Here, however, the au-
thors investigation of the pragmatic meanings available through grammati-
cal morphology excludes extra-grammatical formations. Elsewhere, in a
chapter entitled Morphologie grammaticale et extragrammaticale, Fradin,
Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 2528) similarly identify universal criteria
for the classification of a lexical unit as either grammatical or extra-
grammatical, yet, again, their focus is on the former, the grammatical.
The widely celebrated paper by Arnold M. Zwicky and Geoffrey K. Pul-
lum (1987) represents a watershed in morphology for its clear and valuable
demarcation between expressive and plain morphology. However, the ex-
10 Introduction
pressive phenomena which they consider only partially overlap with the ar-
eas of extra-grammaticality illustrated in the present book.
Another seminal work is Doleschal and Thorntons (2000) edited volume,
which includes a distinction between extra-grammatical and marginal mor-
phology (Wolfgang U. Dressler), and also insightful discussions on specific
phenomena, namely blends and acronyms in Hebrew (Outi Bat-El), blends
and combining forms in French (Bernard Fradin), and creative trade names
in German (Elke Ronneberger-Sibold). These contributions have been stimu-
lating from many viewpoints, though the discussions on the same topics in
chapters 3 and 4 of my own work show that my position is different from
that of both Bat-El and Fradin.
Works on morphology, grammar and word-formation abound in the lit-
erature. Notably, for general overviews of certain extra-grammatical mor-
phological phenomena I will make reference to: Jespersen (1942), Marchand
(1969), Adams (1973), Bauer (1983, 1988), Quirk et al. (1985), Stockwell
and Minkova (2001), Huddleston and Pullum (2002), and Fradin (2003). I
also refer to generative-oriented studies, such as Aronoff (1976), Scalise
(1984), Spencer (1991), and Haspelmath (2002), especially in relation to
their tendency to marginalise or even neglect extra-grammatical phenomena
on the grounds that they are unanalysable in terms of rules. By contrast,
studies which offer a natural approach to word-formation, for example those
of Dressler et al. (1987), Dressler (1999, 2005), Ronneberger-Sibold (2008),
and the recent paper by Kilani-Schoch and Dressler (forth.), provide an in-
teresting framework for the accommodation of blends, acronyms and redu-
plicatives within Natural Morphology. Crucially, I disagree with Ingo Plag
(2003), whose inclusion of extra-grammatical formations into regular word-
formation I specifically criticise.
In relation to the individual phenomena discussed in this book, a great
deal of research has been carried out and many studies have been published,
both to describe and classify each phenomenon and to identify specific char-
acteristics: (ir-)regularities, predictable patterns, contexts of use, etc. Many
papers on acronyms, blends, clippings, reduplicatives, and infixes have ap-
peared in the journal American Speech since the second half of the last cen-
tury, namely Howson (1945), Baum (1955, 1956, 1957, 1962), Heller and
Macris (1968), Bryant (1974), Algeo (1977), McMillan (1980), Cannon
(1989), and Dienhart (1999). These are primarily descriptive in character,
and have provided me with a vast number of examples to consider. Booij,
Lehmann, Mugdan, Kesselheim, and Skopeteas are the editors of a useful
handbook which appeared in 2000 Morphologie which includes three
interesting papers on, respectively, creative processes (Philip Baldi), blend-
Key references 11
ing (Garland Cannon), and clippings and acronyms (Charles W. Kreidler).

The latter two are mainly re-workings and developments of previous studies
on the same topics, namely Kreidler (1979), Cannon (1986), and the above-
mentioned Cannon (1989). The second edition of Keith Browns Encyclope-
dia of Language and Linguistics also hosts intriguing papers on English
blends (Bat-El), on reduplication (Inkelas), and on other shortening proc-
esses (Lpez Ra) which are critically discussed in the relevant chapters of
the present work.
With regard to abbreviations in particular, Paula Lpez Ra has pub-
lished extensively on acronyms and neighbouring categories (2002, 2004,
2006), and recently, in 2007, on lexical creativity in electronic communica-
tion (cf. Fandrych 2007, 2008 for discussions on the same topics). In the
same year, Merlini Barbaresi (2007) published an article on Italian acro-
nyms and initialisms. The paper on English acronyms and initialisms which I
have co-authored with Sara Conti (Conti and Mattiello 2008) focuses on the
extra-grammaticality of these phenomena. In a recent paper, Jamet (2009)
studies English clippings from a morphonological perspective.
As for blends, the most extensive monographs are Pound (1914) and
Grsillon (1984), as well as a forthcoming collection of papers by Renner et
al. Gries (2004a, 2004b) and Hong (2004) are three basic papers for the
analysis of blending structure in English (cf. Bertinetto 2001 for other lan-
guages). I have drawn on them both for bibliographical references (e.g.
Soudek 1978; Kubozono 1990; Kelly 1998; Kemmer 2003) and for the
study of blending patterns. Experimental approaches to English blends are to
be found in Lehrer (1996, 2007), whereas Ronneberger-Sibold (2006) fo-
cuses on their classification in terms of transparency/opacity within the
framework of Natural Morphology. Thornton (1993), although using Italian
data, provides an interesting account of blends within the same framework.
Lastly, the present author (Mattiello 2007, 2008b; cf. Warren 1990) has
distinguished blends from combining forms in two articles, with the aim of
illustrating the difference between the extra-grammatical and the marginal in
morphology.
With regard to reduplication, the literature offers both monographic
works, the most extensive and complete for English being Thun (1963) but
see also cross-linguistic studies such as Raimy (2000) and Inkelas and Zoll
(2005) and research papers. A very recent paper on the extra-
grammaticality of English reduplicatives (Merlini Barbaresi 2008) offers a
series of fascinating ideas on the analysis of these formations, as well as a
wide-ranging examination of existing accounts.
12 Introduction
Reduplication has been studied in connection with infixation by Yu

(2004) and Elfner and Kimper (2008). Other studies concerned with the
various types of infixation include: McCarthy (1982), Zonneveld (1984), and,
more recently, Viau (2002) and Yu (2007). Back-formation is the object of
study of Marchand (1963), Shimamura (1984), and Becker (1993). Nagano
(2007) is a revision of Marchands (1963, 1969) analysis of back-formation.
For phonaesthemes, there are older studies, such as Householder (1946),
together with more recent ones, such as Waugh (1994), McCrum (2002), Ber-
gen (2004), Drellishak (2006), and Philps (forth.).
Each of the studies mentioned above has dealt with extra-grammatical
phenomena only partially and specifically. In the present work, by contrast, I
bring the various phenomena together and develop criteria for identifying
and describing them both in general and individually.
1.3. Organisation of the work
The work is subdivided into six main chapters. Chapter 2 examines the theo-
retical framework of morphological research. It shows the marginal role
played by extra-grammatical operations in Generative Grammar (Aronoff
1976; Scalise 1984; Spencer 1991; Haspelmath 2002), and illustrates how
the theoretical model of Natural Morphology (Dressler et al. 1987; Dressler
1999, 2005) can show the limits of morphology, in terms of the prototypical
vs. marginal and the grammatical vs. extra-grammatical. In a similar way,
the theoretical model of Natural Phonology (Stampe 1969, 1979; Donegan
and Stampe 1979; Dressler 1984) helps explain some (phonotactic and pro-
sodic) preferences in language change, for instance in abbreviatory tech-
niques (cf. Ronneberger-Sibold 1996 for preferences in German and French
shortenings).
A distinction is made in this chapter between extra-grammatical and
expressive morphology (Zwicky and Pullum 1987), two terms that are
generally conflated in relevant studies (e.g. in Dressler 2000), and also be-
tween extra-grammatical and marginal morphology (Dressler 2000),
respectively illustrated by blending and combining form combination (War-
ren 1990; Mattiello 2007). Extra-grammatical morphology is also consid-
ered in terms of regularity, creativity, and analogy. The relevance of extra-
grammatical formations to language change is also taken into account in this
chapter, especially its role in the processes of lexicalisation (Brinton and
Traugott 2005) and grammaticalisation (Hopper and Traugott 2003). Lastly,
the chapter concentrates on the distinctive properties of extra-grammatical
Organisation of the work 13
morphology, and offers basic parameters to accommodate blends, abbrevia-

tory phenomena, reduplicatives, etc. within this framework.
In the following chapters, specific extra-grammatical phenomena are
considered in more depth, with exclusive focus on the English language. In
particular, chapter 3 investigates abbreviations, used here as a cover term to
include both clippings and alphabetisms, with the latter being further subdi-
vided into acronyms and initialisms (Conti and Mattiello 2008). Abbrevia-
tions are, in the first instance, differentiated in terms of their structure, clip-
pings generally retaining more material from the source words than
alphabetisms (with a few exceptions, e.g., slang H. heroin), and therefore
expected to be more transparent. Within alphabetisms, acronyms are differ-
entiated from initialisms on the basis of their pronunciation, and both are
distinguished from a variety of adjacent categories which are commonly
conflated with them due to their abbreviatory character and orthographic
shape, e.g. graphic abbreviations which are expanded in pronunciation (e.g.
Dr. Doctor) and alphanumeric combinations mostly used in text messag-
ing (e.g. GR8 great). These latter categories are not included in my inves-
tigation, because they fall outside the morphological phenomena taken into
consideration.
Against Plag (2003: 116117), I argue that what he calls name trunca-
tions are also extra-grammatical in nature, because 1) they are not formed
by a rule in a totally predictable way, and 2) the same truncated name may
come from different bases (Al Albert, Alfred or Alonzo), making the rela-
tionship between input and output obscure. A similar position is taken by
Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 40), who exclude hypocoristics such
as Lisa, Liz and Bet ( Elisabeth) from grammar, but include Lizz-y and
Bett-y, obtained by rule from clipped bases (cf. Mattiellos 2008a: 70 bor-
derline cases in slang).
The prototypicality of alphabetisms is also taken into account, discrimi-
nating elliptic from non-elliptic acronyms, and semantically-irrelevant
from semantically-relevant acrostics (i.e. acronyms whose reading coin-
cides with an English homophone, see Conti and Mattiello 2008: 562564).
Within acronyms, the non-elliptic type can be considered more morphotacti-
cally transparent (i.e. its constituent parts are easier to identify) than the
elliptic type, while semantically-relevant acrostics can guarantee a high de-
gree of morphosemantic transparency (i.e. compositional meaning), in that
the semantic relatedness between the acrostic and its homophone facilitates a
partial recoverability of the lexical meaning conveyed by the acrostic itself.
Nonetheless, I show that shortenings are only partially predictable (cf.
Bauer 1983). Their shape cannot be envisaged from the input (compare ad
14 Introduction
with advert, both from advertisement), and at times they are ambiguous, in
that the same output may come from two or more different source forms
(e.g. B.A. Bachelor of Arts or British Airways). Moreover, unlike regular
compounding and derivation, their basic components are blurred, and their
head is unclear, difficult to assign, or even absent, as in initialisms originat-
ing from lists (BLT bacon, lettuce, and tomato referring to a type of
sandwich; cf. exocentric compounds). Most importantly, shortenings do not
produce new words, distinct from their bases, nor do they change the gram-
matical category of the source word or phrase (cf. Bat-El 2000). Lastly, the
criteria generally used to separate acronyms from initialisms are criticised,
in that some abbreviations which could be pronounced as words according to
the rules of English phonetics (GOP, OD, WHO) are actually pronounced
letter by letter, as initialisms, as a further confirmation of the irregularity of
these formations.
Chapter 4 is entirely devoted to the blending phenomenon. Blends are
classified in the light of previous accounts (especially Cannon 1986, 1989,
2000; Kemmer 2003; Gries 2004a, 2004b; Hong 2004), and distinguished
from related by-forms, namely clipped forms (Bauer 1983: 233), syn-
tagmatic shortenings (Dressler 2000: 5), shortened/abbreviated com-
pounds (Plag 2003: 122), clipped compounds (Bat-El 2006: 66), con-
taminations (Ronneberger-Sibold 2006: 158), and syntagmatic
truncations (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). These different terms show
that there is still much confusion in the distinctions made between true
blends and neighbouring categories.
Blends are deliberate extragrammatical compound[s] (Ronneberger-
Sibold 2006: 155), and at the same time a special abbreviatory mechanism.
Thus, they differ both from regular compounds and from other extra-
grammatical mechanisms labelled as abbreviations in chapter 3. They do,
however, share some of the features of both, namely the presence of more
than one base (like compounds) and the abbreviation of the source forms
(like other forms of abbreviation).
Definitions and subcategorisations of blends, as in Fradin (2000), Bat-El
(2006), Ronneberger-Sibold (2006), Lehrer (2007), and others, are critically
discussed, my personal focus being on the detection of both prototypical and
non-prototypical types. I also consider blends in relation to combining forms
(Warren 1990). For reasons of productivity and regularity, the two consti-
tute different phenomena, and at the same time the relationship between them
cannot be viewed as one of hyponymy (Mattiello 2007).
Chapter 5 is devoted to the analysis of reduplicatives (or echo-words).
For their classification I adopt Merlini Barbaresis (2008) typology, distin-
guishing between ablaut/apophonic, rhyming, and copy reduplicatives. Echo-

words are also compared to regular compounds, in terms of their base(s) and
meaningfulness. For instance, in the ablaut/apophonic type (e.g. tick-tock,
zigzag), obtained from the morphological operation of total reduplication
with vowel modification, one or both bases are neither lexical nor morpho-
logical items, and this differentiates them from grammatical compounds,
whose bases are preferably words, stems, roots, or phrases. For the same
reason, rhyming reduplicatives such as okey-dokey, in which only one base
carries meaning, must be kept distinct from rhyming compounds (e.g.
walkie-talkie), in which both bases are meaningful. Furthermore, reduplica-
tion does not involve a specific grammatical class of bases. Nor, in most
cases, does meaning change involve the addition of meaningful elements, as
happens in rule-governed morphology. Even the most regular and predictable
type, schm-/shm- reduplicatives (e.g. variables shmariables), included
within sophisticated coinages by Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994:
39), exhibits some variability in terms of formation and meaning conveyed,
and is indeed an illustrative example of what Zwicky and Pullum (1987) call
expressive morphology. These are some of the reasons which motivate
their inclusion within extra-grammatical morphology.
Echo-words are preferred formations in baby talk as well as in adult lan-
guage (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). As I claim in chapter 5, accord-
ing to naturalness parameters they are highly iconic: for instance, in the apo-
phonic type (zigzag), the repetition of the same consonantal frame mirrors
the repetition of movements in the words meaning, while the change of the
vowel metaphorically symbolises change of direction. Iconicity is even
greater in onomatopoeic ideophones (dingdong), in which the reduplicative
shows a phonetic resemblance with the sound it describes.
Another iconic/diagrammatic process is back-formation (or back-
derivation), in that it is equally subtractive in form and meaning (cf. Nagano
2007). In chapter 6, I distinguish back-formation both from grammatical
morphological operations, such as derivation, and from other extra-
grammatical operations, such as clipping. Unlike regular derivation, back-
derivation deletes a real or supposed affix from a base to change its mean-
ing, as in the verb edit ( editor), by analogy with, for example, act/actor.
On the other hand, unlike subtractive techniques such as clipping, back-
formation generally changes the part of speech or the word meaning,
whereas clipping only creates shortened words from longer bases, without
changing their denotative meaning.
In the same chapter another distinction made is between back-derivation
and zero-derivation (or conversion) (cf. Marchand 1963, 1969; Nagano
16 Introduction
2007). I claim that back-derivation is extra-grammatical because it is the

result of analogical patterns, whereas zero-derivation is grammatical be-
cause it is the result of word-formation rules. The fact that conversion does
not exhibit any overt marker when passing from the input to the output and
that its directionality is problematic is predicted by the model. By contrast,
the behaviour of back-formation is not entirely predictable, in that it applies
a rule in the opposite (right-to-left) direction, although in English there is
no productive process of suffix deletion attested (Plag 2003: 187). The
latter claim goes against Marchands (1969: 2) inclusion of back-derivation
(along with zero-derivation, regular derivation and compounding) within the
category of words formed as grammatical syntagmas, i.e. combinations of
full linguistic signs.
Chapter 6 also deals with the phenomenon of expletive infixation
(Zwicky and Pullum 1987: 330332). In particular, it is claimed that infixes
used to form deprecative constructions (e.g. abso-blooming-lutely, fan-
fucking-tastic)6 belong to extra-grammatical morphology, in that they obtain
neither new words nor inflectional word forms. Furthermore, expletive in-
fixation is more marked than pre-/suf-fixation, in that it operates on discon-
tinuous bases. My analysis of the phenomenon of infixed expletives shows
the correlation between expressive and extra-grammatical morphology, thus
extending the study of the latter to an affixational process (cf. Plag 2003). In
this same chapter I also consider the types of infixation occurring in h-iz-
ouse, tele-ma-phone, and wel-diddly-elcome, which have recently been in-
vestigated by Viau (2002), Yu (2004, 2007), and Elfner and Kimper (2008),
following their use in songs and television series.
Lastly, the final part of the chapter is devoted to phonaesthemes, an ex-
ample of which is the sl- cluster (as in slug, slurp, slut) associated with a
pejorative connotative value (Firth 1930). This category of words must be
kept distinct from those which involve derivation-based mechanisms. At the
same time, however, their capacity to contribute connotative meaning inde-
pendent of denotative meaning, and the resulting communicative potential,
widely exploited in language use (especially in word-play), testify to their
expressivity.
In chapter 7 I classify the typical lexical domains and the major commu-
nicative contexts in which extra-grammatical morphological phenomena
occur. For instance, many blends are product and trade names (frappuccino
frapp and cappuccino, Kodacolor Kodak and color), or are used by
the media or in advertising and show business (Californication Califor-
nia and fornication, a television series). Abbreviations are generally used
in specialised domains, such as politics, law, economy, medicine, and tech-
nology (e.g. MP Member of Parliament, dem democrat, DNA, PC),

or they are typical of youth slang, as in bib ( Fr. bibliothque), celly (
cellular phone), cruits ( recruits), LOL ( Laughing Out Loud), etc.
I try to identify criteria of contextual suitability for these phenomena. Yet
such a classification is only tentative, in that the same phenomenon can con-
form to different criteria and belong to different registers: alphabetisms, for
instance, obey both the Principle of Linguistic Economy (i.e. short and sim-
ple communication) and that of Naming (i.e. denomination of new inven-
tions, discoveries, processes, associations, etc.), and can be either formal
(MP) or informal (LOL).
In this final chapter I also draw attention to the reasons motivating the
coinage of extra-grammatical formations. In spite of their obscurity and
difficult accessibility, new creative words are constantly formed and reused
as part of the English lexicon, and they are often preferred over grammatical
(more transparent) formations.
I show that the motives behind their formation are various, and depend on
the context, the user, and the receiver. Shortenings, for instance, may repre-
sent a conscious act of economising, especially in technical and in-group
language, where the user and receiver share a common jargon, or in newspa-
per headlines, where the abbreviation cataphorically anticipates a more ex-
plicit form to be expanded later in the article (Mattiello forth.). Reduplica-
tives may provide a connoted (more informal, familiar or jocular) alternative
to neutral language, and be indexical of the users emotional states. More-
over, they may suit child-directed speech as well as artistic (poetic) contexts,
because of the musicality they entail. Blends may similarly suit poetry, mu-
sic, and art in general, since they express the users originality and desire to
impress. Overall, speakers and writers in many different fields show a preference
for creative formations because of their power both to attract the receivers atten-
tion and to provoke laughter, that is, for their humorous effects.
Extra-grammatical formations, therefore, are relevant not only to mor-
phological research, but also to sociology, pragmatics, and morphopragmat-
ics (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994). And even though these areas of
investigation will only be briefly touched upon in the present work, they
appear to offer significant potential for future research into extra-
grammatical morphological phenomena.
Let me conclude this introduction with a quote from Zwicky and Pullum
(1987):
18 Introduction
We must stress that we are not claiming that such formations lack regular-
ity or that they are not a proper object of study for linguists. (p. 338 [em-
phasis in the original])
The question as to whether this statement applies only to phenomena of
expressive morphology or whether it also applies to so-called extra-
grammatical phenomena remains an open one. In this book I hope to dem-
onstrate that: 1) extra-grammatical formations exhibit some regularity,
though in terms of analogical patterns rather than in the traditional sense of
morphological rules, 2) they can be studied systematically, and 3) their study
can make a contribution to linguistic theory more generally.
Chapter 2
The theoretical framework
A treatment of extra-grammatical morphology requires consideration of the

main word-formation studies published to date, and of the relevant theoreti-
cal frameworks. Among the various approaches to morphology, the best-
fitting theoretical model for my study is Natural Morphology (Dressler et al.
1987; Dressler 1999, 2005). In principle, this deals with all aspects of the
morphological module, although rule-bound grammatical processes remain
its main object of investigation. A clear definition of what is grammatical in
morphology presupposes a series of defining criteria that apply either proto-
typically or only marginally, thus negatively identifying the extra-
grammatical phenomena dealt with in this book.
In this chapter, I first of all show the status of extra-grammatical mor-
phological phenomena within the theories of Generative Morphology and
Natural Morphology, and then concentrate on the distinction between extra-
grammatical morphology and the grammatical module of morphology, as
identified by Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 3641; see also Dressler
2000; Mattiello 2008a; cf. Bat-El 2000; Plag 2003; Fradin, Montermini, and
Plnat 2009). Reference will also be made to the theory of Natural Phonol-
ogy (Stampe 1969, 1979; Dressler 1984), which is able to explain some
preferences and choices, especially in the blending and clipping processes.
Finally, reference will be made to expressive morphology (Zwicky and
Pullum 1987), which overlaps, but only partially, with the notion of extra-
grammaticality I adopt in this book.
In this chapter I also discuss the role of extra-grammatical phenomena in
language change (cf. Fischer 2007 for morphosyntactic change), and its
relevance to such processes as lexicalisation (Brinton and Traugott 2005)
and grammaticalisation (Traugott and Heine 1991; Hopper and Traugott
2003).
Lastly, I discuss the properties exhibited by extra-grammatical phenom-
ena, and conclude with a distinction between productive rules (Plag 1999;
Bauer 2001), and analogical processes (Kiparsky 1992) the latter thought
to be of central importance in the analysis of creative formations such as
abbreviations, blends, and reduplicatives.
The aim of this chapter is to identify criteria that characterise extra-
grammatical morphological phenomena, and at the same time distinguish
20 The theoretical framework
them from rule-governed word-formation processes. Although there are

some principles and regularities in the production of blends, acronyms, and
related word creation techniques, these regularities are not productive rules,
in the sense that, unlike derivational or compounding rules, they do not allow
full prediction of a regular output. The analogical principle governing their
formation is indeed more permissive than rules, admitting a variety of pat-
terns which would be excluded from ordinary morphology. Hence, the sepa-
ration of blending, abbreviations, and reduplications from the module of
morphological grammar. This does not mean, however, that such phenomena
cannot be systematically analysed, or that they do not deserve the attention
of linguists, as often claimed, especially within the generative approach to
morphology.
2.1. Extra-grammatical formations in Generative Morphology
Within Generative Grammar, blends, acronyms, and similar abbreviations

are not assigned the status of word-formation rules (WFRs), i.e. rules which
specify sets of words on which they can operate (Aronoff 1976: 2022).
In Aronoff (1976: 20), they are labelled oddities and viewed as rather
unusual coinages escaping word-formation processes. Although some ex-
amples may appear more transparent (e.g. smog, NATO), on the whole they
are considered to be opaque, in that they exhibit no recognisable internal
structure or constituents.
Aronoff (1976) adopts a theory of word-based morphology, that is, he
starts from the assumption that word-formation rules operate on words
(cf. Bauer 1979). This automatically excludes processes of extra-
grammatical nature, which are neither word- nor morpheme-based, from his
theory of word-formation. Fandrych (2004: 18) observes that these proc-
esses belong to non-morphematic word-formation, that is, they use ele-
ments which are not morphemes, but splinters (sm/oke + f/og),7 initial
letters (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), phonaesthemes (cr- as in criss-
cross),8 or even supposed morphemes, as in the back-formed verb televise
( television), in which -ion is analysed as a deleted suffix, but is in fact
only analogical with the suffix used in, for example, revision ( revise,
Marchand 1969: 393). In this latter aspect, I do not agree with Fandrych
(2004: 18), who considers back-formation as morphematic. Indeed, as we
will see in 6.1.1, some word parts that are removed in back-formation do not
correspond to any existing affix, hence, they cannot be classified as proper
morphemes.
Extra-grammatical formations in Generative Morphology 21
Furthermore, extra-grammatical processes do not comply with Aronoffs

(1976: 47) Unitary Base Hypothesis, according to which word-formation
rules operate on syntactically distinct classes of bases. Although this hy-
pothesis is thought to be untenable in word-formation by many linguists (e.g.
Plank 1981; Plag 1999, 2004; Ryder 1999), and although Aronoff (1976:
48) himself admits that it is a strong assumption and easily refuted,9 the
fact that information about the syntactic category of the input is totally ir-
relevant in predicting the output of extra-grammatical operations is sympto-
matic of their irregularity. It is indeed puzzling why Aronoff (1976: 6970)
describes the process of expletive infixation as a very productive English
infixing rule. Although expletive infixation operates on words, which are
however interrupted by an infix, it applies to various base categories, includ-
ing adjectives (fan-fuckin-tastic), verbs (in-fuckin-stantiate), proper names
(Kalama-fuckin-zoo), and potentially all syntactic classes, thus exhibiting
what Zwicky and Pullum (1987: 336) call promiscuity with regard to input
category.
Likewise, Scalises (1988) Unitary Output Hypothesis is disconfirmed
by extra-grammatical processes, resulting in words which exhibit alternative
outputs. Variability in input, input category, and output will be considered
three defining properties of extra-grammatical phenomena (2.3.7.22.3.7.4).
In the generative approach, Aronoff (1976) in principle considers only
those morphological processes which can be properly called productive,
especially in terms of semantic coherence (i.e. predictability of meaning).10
Thus, extra-grammatical formations, which are mainly based on analogical
patterns, and which do not generally change the denotative meaning of the
input, but only express a certain attitude on the part of the speaker, are again
irrelevant within the generative approach to word-formation. In Aronoffs
(1976, 1983) terms, they cannot be defined as potential words.
Within the same approach, Scalise (1984: 98, footnote 1) calls blends,
acronyms and clippings minor word formation processes and Spencer
(1991: 461, footnote 16) dismisses them as not of any importance to mor-
phological theory. In both cases, extra-grammatical phenomena are deliber-
ately excluded from any morphological discussion and only relegated to
footnotes. In a similar vein, Haspelmath (2002: 25) states that not all proc-
esses of word-creation fall under word-formation; hence, abbreviations
such as acronyms, clippings and blends will play no role in [his] book.
The fact that these phenomena cannot be predicted by the WFRs of Gen-
erative Grammar is stressed also by Bauer (1983: 232), who groups them
under the label unpredictable formations. Yet Bauer (1983, 1988) devotes
an extensive discussion to these types of morphological formation, because,
as far as English is concerned, they are so common that it is misleading to

consider them unusual.
The number of attested blends, acronyms and clippings has certainly in-
creased since the second half of the last century, and many studies have
since been devoted to their classification, description, and analysis.11 Fre-
quency, however, is only one of the criteria determining morphological pro-
ductivity (Bauer 2001; Mattiello 2007; cf. profitability in Plag 1999 and
Bauer 2001). As I will show, in spite of their frequency, these formations are
based on creativity and analogy rather than on productivity and rules.
Within Natural Morphology these formations are still considered out of
the ordinary, as they do not comply with morphological rules, though they
do exhibit various internal regularities. Some of these formations, as we will
see, fall into more natural/less marked patterns than others, thus distinguish-
ing what is prototypical and more predictable from what is marginal and
dispreferred.
2.2. Extra-grammatical formations in Naturalness Theory
2.2.1. Natural Morphology
Within the theory of Natural Morphology (NM), the subtheory of universal

morphological naturalness/markedness focuses on universal preferences,
which, according to Dressler (2005: 268) hold both for grammatical and
for extragrammatical morphology, where preferences are not curbed by
grammatical system adequacy. Universal preferences are based on the semi-
otically-derived parameters of iconicity, indexicality, (morphoseman-
tic/morphotactic) transparency, biuniqueness, and figure/ground.
With regard to the first of these parameters, iconicity, there are three as-
pects relevant to the present work. Two involve the comparison between
input and output, specifically, the separate relationships which hold between
the respective signantia (forms) and between the respective signata (mean-
ings). For instance, in the case of lab, reduced from laboratory, we can ob-
serve a reduced signans in the output, but not a reduced signatum. It is clear
that the signantia are dissimilar, but not the signata, which are denotationally
and referentially (although not contextually) identical. In this case, then, as
we go from input to output there is a reduction in the degree of iconicity.
The third aspect concerns the mechanism of reduction which produces the
output. This mechanism is non-iconic, because the reduction operated on the
signans is not counterbalanced by a reduction in the signatum. To the con-
Extra-grammatical formations in Naturalness Theory 23
trary, the signatum may acquire extra meanings (mostly pragmatic in nature)
by different users and different contexts.
In blending, the subtractive technique is, by contrast, more iconic, in that
fusion in the form of the blend reflects fusion in meaning, as in smoke and
fog resulting in smog. In clippings, the subtracted form (e.g. bro, prof) is
iconic of a reduced distance between the user and his addressee. In name
truncations (e.g. Musso Mussolini) and hypocoristics (e.g. Patty
Patricia), subtraction in the signans may have the iconic function of reflect-
ing semantic privation, devaluation, or smallness in the signatum. A higher
amount of iconicity is shown by echo-words, such as ping pong and zigzag,
in which repetition in form is diagrammatic of repetition in meaning, the
change of the vowel symbolising change of direction.
The principle of iconicity can also explain why many languages of the
world use reduplication for grammatical purposes. For instance, in Malay
full reduplication is used for inflectional purposes (e.g. buku book
buku-buku books) (Nadarajan 2006: 40), in that addition in the signans is
diagrammatic with addition in the signatum. In Samoan, reduplication is
iconically used to obtain the superlative form of adjectives, as in tele (big)
tele-tele (very big) (Cuzzolin and Lehmann 2004: 1217).12 In English it
is mainly used to coin new words, such as hocus-pocus (jugglery) and
tussie-mussie (a small bouquet of flowers). However, there are some cases
of English reduplicated words with an elative function: for example, in
pretty-pretty (excessively pretty) or super-duper (extremely good, excel-
lent), reduplication has a slightly more grammaticalised meaning compara-
ble to superlative formation (see 2.3.5.2). Furthermore, in English, as well
as in other languages, reduplication is one of the most frequent processes of
first language acquisition (Jakobson 1944). It abounds in premorphology,
that is, in small childrens speech before the development of the submodule
of morphological grammar (Dressler and Karpf 1995), especially to com-
pensate for childrens inability to pronounce the second part of polysyllabic
words (Ingram 1974), as in for water, for candy, and
for bacon (Ingram 1979).
Turning now to the parameter of indexicality (direct reference of signans
to signatum), expletive infixation is more marked than prefixation or suffixa-
tion because it adds something in between an affix and its base (in-bloody-
credible), or may even interrupt a base, as in im-fuckin-portant. With regard
to the same parameter, ablaut reduplicatives are more marked than endocen-
tric compounds. In the former, the head is rarely assignable (tip-top) and the
bases are hardly recognisable as pre-existent meaningful morphemes (riff-
raff) (Merlini Barbaresi 2008), while the latter have their head within the
compound, as in black-bird, a type of bird.
As to the parameter of morphotactic transparency, blends and other ab-
breviatory operations are both marked and marginal.13 As a result of the
universal preference for binary relations, blends usually consist of combina-
tions of two lexemes. Yet high morphotactic opacity (i.e. difficulty in identi-
fying the constituent parts) occurs in those blends which are formed from
two shortened lexemes, or so-called splinters (Lehrer 1996, 2007), as in
beaulicious ( beautiful + delicious). Higher opacity is illustrated by
intercalative blends (Kemmer 2003: 72), in which a word (or a splinter) is
embedded in (part of) another source word (e.g. enshocklopedia encyclo-
pedia + shock, entreporneur entrepreneur + porn or pornography),
creating discontinuity of bases. On the other hand, wintertainment ( win-
ter + entertainment) and Amerindian ( American + Indian) are more
transparent, because they combine a splinter with a full base. Lastly, higher
transparency is illustrated by overlapping blends with a homophonous string
(e.g. sexpert sex + expert), which do not have proper truncated source
words (see Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth. for comparable French data).
With reference to the same parameter, especially to the universal prefer-
ence for word-based morphology, clippings are opaque, and all the more so
when they retain less salient parts of words, such as the end of a word (loid
celluloid), or the middle of a word (flu influenza), which illustrate
progressive degrees of opacity. Alphabetisms are even more opaque, in that
they retain only initial letters from the source words (e.g. BBC British
Broadcasting Corporation).
With reference to the principle of perceptual salience (Dressler et al.
1987: 116117), according to which, within a word, word-initial consonants
are most salient, acronyms are preferred over telonyms (cf. BBC vs.
*H.G.N.).14 Furthermore, since the beginning and the end of a word are
more salient than what comes in between, prototypical blends take the head
of the first component and the tail of the last component, as in motel (
motor + hotel; cf. *torhot). The principle of perceptual salience also ex-
plains why, according to Lehrer (2007: 117120), blends can also be formed
from the beginning of two words (e.g. Mexicali Mexico + California),
but the beginning of a blend cannot be the end of a word (e.g. *glyson
ugly + person, also in Lehrer 1996: 364), an exception being the word blog
( web + log).
With regard to the parameter of biuniqueness (one-to-one relations),
marked (unique) formations are those in which one and the same signans
corresponds to two or more signata: the initialism AC, for instance, stands
for different full forms (Aero Club, Air Corps, Alpine Club, alternating
current, Appeal Court, and others). The most marked ones are, however,
ambiguous formations, in which one form corresponds to many source forms
and vice versa: for example, the back-clipping adv is obtained from various
bases (advanced, adverb, advertisement, advocate), but when it refers in
particular to advertisement, it is in competition with other shortenings,
namely ad, advert, advt.
With regard to the final parameter, figure/ground, Dressler (2005) claims
that in word-formation the figure is represented by the head and the ground
by the non-head. Thus, morphotactic and morphosemantic transparency of
the head is more important than that of the non-head (Dressler 2005: 274).
Accordingly, subordinate blends such as portalight ( portable + light)
(4.1.3.5), in which the head light is clearly identifiable in that it occupies a
prototypical position on the right (the other member being the modifier), are
less marked than what I call coordinate blends (4.1.3.6). Examples of the
latter are alphameric ( alphabetic + numeric) and zebrule ( zebra +
mule), in which both members belong to the same syntactic category, have
the same semantic status, and serve as heads. Indeed, I consider coordinate
blends like brunch ( breakfast + lunch) or smog ( smoke + fog) to be
close to coordinate compounds of the type speaker-hearer and bitter-sweet.
Like coordinate compounds (Dressler 2005), coordinate blends have two
morphosemantic heads and therefore exhibit no clear figure/ground distinc-
tion. Therefore, unlike Bat-El (2006: 67), I do not believe that the semantic
relationship between the members of the blend is exocentric, or that it de-
pends on the meaning we assign to the blend (e.g. smog a mixture of fog
and smoke vs. an airborne pollution).
A higher degree of markedness is shown by reduplicatives, which exhibit
no clear-cut figure/ground distinction between head and non-head. In the
rhyming and ablaut types, headedness is difficult to assign, since they may
be formed either from a left-hand or a right-hand base (cf. easy-peasy and
chit-chat), or have no existing base at all, as in the onomatopoeic type (boo-
boo).
The theory of Natural Morphology seems to offer an interesting frame-
work for a discussion not only of grammatical formations, but also of extra-
grammatical ones. In particular, the subtheory of universal morphological
naturalness allows some predictions on the distribution and frequency of
such formations. We can, for instance, predict that extra-grammatical mor-
phology will often be more natural than grammatical morphology, in the
sense that universal preferences for iconicity and other parameters can oper-
ate in an unrestricted way in extra-grammatical processes: for example, total
reduplication is common in extra-grammatical morphology, but rarely used

in English morphological grammar (Dressler 2000, 2005). We can also pre-
dict that more natural options on one parameter will occur more frequently
than less natural ones on the same parameter. Thus, we can identify the most
prototypical pattern of each morphological process, and distinguish it from
less or non-prototypical ones.
However, contrary to expectations, more marked formations may be pro-
duced in the place of less marked ones, and less prototypical patterns may
occur more frequently than prototypical ones. For instance, in terms of mor-
photactic transparency, elliptic acronyms such as FOB ( Fresh Off the
Boat) and NASA ( National Aeronautics and Space Administration), in
which the initial letters of the article the and of the conjunction and are omit-
ted, are more marked/less prototypical than non-elliptic ones (e.g. NIMBY
Not In My BackYard). Yet their frequency is generally higher, because they
are efficient, economical and consistent with the phonology of English.
In my analysis, I will show that iconicity is often a characteristic of ex-
tra-grammatical formations, whereas other preferences in Natural Morphol-
ogy, such as morphosemantic and morphotactic transparency, do not play
the same role as they have in canonical formations. Reduced transparency
will indeed be classified among the defining properties of extra-grammatical
morphology (2.3.7.10).
2.2.2. Natural Phonology
Tendencies and prototypical patterns in extra-grammatical formations can

also be discussed in terms of universal phonological preferences, as elabo-
rated and developed within the theory of Natural Phonology (NP) (Stampe
1969, 1979; Donegan and Stampe 1979; Dressler 1984). This theory, not to
be confused with Natural Generative Phonology (Hooper 1976), operates
with phonological processes (cf. phonological rules), which constitute natu-
ral responses of the human vocal and perceptual systems to the difficulties
encountered in the production and perception of speech. Thus, classical
Natural Phonology refers to the tension between two conflicting criteria:
ease of production (pronounceability) vs. clarity of perception (perceptibil-
ity) (Dressler 1984: 32; Dziubalska-Koaczyk 2007: 71).
According to this theory, processes perform changes or substitutions in
order to adapt the speakers phonological intentions to his phonatory capaci-
ties, as well as to enable the listener to decode the intentions from the flow of
speech. In particular, two types of processes seem to play a role in easing the
speakers pronounceability as well as increasing intelligibility for the hearer:

dissimilatory processes (fortitions) and assimilatory processes (lenitions).15
The latter processes are more likely to operate in faster, more colloquial
styles, and are germane, for instance, to such extra-grammatical operations
as blends, whose formation is governed by the well-formedness criteria of
pronounceability and euphony (4.2.4).16
Within the functional-explanatory model of Natural Linguistics, there are
higher (non-linguistic) principles (e.g. least effort, cognitive economy)17
which motivate linguistic preferences (e.g. the preference for simple phono-
tactics, for a CV structure), and which have consequences such as the reduc-
tion of consonant clusters to single segments (Dziubalska-Koaczyk 2007:
71). Thus, in English, the formation of a blend like bisalo ( bison + buf-
falo) would sound more natural (easily pronounceable and accessible) than
non-existing *bisfalo, which exhibits a dispreferred cluster . Similarly,
the intercalation of the word lingual into delinquency has produced a blend
(delinguancy) which is in accordance with Shariatmadaris (2006) Ease of
Articulation Hypothesis.18 First, the cluster is easier to articulate than
because, among velars, the voiced stop is closer to the nasal than
the corresponding voiceless . Second, the final lateral alveolar sound of
lingual drops to facilitate articulation of a series of adjacent consonant
sounds. Third, there is a plausible assibilation process at the end (Stampe
1979: ix), changing to before , i.e. , whence .
Another preference established by Natural Phonology (again in Stampe
1979: ix) concerns deletion of unstressed syllables. Thus, the formation of
agitprop, from the unstressed parts of agitation and propaganda, is
prosodically marked, but motivated by the principles of 1) salience (i.e. the
word beginning is more salient than the word end), and 2) morphotactic
transparency/recoverability (i.e. recognisability of the bases) (4.2.4). By
contrast, the deletions operated on some clippings (e.g. pram perambula-
tor) conform to naturalness preferences, in that unstressed vowels are de-
leted, including the schwa.
An application of the model of Natural Phonology to German and French
shortenings (Ronneberger-Sibold 1996) has given interesting findings which
could be compared to my English data. Ronneberger-Sibold (1996) investi-
gates whether language users are constrained by preferences for certain pho-
nological properties when they form a new root through abbreviatory tech-
niques (e.g. acronyms and clippings, including suffixed ones). From her
study, three main results deserve attention: 1) in both languages, there exist
some phonotactic and prosodic properties that define the ideal new root; 2)
some of these properties (e.g. the preference for a closed syllable in mono-
syllabic words, but for open syllables in polysyllabic ones, and an overall
preference for disyllables) are shared by both languages, whereas others are
not; and 3) system-independent characteristics tend to prevail over system-
dependent ones in newly created roots. These results show that choices in
new roots may be curbed by universal needs for shortness, phonotactic and
rhythmical optimization and distinctiveness (Ronneberger-Sibold 1996:
287).
As we will see in chapter 3, English abbreviations exhibit their own regu-
larities and preferences. For instance, unlike French and German clippings,
English ones (including clipped names) are preferentially monosyllabic (e.g.
fem, Pat). Yet English disyllabic clippings often display an -ie/-y or -o suffix
(e.g. Comm-ie/Comm-o Communist), comparable to German -i, as in
Fundi ( Fundamentalist radical Green), or French -o, as in prolo (
proltaire proletarian). English also exhibits a preferential template
C(onsonant)V(owel)C(onsonant), as in the above-mentioned fem and Pat.
Other phonotactic and prosodic tendencies in the formation of English ab-
breviations will be explained in 3.2.2, and analogous phonotactic and pro-
sodic regularities for blending will be described in 4.2.2.
2.3. Extra-grammatical morphology
As mentioned in the Introduction, extra-grammatical morphology includes

morphological phenomena which Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 36
41) have clearly distinguished from morphological grammar. Specifically,
the authors identify some well-defined criteria which allow a distinction to be
made between morphological rules and extra-grammatical morphological
operations, such as blends, hypocoristics, echo-words, and others, which are
said to violate various universal principles of grammatical morphology (see
also Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat 2009). For this reason, they consider
extra-grammatical phenomena secondary for the subdiscipline of Morpho-
pragmatics, which integrates morphology and pragmatics, and whose core
must be the pragmatics of morphological grammar (Dressler and Merlini
Barbaresi 1994: 38).
Since the publication of this work, extra-grammatical morphology has at-
tracted the attention of many linguists. It has been seen: 1) as relevant for
language acquisition, especially for premorphology (Dressler and Karpf
1995; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.); 2) as a synonym of Zwicky and
Pullums (1987) expressive morphology; 3) as a component of morphol-
ogy to be kept distinct from marginal morphology (see Doleschal and
Extra-grammatical morphology 29
Thornton 2000, especially Dresslers contribution therein); 4) as a su-

perordinate of word creation (Ronneberger-Sibold 2008);19 5) as governed
by universal preferences, especially for iconicity in echo-words and blends,
in spite of their lack of transparency (Dressler 2005; Ronneberger-Sibold
2006); 6) as presenting some regular patterns (e.g. from the phonological or
semantic viewpoints) in spite of their irregularity (Fradin, Montermini, and
Plnat 2009; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.).
For the majority of scholars, blends, clippings, acronyms, reduplicatives,
and similar formations seem to be excluded from grammatical status
(Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994; Dressler 2000; Ronneberger-Sibold
2006; Conti and Mattiello 2008; Merlini Barbaresi 2008; Mattiello 2008a;
Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). The main reason for excluding them
from regular formations is the impossibility of predicting a regular and con-
sistent output given an input.
Contrary to this, some scholars recognise that such formations do not oc-
cur randomly, but follow some general principles. Here, I am referring espe-
cially to Outi Bat-El (2000) and Ingo Plag (2003), who explicitly claim that
the formations which I consider extra-grammatical do not actually lie outside
morphological grammar. More precisely, they claim that the fact that blends
and other abbreviatory mechanisms exhibit more irregularities than deriva-
tion or compounding is not a sufficient reason to dismiss them from gram-
matical morphology. Both Bat-El (2000) and Plag (2003) admit a certain
variability in the formation of blends, name truncations, acronyms, and clip-
pings. Nevertheless, they add, such formations are predictable and highly
systematic, and their regularities can be treated as proper rules (Plag
2003: 117). Against these claims, in section 2.3.6.2 a distinction will be
made between proper rules, allowing total predictability and systematicity,
and analogies, which are less constrained than rules and allow only partial
predictability on the basis of a resemblance to pre-existing patterns.
In the sections which follow, I will attempt to identify the boundaries be-
tween extra-grammatical morphology and the core of morphological gram-
mar. Later (2.3.7.12.3.7.10), I posit a number of criteria by which we
might categorise extra-grammatical phenomena and distinguish them from
what is marginal but still grammatical in morphology (Dressler 2000),
as well as from processes that are qualified as being expressive (Zwicky
and Pullum 1987), which is not the same thing as being extra-grammatical.
2.3.1. Extra-grammatical vs. expressive morphology
In the relevant literature, extra-grammatical morphology is generally associ-

ated with Zwicky and Pullums (1987) expressive morphology, including
processes belonging to the artistic or playful use of language, such as exple-
tive infixation (abso-blooming-lutely), shm-reduplication (transformations
shmansformations), and word-formation with -(e)teria (basketeria). Actu-
ally, the two terms do not entirely overlap, although they share most proper-
ties.
Both extra-grammatical and expressive morphology must be kept distinct
from the module of morphological grammar. Zwicky and Pullum (1987:
332335) use the contrasting terms expressive morphology vs. plain
morphology to draw a distinction between the above-mentioned morpho-
logical processes and the ordinary productive (and nonproductive) word
formation and word structure rules of a language. I will draw a similar
distinction between extra-grammatical and grammatical morphology
(2.3.3), that is, between phenomena which are not rule-governed (but con-
structed or based on analogy) and those which are governed by recognised
morphological rules.
Among the criteria which, according to Zwicky and Pullum (1987), char-
acterise expressive morphology is its pragmatic effect (pp. 335336 crite-
rion 4.1). Expressive morphology is said to be associated with an expres-
sive, playful, poetic, or simply ostentatious effect of some kind (Zwicky
and Pullum 1987: 335). This is often also the case with extra-grammatical
formations, whose musicality and jocularity are generally connected with the
users intention to produce a humorous or poetic effect of some type. Yet
some such formations may be used merely for reasons of efficiency. For
instance, acronyms (AIDS, DOS, NASA) and initialisms (HIV, MP, UN) are
privileged choices in specialised sectors and among experts, since they are
more succinct and efficient than the corresponding full forms (see the Princi-
ple of Economy in 7.1). In such cases there is no intention of producing an
artistic, playful or pretentious pragmatic effect.
Another characterising criterion of expressive morphology which is also
of relevance to extra-grammatical morphology is Zwicky and Pullums crite-
rion 4.2 promiscuity with regard to input category (1987: 336). According
to Zwicky and Pullum (1987), expressive morphological processes have
variable and peculiar effects on syntactic categories and apply promiscu-
ously to a variety of categories (p. 336). This applies to a number of phe-
nomena, including the already mentioned (2.1) expletive infixation. Redupli-
catives are likewise variable as regards the syntactic category of their input,
as shown by argle-bargle, silly-billy, and tip-top, respectively from a verb

(to argue), an adjective (silly), and a noun (top). Similarly, in the case of
abbreviations a large variety of grammatical structures are allowed as input.
Moreover, clippings such as caff ( caf) and glam ( glamorous) do not
even change the base category, nor do acronyms and initialisms,20 which
simply exhibit a shift from phrases, generally with a noun or adjective as
their heads, to a corresponding noun, adjective, etc.
The related criterion 4.3 promiscuity with regard to input basehood
(Zwicky and Pullum 1987: 336) also appears pertinent to extra-grammatical
morphology. Zwicky and Pullum (1987), quoting Zonneveld (1984: 55),
explicitly admit that expletive infixation, applying quite readily to com-
pounds and even to syntactic phrases (e.g. kick the frigging bucket, from the
informal idiom meaning to die), is not a grammatical rule at all, but
rather an extragrammatical phenomenon (p. 336). On the other hand, the
case of inflected word forms used as bases (e.g. drygood-s-teria) does not
seem pertinent to extra-grammatical phenomena, in which inflectional af-
fixes apply regularly to abbreviated word forms, as in MP-s ( Member of
Parliament + plural -s; cf. Member-s of Parliament).
Furthermore, extra-grammatical phenomena, like expressive morphologi-
cal ones, may form alternative outputs (Zwicky and Pullums 1987: 337
criterion 4.5), that is, alternative forms obtained from the same input by the
same process. For example, the back-clippings ad and advert are both ob-
tained from advertisement, by curtailing different segments from the base,
and the rhyming reduplicatives itty-bitty and bitsy-witsy are both from the
base bit, as further confirmation of variability of head position.21 A different
case is perhaps that of the initialisms USA and US, both coming from the
source phrase United States of America, but with a further clipping in US,
curtailing the final A from USA.22
Zwicky and Pullums (1987: 337) criterion 4.4 of imperfect control,
which refers to a speakers lack of productive control of expressive phe-
nomena, is also important in my investigation on extra-grammatical phe-
nomena, but with particular reference to reduplicatives and similar inventive
processes, and not to abbreviations used in specialised sectors. I would of
course exclude any idea of productive rule from my study, but do claim that
the regularities under some acronyms and initialisms (AIDS, NFT NeuroFi-
brillary Tangle) are not the product of language games, punning, or jokes,
and, therefore, they are controllable, especially by experts in the sector.
Similarly, criterion 4.6 related to interspeaker variation (Zwicky and
Pullum 1987: 337) may be relevant to expletive infixing, but not to the for-
mations used in scientific and technical vocabulary, since the latter are
highly specific labels which cannot allow variation in form. Furthermore,

even though experimental data may provide evidence for variation from
speaker to speaker in the production of infixed expletives, McCarthy (1982)
observes that certain phonological constraints do exist, admitting, for in-
stance, fan-fuckin-tastic, but excluding *fant-fuckin-astic and *fa-fuckin-
ntastic. Even less relevant to my account is Zwicky and Pullums (1987:
337338) criterion 4.7 of special syntax, which is completely extraneous
to my focus on word-formation.
To sum up, I do not believe that expressive and extra-grammatical mor-
phology are assimilable under the same heading. Expressive morphology
applies only to those phenomena that have a humorous or artistic effect,
whereas extra-grammatical morphology extends also to phenomena that
show the users intention to condense linguistic information into shorter
forms or to find more specific denominations (see the Principles of Economy
and of Naming in 7.1). On the other hand, what unites them is the fact that
they cannot be treated within a theory of grammar as ordinarily conceived,
since both exhibit various violations of the rules established within plain or
grammatical morphology.
2.3.2. Extra-grammatical vs. marginal morphology
The distinction between extra-grammatical and marginal morphology is

clarified in a collection of papers edited by Doleschal and Thornton (2000),
which deals with non-fully-regular morphological phenomena variously
labeled as extragrammatical, marginal, minor or expressive morphol-
ogy (p. iii). In their foreword, Doleschal and Thornton (2000: iiivii) admit
that the referential domain addressed is rather fuzzy, and they therefore
recognise the need for theoretical definitions and delimitations, especially for
extra-grammatical and marginal morphology, claiming that the two concepts
should not be conflated. In particular, Dressler (2000) argues that the two do
not overlap and that neither is a subpart of the other; rather, extra-
grammatical morphology is opposed to grammatical morphology, while
marginal morphology in his approach is opposed to prototypical morphol-
ogy. Thus, the former lies outside morphological grammar, whereas the
latter lies at its boundaries (Dressler 2000: 1).
Dresslers (2000) paper appears the most pertinent to my investigation,
in that it clearly discriminates between the two types of morphological op-
erations, therefore defining the area of my analysis. The term extra-
grammatical morphology refers to phenomena that exhibit varying combi-
nations of violations of basic properties of morphological grammar

(Dressler 2000: 3), such as abbreviations, blends, sophisticated terminologi-
cal coinages, and childrens attempts at morphology. Marginal morphol-
ogy, on the other hand, is defined with respect to the external boundaries
between morphology and other modules or components (Dressler 2000:
6), i.e., syntax, phonology, etc., and with respect to internal boundaries
within morphology (Dressler 2000: 6), i.e., inflection, derivation, and com-
pounding.
From these assumptions, we can deduce that extra-grammatical and mar-
ginal morphology are not on the same level. Thus, both extra-grammatical
and marginal morphology should be compared with morphological grammar
rather than with one another: i.e., marginal morphology is grammatical, but
simply non-prototypical, whereas extra-grammatical morphology is not
grammatical, which does not mean it is ungrammatical (i.e. incorrect).23
Since a general distinction between extra-grammatical and grammatical
morphology will be the topic of the next section, here I would like to deal
with two specific phenomena, namely blending and combining form combi-
nation, as a way of explaining why the former is extra-grammatical and
therefore excluded from morphological rules, while the latter is not excluded
but marginalised, because considered borderline between derivation and
compounding.
Consider first of all the lexical blends advertainment, infotainment and
wintertainment reported in Bat-El (2006) and Lehrer (2007). They are all
formed by combining two bases, the second of which is entertainment.
However, unlike regular compounds, which are formed by combining two
(or more) full words, they combine shortened words, which can at times
merge where there is a graphic and/or phonological overlap. Hence, enter-
tainment is shortened into a splinter (-tainment) and attached to clipped
words (advert advertisement, info information), or to a full word with
an overlap (winter + entertainment).
Again, unlike grammatical compounds, whose structure is entirely pre-
dictable and morphotactically transparent, blends are not completely pre-
dictable and exhibit different degrees of opacity, from the type that Ronne-
berger-Sibold (2006: 173) calls semi-complete blending (wintertainment),
containing one element in full, to the type of fragment blending (Ronne-
berger-Sibold 2006: 174) (infotainment), where all constituents are short-
ened and therefore more difficult to recognise, with an intermediate degree of
transparency in advertainment, where the overlap between advertisement
and entertainment contributes to keep as much material as possible from the
source words (see the criterion of Recoverability in 4.2.4).
Other types of blends exist, not exemplified here (see 4.1.3 for a complete
classification), but the ones just mentioned are enough to substantiate
Dresslers (2000) assertion that:
the morphotactic devices for forming blends are much less regular than
those of grammatical compound formation, i.e., the final segmental make-
up is often unpredictable, there are merely preferences (cf. Dressler 1976).
This has induced morphologists such as Bauer (1983: 234237) and Rainer
(1993: 8790) to exclude blending from morphological grammar. (p. 5)
Another reason for excluding blending from morphological grammar is
its semantics. Although some splinters, like -tainment above, may be used
repeatedly in the blending process, they are not reinterpreted, but simply
undergo a process of abbreviation, which, according to Warren (1990:
119), should be kept distinct from the process of secretion, involving rein-
terpretation of linguistic units.24
Thus, abbreviation confines blends to extra-grammaticality, typically
characterised by the difficulty to predict the output given an input. Secretion,
on the other hand, differentiates secreted combining forms (e.g. -holic in
computerholic) as being grammatical, although non-prototypical, and pro-
ductive in terms of frequency, semantic coherence, and applicability.25 In
other words, -tainment is a frequent splinter in blends, but it has not yet
acquired morpheme status, whereas -holic (and its variants -aholic/-oholic,
as in foodaholic, workoholic) has lost its connection with the source word
alcoholic and can be considered as a morpheme in its own right (Warren
1990; Lehrer 1996, 2007; Mattiello 2007, 2008b).26
What I claim, therefore, is that combining form combination is different
from blending, and that the latter is not a subtype of the former (cf. Fradin
2000: 53). Partially following Warrens (1990: 115) classification, in this
study I distinguish between two types of combining forms:
1) allomorphic variants of (Latin or Greek) model words (e.g. astro-

Lat. astrum, as in astrodome, and -drome Gr. dromos, as in alpino-
drome);
2) parts of model words which undergo a secretion process (e.g. -scape
landscape, as in cityscape, and -holic above), which at times happen to
have a homograph in English (e.g. -gate Watergate, as in Yuppiegate, cf.
the free word gate).27
In previous studies (Mattiello 2007, 2008b), I have also introduced the
concept of:
3) abbreviated combining forms (e.g. eco- ecology, as in eco-art,

eco-activist), which are borderline cases between splinters (with no mor-
pheme status) and combining forms of type 2 (cf. Fischer 1998: 39).
Commenting on some (even less regular) splinters that reappear in sev-

eral blends (e.g. -licious delicious, as in bubblicious a delicious bubble
gum, and jocular blendalicious), Lehrer (2007: 122) claims that it is debat-
able whether these deserve morpheme status, in that they are not independent
of their source words. The continual use of splinters such as -licious is the
effect of analogical patterns, but neither regularity nor productivity occur
(Bauer 2001). Hence, -licious is a potential morpheme (Lehrer 1996:
362), but not an actual one, and blendalicious is a creative nonce formation
which depends on delicious for its semantic interpretation. This is the reason
why, in my distinction, this type of splinter would be a more plausible can-
didate for extra-grammatical than for marginal phenomena. By contrast,
types 12 above are assumed to belong to marginal morphology.
Type 1 is used to form what Plag (2003: 155) and others call neoclassi-
cal compounds, which are, in fact, a subtype of compounds, but not a sub-
type of blends (cf. Bauer 1983: 236). Like regular compounds, they combine
two bases of which at least one is of neoclassical origin to obtain new
words whose meaning results from the combination of the two constituents
meaning. What differentiates neoclassical compounds from other com-
pounds, and therefore makes them non-prototypical and marginal in mor-
phology, is the fact that neoclassical combining forms such as hydro- and
-logy do not usually occur as free-standing words: that is, no free morpheme
*hydro or *logy exists in English, though hydor (water) exists in Greek
and loga (word, discourse, science) exists in Latin. When they are used
in isolation, as in bio, from biology, it is by effect of clipping and not be-
cause they are free forms at their origin (cf. ade and ism in 2.3.5.1). Thus,
like affixes, combining forms are bound morphemes in English, but, unlike
them, they regularly combine either with a word (hydro-electric) or with
another combining form (hydrology). Two affixes, by contrast, are impossi-
ble bases for compounds. Neoclassical combining forms are therefore part of
marginal morphology because they lie at the boundary between derivation
and compounding.
The same can be stated for type 2. This type includes, as has been said,
secreted combining forms (Warren 1990; Mattiello 2007, 2008b), i.e., end
parts of model words with a novel semantic interpretation.28 Again, they
attach to other bases to obtain new words. However, unlike the constituents
of compounds, they discard certain semantic elements from their source
words: for instance, a sugarholic is a person addicted to sugar, but has

nothing to do with alcohol. Once they have been assigned their novel mean-
ing, secreted combining forms are regularly reused to form a variety of new
words (bookaholic, caffeineoholic, cameraholic, newsaholic, shopaholic,
etc.), which provide further evidence of their productivity and related gram-
maticality. Yet, like type 1, type 2 is a transitional phenomenon between
derivation and compounding, since -holic belongs to semantically independ-
ent morphemes that happen to be bound (Lehrer 1996: 362).
To sum up, while blends are always part of extra-grammatical morphol-
ogy and excluded from rules, combining form combinations are only mar-
ginal phenomena as compared with prototypical morphological processes
(e.g. compounding), but nonetheless grammatical and productive, unless the
combining form is attached to a splinter, as in chocoholic ( chocolate +
-holic), which is, overall, an extra-grammatical formation.
2.3.3. Extra-grammatical vs. grammatical morphology
Following Zwicky and Pullums (1987) bipartition between plain and

expressive morphology, Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 3641)
propose to distinguish between morphological grammar and extragram-
matical morphology. According to Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994),
morphological grammar consists of categories, rules (or processes) ex-
pressing or manipulating them, and principles governing rules (p. 39),
whereas extra-grammatical morphology is negatively defined as a set of
heterogeneous morphological phenomena which do not belong to morpho-
logical grammar (p. 38). In their seminal work on the Theory of Morpho-
pragmatics, they identify precise criteria able to set apart these two classes
of morphological operations, and make their boundary explicit by a series of
clear-cut examples.
Dressler and Merlini Barbaresis (1994) criterion 1.9.2.1 establishes that
morphological grammar belongs to grammatical competence. Other mor-
phological operations belong to other competences (p. 38). This criterion
excludes sophisticated coinages such as language games, which conscien-
tiously manipulate morphological structure, from morphological grammar.29
Similarly, deprecative constructions (shm-reduplication) and blends, which
deviate from any criterion of grammaticality, are excluded.
According to criterion 1.9.2.2, Morphological rules are essential ele-
ments of morphology (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 39). Hence,
analogical formations such as those produced in child language lie outside

morphological grammar, in that they do not involve any rule.
A more relevant criterion for us is postulated in 1.9.2.3: i.e. Morpho-
logical rules manipulate meaning and form in a regular, that is, predictable,
way (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 39). Thus, the morphological
rules forming compounds are regular, because they change both meaning
and form, whereas the operations forming blends are irregular, and therefore
excluded from morphological grammar (cf. Bauer 1983; Bat-El 2000; Plag
2003). Specifically, the final make-up of blends is often unpredictable or
only partially predetermined, and also alternative outputs are admitted
(Dressler 2000: 2), as in absolutely + positively, admitting both absotively
and posilutely (more in 2.3.7.2 below).
The operations forming acronyms (e.g. Personal Identification Number
PIN) and clippings (e.g. picture pic) are also excluded, because they
do not form new words, but only connoted variants. Furthermore, their mor-
photactics is not completely predictable, because the parts affected by ab-
breviatory processes are varied. In clippings, the deleted part may be the
coda (democrat dem), the beginning (telephone phone), both begin-
ning and coda (refrigerator fridge, with an added -d- in writing but unal-
tered pronunciation of the affricate ), or the middle (breath analyser
breathalyser). Acronyms generally retain the first letter of each word in the
source phrase, but some (mainly grammatical) words can be omitted in the
graphic representation, as in elliptic acronyms (Light Amplification by
Stimulated Emission of Radiation laser), or else more than one initial
letter can be retained, as in RAdio Detection And Ranging radar.
Another equally important criterion is formulated as follows: A morpho-
logical rule applies to a distinct class of bases. Bases are lexical and
morphological items, such as (preferably) words or stems, roots, (lexical-
ised) phrases (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 40, 1.9.2.4, also in
Dressler 2000: 2; see also Aronoffs 1976 Unitary Base Hypothesis). As the
authors observe, this criterion excludes reduplicatives like super-duper, chit-
chat and zigzag from grammar, because they cannot be assigned to a gram-
matical rule based on the first or second constituent. They may exhibit either
a left-hand or a right-hand base, or have no independently existing bases, as
in ideophones (e.g. dingdong).
Yet another significant criterion (1.9.2.5) establishes that The meaning
change involved in rule operations is additional (Dressler and Merlini Bar-
baresi 1994: 40). Compounds, combining the meaning of their bases, involve
an additional meaning change, whereas conversion merely changes one cate-
gory into another, but is again part of morphological grammar. On the other
hand, back-formation such as editor to edit is extra-grammatical, be-

cause a verb base is reconstructed from a human agent noun by a subtractive
technique.
Criterion 1.9.2.6, related to 1.9.2.3 above, establishes that Morphologi-
cal rules of word formation produce new words, distinct from their bases
(Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 40). Hence, acronyms, clippings, and
expletive infixation of the type absolutely abso-bloody-lutely are not part
of morphological grammar, because they produce outputs not classifiable as
new words.
These distinctions and the principles on which they are based make up
the main frame of reference for my study. Although extra-grammatical mor-
phology is not Dressler and Merlini Barbaresis (1994) focus of analysis, the
criteria they elaborate to characterise and describe morphological grammar
allow a clear identification of what is excluded from it as being extra-
grammatical.30
Starting from the same criteria and expanding them, Dressler (2000: 34)
claims that extra-grammatical morphological operations neither belong to
the sub(module) of grammatical morphology nor do they form a module of
their own. What unites heterogeneous extra-grammatical formations of
what he calls paramorphology (e.g. echo-words, blends, hypocoristics,
abbreviations, and back-formations) are varying combinations of violations
of basic properties of morphological grammar (Dressler 2000: 3; and see
Dressler and Karpf 1995 for premorphology).
Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009) formulate similar criteria to treat
the dichotomy between grammatical and extra-grammatical morphology.
Firstly, they claim that extra-grammatical morphology does not conform to
the principles of morphological grammar (i.e. simultaneous change of mean-
ing and form, regular and predictable applicability to a distinct class of
bases, additional meaning change, production of new lexemes or word
forms) (Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat 2009: 25). Secondly, they elaborate
their own criteria to define what is extra-grammatical: namely 1) the con-
scious character of the creation (as in language play, for example secret
languages like verlan; cf. back-slang in Mattiello 2008a); 2) typological
extension of the process (i.e. non-prototypical or marginal processes, such as
abbreviations, have a limited applicative domain); 3) productivity of the
process (i.e. extra-grammatical processes are expected to be unproductive);
4) interaction among different modules of grammar (i.e. what is extra-
grammatical for one component, e.g. morphology, can show regularity for
others, e.g. prosody) (Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat 2009: 2728). The
above criteria re-elaborate and expand upon those identified by Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresi (1994).
By contrast, Dressler and Merlini Barbaresis (1994) criteria are criti-
cised by Bat-El (2000), who argues that: 1) some of the characteristics asso-
ciated with their notion of extra-grammaticality can also be found in what is
conventionally considered grammatical morphology, and 2) the properties of
grammatical morphology also apply to morphological operations such as
blends and acronyms.
A similar position is found in Plag (2003: 117), who rejects the idea of
excluding these operations from rules, and assumes a notion of word-
formation wide enough to accommodate name truncations, clippings, and
diminutives as products of word-formation.
Against Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994), Bat-El (2000) and Plag
(2003) respectively posit that there is a certain grammaticality or sys-
tematicity in the formation of blends, acronyms, etc. That is, they interpret
the so-called irregular regularities (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.) of
extra-grammatical morphology as proper morphological rules, which is an
untenable claim, as I will show in the next section.
2.3.4. Grammaticality and regularity of extra-grammatical morphology
This section is an attempt to demonstrate that the position of those who treat
extra-grammatical operations in the same way as grammatical ones is at
least arguable. The debate in this area is an open one, and the issue is con-
troversial, but many scholars (e.g. Ronneberger-Sibold 2006, 2008;
Mattiello 2008a; Merlini Barbaresi 2008; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.)
still continue to keep the notion of extra-grammatical morphology distinct
from that of morphological grammar, and to adopt the concept of extra-
grammatical operations as the background of descriptions and explanations
of blending, acronyms, reduplicatives and similar formations. I agree with
this latter approach, but also believe that, like grammatical phenomena, ex-
tra-grammatical ones exhibit some kind of regularity, which facilitates their
recognition and interpretation, although it does not permit substantial or total
predictions about new words modelled on productive patterns. As I will ex-
plain in 2.3.6.2, the principle governing extra-grammatical formations is
analogy, allowing only partial predictability based on similarity to pre-
existing patterns. What follows now is a re-examination of Bat-El (2000)
and Plag (2003), and of their conception of grammaticality/regularity.
Against the claim made in Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994) that
analogical formations in child language are extra-grammatical, Bat-El
(2000) suggests that analogy in adult language can be accounted for within
a grammatical theory (p. 63).31 I agree that analogy may be transversally
relevant within both grammatical and extra-grammatical morphology (cf.
2.3.6.2). But analogy is not the same as rules. Extra-grammatical formations
such as bootylicious are formed by analogy with other blends admitting
fusion beside concatenation, but they are not the result of rules. Rules only
govern grammatical derivation (delicious-ly, -ness) and compounding (booty
call phone call to arrange for sex).
As far as hypocoristics are concerned, Bat-El (2000: 63) suggests that
McCarthy and Princes (1986) notion of Minimal Word may be employed
to derive Lisa and Liz from Elizabeth. Yet the fact that two outputs exist for
the same input, and a third can be added (Bet), shows the impossibility of
making absolute predictions with regard to hypocoristic formation. On the
other hand, both the diminutives Lizz-y and Bett-y are formed by rule from
irregular bases (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 40) and represent
borderline cases (Mattiello 2008a: 61) exhibiting regularity in the process of
morphotactic concatenation, but extra-grammaticality in the base form (cf.
Bat-Els 2000: 65 Grammaticality Continua).
As far as blends are concerned, Bat-El (2000) suggests that their irregu-
larities (as compared with the regularities of compounds) are no sufficient
reason to exclude them from grammatical morphology, because also deriva-
tional morphology is often irregular in one way or another (p. 63). On the
contrary, derivational morphology is not irregular. There may be counterex-
amples, but these are rare cases within the lexical storehouse of the English
language. Blends, on the other hand, are morphotactically complex and non-
componential: their source words are often hardly recognisable, because of
some previous abbreviatory process, or they may be so tightly integrated
that the sounds of one source word are interspersed between the other
(Kemmer 2003: 72), as in the intercalative type (e.g. chortle chuckle +
snort).
As far as acronyms are concerned, Bat-El (2000: 6364) argues that the
acronym word usually refers to something more specific than its base and
that it may also change the grammatical category (e.g. from phrase to
noun). Against these claims, I argue (Conti and Mattiello 2008) that acro-
nyms and initialisms refer to the same entities as their original phrases, lists,
compounds, etc., though in a more concise way. Thus, FAQ ( Frequently
Asked Questions) and WH ( White House) exhibit no change in denotative
meaning, nor do they change their grammatical category (see also 2.3.1).
Connotative meaning, however, may change in acronymic words, as when

they are used by insiders to exclude outsiders, or to establish in-group cohe-
siveness. The initialism TBI, for instance, has an in-group flavour which the
full phrase Traumatic Brain Injury does not have, and the acronym LOL is
used among young speakers to mark their social identity (see Social or Pro-
fessional closeness in 7.1).
The only admission Bat-El (2000) makes with regard to the extra-
grammaticality of these formations is that their input is much more permis-
sive than that in core morphology (p. 64; and see Zwicky and Pullums
1987: 336 promiscuity with regard to input category). For instance, acro-
nyms also admit a list as their input (e.g. Passion-fruit, Orange, Guava
POG), and blends admit two semantically related words (e.g. fantastic +
fabulous fantabulous). However, this property of acronyms and blends
does not appear convincing enough for Bat-El (2000) to dismiss them from
grammatical morphology. Nor does the property of absence of lexical
head (Bat-El 2000: 6465), because, as she herself points out, also exocen-
tric compounds (pickpocket) do not have a lexical head, although they ex-
hibit grammaticality in the predicate-complement dependency. The point is
actually debatable, as the head in abbreviated formations is obscured rather
than absent (see 2.3.7.6 for a longer discussion on this point), or there may
be two heads, as in the above-mentioned blend fantabulous, which is not
irregular because of its semantics but for its morphotactics (cf. coordinate
compounds).
A similar approach is found in Plag (2003: 116129), where truncations,
blends, abbreviations and acronyms are regularly included within English
regular word-formation, as part of what he calls derivation without affixa-
tion (p. 107).
Against Dressler and Merlini Barbaresis (1994) claim that name trunca-
tions and clippings lie outside morphological grammar, Plag (2003: 117)
argues that in English they are highly systematic, and he even states that
they are products of word-formation. For Plag, although they do not add
new semantic meaning to a base, they express the speakers familiar attitude,
and this should justify their status as new lexemes (cf. 3.1.1).
While discussing the formal properties of these formations, Plag (2003)
also notices that there are some regularities, mainly based on their prosody:32
for instance, truncated names have a strong tendency to conform to a rather
fixed prosodic structure (p. 118), the so-called template. Thus, Eve (
Evelyn) conforms to the template V(owel)C(onsonant). However, given a
certain input, the output is only partially predictable or even unpredictable,
as it may vary depending on the part of the base name we decide to retain
(Eve or Lyn Evelyn, Liz or Bet Elizabeth), and whether or not we

decide to intervene orthographically (Floss Florence, Sal Sarah, Trish
Patricia). Moreover, the output does not allow input identification, as the
same truncated name may come from different bases, e.g., Al ( Albert,
Alfred or Alonzo) and Belle ( Arabella or Belinda).
Plag (2003) also includes -y diminutives in his discussion. In my treat-
ment diminutives are perfectly regular if they comply with a word-based
morphology. For example, words like ciggie ( cigarette) or Lizzie are
extra-grammatical in the mechanism forming the base words, but when they
add the -ie/-y diminutive they comply with the rule of diminutive formation,
which is word-based (2.1). Thus, I would rather claim that -y diminutives
belong to marginal morphology (2.3.2).
For clippings, Plag (2003: 121) only identifies strong tendencies,
which, however, would not justify their inclusion within morphological
grammar. In clippings, we can retain different parts of the base words (ad
advertisement, fess confess), or different portions (ad vs. advert), or
combine them with the -ie/-y suffix (telly), sometimes after an orthographic
change (brolly).
For blends, Plag (2003: 122123) identifies a surprising degree of regu-
larity, which accounts for his elaboration of a proper blending rule (AB +
CD AD). However, the blending rule appears to hold only for prototypi-
cal blends (breakfast + lunch brunch),33 but it actually has several ex-
ceptions. For instance, in overlapping blends (e.g. slanguage), B and C
merge into one, whereas in intercalative blends (e.g. slithy slimy + lithe)
there is no clear-cut distinction among the various parts of the blend (Kem-
mer 2003; Gries 2004a, 2004b). Moreover, as Plag (2003: 123) himself
admits, in modem the structure of the blend is AC rather than AD.
Lastly, for abbreviations, Plag (2003: 126129) provides regularities in
pronunciation, clearly distinguishing initialisms (USA) from acronyms
(NATO), but he acknowledges that more than one spelling is often allowed
(cf. ASAP vs. a.s.a.p.). Even more relevant is Plags (2003) remark that
abbreviations do not show a meaning difference with regard to their base
words (p. 129). This remark indeed validates their inclusion within extra-
grammatical morphology because they do not predict the changing of mean-
ing from input to output. In the following sections, I will identify the role of
extra-grammatical formations in language change (2.3.5), and define some
fundamental notions (2.3.6), as well as the limits and properties of extra-
grammatical morphology (2.3.7).
2.3.5. Extra-grammaticality and language change
Change refers to a radical, universally accepted development in a lan-

guage, not to be confused with innovation, which may be idiosyncratic and
uninfluential on the general evolution of the language (Milroy 1992; Fischer
2007). Admittedly, within this distinction, many extra-grammatical forma-
tions belong to innovation rather than to proper change. Many occasional-
isms and nonce words occur on a daily basis, but most of them soon fall into
disuse. In the discussion which follows, by contrast, I will focus attention on
neologisms, which are more stable, and generally become institutionalized
as part of the accepted vocabulary of a community (Brinton and Traugott
2005: 45, also in Fischer 1998: 1516). Extra-grammatical neologisms are
indicative, as we shall see, of the important role which the processes leading
to their creation have in word-formation (2.3.6).
2.3.5.1. Lexicalisation. One process that is usually associated with language

change is lexicalisation, which has been understood both synchronically, as
coding of conceptual categories, and diachronically, as adoption into the
lexicon (Brinton and Traugott 2005: 18). Lexicalisation is transversally
present in grammatical, extra-grammatical and marginal morphology, in that
all three realms may be obvious sources of lexicalisations. It should be
added that analogy is strictly connected with lexicalisation in the sense that
lexicalised words frequently become authoritative models easily memorised
for reuse. Thus, analogy has an element of diachrony: that is, it is useful not
only for the origin of the model, but also for the stabilisation of the mecha-
nism.
Within the diachronic perspective, the term lexicalisation traditionally
refers to routine processes of word-formation. For instance, derivation and
compounding may be obvious sources of lexicalisations, in that they involve
fusion processes which serve to erase boundaries between morphemes and
make them merge into unified lexemes which may be adopted into the lexi-
con over time (e.g. buxom Old English buh bending + -sum having the
quality of, gospel Old English god good + spell tidings). However, in
Brinton and Traugott (2005: 4042), extra-grammatical phenomena are also
adduced as cases of lexicalisation. Many clippings are of relevance here: for
example, cases in which either stressed or nonstressed syllables are selected
from a word (fridge, phone; bus, fan), or a compound (pub, sci-fi; narc).34
Similarly, other extra-grammatical processes can be treated as instances of
lexicalisation. For example, blending (bit, blog), back-formation (emote
emotion, laze lazy), acronym formation (AIDS, laser, radar), and the
production of initialisms (HIV, ID, VIP) all give rise to new lexemes and
create monomorphemic forms by fusion (i.e. eliminating morphemic bounda-
ries) (Brinton and Traugott 2005: 44), or by (incorrect) analysis of a simple
word as a morphologically complex one (*emot-ion, *laz-y).
In back-formation, the creation of a new form may also originate from
the analysis of a supposedly complex form (especially of foreign origin) on
the basis of analogy with inflectional patterns. For instance, Old Northern
French cherise (cf. Modern French cerise) has been reinterpreted in English
as a singular form cherry plus the plural suffix -s (OED2; see also Anttila
2003: 427), and the root-final -s of the French term pease has been analysed
in English as a plural inflectional mark, hence the singular pea (Brinton and
Traugott 2005: 42). Similarly, biceps, given in OED2 as a word of Latin
origin (bi- + ceps, caput head), has been analysed in non-standard English
as a plural form of bicep.
Another form of lexicalisation is the unification (or univerbation) of a
syntactic phrase or construction into a single word (see Brinton and Traugott
2005: 48 and the literature therein). This phenomenon is illustrated, among
others, by some rhyming reduplicatives of old provenance: e.g., hobnob (
Old English hab have ne-hab not have, OED2), mayday ( French
(venez) maider, OED3, also in Dienhart 1999), and willy-nilly ( Old
English will ye want you nill ye not want you, OED2). By analogy with
this latter formation, the ablaut reduplicative shilly-shally has come into
being ( shill I shall I, a fanciful reduplication of shall I?). Thun (1963:
268) also offers the case of riff-raff, dated 1470 and originating from the
coordinated phrase riffe and raf (1338).
Cases of full syntacticization (Brinton and Traugott 2005: 60) are
likewise relevant to lexicalisation. They involve changes from inflectional or
derivative bound morphemes to free morphemes with an independent status
(Ramat 1992, 2001). Examples of changes from an affix to an autonomous
word are the fore-clippings ade (fruit juice, lemonade, orangeade) and
ism (doctrine, theory, practice, fascism, communism), and the back-
clippings bi ( bi-sexual), ex ( ex-husband/wife), and teen ( teenager).
Also the above-mentioned bus ( omnibus) belongs here, in that it was
originally part of the Latin dative plural -ibus inflection.
Lexicalised forms have a fundamental role to play in the coinage of anal-
ogy-based extra-grammatical formations. As we will see (2.3.6.2), analogi-
cal processes are based on similarity to existing items, which provide suit-
able patterns for new words to be formed on. But what type of items provide
the most suitable patterns for analogical creation? In my opinion, lexicalised
items are the best candidates for the application of analogical mechanisms.
For instance, some lexicalised acronyms or initialisms are the models for
new alphabetisms: radar attracts the coinage of colidar and ladar, and HIV
provides the model for FIV, with a substitution of initial H with F for Feline.
New blends are also generally analogical with lexicalised forms, as in linner
( lunch + dinner) and boatel ( boat + hotel), constructed on the pat-
terns of brunch and motel (more on this in 2.3.6.2). Among reduplicatives,
lexicalised ping-pong and zig-zag certainly provide the patterns for the most
common vowel alternations in the apophonic type. Analogy, therefore, is
primarily a diachronic process, which finds in frequency of use and lexical-
isation the stimuli to re-apply existing patterns as prototypes for new words.
2.3.5.2. Grammaticalisation. Another process that pertains to language

change is grammaticalisation (also called grammaticisation in Dressler et
al. 2005: 456), i.e. that part of the study of language change that is con-
cerned with the way in which, in certain linguistic contexts, lexical items
come to serve grammatical functions, or the way in which grammatical items
develop new grammatical functions (Hopper and Traugott 2003: 1; see also
Traugott and Heine 1991).
From a diachronic viewpoint, grammaticalisation is commonly under-
stood as a process in which originally autonomous, fully referential items
acquire a purely grammatical function in the course of time (Fischer 2007:
59), as in the diachronic transformation of the Latin syntactic construction
cantare habeo (I have to sing) into the inflectional category of the future in
Romance languages, for example Italian (canter) and French (chanterai).
An instance of grammaticalisation in English is the transformation of the
phrase be going to from an original purpositive meaning involving actual
physical dislocation in space to its being used as a future construction, the
latter then undergoing further grammaticalisation to the form be gonna, with
reanalysis (change of category label, boundary loss) and phonological reduc-
tion (Hopper and Traugott 2003: 13).
Although the phenomena investigated in this book are classified as word-
formation (rather than morphosyntactic) processes (cf. Fischer 2007), I can-
not deny the relevance of reduplication to grammaticalisation. This relevance
is especially evident in languages other than English, where reduplication
confers, for example, plurality on nouns, intensity on adjectives, and iterativ-
ity, progressivity, or intensity on verbs (Inkelas 2006: 417).
In many languages of the world, reduplication is a widespread morpho-
logical operation, regularly employed for grammatical, derivational or se-
mantic purposes. In Malay, for instance, total reduplication denotes plurality

in nouns (e.g. anak child anak-anak children, guli marble guli-
guli marbles) (Raimy 2000; Rastall 2004; Nadarajan 2006), and in Agta
(Central Cagayan) partial reduplication has the same function (e.g. takki
leg tak-takki legs) (Marantz 1982). In Sanskrit and neoclassical lan-
guages, it is a preterite marker in verbs (e.g. Skt. d- give dad
gave, Lat. spondo I vow sppondi I vowed, Gk. lep leave
lloipa left) (Baldi 2000). In Hausa (Nigeria), reduplication is used as a
derivative process, to form adjectives from common nouns (with shortening
of final vowel), as in gishiri (salt) gishiri-gishiri (salty) (Inkelas and
Zoll 2005), whereas in Malay its use may also involve semantic change (e.g.
malam night malam-malam late at night).
In English, reduplication is used especially for expressive or aesthetic ef-
fects (Rastall 2004), as is well illustrated by the shm-type (e.g. breakfast
shmreakfast, crisis-shmisis, Pedro-Schmedro), whose mechanism of forma-
tion is meant to express derogatoriness. The origin of English reduplication
is indeed less connected with grammar than with the lexicon. In Old English,
Thun (1963: 254255) mentions only a handful of instances, most of which
are imitative (e.g. ha(h) ha(h), 1000), or hypocoristic personal names (e.g.
Godgod, Tata). The alternation of vowels in English reduplicatives (e.g.
shilly-shally, tick-tock) is for some scholars modelled on the ablaut-series of
the third class of Germanic strong verbs (Old English bindan/band- bundon,
bunden), or made to correspond to bindan-bond (with rounding in the past
tense form). For others, it is connected with French influence (e.g. clic clac,
flic floc).
Present-day reduplication in English is commonly associated with infant
speech or nursery language (Jakobson 1944; Thun 1963; Dressler et al.
2005), especially with the early stage termed babbling. Because of its
synaesthetic character and playfulness, reduplication is particularly germane
to childs language, or to child-centred speech. However, its high degree of
iconicity makes it also relevant to grammar, especially to plural noun forma-
tion and to superlative adjectival forms, through the mechanism of addition
or intensification. Intuitively, a language which admits more sophisticated
operations such as affixation and composition, should, at least at its origin,
have also accepted primitive processes such as full reduplication. Thus,
during the premorphological phase, English small children, whose language
is unaffected by adults morphological rules, may have a tendency to adopt
reduplication for grammatical reasons, like pluralisation of nouns or intensi-
fication of adjectives. Yet their contact with adults language, as well as
their acquisition of the inflectional submodule contribute to make affixation

prevail over total reduplication.
With regard to young childrens reduplications, Dressler et al. (2005:
468) hypothesise a certain innateness of principles of reduplication, on the
basis of the tendency of French, German, Polish and Russian children to
produce reduplicative constructions, although these are not used in the target
languages they are acquiring. With regard to adult reduplications, Dressler
et al. (2005: 456) even venture the hypothesis that iconic meanings of adult
grammatical reduplications (i.e. meanings which signal greater extension,
continuity, intensity, iterativity, or plurality) may originate in child language.
They distinguish between grammatical (modularised) reduplications and
extra-grammatical (non-modularised) ones. According to them, extra-
grammatical reduplications include onomatopoeic sound-imitations, as in
French sib sib sib referring to bird cries. A symptom of partial grammati-
calisation of these forms is the reduction from multiple to simple binary
reduplication in the corresponding noun, as in Swiss French bi bi bi attrib-
uted to le bibi (the chick) (cf. the preference for binary relations in Natural
Morphology, 2.2.1).
The fact that in English reduplication is more pertinent to (extra-
grammatical) word-formation than to morphological grammar should be
investigated in a separate (more diachronically-oriented) work. Yet some
English reduplicative words seem to deserve attention from the grammatical
viewpoint as well. In particular, the group of words that Thun (1963: 143
147) discusses under the heading high degree appears suggestive of a
grammaticalisation process.
Relevant examples include words that express excellence: e.g., dimber-
damber (dated, very pretty, from dimber pretty), and tip-top (noun the
very top, or adjective superlatively good, from either tip + top, or a redu-
plication of the latter). Other such words are used to express smallness: e.g.,
teeny-weeny, tiny-winy, teeny-tiny (very small, both teeny and weeny are
probably blends of tiny and wee according to Thun 1963: 144),35 titty-totty
(very small, extremely tiny, from titty small, tiny). Further reduplicated
words express exaggeration: e.g., girly-girly (girlish in an exaggerated
manner), goody-goody (good in a weak and sentimental way), and pretty-
pretty (that overdoes the pretty). In these words, reduplication serves a
grammatical (superlative) function, besides the various pragmatic overtones
in meaning. We could therefore posit a transfer from a mere repetition of
lexical items, as in It is tiny, tiny or She is pretty, pretty to the correspond-
ing reduplicative forms conveying an iconic meaning of intensity: i.e., It is
teeny-tiny or She is pretty-pretty. These latter forms could be adduced as

instances of grammaticalisation.
2.3.6. Fundamental notions
The aim of this section is to discuss some fundamental notions that are nec-
essary in the study of extra-grammatical processes. In particular, an attempt
will be made to clarify the distinction between recurring dichotomies, such
as 1) productivity vs. creativity (2.3.6.1); 2) rule vs. analogy (2.3.6.2); and
3) profitability vs. availability (2.3.6.3), and to separate what is relevant to
the module of morphological grammar from what also or exclusively per-
tains to extra-grammatical morphology.
2.3.6.1. Productivity vs. creativity. The first dichotomy requiring clarifica-

tion concerns the widely discussed concepts of productivity and creativity. I
define productivity as that property of language which allows a native
speaker to create new words in a rule-governed way.36 Three prerequisites
for productivity are commonly mentioned in the relevant literature: namely,
frequency (Fleischer 1975; Kastovsky 1986), semantic coherence (Aronoff
1976; Cutler 1980), and the potential to produce new forms (Aronoff and
Anshen 1998; Plag 1999; Bauer 2001).37 Creativity, on the other hand, is
the native speakers ability to extend the language system in a motivated, but
unpredictable (non-rule-governed) way. Hence, it can be negatively defined
as a lack of rule-governedness, generality, and predictability. Unlike produc-
tivity, which is a gradual phenomenon ranging from unproductive38 to fully
productive (Plag 1999: 1112), creativity is an absolute phenomenon, with
no intermediate degrees. That is, either a morphological formation is ob-
tained creatively or it is not. However, the line between productive and crea-
tive processes is blurred and often difficult to draw, as when a rule is applied
to an irregular base. For example, the verb hiphop-ize or the noun MP-ship
illustrate productive processes creatively operating on a reduplicated or
shortened source word. Thus, even the extension of a derivative mechanism
to an unusual base may be creative.
Both productivity and creativity give rise to a large number of new words
and thus bring about lexical innovation (see language change in 2.3.5).39
Yet, whereas productivity coins new words by exploiting word-formation
rules, creativity coins new words by considering both rules and analogical
patterns, or, from a generative perspective, by changing the rules (see Botha
1968: 135, cited in Bauer 2001: 71), as when two words are fused together
in the blending process, although fusion is not allowed in regular composi-
tion. As a result, words coined by using word-formation rules are entirely
predictable, while words exploiting analogical patterns are only partially so
(2.3.6.2).
Moreover, it is commonly believed that those new words which are
formed regularly (i.e. by way of productive word-formation processes) be-
come established as part of the norm (see institutionalization and lexical-
ization in Brinton and Traugott 2005: 4546),40 whereas those which are
formed creatively may fail to become part of the norm. In other words, truly
productive neologisms tend to be accepted by the speech community,
whereas creatively-formed new words may remain nonce formations or oc-
casionalisms.
Interestingly, however, many English neologisms are formed by using
non-rule-bound mechanisms, and this makes the equation between productiv-
ity and institutionalised neologisms or between creativity and nonce words
often incorrect. Many English blends, abbreviations, reduplicatives, and
back-formations have entered the English lexicon, and many more can be
treated as instances of lexicalisation (2.3.5.1), that is, they have acquired an
autonomous status as a result of their frequent and extensive use. What is,
therefore, the dividing line between productive and creative processes? Are
blending, clipping, acronym formation and the like productive processes,
inasmuch as they are frequently used to obtain institutionalised neologisms?
Or are they rather creative processes on account of their irregularity and
difficult predictability? It is clear that productivity is irrelevant as a criterion
for predicting neologisms, which can also be obtained through creativity.
In the literature on word-formation, the above-mentioned processes are
excluded from the domain of productivity because 1) they are not rule-
governed (Aronoff 1976: 21), and 2) they have no morphological structure
which allows morphosemantic interpretation (Mayerthaler 1981: 128129).
Furthermore, they fail to obey the above-mentioned criteria for productivity.
With regard to frequency, there is a high number of attested blends, abbre-
viations, and reduplicatives, but they are relatively few as compared with
canonical derivatives and compounds. With regard to semantic coherence,
most extra-grammatical formations do not change meaning with respect to
their bases, but some acquire a connotative value, becoming more special-
ised or more informal than their regular alternative forms; others obtain new
meanings in a rather irregular way. Lastly, extra-grammatical formations
offer the language user the potential to produce new words, but this potential
is a matter of availability rather than of actual profitability (2.3.6.3). Thus,
we cannot imagine a large number of possible words obtained on the basis of

irregular patterns (see Plag 1999: 16), as we can for regular derivatives.
Extra-grammatical processes must be necessarily included in the realm of
creativity, in that rather than being controlled by productive generative-like
rules, they are only to some extent predictable by means of analogy, i.e.
similarity to existing patterns.41 The concept of analogy will be more clearly
distinguished from rules in the next section.
2.3.6.2. Rule vs. analogy. The second dichotomy deserving clarification and
differentiation is embodied by the notions of rule and analogy.42 According
to Plag (1999: 17), a traditional generative word-formation rule can be con-
sidered a regular, predictable process which operates in a non-arbitrary
manner on a more or less well-defined set of possible input words. Basing
his discussion on such a definition, Plag firmly criticises Beckers (1990)
equation of classical (generative) morphological rules with the notion of
analogy. In Plags (1999) opinion, the two concepts do not overlap, nor can
the concept of rule be eliminated in favour of an analogical model of mor-
phology. Actually, analogy is a vast notion which belongs to grammatical as
well as to extra-grammatical morphology. For instance, it is by the process
of analogy that obsolete word forms such as the Middle English preterite and
past participle of help (holp, holpen), perceived as irregular, have been dis-
carded and replaced by the regular forms helped, helped. Furthermore, new
regular words can be obtained by analogy with existing ones: examples are
the compound noun software, which according to the Online Etymology
Dictionary is analogical with hardware, and the derivative underwhelm,
which is superficially analogical with overwhelm. Thus, an analogical model
of morphology does not eliminate the concept of rule.
In a discussion on the same dichotomy, Bauer (2001: 7684) lists all ar-
guments and counter-arguments regarding a rule-governed approach to mor-
phology. For instance, rules can predict the output of a morphological proc-
ess (i.e. its phonological structure, syntactic category, and meaning), in that
they are more constrained than analogies. The notion of constraint plays
an important role in the model of Optimality Theory, especially in the study
of prosodic morphological phenomena. Within this model, rules are rejected,
and constraints are considered as violable and ranked, that is lower-ranked
constraints can be violated in an optimal output form to secure success on
higher-ranked constraints (McCarthy and Prince 1993: 6). Constraints are
also discussed in relation to productivity. Plag (1999: 4561), for instance,
lists ten constraints suggested in the literature on word-formation which
concern restrictions on base and affix combinations,43 but he dismisses most

of them as not relevant in determining the productivity of a morphological
process. Bauer (2001: 126) adopts a similar position, claiming, however,
that the use of the term constraint has the advantage of suggesting that
restrictions are not necessarily absolute (cf. preferences in Naturalness
Theory, Bertacca 2009: 89). It is the latter suggestion that I wish to empha-
sise when I claim that rules are more constrained than analogies. In other
words, the higher the number of (compatible or interrelated) constraints in-
tervening in the application of a morphological process, the higher the possi-
bility to predict its output.
As a corollary, analogies are less constrained or more permissive than
rules, allowing irregularities in form and form-meaning relationships. Bybee
(2010: 57) similarly claims that Analogy is considered to contrast with
rule-governed productivity because it is heavily based on similarity to exist-
ing items rather than on more general symbolic rules. Yet analogy can also
intervene in regular processes of word-formation. Thus, the concept of anal-
ogy does not contrast with rules.
What differentiates rules from analogies is that, in an analogical ap-
proach to word-formation there is no concept of potential word (Aronoff
1983), because all words are potentially created, or possible, as long as there
is an actual or existing word formed analogously, and the new word obeys
the principles of pronounceability and euphony (2.2.2). By contrast, in rule-
governed morphology there are further restrictions and constraints on the
productivity of rules, concerning not only the phonological structure, but
also: 1) the type of process involved; 2) the base used in the process; and 3)
the type of output produced. These restrictions are not absolute, as has been
said, but show preferences that interact, so that among possible words pro-
duced by rules, some are more probable than others (Bauer 2001: 207).
Furthermore, in a rule-governed approach, some words can be considered
ungrammatical because they break rules. By contrast, in an analogy-based
approach, formations are not ungrammatical, but only more or less likely,
i.e., better or less well supported by a network of parallel structures (Becker
1990: 1718).
Thus, while the principle of analogy would admit the formation of the
blend sexercise ( sex + exercise), on the basis of the existence of sexpert
( sex + expert) and sexploitation ( sex + exploitation), rules would not,
since, in addition to concatenation, there is also fusion with an overlap be-
tween the bases, which is inadmissible in regular compounding. Analogy
would also exclude some formations, such as the string *sex-y-ation, be-
cause there is no model word for it, but this is the only restriction in the no-
tion of analogy: i.e., any new form can be created as long as there is a suit-
able pattern for it to be formed on (Bauer 2001: 76). By contrast, in rule-
governed morphology, the word *sex-y-ation would be excluded from the
domain of possible words, because an adjectival base sexy would not admit
-ation suffixation, and a nominal output would not allow concatenation of -y
and -ation.
Bauer (2001) concludes that the two notions of rule and analogy coexist
within word-formation, and that neither one nor the other can underlie mor-
phological innovation by itself. My position, as I have stated before, is close
to Bauers. That is, although analogy may fail to make suitable predictions
and, unlike rules, is permissive in terms of input and output categories and
structure, it certainly plays a considerable role in word-formation and lan-
guage change.44 In particular, whereas rules can explain only the functioning
of productive morphological processes, analogy and its correlate reanaly-
sis45 can motivate both grammatical word-formation and the mechanisms
involved in creative formations, because it can be viewed as the reason for a
superficial similarity between two structures.
As Fischer says (2007: 123124), It is the superficial similarity (anal-
ogy) that a language user perceives between two structures and between two
communicative uses of them that causes a reanalysis in one of them, so as to
bring it in line with the other. Hence, a reanalysis of a structure does not, as
a rule, result in a new structure, but in an already existing one. This is sub-
stantially the primary distinction between analogy and rule.
This distinction appears evident in the phenomenon of back-formation, as
compared with canonical derivation. For instance, the verb self-destruct,
back-formed from the noun self-destruction, is obtained by the deletion of
material (a supposed suffix -ion) rather than by the reversal of a word-
formation rule producing destruction from destroy (cf. Aronoff 1976). Simi-
larly, the verb lase is obtained from the acronym laser (by analogy with,
e.g., cut/cutter, mix/mixer, etc.), although the deleted part -er is not an ac-
tual suffix, but the shortening of Emission of Radiation.
Analogy also gives a rationale to phonaesthemes, i.e. recurrent sounds or
sound clusters which, although they are not classifiable as proper mor-
phemes, evoke similar sensations, feelings, and meanings. Indeed, as ob-
served by Bauer (2001: 84), if any (generative-type) rule were at work in the
association of the sound sequence with light and brightness in words
like gleam, glimmer, glare, glitter, etc., then this rule could not explain why
words such as glory or gloom should be excluded.
Abbreviations, as well, are based on analogical patterns and reanalysis.
Many clipped words ending with the vowel o (e.g. demo, disco, hippo, intro,
limo) have been reanalysed as complex words exhibiting a familiarising -o

suffix (see familiarity markers in Quirk et al. 1985: 1584; delexicalisa-
tion in Brinton and Traugott 2005: 102103), and have therefore been ana-
logically reproduced in aggro ( aggravation/aggression), ammo ( am-
munition), combo ( combination), lesbo ( lesbian), etc. The acronyms
colidar ( COherent LIght Detecting And Ranging) and ladar ( LAser
Detection And Ranging) have been coined on the analogy with lexicalised
radar (Adams 1973: 137), whereas the initialism V.J. (Video-Jockey) is
alternatively spelt veejay, by analogy with the pairing D.J./deejay.
Blends, unlike regular compounds, are likewise based on analogy rather
than on rules. For instance, the occurrence of the splinter -licious (from
delicious) in beaulicious and bootylicious has attracted some new coinages:
e.g., Girlicious (a musical lady trio), Kittylicious (referring to Hello Kitty
movies), and Lehrers (2007) jocular blendalicious. Similarly, the blend
boatel ( boat + hotel) is definitely coined after the structure of motel, and
linner ( lunch + dinner) is analogical with lexicalised brunch.
Moreover, many characters of television series for children are named to-
day by using reduplicative words which appear analogical with existing
ones. For instance, Tinky-Winky (in the BBC television series Teletubbies)
exhibits the same consonant alternation as existing teeny-weeny, and Iggle-
piggle (in the BBC series In the Night Garden) is analogical with higgledy-
piggledy.46
The notion of analogy is therefore crucial to extra-grammatical morpho-
logical formations, whose underlying mechanisms are not productive word-
formation rules, but analogical patterns obtained from morphological struc-
tures already in use elsewhere. Analogy, rather than strict rules, leaves a
wide margin for choice, which explains the difficulty of predicting the out-
put. Therefore, in extra-grammatical processes the output is neither fully
predictable, as with rules, nor fully unpredictable, but partially predictable
on the basis of the availability of a certain process and of its potential to
create new words.
2.3.6.3. Profitability vs. availability. The third dichotomy that I would like
to discuss concerns the concepts of profitability and availability. Actually,
these two notions are originally part of Corbins (1987: 177) trichotomy,
which also includes regularity.47 According to Corbin (1987), a deriva-
tional process is profitable if the number of attested derivatives is relatively
high, it is regular if the shape and meaning of its derivatives are highly
predictable, and it is available if it can be used to produce new words. In
her distinction, all three aspects are connected with the notion of productiv-
ity.
In two successive works, both Plag (1999: 34) and Bauer (2001: 205
209) discuss the notions of profitability and availability as being rele-
vant to morphological productivity. According to Bauer (2001: 211), pro-
ductivity deals with the number of new words that can be formed using a
certain morphological process, and is ambiguous between the availability
of the process (i.e. its potential for repetitive rule-governed morphological
coining), and its profitability (i.e. the extent to which its availability is
exploited in language use). In other words, availability is a qualitative no-
tion and has to do with the existence of a morphological process as a pattern
to be reused in new coinages, whereas profitability is a quantitative notion
and is strictly linked with the frequency of a process in new coinages.
Bauers (2001) definition, however, presupposes that availability is con-
nected with rule-governedness, and this automatically excludes the concept
of availability from an analogy-based approach to word-formation. Against
this view, I would distinguish between:
1) productive (rule-governed) morphological coining, which is definable

in terms of regularity (full predictability),48 profitability (type frequency or
number of attested formations), and availability (potential to form new
words), and
2) creative (analogy-based) morphological coining, which is irregular
and only partially predictable, and yet admissible, depending on the avail-
ability of parallel structures already in use and ready to be reused. Profit-
ability here depends on which models have been or will be exploited in lan-
guage, and on whether they have been or will be necessary to satisfy
language users communicative needs.
Hence, in my approach, the notion of availability is applicable not only to

productive rules, but also to analogical patterns, because it opens up the
possibility of creating new words supported by pre-existing constructions.
Extra-grammatical formations, like grammatical (rule-bound) formations,
may serve as patterns for new coinages, that is they provide the language
user with a potential to exploit an already existing morphological structure.
However, while rules are more constrained and do not admit departures from
the norm, analogies are more tolerant, admitting, as we will see, the presence
of irregularities alongside regularities and preferences.
2.3.7. Definition and properties of extra-grammatical morphology
As stated at the beginning of the chapter, in this study I adopt Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresis (1994) term extra-grammatical morphology, rather
than Zwicky and Pullums (1987) term expressive morphology, because
the phenomena under investigation are not always expressive (e.g. UN,
NATO), and because, as suggested by the meaning of the prefix extra-, this
term stresses its being situated outside the module of grammatical morphol-
ogy (whether prototypical or non-prototypical/marginal).49
Extra-grammatical morphology is understood as an umbrella term for
heterogeneous analogy-based operations violating various universal princi-
ples of English grammar, in terms of irregularity of the bases and partial or
un-predictability of the output, and partly governed by universal preferences
(notably, for iconicity), although their morphotactic/morphosemantic trans-
parency is reduced as compared with that of morphological rules.
Examples of extra-grammatical morphological operations include:
blends, clippings, hypocoristics, acronyms, initialisms, reduplications, back-
formations, infixation, and phonaesthemes.
I therefore exclude from my investigation a number of operations which
resemble extra-grammatical mechanisms to a greater or lesser degree, but
which are performed unintentionally, for example:
Small childrens surface analogies (e.g. papapia, after Italian mamma

mia, in Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994: 39), often leading to redu-
plications, mainly due to lack of morphological or incomplete phono-
logical competence in premorphology (Dressler and Karpf 1995);
Folk etymology and malapropisms, which are similarly due to incom-
plete morphological and lexical competence in later stages of language
acquisition and even in adults (Ronneberger-Sibold 2002). For folk-
etymological perversions of the type jawbacious ( jaw + audacious),
see Pound (1914: 8). Cf. malapropisms for jocular purposes (e.g. trick
cyclist psychiatrist) in English slang (Mattiello 2008a: 151152);
Slips of the tongue or brain (e.g. grun go + run, reported in Cannon
2000: 953), which are speech errors, generally performed involuntarily
by persons with psychological or mental disorders (Dressler 1976). Cf.
contaminations in Adams (1973), simultaneous pronunciation due to
overlapping in Cannon (1986), blend(ing) errors in Kubozono (1990),
Bertinetto (2001), and Gries (forth.).50 On the other hand, conscious
creations of the type fantabulous ( fantastic + fabulous), with the fu-
sion of two semantically related words, are included in my analysis of

blends (chapter 4).
Another category of formations which is beyond the scope of this investi-

gation as being not based on a linguistic input is:
Free/root creation or word-manufacture, i.e. purely arbitrary (unmoti-

vated) creations which are formed ex nihilo, as in the case of many
brand names (e.g. Kodak in Bauer 1983: 239, also in Ronneberger-
Sibold 2008: 210), the slang words boff (to have sex with, Huddleston
and Pullum 2002: 1632) and scag/skag (heroin, Mattiello 2008a: 155),
and other neologisms (Dacron, Kevlar, Orlon, etc.) mentioned in
Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 5). See also Baldi (2000: 965966).
In the literature, extra-grammatical morphology is not characterised by

positive properties, but only negatively defined as the antonym of morpho-
logical grammar (Dressler 2000: 1). Extra-grammatical morphological
operations are excluded from the module of morphological grammar, be-
cause each of them violates some of its basic principles (Dressler and Karpf
1995: 101), and therefore cannot be described by regular morphological
rules (Doleschal and Thornton 2000: iv).
Extra-grammatical morphology, as distinct from grammatical morphol-
ogy, is a kind of derivational morphology that exhibits most of the special
characteristics listed in the following subsections.
2.3.7.1. (Non-)predictability of output. Rules of canonical derivation and

compounding are predictable with regard to form change, affixes being
added to continuous bases (re- + form, form + -ation), or bases being regu-
larly combined (tax + form, form + letter). Extra-grammatical morphologi-
cal operations, in contrast, obtain outputs which are not fully predictable
from their inputs, since their morphotactics is irregular. In back-formations,
(supposed) affixes are subtracted from a base, as in the verbs televise (
television) and baby-sit ( baby-sitter). In expletive infixation used to form
English deprecatives (e.g. abso-bloody-lutely), the base is discontinuous,
that is, interrupted by the infix. Predictability is possible to some extent,
when models are frequently exploited or easily available, as is the case, for
example, with series of words (brunch, linner; baby-sit, dog-sit, etc.). This
is, of course, predictability based on analogy.
The morphotactic mechanisms for forming blends are also less regular
than those forming grammatical compounds. The output of blends cannot be
fully predicted by the input and a given rule or model, in that the source
words are variously (or even not) shortened in the fusion, depending on the
blending technique applied. In semi-complete blending, either the first or
the second source word is left intact (e.g. fanzine fan + magazine, Eura-
sia Europe + Asia), whereas in contour and fragment blending all
constituents are shortened (e.g. bisalo bisont + buffalo) (Ronneberger-
Sibolds 2006 terminology). The final segmental make-up is even less pre-
dictable in the blends variously labelled as inclusive or intercalative
(Kemmer 2003; Gries 2004a, 2004b; Ronneberger-Sibold 2006; Kilani-
Schoch and Dressler forth.), in which one constituent includes the other, as
in ambisextrous ( ambidextrous + sex). In the telescope type of banniver-
sary ( ban + anniversary), the blend even exhibits overlapping constitu-
ents, which are impossible in regular compounds.
Abbreviations such as clippings and hypocoristics are similarly difficult
to predict, in that different parts of the source word can be retained: e.g., the
beginning in lab ( laboratory) and Andy ( Andrew), the middle in flu
( influenza) and Liz (cf. Beth), and the end in phone ( telephone) and
Ron ( Aaron). Even discontinuous solutions are possible, as in ana (
anorexia) and Floss ( Florence) (see Irregular subtraction of word parts
in 2.3.7.7). This latter is also abbreviated to Flo, disregarding the output
constraint of a closed syllable.
The output of acronyms (e.g. SMILE SMall, Intelligent, Light, Effi-
cient) and initialisms (e.g. MAE Master of Arts in Education) is also
hardly predictable, since more than one letter may be retained from the
words in the source phrase (SM are both from small), or not all the initial
letters of the source phrase may be graphically represented in the derivative.
Non-salient grammatical words (of, in) are often omitted.
2.3.7.2. Alternative outputs. In extra-grammatical operations, more alterna-

tive outputs are admitted than in the performance of morphological rules (cf.
Scalises 1988 Unitary Output Hypothesis).51 In some blends, for instance,
the combination of two base words may provide two different outputs de-
pending on the order of the constituents, as in moorth ( moon + earth) vs.
earthoon ( earth + moon) (Bryant 1974; Bat-El 2006; see 1.1.1), tigon
( tiger + lion) vs. liger ( lion + tiger) (Bat-El 2006), geep ( goat +
sheep) vs. shoat ( sheep + goat) (Cannon 1986; Plag 2003), Oxbridge
( Oxford + Cambridge) vs. Camford ( Cambridge + Oxford) (Casta-
nier 2009). In regular compounds, changes in the order of the bases corre-
spond to meaning changes (plant pot vs. pot plant). Not even in the apposi-
tional/coordinate type, which exhibits two bases of equal status, can the
order of constituents be freely chosen, because some orders are preferred to
others (Queen Mother, Prince Consort), especially for saliency reasons (see
the universal preference for figure/ground distinction in 2.2.1).
Alternative forms are also derived from the same source by the same ab-
breviatory operation: e.g., zedonk alongside zonkey, both attested blends
from zebra and donkey, ad alongside advert, both clippings from advertise-
ment, US alongside USA, both initialisms from United States of America,
and Al alongside Alf, both hypocoristics from Alfred. By contrast, the
clipped pair uni and varsity ( university), or the hypocoristics Liz and
Beth, from Elizabeth, do not depend on the portion retained, but apply dif-
ferent curtailing techniques (back- vs. fore-clipping, 3.1.3.13.1.3.2) to the
same source word. The former examples, therefore, contradict Plags (2003:
119) claim that What part of the name makes it into the truncation is often
variable, but nevertheless predictable. Indeed, his own examples of trun-
cated names (Al or Lon Alonso, Eve or Lyn Evelyn, Pat or Trish
Patricia, etc.) provide further evidence of their difficult predictability.
Lastly, reduplicatives, which may be formed either from a left-hand or a
right-hand base, admit more than one option as their outputs, as illustrated
by the rhyming reduplicatives itty-bitty, itsy-bitsy and bitsy-witsy, all derived
from the base bit.
2.3.7.3. Alternative inputs. In extra-grammatical morphological operations,

but not in rules, different source words can correspond to the same output,
thus obstructing input identification. Alternative inputs are especially fre-
quent in hypocoristics, whose bases can merge in the same truncated name,
as in Ron ( Aaron or Ronald) and the above-mentioned Al and Belle
(2.3.4). Other mechanisms illustrating this property of extra-grammatical
morphology are clippings (e.g. cred credit or credibility, spec special-
ist or specification), and alphabetisms (e.g. AI Artificial Intelligence,
Amnesty International, All-Inclusive, etc.), whose basic components are
typically blurred because of their abbreviatory nature.
This criterion is against naturalness preferences for transparency and bi-
uniqueness (see 2.2.1). Inputs can be recovered only on the basis of contex-
tual information, and, in specialised terminology, by a terms monoreferen-
tiality (Gotti 2005: 33; Mattiello forth.; see also 7.1).
2.3.7.4. Alternative input categories. Standard morphological rules mostly

comply with Aronoffs (1976) Unitary Base Hypothesis, counterexamples
being discussed, among others, in Plank (1981), Plag (1999, 2004), Ryder
(1999). By contrast, extra-grammatical morphological operations do not
apply to distinct classes of bases, but rather admit various base categories
for the same affix, thus exhibiting the so-called promiscuity with regard to
input category (Zwicky and Pullum 1987: 336). This is the case with exple-
tive infixes (-bloody-, -blooming-, -fuckin-, etc.), applied primarily to nouns
and adjectives (emanci-fuckin-pator, im-fuckin-portant), but also to adverbs
(abso-fuckin-lutely), verbs (in-fuckin-stantiate), etc. This is also the case
with reduplicatives, which apply to words of any category (e.g. okey-dokey,
pee-wee, see-saw, silly-billy, super-duper) and sometimes produce outputs
that do not seem to belong to any category, as in tick-tack and other echo-
words.
2.3.7.5. Uncertain basehood. Conventional word-formation rules rely on

existing stem, root or word bases, and marginally on lexicalised phrases. By
contrast, the bases of extra-grammatical reduplication are hardly recognis-
able as pre-existent meaningful morphemes (hanky-panky, hotsy-totsy, zig-
zag), or they are modified before reduplication and thus made less recognis-
able (boo-boo boob, goo-goo googly). In onomatopoeic ideophones
(dingdong, pip-pip), no independent word bases are identifiable, since the
two constituents form a phonetic unit. Nor can the rhyming and ablaut types
be analysed as rules based on either the first or second constituent, since
both syntagmatic directions are possible (cf. easy-peasy and chit-chat).
As a consequence of their versatile character, extra-grammatical forma-
tions can function as bases of word-formation rules (Bat-El 2000; Conti and
Mattiello 2008), as in the formations Natoism and MP-ship, respectively
from an acronym and an initialism.
2.3.7.6. Uncertain headedness. In endocentric grammatical compounds, the

head is immediately identifiable, since it is within the compound (e.g. hip-
pocket is a type of pocket). In exocentric grammatical compounds, the
head has to be inferred, as in pick-pocket, but it is still identifiable from the
predicate-complement relationship (a person who picks pockets) (cf. Bat-
El 2000). In extra-grammatical reduplication, on the other hand, headedness
is only rarely assignable. In contrast with Williams (1981) Righthand Head
Rule, reduplicatives may be either left-headed (handy-dandy) or right-
headed (dilly-dally), or have no head at all, as in zigzag, with no semantic

relation between the two members, one being merely a repetition of the other
with vowel modification.
The head of alphabetisms is similarly unclear and difficult to assign.
Whereas in derivatives and compounds head status is assigned to a mor-
pheme, in acronyms and initialisms it is, somewhat absurdly, assigned to a
letter or letter combination. As a consequence, compounds and derivatives
(with the exception of conversions and pure ablaut forms) can be segmented
into morphemes, but alphabetisms cannot. Moreover, their head may be
either the right-hand (as in NHS National Health Service) or the left-
hand member (as in MAFF Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and
Food), depending on the head position in the source phrase. In some cases,
the head is even absent, as in PACE ( Police And Criminal Evidence act)
and in formations whose base is a list (e.g. POG Passion-fruit, Orange,
Guava, referring to a juice drink).
Headedness is a controversial issue also in blends, which are more per-
missive than compounds in terms of the semantic relationship between the
two members. Coordinate blends exhibit two semantic heads, as in al-
phameric ( alphabetic + numeric), tangemon ( tangerine + lemon),
and Texaco ( Texas + (New) Mexico) (cf. Bat-El 2006).
2.3.7.7. Irregular subtraction of word parts. Subtractive morphological

rules exhibit a tendency to delete a small (usually final) part of the base
(nominate nomin-ee), or, with two bases, part of the first base, as in the
truncation and -o- interfixation in Afr-o-American, from African and Ameri-
can. By contrast, extra-grammatical subtractive operations, including
blends, clippings, and clipped compounds, may delete larger and not neces-
sarily non-salient parts: i.e., the coda (emo emotional, narc narcotics
informant), two codas (sitcom situation comedy, modem modulator +
demodulator), the beginning (zine magazine, shake milkshake), both
the coda and the beginning (flu influenza, tec detective), or the middle
part, as in ana ( anorexia), ginormous ( gigantic + enormous), ambi-
sextrous ( ambidextrous + sex).
In acronym words, subtraction of word parts is even stronger, retaining
only initial letters (VAT Value Added Tax), or, at most, initial syllables
(radar RAdio Detection And Ranging), hence Aronoffs (1976: 20) label
syllable words.
Among subtractive techniques, the most regular is back-formation, delet-
ing word parts that are supposed affixes reconstructed by analogy with ac-
tual ones: e.g., the verb edit ( edit-or) or the noun paramedic ( para-
medic-al).
2.3.7.8. Invariability of meaning. In word-formation rules, meaning is regu-

larly manipulated, while in extra-grammatical operations, it often remains
unchanged. Thus, grammatical rules obtain new words, while extra-
grammatical operations obtain merely abbreviated forms, which do not qual-
ify as new words, distinct from their input. Abbreviatory devices, in particu-
lar, create words which do not generally exhibit any semantic difference
between input and output (cf. Compact Disc and CD, Disk Operating Sys-
tem and DOS). However, in specialised languages, they may be viewed as
more precise and unambiguous terms than their base word(s), as in TB for
tuberculosis, or SETI for Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (Bat-El
2000: 63; Mattiello forth.).
Sometimes, connoted variants are obtained, as in reduplicatives (e.g.
O.K. jocular okey-dokey), expletives (e.g. rude every-bloody-body), clip-
pings (e.g. bicycle informal bike, potato tato, tabloid show tab
show), and deliberate acrostics, which are chosen, humorously, after pre-
existent English words (e.g. SMILE in 2.3.7.1). Reduplicatives, expletives,
and abbreviations are often connoted in terms of intensified emotional nu-
ances attached to them, indexical of the users emotional states, or, at least,
of his humorous (non-serious) attitude (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi
1994). They are often used to produce a playful, expressive effect. Yet ex-
pressiveness does not hold for all phenomena of extra-grammatical morphol-
ogy, distinguishing it from Zwicky and Pullums (1987) expressive mor-
phology (2.3.1).
2.3.7.9. Non-additional meaning change. In word-formation rules, meaning

change is additional (e.g. to work + -er worker one who works, hand +
work handwork work by hand), with the exception of conversion,
changing one syntactic category into another (e.g. Verb Noun, to work
a work). In back-formation, by contrast, a new lexeme is formed by remov-
ing hypothetical affixes from a supposedly complex base. Thus, in curator
to curate, typewriter to typewrite, handwriting to handwrite, verb
bases are reconstructed by deleting supposed suffixes (-or, -er, -ing) from
agent or abstract nouns.
2.3.7.10. Reduced transparency. Extra-grammatical formations exhibit a

reduced transparency in comparison with regular formations. Regular word-
formation generally produces morphologically transparent words, whose
input is easily recoverable. Contrary to this, most extra-grammatical opera-
tions modify their linguistic input in such a way that makes it difficult to be
recognised. Even if the input is contained in full in the output, as in overlap-
ping blends of the type sexploitation ( sex + exploitation), it is combined
in an unexpected manner, obstructing the semantic interpretation of the out-
put.
Extra-grammatical phenomena are non-morphematic processes (Fan-
drych 2004: 18), that is, they are not transparently analysable into mor-
phemes, but into so-called splinters (television + broadcast telecast),
initial letters (Genetically Modified Organism GMO), phonaesthemes (fl-
as in flip-flop), and similar parts of words which are often difficult to asso-
ciate with existing morphemes.
There are different degrees of decreased transparency in extra-
grammatical operations, which are interpreted in terms of more/less marked
choices on the parameter of morphotactic transparency within the Natural-
ness/Markedness Theory (Dressler et al. 1987; Merlini Barbaresi 1988;
Dressler 1999, 2005). Hence, uni ( university) is a more transparent/less
marked clipping than varsity from the same base, because the word begin-
ning is a more salient part than the word end (and also because of the spell-
ing adjustment e a), and the partial blend paratroops ( parachute +
troops) (4.1.3.2), with shortening of only one constituent, is more transpar-
ent than the total blend ballute ( balloon + parachute) (4.1.3.1), in which
all constituents are shortened; both, moreover, are less transparent than
slanguage, with its overlapping constituents (4.1.3.3). However, the lower
degree of transparency of extra-grammatical formations is often compen-
sated for, especially in blends (Thornton 1993), by a higher degree of iconic-
ity.
The characteristics of extra-grammatical morphology mentioned above (cov-
ering, as far as I know, all the properties that appear in the relevant litera-
ture, and re-elaborating them) are not listed in order of importance, although
some are more important than others in terms of applicability to most extra-
grammatical morphological phenomena. For instance, the output of all the
phenomena under investigation in this book is not fully predictable (2.3.7.1),
and often correlated to a reduced morphotactic transparency (2.3.7.10),
which makes the input unrecognisable, and difficult to assign to a specific
base or category (2.3.7.42.3.7.5). On the other hand, not all extra-
grammatical operations are subtractive in form, or meaning, thus making the

properties of irregular subtraction of word parts (2.3.7.7) and non-additional
meaning change (2.3.7.9) less prototypical for extra-grammaticality.
As far as regularity is concerned, each phenomenon exhibits its own pref-
erences and recurrent patterns, which will be explained individually in the
following chapters.
Chapter 3
Abbreviations
Abbreviation (or shortening) is an umbrella term used in this book to

refer to three correlated phenomena: namely, clippings (Jespersens 1942:
538 stump-words), acronyms, and initialisms. These processes share the
same abbreviatory mechanism, obtaining new word-forms by shortening
existing lexemes. A clipping is obtained by shortening a (simplex or com-
plex) lexeme to one, two or (rarely) three syllables, as in photo ( photo-
graph) and pub ( public house). Acronyms and initialisms, grouped to-
gether under the label alphabetisms in my classification, are obtained by
shortening a multi-word sequence (phrase, compound, title, or list) to the
initial letters, as in AIDS ( Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and
BBC ( British Broadcasting Corporation).
As observed by Kreidler (2000: 957), The use of abbreviations goes
back to antiquity; examples are Latin alphabetisms such as INRI and SPQR
and Hebrew acronymic personal names, for example Rambam Rabbi
Moses ben Maimon. Yet it is principally in modern times, from the late nine-
teenth century onwards, that clippings, acronyms and initialisms have prolif-
erated. There are two main reasons for their proliferation. One of these, ac-
counting especially for the use of acronyms and initialisms, is the need for a
more efficient vocabulary in technical sectors, such as medicine, politics,
law, and commerce (see Economy in 7.1). As advances in computer science
and technology brought with them a constant stream of new concepts and
terms, the practice of abbreviating words (CAE Computer-Aided Engineer-
ing, DOS, HTML, mms) became increasingly convenient. The use of alpha-
betisms has been further popularised with the emergence of Short Message
Service itself an initialism (sms) giving birth to neologisms such as LOL,
which stands either for Laughing Out Loud or for Lots Of Love/Luck. The
second reason, which affects especially clippings, is the element of familiar-
ity or intimacy (see Informality in 7.1; also Mairs 2006 concept of collo-
quialization). Clipped words are generally used in less formal contexts than
their full-length counterparts: words such as auto, gym, lab, pop ( popu-
lar music), and prof indicate an attitude of familiarity on the users part,
either towards the object denoted, or towards the audience (Adams 1973).
Many clipped words belong to specific slang, such as tab, a drug-addicts
term for a tablet (of LSD), frat used by American college students instead of
Abbreviations 65
fraternity, or pecs, used among bodybuilders to refer to pectoral muscles

(Mattiello 2008a). Others originated as terms of special groups, but then
became colloquial language. Examples come from the language of school-
mates (maths for mathematics, uni or varsity for university), soldiers (cap
for captain, chute for parachute), family members (hubby for husband, sis
for sister, telly for television), doctors and scientists (chemo for chemother-
apy, mono for mononucleosis), and teenagers (disco for discotheque, fries
for French frie(d potatoe)s, and pics for pictures, also spelt pix) (see Social
or Professional closeness in 7.1).
Although the creation and use of abbreviations has become a more and
more widespread phenomenon in English, the abbreviations themselves, as
well as the various sub-types clippings, acronyms, and initialisms have
received relatively little attention in the literature generally, and very little
serious consideration in morphological works in particular, at least in com-
parison with other word-formation processes. This fact is also demonstrated
by the terminological divergences in pertinent scholarship. As we will see,
studies probing these phenomena (e.g. Cannon 1989; Lpez Ra 2002),
disagree on terminology, and use one label or another, in somewhat disparate
fashion, with confusion as to which is the superordinate and which the sub-
ordinate term. Also, the general term abbreviation is not unanimously
accepted, and shortening is often preferred (e.g. by Heller and Macris
1968; Kreidler 1979; Cannon 1989; Lpez Ra 2002, 2004). I will propose
my own taxonomy (Conti and Mattiello 2008; Mattiello 2008a) in the de-
scriptive section below (3.1).
As discussed in the Introduction, few scholars appear interested in the
topic, because these abbreviations seem to be irregular and sporadic as com-
pared with canonical affixation and compounding (Kreidler 2000: 959), and
this encourages many linguists to exclude them from morphological theory
(Aronoff 1976; Scalise 1984; Spencer 1991; Haspelmath 2002), or to mar-
ginalise their formation mechanisms as unpredictable processes.
The difficult predictability, or even un-predictability, of clippings and ac-
ronyms is a recognised fact (Bauer 1983: 233238). There are no clear
word-formation rules by means of which we might predict where a word will
be cut. Moreover, especially in acronyms, the input is treated with a certain
amount of freedom (Bauer 1983: 237), because the output must conform to
the phonological canons of English. Haspelmath (2002) even concludes that,
although these operations can be used to create new words, they do not fall
under morphology, because the resulting new words do not show systematic
meaning-sound resemblances of the sort that speakers would recognize (p.
25).
66 Abbreviations
Authors who devote their papers exclusively to these phenomena appear

more concerned with giving examples than with examining the processes.
Cannon (1989), for instance, uses an extensive database of abbreviations
(631 items) for purely descriptive and taxonomical purposes, as he is con-
vinced that these items shed no light on morphology or lexical theory (p.
102).
On the other hand, Plag (2003) observes that restrictions on prosodic
categories constrain both the structure of clippings and their relation to
their base words (p. 121). Hence, he establishes prosodic regularities for
clippings as well as for truncated names (Plag 2003: 119121). For acro-
nyms and initialisms, on the other hand, he indicates certain orthographic
and phonological properties which allow a systematic analysis of possible
patterns, and permit the inclusion of these abbreviation types, together with
clippings and blends, within regular word-formation.
The fact that abbreviations do not change the denotative meaning of their
base words is an indication of their extra-grammaticality (2.3.7.8). Indeed,
unlike new derivatives and compounds, new words formed by shortening are
merely instances of re-naming, giving more efficient labels or a flavour of
familiarity to concepts that already have designations. Both Bat-El (2000:
63) and Fradin (2003: 249250) disagree with this, claiming that acronyms
and clippings become more specialised than their bases. This is true for ab-
breviations used in specialised domains, but is not generalisable to all cases.
Kreidler (2000: 959, after Marchand 1969: 441) further observes that clip-
pings may develop autonomously from their source, acquiring a new mean-
ing. Examples of this type, as we will see, are limited to a set of cases whose
source is forgotten, as in taxi, from taximeter cabriolet.
(Sub)regularities as well as irregularities of acronyms and initialisms
have been highlighted in Conti and Mattiello (2008). The clipping process is
similarly governed by universal preferences, such as the prosodic preference
for a monosyllabic structure ending in a consonant (Kreidler 2000: 960), but
it is not morphologically constrained, admitting variant processes and there-
fore alternative outputs (2.3.7.2). This is the reason why Jamet (2009), after
Plag (2003) and others, tries to formalise the study of clipping by identifying
grammatical, morpho(no)logical and semantic restrictions, which are, how-
ever, only tendencies, rather than strict golden rules (Jamet 2009: 30),
of the generative type.
The extra-grammatical character and irregularity of abbreviations will be
discussed in this chapter. Their regularities will also be examined (see Bat-
El 2000; Kreidler 2000; Plag 2003; Jamet 2009), and their preferences taken
Definition, delimitation, and classification 67
into account, in order to establish whether new clipped words or acronyms

can be predicted by applying precise criteria.
Although my definition of acronyms and initialisms rules out a number of
borderline cases, which will be excluded from my analysis, I still expect
alphabetisms to be difficult to predict. It is also likely that clippings and
clipped names, or hypocoristics, are random and partially unpredictable, or
that they do not always conform to distinctive patterns. Ambiguity between
different inputs (sub is either from submarine or from substitute, BA is
Bachelor of Arts as well as British Airways, A.W.O.L. originates from Ab-
sent WithOut Leave or Absent Without Official Leave) or alternative out-
puts (e.g. ad vs. advert, A.W.O.L. spelt as a series of letters or as a word,
i.e. awol) are symptomatic of the extra-grammaticality (2.3.7.22.3.7.3) and
irregularity of abbreviated forms.
3.1. Definition, delimitation, and classification
In the literature on abbreviations, there is a lack of consistency and much

vagueness as well as overlapping with respect to what is termed an abbrevia-
tion in general, in contrast with what should be regarded, for instance, as a
proper clipping, an alphabetism (term which I use as a hyperonym for the
following two phenomena), an initialism, or an acronym.
The term abbreviations, for instance, is not commonly used as the gen-
eral label. Cannon (1989: 106), considers as legitimate abbreviations only
words which are pronounced by their initial letters, such as D.B.S. ( De
Bonis Suis), while Lpez Ra (2002: 40) reserves this label for a heteroge-
neous set of cases which are only used in writing and with a variable degree
of shortening (e.g. Dr. Doctor, Mr Mister). Shortening is, in both
studies, the preferred alternative. Furthermore, as Cannon (1989) observes,
dictionary practice has been nurturing a general confusion of terms Since
the fifteenth century (p. 106) by listing as abbreviations not only acronyms
and clippings, but also contractions and visual devices.
The position of clippings, acronyms, and initialisms within the category
of abbreviations is even more controversial, and terminology varies from one
author to another. Jespersen (1942: 533552), for example, under the label
shortenings, lists clipped or stump-words such as sec for second, as
well as alphabetic shortenings, either read letter by letter (M.P. for Mem-
ber of Parliament) or read as regular words (Dora for Defence Of Realm
Act). Marchand (1969: 452454) relegates acronymic abbreviations to the
process of word-manufacture,52 distinguishing between letter-words (e.g.
68 Abbreviations
Eto European Theater of Operations), syllable-words (e.g. sial

silicon + aluminium), and a combination of the two (e.g. radar). Initialisms
like YMCA ( Young Mens Christian Association) are described by means
of pronunciation, but they are not labelled or categorised. Bauer (1983: 233
238) takes only clippings, blends, and acronyms into account, thus excluding
initialisms of the type USA from his morphological description. Cannon
(1989: 99), by contrast, employs the term initialisms as a general rubric
for acronyms and abbreviations (see also Huddleston and Pullum 2002:
16321633), whereas Lpez Ra (2002, 2004) considers initialisms as a
superordinate category comprising acronyms and alphabetisms. On the other
hand, in Adams (1973) and Kreidler (1979, 2000) acronyms is a cover
term including the other two categories, classified by Kreidler (2000: 957) as
alphabetic, or letter-naming (e.g. UK) and orthoepic, or letter-sounding
(e.g. NATO). Like Plag (2003), I classify the first of these as initialisms,
reserving the term acronym for the orthoepic type. Unlike Plag (2003),
however, I include under the heading clippings not only clipped common
words, such as lab ( laboratory), but also clipped compounds (pub),
clipped names or hypocoristics (Mike, Patty), and clippings with suffixes
(aggr-o aggravation, Auss-ie Australian, champ-ers champagne).
The label truncations, often used synonymously with clippings (e.g. in
Jamet 2009), is reserved in this study to the type in which the final part of a
word is dropped, as in the afore-mentioned lab. Blends, which are generally
viewed as a special type of abbreviation and therefore grouped together with
the other categories mentioned here,53 will be treated separately in this study,
their specificity being the fact that they operate on two or more base words.
As this very brief and sporadic exploration of existing nomenclature
shows, there are fuzzy borders among the categories considered, and dis-
agreement among linguists on a general taxonomy, which is often mentioned
as a reason for the lack of a systematic study (Cannon 1989; Lpez Ra
2004). The next seven sections are devoted to the definition, delimitation and
categorisation of these phenomena.
3.1.1. Definition of clipping
Clipping is a process which abbreviates a word to one of its parts, with a

consequent loss of phonetic material, as in fash ( fashion/fashionable), flu
( influenza), and plane ( airplane/aeroplane). Different definitions
underline one aspect or another of the phenomenon, but they often agree that
clipping does not involve any semantic change. In Bauers (1983: 233) defi-
nition, for example, clipping is negatively defined as a process without any

semantic consequences, but with a change in the stylistic value:
Clipping refers to the process whereby a lexeme (simplex or complex) is
shortened, while still retaining the same meaning and still being a member
of the same form class. Frequently clipping results in a change of stylistic
level.
Kreidler (2000), who claims that a clipping is derived from a simple
lexeme and consists of one, two, or occasionally three syllables of that
word (p. 956), is more specific on this point. He distinguishes clipped
forms that are essentially identical with the source, except for an added fa-
miliar connotation (e.g. gym(nasium), ref(eree)), from those that become
totally separated from the source (e.g. taxi the vehicle taximeter device
that computes the distance travelled).54 A third group includes instances
that undergo a specification/narrowing process, as in demo, denoting not
any demonstration, but a political display (Br.E.) or a demonstration
car (Am.E.) (also in Jamet 2009). In relation to this, Adams (1973: 136)
observes that Clippings show various degrees of semantic dissociation from
their full forms: e.g., mob ( Lat. mobile vulgus) and pants ( panta-
loons)55 are no longer felt as clippings, because the longer forms are not
used, and, similarly, lunch, movie and pram have now superseded their
source words/phrases luncheon, moving picture and perambulator. In other
words, the new item has become an unrelated lexical unit (Marchand
1969: 441). Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) even observe that the ety-
mology of some clipped forms is sometimes unrecognisable, as in gin, from
Dutch genever spirit obtained from juniper berries (cf. folk-etymological
association with the name of the city of Geneva) (OED3). Plag (2003: 128)
instead states that clippings bring if not a new meaning a social mean-
ing carrying a different connotation from the base lexeme. In a previous
publication (Mattiello 2008a: 141), I similarly claim that clipped words
acquire a pragmatic meaning, expressing a particular attitude of the speaker
and lowering the stylistic level of discourse to less formal speech: this allows
the standard word criminal and the slang word crim to co-exist and select
different registers.
Katamba (2005) provides a definition related to Bauers (1983), but adds
a phonological dimension, claiming that clipped words are formed by lop-
ping off a portion and reducing it to a monosyllabic or disyllabic rump
(Katamba 2005: 180). Three syllables are also possible (see Kreidler 2000:
956), generally with clippings from complex words, as in digi cabes (
digital cable), hetero ( heterosexual), intercom ( intercommunication
70 Abbreviations
system) (reported by Jamet 2009: 25). Lpez Ra (2006: 676) also notes
that there may be phonological modification in terms of changed or addi-
tional vowels or consonants, so that a different graphic version with occa-
sionally spelling adjustments is obtained, as in bike for bicycle, coke for
cocaine, natch for naturally.
Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) also add a syntactic dimension, noting
that this process applies not only to a single word, but also to a whole phrase
or compound, as in glutes ( gluteus maximus), perm ( permanent
wave), siggy ( significant other) and zoo ( zoological garden). In this
respect, Kreidlers definition (2000: 956, given above) is more restrictive, in
that it confines clipping to the formal shortening of simple lexemes, although
he later admits that, semantically, it may derive from a compound or phrase
(Kreidler 2000: 962).
In relation to the syntactic class of the bases, both Kreidler (2000) and
Jamet (2009) underline the predominantly nominal nature of clipped forms,
although they observe that other less frequent categories do exist: e.g., adjec-
tives (fave favourite), verbs (prep prepare), adverbs (inf infi-
nitely), and more rarely, conjunctions (cos because) and interjections
(lor lord), the latter two being in any case much less frequent word cate-
gories in the language as a whole.
In relation to morphotactics, clippings can be classified according to
which part of the source remains in the output the initial, medial, or final
portion and whether any suffix is added (Mattiello 2008a).56 Before offer-
ing my own classification based on such morphological criteria, a delimita-
tion of the clipping process is in order.
3.1.2. Delimitation: Clipping vs. other processes
Although scholars follow different linguistic approaches and provide differ-

ing definitions of the clipping process, all definitions are interrelated and
oriented towards the same concept. However, this concept is at times con-
flated with other related but, separate, notions.
First of all, the distinction between clipping and back-formation, as dia-
chronic processes, is not always clear (Kreidler 1979: 26, 2000: 957). Ac-
cording to Bauer (1983: 232) and Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) back-
formations like burgle ( burglar), edit ( editor), and peddle ( ped-
dler) are to be considered as special cases of clipping.57 On the one hand,
they are both kinds of shortening, but on the other hand, they differ from
many points of view. First, the material removed in back-formation is more
predictable (by analogy) than that removed in clipping, because it normally

has the status of a (supposed) morpheme, rather than being material with no
morphemic status (Kreidler 1979: 26; cf. Jamet 2009: 17). Second, the re-
moved material in back-formation is generally the final part of a word,
whereas clipping, as we will see, curtails words in various ways. Third,
back-formations always change the grammatical category of the base word
(e.g. Noun Verb, as in baby-sitter baby-sit, sculptor sculpt),
whereas this is not the case with clippings, which almost always belong to
the same word class as the base (e.g. both corp and corporation are nouns,
both fess and confess are verbs, etc.).58 Thus, back-formation obtains new
words, clipping only connoted variants.59
Another necessary distinction is between clipping and the process of el-
lipsis. According to Kreidler (2000: 962), clippings derived from compounds
or phrases, like pub or typo ( typographical error), are extensions of the
process of ellipsis, by which, for instance, a construction of modifier + head
is reduced to the modifier, deleting the head, as in capital for capital city,
capital letter, etc., general for general servant, and Underground for Un-
derground railway. In decaf for decaffeinated coffee and neg for negative
photograph part of the modifier is also deleted. These elliptic forms take on
the meaning of the source forms, and also their syntactic class, as the plural
marker of final-s from final examinations or primar-ies from primary elec-
tions demonstrate. Therefore, I consider the above-mentioned words as cases
of clipping. I distinguish ellipsis from clipping on the basis of their morpho-
logical relevance. Ellipsis is essentially a textual phenomenon (Halliday and
Hasan 1976; Beaugrande and Dressler 1981), in that the deep structure is
recoverable from context and the omitted material can be generally deter-
mined by making reference to the immediate co-text. Clipping, on the other
hand, is a morphological phenomenon, and the omitted part is not always
unambiguously determined or recovered by means of con-/co-textual infor-
mation.
The concept of clipping may also be confused with that of blending. This
confusion is normally due to the similarity between some clippings derived
from complex bases and blends, typically merging two or more bases. As I
will explain in more detail in the next chapter (4.1.2), clipped compounds,
such as hi-fi ( high fidelity) and adman ( advertising man), differ from
blends because their bases have a composite rather than independent mean-
ing. The demarcation between the two processes is especially complex not
with coordinate blends of the type bilk ( beer + milk) or linner ( lunch
+ dinner), whose bases are paradigmatically related, but above all with the
attributive type (e.g. blog web + log), whose bases are syntagmatically
72 Abbreviations
related (more in 3.1.3 and 4.1.3). A dubious case is the noun quasar, ana-
lysed by Bertinetto (2001: 100) as a blend from quasi and stellar, but actu-
ally originating from an adjectival base quasi-stellar having a composite
meaning (OED3).
A further point with regard to the notion of clipping is that it excludes a
series of purely graphic abbreviations, i.e., sequences of letters which, when
converted to speech, are pronounced as the source words they abbreviate,
like Dr. ( Doctor), ed. ( editor), Mr. ( Mister), or, from a Latin base,
etc. ( et cetera). On the other hand, Dem ( Democrat), Inc ( Incor-
porated), Jan ( January) are hybrids between clippings and graphic ab-
breviations, because they can be read out in expanded or unexpanded form.
Lastly, clippings with a high degree of shortening (e.g. c. century, H.
hydrogen, p. page) may conflate with acronyms or initialisms of the
type FAQ and CD (Conti and Mattiello 2008: 560). Indeed, like them, they
are made up of the initial letters of words. Even more blurred is the border
between alphabetisms and instances of two or more letters taken from a sin-
gle word, as in ADG for adermatoglyphia, ID for identification (as in ID
number/card, user ID, or on its own), TB/tb for tuberculosis, TV for televi-
sion or, in slang, for transvestite. However, all these abbreviations have a
single word as source form, whereas acronyms and initialisms come from a
multi-word sequence (Frequently Asked Questions, Compact Disk). As a
corollary, short clippings of the type c., H., etc. are highly ambiguous, ad-
mitting alternative inputs (e.g. in slang H. means heroin; see 2.3.7.3), and
potentially standing for any word beginning with the initial letter retained.
By contrast, a combination of letters, as in alphabetisms, leaves a smaller
number of options to disambiguation.
3.1.3. Classification and structure of clippings
Clippings are commonly classified according to which part of the base is

deleted, with distinctions being made between back-clipping, fore-clipping,
edge-clipping, and mid-clipping.
3.1.3.1. Back-clipping (called hind clipping by Lpez Ra 2006: 676)60

deletes the final part of the word, thus preserving the initial portion. Another
appropriate label for this type is truncation (cf. Plag 2003 and others who
extend the term to the whole variety of clippings). Back-clippings represent
the highest percentage in English and other languages, in that the beginning
is considered the most salient part of a word (Dressler 2005). This pattern is
illustrated by many nouns, either monosyllabic or disyllabic:
ad/advert(isement), auto(mobile), bi(sexual), bro(ther), cap(tain),
demo(nstration), disco(theque), emo(tional), gym(nasium),61 lab(oratory),
photo(graph), pic(ture), prof(essor), sis(ter), uni(versity) have already been
mentioned. Other examples include: admin ( administration), amp (
amplifier), app ( application, and recently also from appetizer), bra (
brassire), bronc ( bronco), cam ( camera), cig ( cigarette), condo
( condominium), croc ( crocodile), curio ( curiosity), deb ( debu-
tante), deli ( delicatessen), dino ( dinosaur), dorm ( dormitory),
exam ( (academic) examination), fan ( fanatic), gas ( gasoline),
grad ( graduate), homo ( homosexual), mag ( magazine, cf. zine
below), mayo ( mayonnaise), memo ( memorandum), mimeo (
mimeograph), pen ( penitentiary), porn ( pornography), pres (
president), promo ( promotion), Rasta ( Rastafarian), rehab ( reha-
bilitation), sax ( saxophone), stude ( student), talc ( talcum), tech
( technology), teen ( teenager), tick ( ticket), tu ( tuition), U (
University; cf. initialisms in 3.1.4), vamp ( vampire) seductive woman,
zep ( zeppelin). A final -s is kept in binos ( binoculars), celebs (
celebrities), congrats ( congratulations), hols ( holidays), maths (cf.
Am.E. math), mocs ( moccasins), specs ( spectacles), at times with a
semantic specification, as in pants. Turps ( turpentine) is embellished
by an -s (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1636). In gents ( gentlemens
lavatory), the final -s is a residue of the genitive.
Back-clipped adjectives and verbs are less frequent: the former are illus-
trated by comfy, fab, hyper, imposs, marvy, mizzy, preg, rad, respectively
from comfortable, fabulous, hyperactive, impossible, marvellous, miser-
able, pregnant, and radical, the latter by frat, prep, psych,62 rehab, sum,
veg, from fraternize, prepare, psychoanalyse, rehabilitate, summarize, and
vegetate (pass the time in vacuous inactivity). Back-clipped adverbs like
def(initely) and inf(initely) are rare.
Some back-clippings are shortenings of slang rather than standard words
(Mattiello 2008a: 143): e.g., boob ( booby a stupid fellow), fag (
faggot a male homosexual), Mex ( Mexican foreign currency), mike
( microgram a microgram of a drug), mush ( mushroom an um-
brella), nig ( nigger a dark-skinned person). Others were slang words at
their origin, but are no longer considered stylistically marked, due to their
frequency of use in everyday language. Examples of this kind are: brill (
brilliant), divi. ( dividend), ma ( mama), meth ( methamphetamine;
cf. meth(s) from methylated spirit, OED3), op ( operative/operator a
74 Abbreviations
private investigator; cf. optical in op art), phenom ( phenomenon), pol

( politician), pros/pross ( prostitute), Prot ( Protestant), stupe (
stupid), teach ( teacher), etc.
Against Kreidlers (1979: 27) claim that the short form has to resemble
its source in some fairly unambiguous way, sometimes input recognition is
obstructed not only by shortening, but also by orthographic change, as in
bike, biz ( business), cuke ( cucumber), delish ( delicious), fax (
facsimile), mike ( microphone), pram ( perambulator), slang Jeez (
Jesus), loony/-ey ( lunatic), mensh ( mention), natch, pash ( pas-
sion), sarge ( sergeant), and trank ( tranquillizer).63 However, some of
these changes (e.g. in delish, natch, pash) were necessary in order to pre-
serve the original pronunciation. Minor spelling adjustments may also in-
volve the addition of the hypocoristic suffix -ie/-y, as in the above-mentioned
comfy, marvy, and loony, or the slang suffixes -o (lesbo lesbian) and -ers
(preggers pregnant).
Input may be ambiguous because of homophony (i.e. complete loss of
contrast): for example, ad can stand for advertisement or administration,
demo for demonstration or demolition, doc for doctor or document, comp
for computer or competition, mac/Mac for macaroni or Macintosh, op for
optical, operator, or opportunity, spec for speculation, or for special-
ist/specification in slang, sub for submarine or substitute, veg for vegetable
(as in vegan veg + -an, OED3) or vegetarian, vet for veteran or veteri-
narian. Coke is also ambiguous, being both a clipping from Coca cola and a
clipped slang word for cocaine. However, different users or contexts may
immediately select one etymology and exclude the other (cf. mac/Mac a
type of pasta vs. a series of personal computers). Graphically, the capital
letter may also help discriminate between the two possibilities.
Lastly, ambiguity or vagueness may involve source words which belong
to different syntactic classes, as in dif for difference or different, fash for
fashion or fashionable, glam for glamour, glamorous and glamorize, homo
for homosexual (noun and adjective), perv/perve for perversion, pervert or
perverted (also pervy), and psycho for psychopath or psychopathic.
3.1.3.2. Fore-clipping deletes the initial part of the word, thus preserving the
final portion, which is a rather salient word part (preserved, e.g., in baby
talk, Marchand 1969: 443). Some historical clippings belong to this type:
(a)bet, (a)cute, (ad)venture, (a)mend, (ap)ply, (at)tend, (cara)van,
(de)fence, (de)fend, (de)spite, still (from distil), (di)sport, (e)spy,
(e)strange, (hi)story, (omni)bus, (o)possum, (peri)wig, (rac)coon, (vio-
lon)cello (reported by Kreidler 1979: 2729). More recent examples include:

bot ( robot), choke ( artichoke), chute ( parachute), copter ( heli-
copter), droid ( android), fiche ( microfiche),Fro ( Afro), lax (
relax, also used as a verb, see Rice University Neologisms Database), mia
( bulimia), mum ( chrysanthemum), phone, rents ( parents), tard
( retard), tude ( attitude), Am.E. vator ( elevator), zine ( maga-
zine). As these examples show, most fore-clippings are formed from nouns,
but also from adjectives (strange), verbs (mend, niff sniff, spy), conjunc-
tions (cos), adverbs (deed indeed), and prepositions (gainst against,
neath beneath or underneath, tween between).
Some are graphically marked by an apostrophe: e.g., cause for because,
cept for except, cruits for recruits, fess for confess, fraid for afraid,
zing for amazing, and the above-mentioned adverbs and prepositions. Oth-
ers exhibit minor spelling adjustments, as in leet for elite, nuff for enough,
sheen for machine, varsity, Yard for Montagnard.
The following clipped words have a slangy flavour: gator ( alligator),
loid ( celluloid), Nam ( Vietnam), nana ( banana a foolish person),
Scouse ( lobscouse, a native or inhabitant of Liverpool), tache (
moustache), tato ( potato), za ( pizza) (Mattiello 2008a: 145).
3.1.3.3. Edge-clipping (or ambiclipping in Huddleston and Pullum 2002:

1635) deletes the initial and final parts of the word, thus preserving the me-
dial portion. Admittedly, this type is rare and its transparency is highly en-
dangered. A few examples are: flu, fridge, jams ( pyjamas), polly (
apollinaris), tec, van ( advantage). Adams (1973: 136) also cites script
for prescription, later also used in slang to indicate a prescription for nar-
cotic drugs (Mattiello 2008a: 145), and Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10)
mention quiz ( inquisitive).64 The origin of the word gypsy is from Egyp-
tian, with a high degree of opaqueness. The clipping lax ( relaxed; cf.
relax above) has been recently used in an e-mail message (Rice University
Neologisms Database).
3.1.3.4. Mid-clipping (cf. median clipping or contraction in Jamet 2009:

18, after Tournier 1985) deletes the middle part of the word, thus preserving
both extremities. This is the rarest type, and the least transparent due to
discontinuity of the base, as in ana for anorexia, cortisone for corticoster-
one,65 proctor for procurator, secy for secretary. The word miss ( mis-
tress) also belongs to this group, because the final -s is not a plural marker,
76 Abbreviations
but the word ending. Other peripheral mid-clippings include apostrophes or

hyphens, as in the place names Bham ( Birmingham), B-way ( Broad-
way), Joburg ( Johannesburg).
3.1.3.5. Random clippings retain some scattered letters, specifically, conso-

nants, from the base word. Examples are: dlr ( dollar), HRN ( heroin),
Jpn ( Japan), Ltd ( limited), mgr. ( manager), nr. ( near). Other
such clippings are abbreviations used in text messages: e.g., jst for just, msg
for message, pls for please, ppl for people, rgds for regards, spk for speak,
sry for sorry, vry for very, wk for week (Lpez Ra 2007). However, their
relevance is more in writing than in oral speech. Cannon (1989) considers
bldg ( building) a visual device with no real theoretical import (p. 105).
3.1.3.6. The various types of clipping mentioned so far can also be found
with complex bases. The items resulting from this process are referred to as
clipped compounds.
Clipped compounds (also clipping-compounds in Marchand 1969: 445,
clipped forms in Bauer 1983: 233, shortened/abbreviated compounds in
Plag 2003: 122) reduce a compound to one of its parts. They are kept separate
from the usual patterns of clippings because, like blends, they are made up
of two or more bases. At the same time, however, they differ from blends
because, while in blends the bases have an autonomous sense, in clipped
compounds they have a composite meaning (Mattiello 2008a: 146).
Examples of clipped compounds include back-clippings: exec ( execu-
tive officer), graph ( graphic formula), lat ( latissimus dorsi), oppo
( opposite number a partner), narc/nark ( narcotics agent), poke (
pocket book), prefab ( prefabricated structure), pre-nup ( pre-nuptial
agreement),66 stereo ( stereophonic system), and tempo ( temporary
building). The -s of plurality is retained in caps ( capital letters, cf. capi-
tal).
A more transparent group leaves the first element intact: jumbo (
jumbo jet), piano ( pianoforte), and slang after ( afternoon), common
( common sense), hard ( hard labour), mobile ( mobile (tele)phone),
natural ( natural life), skin ( skinhead). At times also a portion of the
second member is kept, as in fanfic ( fan fiction), high-tech, kid-vid (
kid video).
Fore-clippings are less common e.g., (air)plane, (check)mate,

(cock)roach, (earth)quake, (ice)berg, (turn)pike but also more transparent
because what is preserved is the head component.
The middle of the compound can be dropped either by leaving the first
element intact, as in backstitution ( backsubstitution a mathematical
process), breathalyser ( breath analyser), or by preserving the second
element, as in adman ( advertising man), cell phone ( cellular
(tele)phone), op art ( optical art), org-man ( organization man), pul-
motor ( pulmonary motor). There are also cases in which only the first
letter of the first member is kept, as in B-girl ( Bar girl), C-section (
Caesarean section), or E. coli ( Escherichia coli, or, in OED3, from
Entamoeba coli). By contrast, in shrink ( head-shrinker) the middle of the
compound is retained.
Even discontinuous pieces can be clipped, as in biopic ( biographical
picture), bodbiz ( body business), Chicom ( Chinese communist),
Comsymp ( communist sympathizer), conlang ( constructed lan-
guage), cyborg ( cybernetic organism), edbiz ( educational business),
fro-yo ( frozen yogurt), hi-fi ( high fidelity), midcult ( middle cul-
ture), op-ed ( opinion editorial), pro-am ( professional amateur), sci-
fi ( science fiction), sitcom ( situation comedy), and wi-fi ( wireless
fidelity), all of which retain the beginning of both bases. This class is fre-
quently found in slang: e.g., des res ( desirable residence), misper (
missing person), slomo ( slow motion), spag bol ( spaghetti
Bolognese), sysop ( system operator).
The types adman and sci-fi are often confused with blends, for instance,
by Jamet (2009: 1718), who, however, admits that it is sometimes difficult
to decide if we are confronted with clipping or blending. A distinction based
on various parameters can be found in section 4.1.2.
Furthermore, the items hi-fi and sci-fi are included in Dienharts (1999:
25) classification of reduplicative compounds, since their components ex-
hibit rhyme with different consonant onset. Rhyme appears crucial in these
items, intentionally read and in spite of their full forms
pronunciation. However, their constituents are clipped forms of existing
compound members, which differ from the bases of rhyming reduplicatives,
like super-duper, in that both of them are meaningful and contribute to the
meaning of the whole (see also 5.1.2 and Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 233234
for a similar account).
78 Abbreviations
3.1.3.7. Another subcategory of the clipping process has proper names as

the base.
Clipped names or hypocoristics are abbreviated proper names which are
used to express familiarity. Subtractive hypocoristics are metaphors of the
pragmatic relation between the addresser and the addressee: morphotactic
truncation is iconic of the reduced distance (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler
forth.).
Plag (2003: 116121) amply illustrates each type of what he calls trun-
cated names, focusing on their formal properties and prosodic structure. I
will therefore limit this brief account on clipped names to observe that, like
clippings of common nouns, clipped names obey various patterns and hence
exhibit different degrees of transparency. The most transparent type pre-
serves the initial portion of the name (Barb Barbara, Bart Bartholo-
mew), at times with some spelling adjustments obstructing input recognition,
as in Abe ( Abraham), Bob ( Robert), Dol ( Dorothy), Hal (
Harry), Mike ( Michael), Rick ( Richard), Sal ( Sarah), Tom (
Thomas), Vee ( Veronica).67
Examples preserving the final portion of the name are also frequent, al-
though less transparent than the former type: Bert ( Herbert or Albert),
Dora ( Theodora, but no longer felt to be connected with the long form),
Fred ( Alfred), Gail ( Abigail), Net ( Antoinette), Ron ( Aaron),
and, with adjusted spelling, Belle ( Arabella), Bes ( Elizabeth, cf. Bet),
Tilda ( Mathilda), Trix ( Beatrice).
A lower degree of transparency is in names whose medial portion is pre-
served, as in Dolph ( Adolphus), Liz, Lum/Lom ( Columbus), Mel (
Amelia), Tish ( Letitia), Trish ( Patricia), Ves ( Sylvester), and Xan
( Alexandra), where the most salient parts are dropped. The least trans-
parent type is in Floss ( Florence), with a discontinuous base.
The ambiguity (or vagueness) of clipped names, however, is even more
manifest than that of common nouns. The same input may obtain different
outputs, as in Al and Lon from Alonzo, Eve and Lyn from Evelyn, Liz and
Bet from Elizabeth, Pat and Trish from Patricia, and a set of names are
shortened into the same output: Al stands for Albert, Alfred and Alonzo,
Bert for Adelbert, Bertram and Robert, Belle is either Arabella or Belinda.
As we will see, some of them may also acquire an -ie/-y suffix (Bertie,
Patty). These are further confirmations of the difficult predictability of
clipped forms.
3.1.3.8. As mentioned above, in a significant number of cases clipping is

accompanied by suffixation, hence suffixed clipping. The suffix is generally
used to convey a familiarising, hypocoristic or jocular flavour (Merlini Bar-
baresi 2001; Mattiello 2008a). Hence, this type of suffix is called a famili-
arity marker by Quirk et al. (1985: 1584). Suffixed or embellished clip-
pings (vs. plain in Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1636) can be divided into
three groups:
Clippings with -ie/-y. By analogy with shortenings ending with a final

vowel -i (e.g. deli), some clippings take an -ie/-y suffix (orthographic
variants of which are -i and sometimes -ee), generally making monosyl-
labic into disyllabic words (Kreidler 1979: 2930). This phenomenon,
studied by Merlini Barbaresi (2001), involves diminutive formation, as
well as nicknames and familiar versions of common nouns and proper
names, such as divvy ( dividend), Gerry ( Gerald), Mandy (
Amanda), sausie ( sausage), telly. It is also mentioned by Plag
(2003), who states that sometimes truncation and affixation can occur
together, as with formations expressing intimacy or smallness, so-called
diminutives (p. 13).68
The combination of shortening and diminutive/familiar suffixation is fa-
voured by the fact that these processes generally share the same commu-
nicative contexts and pragmatic situations. Hence, the main areas of use
of clippings and diminutives are hypocoristics, slangy use, familiar lan-
guage, and speech situations characterised by a close relationship and
intimacy among speakers.
The following are examples of clipped hypocoristics with a proper name
or surname as their base: Andy ( Andrew), Angie ( Angela), Bar-
bie/Babbie ( Barbara),69 Bernie ( Bernard), Bertie ( Albert or
Bertram), Charlie ( Charles or Charlotte), Debby ( Deborah),
Gerry, Patty, Richie, Robbie ( Roberta); Bogey ( Bogart),
Boney/Bonny ( Bonaparte), Bozzy ( Boswell), Dizzy ( Disraeli),
Fergie ( Ferguson), Gorby ( Gorbachev), Montie ( Montgom-
ery), Sherry ( Sheridan), Woolies ( Woolworths), Wordy (
Wordsworth). Back-clippings are the most common form, as the above-
mentioned examples show, but other patterns may also occur, such as
edge- and fore-clippings, as in Lizzie and Betty ( Elizabeth), Lexie (
Alexandra), Mandy ( Amanda), Netty ( Antoinette), Sandy (
Alexander).
In slangy use, such hypocoristics may pass into the category of common
nouns, to name everyday objects, as in Archie ( Archibald) an anti-
80 Abbreviations
aircraft gun, maggie/-y ( Margaret) a prostitute, patsy ( Patrick)

someone who is the object of ridicule, and appellatives for cowards or
effeminate men (e.g. gussie Augustus, Lizzie/lizzie Elizabeth).
Other slang words with an -ie/-y suffix include: Argie ( Argentinian),
Aussie ( Australian), bevie/bevvy ( beverage), divvy, footie/-y (
football), maggie ( magazine), Polly ( Apollinaris) Apollinaris
mineral water, pornie ( pornography), surfie ( surfer), tatie/tattie
( potato), U-ey ( U-turn), and, from complex bases, billies ( dol-
lar bills), chippie/-y ( chip-shop), goalie ( goalkeeper), offie (
off-licence shop) (see Mattiello 2008a: 107108). The noun cutie/-ey
used for an attractive young woman is a suffixed word from cute,
which is originally an aphetic form of acute (OED2).70
Clippings with an -ie/-y suffix which are familiar rather than slang are
equally frequent, though the borderline between the two is often blurred.
Examples include: addy ( address), alky ( alcoholic), barbie (
barbecue), bermies ( bermudas), biccy ( biscuit, after spelling
modification; cf. Australian bickie), Caddie/-y ( Cadillac), cardie (
cardigan), ciggie/-y ( cigarette), Chevy ( Chevrolet), Commie (
Communist), hanky ( handkerchief), hubby, pollie ( politician),
sausie, sissy, telly, and cozzie, mozzie (modified from costume, mosquito).
The base is an adjective in comfy, grotty ( grotesque), marvy. The
same pattern from a complex base is found in benny ( benzedrine tab-
let), boatie ( boatman), credie ( credit card), druggie ( drug
addict), folkie ( folk singer), grannie ( grandmother or grandfa-
ther), juvie/-ey ( juvenile delinquent), movie, nightie ( nightdress),
preemie ( premature baby), postie ( postman), shoppie/-y ( shop
assistant). The plural suffix regularly occurs after derivation, as in civvies
( civilian clothes), pokies ( poker machines), rellies ( relatives),
sunnies ( sunglasses), undies ( underwear), veggies ( vegeta-
bles). Fore-clippings, such as baccy ( tobacco), bikie ( motorbike),
brolly ( umbrella), are again less recurrent.
Clippings with -o. The type with an -o suffix is less common. It is found
in historic beano ( bean-feast), robbo ( Robinson, as in Red Robbo
Derek Robinson), Salvo ( Salvationist), and more recent aggro
( aggravation/aggression), ammo ( ammunition), combo ( com-
bination), lesbo ( lesbian, after homo(sexual)), and milko ( milk-
man). This type is formed by analogy with clippings ending with an
original vowel o: e.g., anthro(pology), demo, disco, hippo, intro,
limo(usine), loco(motive), mayo, memo, mono, photo,
physio(therapist), polio(myelitis), promo, rhino(ceros), stereo, tempo.
The -o suffix frequently occurs in Australian and New Zealand slang

formations (as observed by Mattiello 2008a: 115): e.g., ambo ( ambu-
lance worker), Commo ( Communist), compo ( compensation),
garbo ( garbage collector) a dustman, gyppo ( gipsy), jollo (
jollification), journo ( journalist), muso ( musician), preggo (
pregnant), reffo ( refugee), rego ( (car) registration), servo (
service station), smoko ( smoke) break from work, starko ( stark
naked), wino ( wine) alcoholic. Some such words also display al-
teration of the base spelling, as in arvo ( afternoon), Nasho ( Na-
tional Service), sammo ( sandwich), and secko ( sex) a sexual
pervert.71
Unlike words with the -ie suffix, terms formed using the -o suffix (or
naturally ending with o) tend to be coarse, vigorous, excessive, or con-
temptuous, and used more by males than by females. They are often
used to criticise public figures and movements (e.g. Cathos for Catho-
lics, and Commo above) (Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn 2011).
Clippings with -er(s). Even less common is the type with an -er suffix,
as in bedder ( bedroom), or -ers (cumulated with -s), as in cham-
pers/shampers and preggers. The earliest attested examples are nouns
connected with sport and university habits, as in footer ( football,
1863), brekker ( breakfast, 1889), ekker ( exercise, 1891), soc-
cer/socker ( association football, 1891), and rugger ( rugby foot-
ball, 1893). Other familiar examples with an -er/-ers ending are bathers
(Aus.E., bathing shorts, also swimmers swimming shorts), bed-sitter
( bed-sitting room), collekkers ( collections) an Oxford examination,
leccer ( lecture, also lecker, lekker), and starkers ( stark naked, see
starko above). Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn (2011: 365) remark that the -s suf-
fix is almost exclusively reserved for proper nouns, as in Honkers (
Hong Kong), Sainters ( St Kilda Football Club), Sydders ( Syd-
ney).
The -s suffix is attached to a clipped base in Babs ( Barbara), and in
Australian defs ( definitely), maybs ( maybe), mobes ( mobile
phone), peeps ( people), probs ( probably; cf. prob(lem)s), and
whatevs ( whatever) (Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn 2011: 365).72
Table 1 summarises the various types of clippings described in this section.

82 Abbreviations
Table 1. Types and examples of English clippings
Examples
Type Description Clipped Clipped com- Clipped name
word73 pound
Back- The final ad adver- prefab Barb Bar-
clipping part of the tisement prefabricated bara
word is de- structure
leted
Fore- The initial mia buli- berg ice- Bert Al-
clipping part of the mia berg bert
word is de-
leted
Edge- The initial tec detec- shrink Xan Alex-
clipping and final tive head-shrinker andra
parts of the
word are
deleted
Mid-clipping The middle secy sec- breathalyser Floss
part of the retary breath Florence
word is de- analyser
leted
Random Some scat- HRN her- biopic
Clipping tered let- oin biographical
ters/parts of picture
the word are
deleted
Suffixed Some part of barbie chippie/-y Mandy
Clipping the word is barbecue, chip-shop, Amanda,
deleted and a aggro garbo Robbo
suffix is aggravation, garbage Robinson,
added preggers collector, Sydders
pregnant swimmers Sydney
swimming
shorts
3.1.4. Definition of acronyms and initialisms
Acronyms and initialisms which I group under the superordinate category

of alphabetisms (cf. Quirk et al. 1985; Lpez Ra 2002) are words ob-
tained from the initial letters of the words in a phrase, title, compound, or
list, as in Aids, FAQ, laser, VAT or B.B.C., C.O.D., IMHO, OED (see
Bauer 1983, 1988; Plag 2003; Conti and Mattiello 2008).
Although terminological distinctions are not always so clear-cut, as seen
above, scholars generally agree that they represent two different processes,
to be distinguished on the basis of their pronunciation. Indeed, the form of
acronyms is orthoepic i.e. they are pronounced as full words whereas the
form of initialisms is letter by letter. Hence, the acronym Aids ( Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is pronounced by applying the regular read-
ing rules (), but the initialism B.B.C. by naming each individual letter
of the abbreviated words (). Kreidler (1979: 25) labels these two
types letter-sounding and letter-recitation, later renamed orthoepic vs.
alphabetic in Kreidler (2000: 957). However, as he admits, this distinction
is not always so definite, as hybrid cases exist accepting both pronunciations
(e.g. aka/AKA, a.s.a.p./A.S.A.P., awol/AWOL, Raf/RAF, vip/V.I.P.,
ufo/U.F.O., more examples in Lpez Ra 2002), or combining alphabetic
pronunciation with orthoepic rules (e.g. BTEC , CD-ROM
, JPEG , MPEG, MS-DOS , NSAID
) (Conti and Mattiello 2008).
Moreover, the terms jeep and Veep, respectively from GP (General Pur-
pose (vehicle)) and VP (Vice-President), are pronounced by taking the
name of the first letter and the value of the second,74 whereas V.J. (Video-
Jockey) is alternatively spelt veejay, by analogy with D.J./deejay. Other
words which are given pronunciation-spellings (Adams 1973: 136) are:
emcee ( M.C. Master of Ceremonies), okay/okey ( O.K. oll/orl kor-
rect, also reduplicated as okey-dokey, see chapter 5), teevee75 ( TV tele-
vision, borderline with clipping) (see Baum 1955, 1957), and, in Am.E.
jaycee ( J.C. Junior Chamber of Commerce (member)). The process
occurring in these formations is a case of letter pronunciation (Mattiello
2008a: 152).
Lastly, there are words which look like acronyms, but behave like initial-
isms: GOP ( Grand Old Party) and WHO ( World Health Organiza-
tion) are read letter by letter, in the latter case probably to avoid ambiguity
with the relative pronoun.
Plag (2003: 127) proposes another distinction, based on orthography.
Both acronyms and initialisms can be spelt with either capital or lower-case
letters (as in NATO vs. Nato, SMS vs. sms), but, intuitively, only initialisms
can have dots (U.S.A.), though there seems to be a tendency towards avoid-
ing them (USA). However, cases with four different spellings are also possi-
ble (e.g. U.F.O., UFO, Ufo, ufo), which may diachronically represent pro-
gressive degrees of lexicalisation (2.3.5.1; see also Lpez Ra 2006: 677).
84 Abbreviations
Capital letters are usually considered a formal device to link the acronym,
or the initialism, to its base word. But, nowadays, some words that histori-
cally originated as acronyms are no longer spelt with capital letters, and for
the majority of speakers they tend to be also no longer related to the word
they originally abbreviated (Plag 2003: 127128). Some items, like laser
and radar, even superseded the full forms (Cannon 1989: 103).
Sometimes capitals or dots can determine a different reading of the al-
phabetism, either as an acronym (ASAP , vat ) or as an initial-
ism (a.s.a.p. , VAT ) (Bauer 1983: 237). Bat-El
(2000: 67), though using different terminology, even claims that every acro-
nym has a corresponding base and initialism, but not every initialism has a
corresponding acronym. Actually, many alphabetisms have a double pro-
nunciation (e.g. DAT, FAQ, VIP, etc.). Hence, initialisms can also be read as
words, as long as they are in accordance with the reading rules of a lan-
guage.
A further point concerns the orthographic basis of acronyms and initial-
isms, whose pronunciation depends on the orthographic status acquired
rather than on the phonetic value of each initial letter in the original words.
Thus, while the letters A in Amplification and I in International are respec-
tively pronounced and , the same letters in laser and IPA (Interna-
tional Phonetic Alphabet) are diphthongised, as and (Aronoff 1976;
Bauer 1983; Merlini Barbaresi 2007; Conti and Mattiello 2008; Mattiello
2008a). Moreover, while English words beginning with a consonant sound
are regularly preceded by the indefinite article a, initialisms may be preceded
by either a or an depending on the consonant pronunciation: i.e., a Member
of Parliament, but an MP (Conti and Mattiello 2008: 565).
A final aspect which is generally noted in the literature concerns the for-
mation of acronyms, which generally involves considerable freedom
(Kreidler 1979: 25). According to Kreidler (2000: 958), In order to create
an acronym which is not only pronounceable but also euphonious or sugges-
tive of some other meaning, the letters of the source form are sometimes
chosen at will and vowel letters may be added. In Univac ( UNIVersal
Automatic Computer) and radar, for instance, it is not only the first letters
that are retained in the acronym.
Sometimes the acronym is even made to coincide with an existing word
whose meaning is appropriate to the referent, as in CARE ( Cooperative
for American Relief Everywhere) (see acrostics in the classification given in
3.1.6.73.1.6.8). This latter type, confirming the difficult predictability of
acronymic formations, will be considered more marked than the prototypical
type, exemplified by Aids.
3.1.5. Delimitation: Acronyms and initialisms vs. other processes
A preliminary delimitation of the two concepts under investigation is in or-

der, since there are a variety of adjacent categories which are commonly
conflated with alphabetisms due to their abbreviatory character and ortho-
graphic shape (Conti and Mattiello 2008).
First of all, alphabetisms do not conflate with blends.76 Lpez Ra
(2006) concisely states that alphabetisms of the type laser and BBC are the
result of maximal reduction plus minimal fusion (i.e., the simple concatena-
tion of constituents) (p. 676). This definition distinguishes them from
blends of the type motel ( motor + hotel), which, according to Lpez Ra
(2006: 676) are the product of medium to minimal reduction and maximal
fusion, the latter underlined in the blend motel. However, there are an in-
creasing number of cases which approach the periphery of either typical
blends or typical alphabetisms, and are therefore difficult to categorise. For
instance, Satcoma ( SATellite COMmunications Agency) is a fluctuating
hybrid, in that it involves medium reduction, like blends, but also minimal
fusion, like alphabetisms. Cases like SMART ( Swatch Mercedes ART) are
likewise hybrid formations in between acronyms and blends (see extended
acronyms in 3.1.6.4). On the other hand, acetal ( acetic + alcohol) is
simply a less prototypical type of blend involving two word beginnings, with
no fusion between them (this point will be discussed also in 4.1.2).
Secondly, alphabetisms do not conflate with clippings with a high degree
of shortening, i.e. made up of one or very few letters, such as c. ( cen-
tury/chapter), dlr ( dollar), H. ( Hydrogen), p. ( page), vs. ( ver-
sus). Indeed, whereas such clippings have a single word as their source
form, alphabetisms originate from multi-word sequences, including less cen-
tral cases from compounds (B.S. BullShit, DL Down-Low, OD
OverDose). Furthermore, acronyms and initialisms, at least the prototypical
types analysed in Lpez Ra (2002), retain only the initial letters, whereas
this happens neither with the mid-clipping in vs. nor with the random clip-
ping in dlr (3.1.3.43.1.3.5), both incorporating non-initial letters (espe-
cially consonants). In c. from chapter, the letter retained does not even cor-
respond to the initial phoneme of the word , but this is not a
discriminatory aspect: cf. the pronunciation of UFO () and the
initial vowel of Unidentified.
Thirdly, according to Conti and Mattiello (2008: 560561), alphabetisms
should be kept distinct from a variety of Graphic abbreviations or symbols,
which are unexpanded in writing, but generally expanded in pronunciation.
For instance, quantificational marks (e.g. kg kilogram, km kilometre)
86 Abbreviations
are not pronounced as a series of letters, but read expanded. Further exam-
ples are language names in precise time periods (e.g. E.E., M.E., OE
Early/Middle/Old English), cardinal points (e.g. N.E. North-East, S.W.
South-West), and international chemical symbols (e.g. K L. kalium
potassium, Na L. natrium sodium).
Some other abbreviations of neoclassical origin, for example c.v. (
curriculum vitae), and also city names, for example LA ( Los Angeles)
and NYC ( New York City), are peripheral to the category of alphabet-
isms, since they can be read expanded or unexpanded (cf. Lpez Ra 2002).
These may be contrasted with cases such as a.m./p.m. ( ante/post me-
ridiem) and i.e. ( id est), which are read only unexpanded, like initialisms,
but are less relevant for the purposes of this study in that they are not spe-
cifically English. Note too the abbreviation e.g. ( exempli gratia), which
may be read either in unexpanded form or as the words for example, which
may be considered the English (but not Latin) expanded form.
The concept of backronym is also different from that of acronym. Back-
ronyms are constructed a posteriori, mostly by folk etymology, from a pre-
viously existing word. For instance, Adidas, actually a blend from the com-
pany founders nickname (Adi Dassler Adolph Dassler), has been re-
interpreted as All Day I Dream About Sports (or Sex), Ford, the car com-
pany founded by Henry Ford, was said to stand for First On Race Day,
Fix Or Repair Daily, or Found On Road, Dead, and LETS/Lets, an in-
vented name for a self-regulating economic network, has been later ration-
alised as Local Exchange (or Employment) Trading System. Unlike acro-
nyms, which are acts of economising, backronyms are often used for ludic
purposes: for instance, the acronym YMCA ( Young Mens Christian
Association) has been reinterpreted as Your Money Cheerfully Accepted
(Kreidler 2000: 958), VIP is used in advertising for Very Intelligent Pocket
or Very Important Pet, and slang phat (sexy, attractive), perhaps a re-
spelling of fat, has been later explained as an acronymic formation from
various phrases (Pussy, Hips, Ass, and Tits or Pretty, Hot, And Tempt-
ing).
The last category which partially overlaps with acronymic formations is
that of alphanumeric combinations used in text messaging. In such combina-
tions, a syllable is replaced by a homophonous letter and/or number: e.g., B4
(before), d8 (date), 4NR (foreigner), 4U (for you), GR8 (great), ICQ
(I seek you), IH8U (I hate you), IOU (I owe you), L8R (later, also
CUL8R), m8 (mate), no1/sum1 (no one, someone), QT (cutie), RU3?
(Are you free?, with a different pronunciation of the as ), TNX
(thanks) or 10Q (thank you), 2moro (tomorrow), 2U2 (to you too),
U8 (You ate?), XLNt (excellent). These combinations, as well as cardinal

points and language names, are in fact mere graphic abbreviations that do
not coincide with an actual reduction in the phonetic realisation (more in
Fandrych 2007; Lpez Ra 2007).
3.1.6. Classification of acronyms and initialisms
Acronyms and initialisms are two general labels, allowing further analysis
and subcategorisation. Acronyms are classified on the basis of two main
criteria, namely morphotactic and morphosemantic (cf. orthographic vs.
word-based in Conti and Mattiello 2008: 562). According to the first crite-
rion, we can differentiate between elliptic and non-elliptic acronyms.
3.1.6.1. Non-elliptic acronyms are words which retain the initial letters of
all the words contained in the source phrase. Examples include: COLA (
Cost Of Living Adjustments), DAT ( Digital Audio Tape, also read letter
by letter), FAQ, LAB ( Logistics Assault Base), LOL, MIDI ( Musical
Instrument Digital Interface), NATO, NIMBY, OTE ( On Target Earn-
ings), RAM ( Random Access Memory), RASC ( Royal Army Service
Corp), REACT ( Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology),
SIDS ( Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Unicef ( United Nations In-
ternational Childrens Emergency Fund),77 slang snafu ( Situation Nor-
mal: All Fouled/Fucked Up), and recent Wysiwyg ( What You See Is
What You Get), originally from computing, to mean that what you see on
the screen is what you get in the output. In ASBO ( Anti-Social Behav-
iour Order/s) the initial letter of both the prefix Anti- and the adjective So-
cial has been retained. This type is clearly more prototypical and transparent
than the elliptic one, since in non-elliptic acronyms grammatical words (of,
in) and the initials of both compound bases (backyard) are both graphically
represented, strictly complying with the standard definition.
3.1.6.2. Elliptic acronyms, in contrast, do not retain all the initials of the
words contained in the source phrase. Makkai (1972: 350) calls the words
which are not graphically represented suppressed lexons. The most com-
mon type omits grammatical words (underlined in the following examples),
such as prepositions (ARCA Automobile Racing Car of America, ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange, NASDAQ
88 Abbreviations
National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations), con-

junctions (CERCLA Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compen-
sation, and Liability Act, NASA National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration, UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization), articles (FOB Fresh Off the Boat), auxiliary
verbs (HIG? Hows it going?), as well as combinations of these different
word types (ASLEF Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and
Firemen, BAFTA British Academy of Film and Television Arts, NACRO
National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In some elliptic acronyms,
however, some grammatical words are included and others are not: in
TOEFL ( Test Of English as a Foreign Language) the O is included to
avoid ambiguity with TEFL ( Teaching English as a Foreign Language).
AWOL still remains a dubious case.78
The omission of lexical words is rarer, due to the fact that such words are
more relevant (in terms of lexico-semantic content) to the realisation of the
acronym than are grammatical words. PACE ( Police And Criminal Evi-
dence act) and historical Ned ( National Economic Development council)
illustrate this type. Interestingly, in PACE the A of the conjunction is in-
cluded but that of the full lexical word act is not.
In the case of ESPRIT ( European Strategic Programme for Research
and development in Information Technology), both grammatical and func-
tion words are omitted in the interests of pronounceability and easy memori-
sation (see 3.2.4 and acrostics in 3.1.6.73.1.6.8).
Peripheral cases even lack a source form, as in qwerty/QWERTY, a mod-
ern-day keyboard layout whose name comes from the first six letters appear-
ing in the top letter line of the keyboard, read left to right (Lpez Ra 2004:
126).
3.1.6.3. As has been said, there are some even more marked types, whose
morphotactic and morphosemantic transparency can be endangered by: 1)
the addition of vowel letters (see below), 2) a lower degree of shortening
(3.1.6.4),79 or even 3) homophony with existing words (3.1.6.73.1.6.8).
Acronyms with vowel addition is the label given to those acronyms which
undergo a process of vowel insertion (Makkai 1972: 351), as in Humvee
( High-mobility Multi-purpose wheeled Vehicle) and WREN (
Womens Royal Naval service), with insertion of vowels for euphony. The
Lunar Module has even become Lunar Excursion Module to make the acro-
nym pronounceable as lem (see Pronounceability in 3.2.4). However, cases
of graphic vowel insertion are relatively infrequent, representing a low per-

centage of all acronyms. Vowels are more frequently inserted in pronuncia-
tion, as in NWAVE ( New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English) and
SLRF ( Second Language Research Forum), which are made pronounce-
able as and (Plag 2003: 128),80 or in the above-mentioned
cases of BTEC, JPEG, and NSAID.81 Lastly, vowels may be inserted to
obtain words that are suggestive of some other meaning, i.e. homophones
with existent words (3.1.6.73.1.6.8). This is the case with Footsie ( Fi-
nancial Times-Stock Exchange), jocularly coined after the slang word mean-
ing amorous play with the feet.
3.1.6.4. Extended acronyms are formations composed of more than one

initial letter for each word of the full expression, as in the well-known case
of radar and its by-forms colidar ( COherent LIght Detecting And Rang-
ing), ladar ( LAser Detection And Ranging), and comparable cases re-
ported in Adams (1973: 137). Similar examples include: AMESLAN (
AMErican Sign LANguage, also ASL), INSET ( IN-Set Education and
Training), NORAD ( NORth American Aerospace Defense command),
NOTAR ( NO-TAil Rotor), and OFFER ( OFFice of Electricity Regu-
lation). In these cases, the letters retained do not necessarily correspond to a
syllable (see LIght, IN-Set, NORth). Hence, Aronoffs (1976: 20) term syl-
lable words (after Marchand 1969: 452) does not properly label this pat-
tern, nor does Bertinettos (2001: 81) syllabic acronyms.
3.1.6.5. Recursive acronyms are formations in which one word of the source
phrase coincides with the acronym itself, as in CAVE ( Cave Automatic
Virtual Environment), LAME ( Lame Aint an MP3 Encoder), slang
mung ( Mung Until No Good) destroy or corrupt (data, etc.), and the
above-mentioned INSET. ALLEGRO ( Allegro Low LEvel Game ROu-
tine) is both recursive and extended (3.1.6.4).
3.1.6.6. Inverted letter acronyms are those in which the ordering of some
letters is changed: for instance, in MISHAP ( MIssiles High-Speed As-
sembly Program), the H and S are inverted for reasons of pronounceability
and homophony (3.2.4). This is the rarest pattern and the most uncertain in
the analysis: the S of MISHAP may simply come for the beginning of MIS-
siles.
90 Abbreviations
3.1.6.7. Another distinction within the category of acronyms is not operated

on a structural and graphic criterion, but rather on a semantic one. The per-
tinent class includes acrostics, i.e. acronyms whose reading/pronunciation
coincides with a homophone word in the English language (Conti and
Mattiello 2008: 563). The identified homophony can be either semantically-
relevant or not.
Semantically-irrelevant acrostics are those whose phonetics is uninten-
tionally identical to that of an existing word, but no semantic connection
between the acronym and the actual word can be retraced, as in SWOT (
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), which has no semantic
connection with the informal verb and noun swot. Other examples of this
type include: BANANA ( Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Any-
thing), BOAT ( Byway Open to All Traffic), CAB ( Citizens Advice
Bureau), GHOST ( Global HOrizontal Sounding Technique), LIFE (
Laboratory for International Fuzzy Engineering research), MACHO (
MAssive Compact Halo Object or Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo
Object), PIN, the above-mentioned PACE, PAL ( Phase Alternate Line),
SHAPE ( Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe), SLEEP (
Scanning Low Energy Electron Probe), SOP ( Standard Operating Pro-
cedure), and WASP ( White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).82 There are also
some acrostics of this type which involve proper names, for example SARAH
( Search And Rescue And Horning) a portable radar transmitter (men-
tioned by Baum 1956: 224), and TESSA ( Tax Exempt Special Savings
Account). Although the formation of the above acrostics is not relevant from
the semantic point of view, they can aid memorisation (3.2.4), in that an
already existing word is easier to memorise than any series of letters pro-
nounced as a word.
3.1.6.8. Semantically-relevant acrostics are combinations that intentionally

give rise to homophones. In such cases, the result of homophony is a pun
(hence called punning acronym by Makkai 1972: 345), which semantically
connects the meaning conveyed by the acrostic to that of the homophone
word, as in AID ( Agency for International Development), AIM (
American Indian Movement), BASIC ( Beginners All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code), the above-mentioned CARE, CORE ( Congress Of
Racial Equality), FREE ( Fathers Rights and Equality Exchange), FUSE
( Faiths United for Sustainable Energy), HOPE ( Health Opportunity
for People Everywhere), MANIAC ( Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical
Integrator, And Computer), NOW ( National Organization of Women),
PUSH ( People United to Save Humanity), SAD ( Seasonal Affective

Disorder), SALT and START ( S(T)rategic Arms Reduction/Limitation
Talks),83 and TOP ( Termination Of Pregnancy).
In certain cases, it is not clear whether the form of the acronym is actu-
ally the abbreviation of a pre-existing expression or whether the opposite is
true, i.e. the acronym is the starting-point and the full expression is con-
structed to suit the acronym. For instance, in scientific terminology personal
names which are reminiscent of Greek mythology (CALIPSO Cloud-
Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) are often
chosen to convey an idea of prestige (Mattiello forth.). Hence, Stockwell and
Minkova (2001: 9) propose the label reverse acronyms for these forma-
tions,84 which differ from backronyms (3.1.5) in that the latter either have a
straightforward etymology (e.g. Ford from the founders name) or an in-
vented one (First On Race Day). In all such cases, a double functional
purpose is achieved through homophony, in that the semantic relatedness
between the acrostic and the homophone word not only eases memorisation
(3.2.4), but also facilitates a partial recovery of the lexical meaning con-
veyed by the acrostic.
In general terms, it should be clear that the distinction between simple ac-
ronyms and acrostics is drawn on what we might call a semantic criterion
and not on a structural one. Indeed, acrostics both semantically-relevant
and irrelevant as well as acronyms, can be either elliptic (see AID, FREE,
LIFE, SHAPE) or non-elliptic (see CORE, MACHO, PIN, SAD). Thus, the
two criteria are independent, even though they intersect in the classification.
3.1.6.9. The other general label mentioned above is that of initialisms. Like
acronyms, they can be subcategorised on the basis of their structure into
elliptic and non-elliptic.
Non-elliptic initialisms include the initial letters of all the words con-
tained in the source phrase, although they are pronounced as single letters.
Examples of non-elliptic initialisms are: aka ( Also Known As), AOL (
America OnLine), CIA ( Central Intelligence Agency), C.O.D. ( Cash
On Delivery), DIY ( Do-It-Yourself), DRAM ( Dynamic Random-
Access Memory), ECB ( European Central Bank), EEC ( European
Economic Community), GDP ( Gross Domestic Product), GMO, GMT
( Greenwich Mean Time), MOT ( Ministry Of Transport), OHMS (
On Her/His Majestys Service), SUV ( Sport Utility Vehicle), UNSC (
United Nations Security Council), URL ( Uniform Resource Locator),
VIP, WTO ( World Trade Organization), and informal/slang words used
92 Abbreviations
in text messages (e.g. CWOT Complete Waste Of Time, JIC Just In

Case, TTFN Ta-Ta For Now).85 The longest non-elliptic initialisms that I
have come across are S.F.T.P.O.D.R.A.B. ( Society For The Prevention
Of Disparaging Remarks About Brooklyn), reported by Howson (1945:
127), and Cannons (1989: 101) USAMSMADHS ( United States Army
Medical Service Meat And Dairy Hygiene School).
3.1.6.10. Elliptic initialisms are those in which some initial letters are not
initialised. Like acronyms, they tend to omit grammatical words, as in ESL
( English as a Second Language), FBI ( Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion), GCSE ( General Certificate of Secondary Education), ICA (
Institute of Contemporary Art), MAE ( Master of Arts in Education),
TGIF ( Thank God Its Friday), and UNHCR ( United Nations High
Commission for Refugees). Howson (1945: 127) mentions elliptic
G.A.S.G.A.S.G.A.S. ( Gild of Ancient Suppliers of Gas Appliances, Skill,
Gins, Accessories, and Substances) among his curiosities. Ellipsis rarely
involves lexical words; exceptions are EBD ( Electronic Brake force Dis-
tribution), and A.T.&T., C. & W., PB & J, P. & O., and V. and A., all men-
tioned below.
The very recent formation afk/AFK ( away from keyboard) could also
be viewed as being elliptical, since the second base of the compound is not
graphically represented, almost certainly because of its lexicalised status,
and the same is true for NBC ( National Broadcasting Company). An-
other currently attested term is F.I.N.E. ( Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic,
and Emotional), whose meaning plays on the homophonous English word,
which is the polar opposite of the combined effect of the adjectives.
Like acronyms, there are peripheral cases of initialisms which lack an origi-
nal expression, as in KLF, the name of a pop music band mentioned by
Lpez Ra (2004: 126). However, unlike acronyms, which are more restric-
tive on their structure, initialisms may also exhibit:
Symbols, such as - and / (as in A.-A. Anti-Aircraft, p-y-o Pick-

Your-Own, S-R Stimulus-Response; A/S.R.S. Air-Sea Rescue Ser-
vice, I/O Input/Output, N/A Not Applicable, n/s Non-
Smoking, S/E Stock Exchange, W/T Wireless Telegraphy);
Coordinators, such as &, and or n (as in A.T.&T. American Tele-
phone and Telegraph Company, b. & b. bed and breakfast, C. & W.
Country-and-Western music, PB & J Peanut butter and Jelly
sandwich, P. & O. Peninsular and Oriental steam navigation co., T.

& A. Tonsils and Adenoids, R&D Research and Development; B.
and S. Brandy and Soda, d and p Developing and Printing, O.
and M. Organization and Methods, Q and A Question and An-
swer, V. and A. Victoria and Albert museum; rnb Rhythm and
Blues, rnr Rock and Roll);
Prepositions (as in C. in C. Commander in Chief, C. of A. Cer-
tificate of Airworthiness, C. of E. Church of England, S. of S.
Secretary of State, U.S. of A. United States of America);
Numerals (as in 4WD Four-Wheel Drive, G5/G10 Group of
Five/Ten, the retroviruses HTLV-1, HTLV-2, HIV-1, HIV-2, NC-17
No Children under 17, PG-13 Parental Guidance for children un-
der 13, and Steve Reichs WTC 9/11 World Trade Center Septem-
ber 11). In this type, the numeral may also represent the number of
words beginning with the same letter in the source expression, as in 4H
(from the organisations motto Head, Heart, Hands, and Health), and
slang A3 ( Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere).
3.1.7. Acronyms and initialisms: Further remarks
Lpez Ra (2002, 2004) also proposes a classification of acronyms and

initialisms in terms of prototypicality. Generally speaking, non-elliptic al-
phabetisms are more prototypical, in that their morphotactic analysis is more
transparent than the analysis of elliptic ones. In addition, within the elliptic
type, the formations which drop function words rather than content words
are preferred, due to the saliency of the latter (see Salience and Recoverabil-
ity in 3.2.4). On the other hand, extended acronyms, which retain more than
one letter for each word of the source phrase, form a non-prototypical cate-
gory, in that there is no biunique (one-to-one) correspondence between
graphemes and full words (cf. Linearity and Maximisation in 3.2.4). Even
less central are cases which include two or more initials per source word, or
one or more non-initial letters (e.g. BORAX BOiling ReActor eXperi-
ment). There are also peripheral cases of acronyms which combine initial-
ised and clipped constituents (Algol/ALGOL ALGOrhythmic Language),
or initials and full constituents, as in LIMEAN ( London Interbank MEAN
rate). These are hybrid forms between acronyms, clippings, and blends. The
least transparent type shows extra vowels which facilitate pronunciation (see
Pronounceability in 3.2.4) but do not correspond to any word in the source
phrase. Lastly, as regards the category of acrostics, semantically-relevant (or
94 Abbreviations
punning) acrostics are more prototypical than semantically-irrelevant ones as

their form facilitates interpretation and memorisation. As we will see, proto-
typical categories tend to be preferred options in terms of naturalness and to
exhibit some stability in terms of their formation.
Prototypical and non-prototypical types of English alphabetisms are
summarised in Table 2.
Table 2. Types and examples of English alphabetisms
Examples
Type Description Acronym (pro- Initialism (pro-
nounced as a full nounced letter by
word) letter)
Non-elliptic Al- The initials of all NIMBY/Nimby GMO Geneti-
phabetism the words of a Not In My Back- cally Modified
source phrase are Yard Organism
retained
Elliptic Alpha- Only some of the FOB/fob MAE Master
betism initials of the Fresh Off the of Arts in Educa-
words of a source Boat tion
phrase are re-
tained
Alphabetism with Extra vowels are Humvee High-
vowel addition inserted mobility Multi-
purpose wheeled
Vehicle
Alphabetism with Symbols, coordi- A3 Anytime,
symbols, coordinators, preposi- Anyplace, Any-
nators, prepositions or numerals where, B. and S.
tions or numerals are present Brandy and
Soda, I/O
Input/Output,
U.S. of A.
United States of
America
Extended Alpha- More than one NOTAR NO-
betism initial is retained TAil Rotor
from each word
of a source phrase
Abbreviations as extra-grammatical phenomena 95
Recursive Alpha- One word of the CAVE Cave

betism source phrase Automatic Virtual
coincides with Environment
the whole forma-
tion
Inverted letter The order of MISHAP MIs-
Alphabetism some letters is siles High-Speed
changed Assembly Pro-
gram
Semantically- The formation PAL Phase WHO World
irrelevant Acros- unintentionally Alternate Line Health Organiza-
tic corresponds to a tion
homophonous
word
Semantically- The formation HOPE Health
relevant Acrostic intentionally Opportunity for
corresponds to a People Every-
homophonous where
word
3.2. Abbreviations as extra-grammatical phenomena
Many linguists exclude abbreviations such as prof and Aids from the realm
of morphology, and thereby exclude the related production mechanisms from
the processes of English word-formation. The classification attempted in this
study does in fact demonstrate that there are various patterns which go be-
yond word-formation rules, and a variety of peripheral cases which depart
from central (prototypical) ones. Both Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994:
3940) and Dressler (2000: 4) claim that the operations forming abbrevia-
tions are excluded from grammatical morphology, not so much because they
are often irregular, but rather because they do not produce new meanings.
Dressler (2005) likewise stresses this concept, claiming that:
The relatively high amount of awareness in the formation of abbreviations
of all types and the lack of a semantic difference between the input and the
output of the abbreviatory operations of clipping, acronym formation, etc.
separate them (as being extragrammatical) from grammatical word forma-
tion. (pp. 269270)
96 Abbreviations
Bat-El (2000: 6367) supports the opposite view, arguing that acronyms
usually refer to something more specific than their base. Against their
extra-grammaticality, she also claims that such abbreviations change the
grammatical category and behave like other words, in the sense that they can
function as inputs to word-formation rules (cf. Conti and Mattiello 2008).
Fradin (2003: 211212) claims that clippings satisfy the form of minimal
words, and are productive in terms of applicability to new bases, although
only to polysyllabic ones. Semantically, they signal a shared familiarity with
either the addressee or the referred thing/object, but are class-maintaining
(Fradin 2003: 249). On the other hand, the categories of acronyms and ini-
tialisms are not productive for Fradin, although they are used to create new
words (Fradin 2003: 213).
Other scholars believe that the study of abbreviations is closely linked to
both morphology and phonology. Plag (2003: 116) goes even further and
includes the study of clipping in prosodic morphology, i.e. the phonology-
morphology interaction. He identifies phonological regularities in both clip-
pings and clipped names. Kreidler (1979) similarly concludes that, from the
phonological viewpoint, the process of clipping exhibits certain prefer-
ences (p. 32). In particular, from Kreidler (2000), which deals with differ-
ent languages, we learn that there is a universal preference for disyllabic
clippings, as in French labo(ratoire), Spanish foto(grafa), German
Foto(grafie), and English photo, although monosyllabic ones (ad, lab, prof)
are far more frequent in English. English shares with French a tendency to
end shortened words with a vowel o, either clipping them where there is an
internal o (E. demo, Fr. maso(chiste), vlo(cipde), now lexicalised), or
adding a suffix -o, as in E. aggro, ammo, Fr. intello ( intellectuel) (Ki-
lani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). From the grammatical and semantic view-
points, however, English clippings are variable and minimally predictable
(Kreidler 1979: 3234).
As far as acronyms and initialisms are concerned, many scholars agree
that there is a certain amount of freedom in their creation. Kreidler (1979,
2000), among others, observes that vowels may be imported, different por-
tions (rather than just the initial letters) may be retained, and the acronym
may coincide with an existing word, or else the coincidence may be favoured
because of semantic association. Cannon (1989: 121) observes that other,
widely varying patterns are emerging; and it is these that present most of the
irregular features. These observations, all taken into account in my classifi-
cation (3.1.6), confirm that, like clippings, alphabetisms constitute an irregu-
lar phenomenon.
My position, previously explained in Conti and Mattiello (2008) and

Mattiello (2008a), is that alphabetisms, as well as clippings, exhibit some
(sub)regularities, but are essentially extra-grammatical. The heterogeneity of
these forms makes them difficult to describe in terms of applicability, pro-
ductivity, and rules.
3.2.1. Irregularities in abbreviations
Although Bat-El (2000) and Plag (2003) strongly argue that clippings and
acronyms are regular processes, or, at least, that they are not more excep-
tional than grammatical derivation or compounding, the extra-
grammaticality of these formations appears evident from the fact that they
do not conform to canonical word-formation rules. A striking assertion is to
be found in Kreidler (2000): When a shortened form occurs for the first
time, its acceptance is due to the fact that it resembles its source in a fairly
unambiguous way (p. 959 [emphasis mine]). However, since different in-
puts may correspond to the same output (as in ad advertise-
ment/administration and BA Bachelor of Arts/British Airways), shorten-
ings are not always unambiguous (cf. monorefentiality in specialised
terminology, Mattiello forth.).
As far as clippings are concerned, Kreidler (1979) stresses that their for-
mation is unpredictable. In particular, we cannot predict what terms will be
shortened, the precise shape of the shortening, or where the cut will be
made (Kreidler 1979: 29). Although preferential patterns can be identified,
definite predictions on their structure are unattainable.
As far as alphabetisms are concerned, their structure is more predictable,
in that they generally exhibit the highest degree of shortening (Lpez Ra
2002: 4143), but they are irregular from many viewpoints: e.g., in terms of
1) hybridism, involving a combination of features from contrasting catego-
ries, 2) category shift from one abbreviation to another, and 3) intracate-
gorial progression from centrality (prototypicality) to more marginal pat-
terns (Lpez Ra 2002: 3839).
Hence, in conformity with 2.3.7.12.3.7.10, clippings and acronymic
formations can be negatively defined by a set of violations of grammatical
morphological rules.
3.2.1.1. Morphotactic irregularity. The structure of grammatical derivation

and compounding is regular, their constituents are recognisable, and the
98 Abbreviations
outputs predictable. In contrast, the structure of clippings and alphabetisms

varies and their output is often hardly predictable. In clippings, various parts
(including non-salient ones) can be retained: the beginning (Ave(nue)), the
end ((an)droid), the middle ((in)flu(enza)). In the slang verb dis, converted
from disrespect, only a prefix has been kept. Even discontinuous parts are
possible (as in an(orexi)a, sit(uation) com(edy)), and spelling alterations or
suffix additions may obstruct base recognition (as in mike microphone,
prog proc(tor); hubby husband, veggie vegetarian). In random
clippings, only consonants are preserved in the output (HRN heroin),
though in a rather irregular way (Ltd limited). Similarly, in alphabetisms
the basic components are typically blurred because of their abbreviatory
nature, and their shape is often irregular, as in the elliptic type (ESL,
TOEFL), and in cases of vowel insertion (Humvee), or the retention of more
than one letter of the base (radar). Initialisms may even admit extra sym-
bols, numbers, etc. (A3, N/A, rnb), which are infrequent or impossible in
grammatical formations.
3.2.1.2. Alternative outputs. Abbreviations are more permissive than mor-

phological rules in terms of alternation between different outputs. The output
of clippings may be obtained either from the beginning or the end of the
same source word (uni or varsity for university, Eve or Lyn for Evelyn),
often depending on the stressed syllable (zine or mag for magazine). There
may be other differentiations as well: for example, veggie exhibits an extra
suffix (cf. veg). In alphabetisms, alternation depends, in graphic representa-
tion, on the letters retained as well as on the omission of grammatical words.
For instance, United States of America may be condensed into U.S. of A.,
U.S.A./USA, or U.S./US, indicating progressive degrees of opaqueness due
to the omission of grammatical or lexical words. Alternation may also be
just phonological (a.s.a.p./ASAP) or just orthographic (Aids/AIDS,
Nato/NATO).
3.2.1.3. Non-morphematic analysis. Unlike derivatives (nation-hood) and

compounds (nation-state), abbreviations are not transparently analysable
into morphemes (cf. morpheme-based analysis). Acronyms and initialisms
exhibit a maximum degree of shortening, replacing source words with ini-
tials (Aids, UN), and rarely with two letters (radar). Acrostics even happen
to coincide with existing words (CARE, NOW), but their output is not di-
visible into morphemes. Clippings exhibit only a medium degree, but input
recognition is generally difficult from small fragments (bi(sexual)), and am-

biguity between alternative inputs (e.g. ad) may contribute to obstruct re-
coverability (3.2.4; cf. Kreidler 1979).
3.2.1.4. Uncertain headedness. While in prototypical derivatives and com-

pounds headedness is assigned to a morpheme, in clippings it is assigned to
part of a word and in alphabetisms to a letter or letter combination. More-
over, the head is often difficult to assign: it may be either the right-hand (as
in the initialism UN United Nations) or the left-hand member (as in the
acronym MUF Material Unaccounted For), depending on the head posi-
tion in the source phrase. In some clipped compounds, like exec(utive offi-
cer) or narc(otics agent), and in elliptic acronyms (PACE) or initialisms
(EBD), the head is even absent. Similarly, several formations whose base is
a list have an unexpressed head: e.g., POG ( Passion-fruit, Orange,
Guava), referring to a juice drink.
With regard to the lack of headedness, Bat-El (2000: 6465) objects that
the absence of lexical head is not necessarily a characteristic of extra-
grammatical morphology, in that exocentric compounds, such as pick-
pocket, also have their head outside the compound. However, as she recog-
nises, exocentric compounds are regular in terms of predicate-complement
grammatical dependency, whereas alphabetisms obtained from lists are not.
As a result, the former are closer to word-formation rules, whereas the latter
are dismissed from morphological grammar.
3.2.1.5. Irregular subtraction. While subtractive morphological rules are

rare and generally tend to discard small parts from their bases, subtraction is
the basic process in abbreviations. The discarded part is not always the end
of words, as in laser, BBC, lab, but it may be the beginning (phone), the
middle (miss), or the edges (tec). Subtraction may even involve scattered
letters, as in random clippings and hybrid formations, such as the above-
mentioned ALGOL, BORAX, and LIMEAN.
3.2.1.6. Unchanged meaning. While word-formation rules obtain new mean-

ings, clippings and alphabetisms obtain merely abbreviated forms (gym,
NASDAQ, NBC), at least at the outset. Actually, there may exist stylistic
differences between the use of full forms and their abbreviations. Clippings
like bro and prof are more familiar than the extended words (Adams 1973;
100 Abbreviations
Kreidler 1979, 2000; Fradin 2003; Plag 2003). Or there may be semantic
restrictions: for example, sec only refers to a unit of time and not to the
ordinal number, vamp only takes the secondary sense of vampire (i.e. se-
ductive woman) (cf. Kreidler 1979: 33). Caf is used by students, in a pejo-
rative way, to refer to the University cafeteria. Analogously, acronymic
formations do not differ from the longer phrases they stand for, in contrast to
what Bat-El (2000: 63) claims, with the exception of some connoted variants
(e.g. Fannie Mae FNMA Federal National Mortgage Association, and
SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface, pronounced scuzzy), and of some
slang expressions: e.g., dinkie/-y ( double/dual income no kids + -ie/-y,
on the model of yuppie), which refers to either partner of a working couple
who have no children,86 and fob ( Fresh Off the Boat) used for a recent
immigrant. Indeed, clippings and alphabetisms, unless they are lexicalised,
can be substituted by their corresponding full forms, with no meaning
change, but only a redundancy effect. By contrast, when the abbreviation is
lexicalised (fridge, phone, taxi; Aids, laser, Nato, radar, USA) (2.3.5.1), it
is no longer felt as a clipping or an alphabetism, and the source word or
phrase is considered the marked form (Fradin 2003: 211212). Indeed, in
compounds like fridge magnet, gym shoes, phone book, and porn star the
full form would sound abnormal (Jamet 2009: 2021).
3.2.1.7. Unchanged syntactic category. As a consequence of 3.2.1.6, clip-

pings and alphabetisms do not involve a change in grammatical category.
With regard to clippings in particular, Adams (1973: 135) specifies that
there is no change in function taking place in their formation. Kreidler
(2000: 962), by contrast, remarks that the word psych (out) is used as a
verb, but the source must be a noun such as psychology or psychologist.
In OED3, however, the etymology is from a verb, i.e. psychoanalyse. As for
alphabetisms, Bat-El (2000: 64) claims that when the base is a phrase and
the output is a noun the grammatical category is changed. But, as previ-
ously remarked (Conti and Mattiello 2008: 568), We cannot define a
shift from a phrase such as Very Important Person, with a noun as its head,
to the noun vip/VIP, or from Politically Correct to the adjective PC as
proper changes of syntactic class and certainly they are not functional
shifts. We do admit that there are a few exceptions, such as MEGO, a jour-
nalistic acronym originating from the clause my eyes glaze over, which ac-
quires the status of a noun (a boring subject or story). But, there again,
these cases are very marginal and restricted to specialised contexts.
3.2.1.8. Alternative input categories. Whereas standard morphological rules

apply to a distinct class of bases, in compliance with the Unitary Base Hy-
pothesis, abbreviatory operations admit a variety of inputs as base catego-
ries. Although nominal bases are the most numerous (Fradin 2003: 211
213) (intro, Nato, FBI), other classes may be shortened: i.e., adjectives
(comfy, fave, preg; AWOL, YAVIS Young, Attractive, Verbal, Intelligent,
Successful), verbs (prep, mung), adverbs (def), conjunctions (cos), preposi-
tions (cept), and sentences (BYOB Bring Your Own Bottle, RHIP
Rank Has Its Privileges, Cannon 1989: 109). Proper names are also short-
ened, as in the hypocoristics Fergie, Patty, Richie, or in the initialism JFK
( John Fitzgerald Kennedy). A combination of clipping devices and acro-
nymic base is present in Beeb ( BBC). At times the syntactic category of
the base is hardly recognisable because the same shortening may stand for
different classes: for example, glam is a noun (glamour), an adjective
(glamorous), or a verb (glamorise), and PC is not only an adjective, as we
have seen, but also a noun from Personal Computer (see also Br.E. pc from
postcard).
Points 3.2.1.1 to 3.2.1.8 provide evidence of the extra-grammatical charac-
ter of abbreviations. Yet some recurrent patterns and regularities also exist,
which, however, are primarily based on phonological constraints, especially
for clippings (Plag 2003; Jamet 2009). In the next section some criteria of
predictability will be enumerated in order to verify whether or not new ab-
breviations can be formed without ambiguity. The irregular nature of the
phenomena under investigation leaves room for a limited number of regulari-
ties.
3.2.2. Regularities in abbreviations
Cannon (1989: 104) describes abbreviations as meaningless, often ambigu-

ous, sometimes unpronounceable, and ugly instead of euphonic. Some regu-
larities, however, have been identified by other authors. Phonological regu-
larities have been recognised by Kreidler (1979, 2000) and Plag (2003) in
the clipping process, and Conti and Mattiello (2008) have identified struc-
tural properties in acronymic formations. The main (sub)regularities and
tendencies include the following points (3.2.2.13.2.2.8).
102 Abbreviations
3.2.2.1. Prototypical initial pattern. Alphabetisms take the initial letters of

the words in a title or phrase (Bauer 1983: 237), rather than the end of
words, as in blends (smog smoke + fog), but they may also take more
than one letter from the beginning of the words of their source phrase, as in
hybrid formations combining some features of acronyms and others of
blends (e.g. Daemon Disk And Execution MONitor, Intelsat INterna-
tional TELecommunications SATellite consortium). Clippings, on the other
hand, take various portions from the source word(s), though back-clippings
outnumber the other types.87 Typically, the clipped form is a prominent part
of the source word, but it is not necessarily the portion carrying primary
stress. In the following items, it is the discarded part which is stressed:
(hli)copter, lib(ertion), memo(rndum), prof(ssor), (tle)phone. Indeed,
we normally have stress shifts, especially from primary to secondary stress
(cf. dvrt vs. Br.E. advertisement; cf. Am.E. advertsement) (see leftward
displacement of stress in Jamet 2009: 28).
3.2.2.2. Polysyllabic or multi-word input. Clipped forms are usually coined

from polysyllabic source words, either simplex (laboratory lab) or com-
plex (permanent wave perm). Alphabetisms have at least two basic com-
ponents (Merlini Barbaresi 2007). In particular, initialisms may accept
from two (Diet Coke DC, Fingers Crossed FC) to a potentially
infinite number of basic components, while in acronyms the minimum num-
ber is three (Frequently Asked Questions FAQ) (Conti and Mattiello
2008: 568). Combining forms can also operate as components (Anglo-Saxon
Protestant ASP) (Cannon 1989). The prototypical base of all abbrevia-
tory operations is a Noun (Phrase) (Fradin 2003; Jamet 2009).
3.2.2.3. Mono-/di-syllabic or three-letter output. In alphabetisms, the pref-

erential output length is three letters, two are dispreferred, and more than
three are less frequent. Acrostics resemble pre-existing words in length.
In clipped forms, the preferential length is one syllable, as in fem(inine),
ref(eree), sim(ulation), and many more that have already been mentioned.
The type with two syllables from the source word is less common:
exam(ination), legit(imate), matric(ulation), photog(rapher). More com-
monly, they retain one syllable from the source with the addition of a suffix
-ie/-y (alky, carny carnival worker, hanky) or -o (aggro, ammo, combo).
They rarely exceed two syllables, unless they are shortenings of complex
bases: intercom(munication system) (Kreidler 1979, 2000; Jamet 2009).
Clipped names, on the other hand, are always monosyllabic, regardless of

the length of the base word: Bart (1 syllable) vs. Bartholomew (4 syllables)
(Plag 2003: 118119), with the exception of suffixed names (e.g. Chrissie).
3.2.2.4. Distinctive spelling. The letters of alphabetisms may be separated

by dots (F.B.I., N.A.T.O.), but spelling without dots is far more common,
especially in acronyms (Nato). This is the initial step towards lexicalisation
(2.3.5.1). Alphabetisms normally use capitals. Acronyms are written in
lower-case letters when they are lexicalised (laser, scuba Self-Contained
Underwater Breathing Apparatus), or may maintain only the initial capital
letter, as in the above-mentioned Nato. Different spelling may determine
different pronunciation: vat vs. VAT. To distinguish them from other words,
acrostics require capital letters (BASIC). Sometimes content words are rep-
resented by capitals while function words are lower-case letters in the acro-
nym, as in FoaF ( Friend of a Friend).
Spelling changes may occur in clippings, without any change in pronun-
ciation: coke, mike. More often, some orthographic alterations are necessary
in the clipped form to make it pronounceable like the source word, as in
afish (aficionado), cuz (cousin), deets (details), natch (naturally), showbiz
(show business).88 Minor changes are sometimes necessary to make the
clipping conform to ordinary spelling: for example, in trank, the ending -nk
is preferred to -nq.
3.2.2.5. Rigid prosodic pattern. Prosody only concerns clippings, especially

clipped names, which, according to Plag (2003: 118), have a strong tendency
to conform to a fixed template, namely: CVC89 (Ron), CVV (Sue Suz-
anne), or VC (Ag Agatha). For other clippings, only tendencies are ob-
servable. According to Jamet (2009: 2526), they seem to favour one of the
following patterns: CVC (vet), CVCV (demo), CCVC (prof), CVCC
(vibes), and to end with a consonant sound (lab, coke), though this is no
golden rule (cf. deli, disco). Jamet (2009: 27) also proposes a phonetic tem-
plate for clippings ending in o, pronounced : bro, camo(uflage), condo,
curio, info, limo all respect this template, as well as suffixed clippings (ag-
gro, combo, lesbo).
3.2.2.6. Salient form. Initialisms tend to omit function words in their output,
since they are semantically less salient (see Salience in 3.2.4), as in elliptic
104 Abbreviations
B.C.E. ( Before the Common Era), B.L. ( Bachelor of Law), etc. Acro-
nyms also omit function words, unless the relative initials are necessary to
make them conform to reading canons. Hence, in BAFTA ( British Acad-
emy of Film and Television Arts) function words are excluded from the ac-
ronym, but in COLA ( Cost Of Living Adjustments) they are not. Alpha-
betisms may intentionally coincide with an English word (acrostics), while
clippings tend to avoid ambiguity with existing full words (cf. Aronoffs
1976: 43 notion of blocking).90
The form of clippings is more variable. As discussed in 3.2.2.5, they
preferentially end in a consonant, with the exception of those ending with a
vowel i or o, either original (deli, disco) or added (telly, aggro), and of a
small number of counterexamples, like flu. Pro ( professional) does not
preserve the consonant f for reasons of distinctiveness (cf. prof professor;
and see the notion of blocking above). When the source word has an intervo-
calic consonant, it becomes final in the clipping, as in fem, ref. When it has
two adjacent intervocalic consonants, the clipping preserves both if the first
is sonorant (liquid or nasal) and the second is sonorant or obstruent (frica-
tive or plosive): dorm(itory), talc(um), vamp(ire). On the other hand, in
clusters of obstruent + sonorant, only the obstruent is preserved:
ad(ministration) (in spite of the ambiguity with ad(vertisement)), pub(lic
house), whereas with two obstruents, only the first is kept: cap(tain),
doc(tor) (otherwise less easily pronounceable).91 However, in the case of
clipped plural nouns (e.g. pecs, specs), the final -s of plurality is kept in
spite of the cluster with two obstruents.
3.2.2.7. Status as words. Both alphabetisms and clippings acquire word

status, in that they can function as input to word formation rules (Bat-El
2000: 67). Thus, acronyms and initialisms may act as bases in derivation.
For example, Nato-ish and Natoism, Nimbyism, Ufologist, and Ufology are
all from acronyms, while A.D.C.-ship ( Aide-De-Camp), AOLer (Amer-
ica OnLine subscriber), MP-ship, NDPer ( New Democratic Party), OK-
ness, anti-PC, unPC (politically incorrect),92 and ZPG-er (supporter of
the zero population growth movement) are from initialisms. In yuppie (
Young Urban Professional), a hypocoristic suffix is added to the acronym.
Similarly, a clipped form can become completely autonomous and be com-
bined with other word-formation processes (Jamet 2009: 18). For example,
in the sitcom How I Met your Mother, the word bro gives rise to bro-hood,
combines with other bases to form blends (broccasion, bro-choice,
brotime), and is converted into a verb (Dont bro me!).
3.2.2.8. Inflected forms. Abbreviations also behave as regular bases in in-

flection. Both acronyms and clippings inflect for plural in a regular way, as
in laser-s, MC-s,93 bro-s, and fridge-s, or even apply the general ortho-
graphic rule of y substitution after a consonant (as in singular Nimby
plural Nimbies). In the recent term WAGs, referring to the Wives And Girl-
friends of a football team, pluralisation regularly occurs after acronym
formation.
3.2.3. Predictability in abbreviations
The regularities identified in the previous section are mostly tendencies and
preferences, because the only obvious regularity of abbreviations is that they
shorten the words or phrases from which they originate.94 Some patterns
may be favoured for reasons of saliency (3.2.4), such as the preferences for
word beginning over word end, word end over word middle, and word mid-
dle over other (scatter) parts. But many exceptions remain that do not
strictly comply with common definitions of clippings or alphabetisms. As
Cannon (1989: 122) observes, the many, proliferating, continuously vary-
ing initialisms [his term for my alphabetisms] have considerably complicated
the construction of any overall theory of even English word-formation.
Clippings are, as we have seen, even more varied than alphabetisms.
A natural question now arises: Is there any predictability in the formation
of abbreviations? Or, to put it differently, is there any explanation justifying
the choice of one pattern over another? An intuitive answer is that there is no
absolute certainty in choices, but let us analyse some possible abbreviations
before coming to conclusions.
Table 3 shows a number of source words and phrases together with possible
respective abbreviations suggested by the present author. I must confess that
the selection of phrases, titles, etc. which have not yet been abbreviated was
by no means an easy task.
Table 3. Possible abbreviations from existing words/phrases
Source word/phrase Possible abbreviation

(1) procession proc
(2) amusement mus
(3) intelligent int, tel, gent
(4) graciously grash, cious
106 Abbreviations
(5) pickpocket picko, picky, P.P./PP

(6) University of the Arts London U.A.L./UAL, U.O.T.A.L./UOTAL
(7) Fields of God FOG/F.O.G.
(8) Association of Friends of India AFISA
and South Asia
The source words and phrases in the left-hand column have been chosen
purposefully to illustrate various abbreviatory patterns. In compliance with
3.2.2.2, the source words in (1)(5) are polysyllabic, while the phrases in
(6)(8) are multi-word sequences corresponding to, respectively, the name of
a University in London, a song title (by Sting), and the title of an associa-
tion.
Possible abbreviations are shown in the right-hand column, following the
above-mentioned criteria and a variety of abbreviatory mechanisms. In par-
ticular, an abbreviated polysyllabic word is more likely to obtain a clipping
(as in 14), whereas an abbreviated phrase is more likely to obtain an alpha-
betism (as in 68). With compounds like (5) both options are possible. For
clippings, the beginning of the word has been retained when possible
(3.2.2.1) and conforms to one of the most frequent morphonological patterns
(3.2.2.5). Other parts have been retained when conforming to the tendencies
in 3.2.2.33.2.2.6. When required, a suffix has been added (3.2.2.3). For
alphabetisms, different distinctive spelling patterns have been offered
(3.2.2.4), selecting one or the other reading, but ambiguity sometimes re-
mains as to whether the output should be read as an acronym or as an initial-
ism.
Results show that a biunique relationship can rarely be found between
input and output. The various outputs disconfirm one or more of the above-
mentioned criteria, and the motivations of one choice over the others are
often difficult to rationalise.
In (1) and (2), only one output has been suggested, because they ap-
peared the best options among possible ones. The back-clipping proc is
monosyllabic (3.2.2.3), ends in a consonant (3.2.2.6), and conforms to a
recurring template (CCVC) (3.2.2.5). The part retained is the most salient
(the beginning), in accordance with 3.2.2.1, but unstressed (procssion),
which means that the abbreviatory process is accompanied by a stress shift
(prc). Although it is analogical with existing clippings (prof, prog) and
resembles them in form (2.3.6.2), proc is unambiguous, because there is no
homophonous full or clipped word in English. This is the reason why the
alternative outputs ending with a vowel (pro) or retaining two syllables
(proces(s)) have been immediately excluded (3.2.2.6). However, proc would
involve a shift in pronunciation as compared with the beginning of the source

word (). Thus, probably some spelling adjustments would be
applied to make the input recoverable (see 3.2.4; cf. 3.2.2.4). One could also
ask whether proc could acquire the status of a word, and be the member of a
compound (funeral proc) (3.2.2.7), or regularly take a plural marker (proc-
s) (3.2.2.8).
The clipping mus is certainly less prototypical, in that, against the ten-
dency in 3.2.2.1, it discards the edges of a word. However, amus would
coincide with the verb, at least orally. The addition of a suffix -o, as in
muso, has been excluded to avoid ambiguity with the slang term for musi-
cian, and musy/-ie to avoid ambiguity with a potential clipping from music
(cf. 3.2.2.6). Furthermore, mus obeys the prosodic pattern CVC, which is
the most frequent in clipping formation (3.2.2.5).
In (3) various alternatives have been proposed for the shortening of the
adjective intelligent: namely int, tel, gent. Of these three, all are one syllable
in length (3.2.2.3), end in a consonant sound (3.2.2.6), and the latter two are
also in accordance with a frequent prosodic template, i.e. CVC(C) (3.2.2.5).
Yet tel and gent are ambiguous clippings, in that they are respectively used
to abbreviate tel(ephone) and gent(leman) (cf. 3.2.2.6). The back-clipping
int is more prototypical (3.2.2.1), but, since it does not carry stress, its sali-
ence is lowered (cf. 3.2.4).
For the adverb in (4) two alternatives have been offered (grash, cious).
The first is from the initial portion, following (3.2.2.1), but requires spelling
adjustments to maintain the same pronunciation as the full word (3.2.2.4).
The second is from the middle portion, a less salient part, and indeed ap-
pears highly ambiguous (i.e. many adjectives end like this). Against 3.2.2.5,
neither of the two is in accordance with a recurrent template.
For the compound noun in (5) alternatives include two back-clippings
(picko, picky) and an initialism (PP). The basic components (pick or pocket)
are impossible outputs, for obvious reasons of ambiguity with their use in
isolation. Thus, we require a necessary addition (pick-o, pick-y), which
makes the clipping disyllabic (3.2.2.3). The other option, PP (or spelt with
dots, as P.P.) is less prototypical because it has a complex word, rather than
a phrase, as its base (cf. 3.2.2.2). Word status could be confirmed for both
the clippings and the initialism: for example, they could plausibly give rise to
new words, such as picko-ing or PP-ing (3.2.2.7), and be pluralised as
pickos, pickies, or PPs (3.2.2.8).
The abbreviations in (6) are initialisms, either elliptic (U.A.L./UAL), or
non-elliptic (U.O.T.A.L./UOTAL). Two spelling variants (with or without
dots) increase the number of alternative outputs (3.2.2.4). An alternation
108 Abbreviations
between capital and lower-case letters, as in UotAL, would be dispreferred.

By contrast, the abbreviations in (7) are acronyms (FOG/F.O.G.), although
the latter spelling option could also be pronounced letter by letter (3.2.2.4).
Spelling with lower-case letters has been excluded from hypothetic outputs,
because the form fog would not be distinguished from the homophonous
English word (cf. blocking in 3.2.2.6). The acrostic is not semantically-
relevant, unless one wants to suggest, metaphorically, the foggy (vague)
character of the song lyrics. Moreover, to make the acronym conform to
phonetic canons, the grammatical word of has been included in the graphic
representation, as in the non-elliptic type (3.2.2.6).
Lastly, the acronym in (8) (AFISA) is elliptic (3.2.2.6), since the inclu-
sion of grammatical words (of, and) would make it unnecessarily long, diffi-
cult to memorise, and nearly unpronounceable, which goes against the nature
of the acronym itself (see 3.2.4 below). Other creative possibilities would be
possible: the semantically-relevant acrostic ASIA, for instance, would exhibit
the characteristics of the extended and recursive types, retaining more letters
from a word and corresponding to one of the words of the source phrase:
ASsociation of friends of India and south Asia. This formation, however,
would disconfirm most of the above-mentioned criteria of predictability.
The above analysis of data seems to confirm the intuitive answer that
there are no stable principles on which we can base predictions of possible
abbreviations. More than one output has proved acceptable, although in
most cases they do not completely conform to the prototypical patterns iden-
tified for each category. Moreover, the choice of one category over the oth-
ers is not always justifiable: complex bases, for instance, appear more per-
missive, admitting either a clipping or an alphabetism as their output.
Criteria 3.2.2.13.2.2.8 only show the main preferences in the formation of
abbreviations, but the mechanisms involved are so various and creative that
they often escape regular patterns. The (sub)regularities which we have iden-
tified are merely tendencies, especially towards more natural/less marked
choices, but they are far from established word-formation rules.
What can be formulated, instead, is a series of criteria of well-
formedness, which accompany the more general principle of analogy, dis-
cussed in 2.3.6.2 and applied in 3.2.4 below to the formation of abbrevia-
tions.
3.2.4. Criteria of well-formedness
The preferential criteria for the formation of abbreviations, as suggested by

the previous exploration of prototypical patterns and main tendencies, are
the following:
Analogy. Both clippings and alphabetisms must be formed by analogy

with pre-existing word forms. There is an evident structural similarity
between the back-clippings fab(ulous) and fan(atic), which may have
favoured the coinage of fag(got) in slang, or the formation of fam(ily)
dram(a), retaining the same portion of the first word. Also lesbo, from
lesbian, takes an extra suffix -o by analogy with homo(sexual), natu-
rally ending in o. Moreover, analogy governs the formation of new al-
phabetisms, such as the initialism FIV ( Feline Immunodeficiency Vi-
rus), based on lexicalised HIV, and motivates the existence of word pairs
like rnb and rnr, DNA and RNA, sms and mms, and others.
Brevity. In accordance with Zipfs (1949) Principle of Least Effort
and Martinets (1955) Principle of Linguistic Economy, abbreviations
must be brief, economical in terms of time necessary to pronounce them,
and reduce the articulatory efforts necessary to generate a word (Jamet
2009).
Salience and Recoverability. The portion retained in the abbreviation
must be the most salient, so as to guarantee better recoverability and un-
derstanding. Prototypical acronyms and initialisms preserve the initial
letters of the words (especially content words) in the source phrase. In
order to facilitate recoverability, the letters retained must follow the
same order as the initials of the source phrase (see also Linearity below).
Prototypical clipping patterns, as in back-clippings, preserve the first
syllable or word part.
Easy memorisation. The output of an abbreviatory operation must be
easy to memorise. Its concision, in general, helps easy memorisation. In
the case of acronyms, pronounceability is also of great help. Even less
demanding is the memorisation of acrostics, whose form is homopho-
nous with an existing word, generally connected to the acrostic by se-
mantic association, as in the semantically-relevant type.
Specificity. Abbreviations must be specific, unambiguously referring to
only one referent (cf. monoreferentiality in Gotti 2005: 33; Mattiello
forth.). Acronyms and initialisms are purposefully chosen as unequivo-
cal labels for new inventions, discoveries, associations, organisations,
unions, etc., whose source phrase would be too long and of low impact.
110 Abbreviations
Clippings must be equally specific, escaping ambiguity with other stan-

dard or informal words (cf. blocking in Aronoff 1976: 43). In the case
of ambiguous labels, con- and co-textual factors (e.g. topic, register, us-
ers, etc.) are essential for disambiguation. For instance, BA will be in-
terpreted as Bachelor of Arts if used among students or professors in an
academic context, or as Breathing Apparatus if used by physicians in a
medical context, or as Bad Ass in an informal context, such as text mes-
saging or internet slang used by teenagers.
Some criteria of well-formedness are only valid for some categories of

abbreviations, but not for the general grouping:
Pronounceability. This criterion only concerns acronyms, whose form

must comply with general reading rules. To make the acronym pro-
nounceable, three different strategies can be adopted: 1) only some of the
initial letters of the source phrase may be retained (NASA); 2) more than
one initial letter may be retained (radar); 3) extra vowels may be in-
serted (Humvee). Initial letters are rarely inverted (cf. 3.1.6.6).
Homonymy. This criterion is essential for the subcategory of acrostics,
whose spelling and pronunciation must correspond to those of a homo-
graph/homophone word.
Linearity. Linearity concerns acronyms as well as initialisms, in that it
establishes that the order of the words is the same in both the base (the
multi-word sequence) and the derivative (the letters standing for the
words in the sequence).
Maximisation. The criterion of maximisation establishes that each
source word of the base is represented by a corresponding letter in the
derivation. This criterion, which often clashes with the above criterion of
pronounceability, is of particular relevance to non-elliptic acronyms or
initialisms.
Chapter 4
Blends
Blends, also called portmanteau words (and sometimes amalgams,

combinations, coalesced words, telescope(d) words, and a variety of
other names) are new words coined by merging parts of existing words, as in
beaulicious, from beau(tiful) and (de)licious, or one complete word and part
of another, as in chatire ( chat + (sa)tire), cinemenace ( cine(ma) +
menace), and ambisextrous ( ambi(dex)trous + sex).
Although blending is an old process95 blatterature ( blatter + litera-
ture) is dated 1512 (Cacchiani 2007: 103) and foolosopher ( fool + phi-
losopher) dates back to 1592 (Adams 2001: 141)96 the phenomenon has
gradually gained influence over the centuries (Lehrer 2003), becoming very
popular when Lewis Carroll made an extensive use of blends like slithy and
mimsy in his poem Jabberwocky, from Through the Looking-Glass
(1871), later attracting the attention of linguists such as Aronoff (1976),
Bauer (1983), Carstairs-McCarthy (2002), and many others.
Since then, blending has become a highly frequent word-formation proc-
ess, so that in Modern English new blends are encountered almost every day
(Lehrer 1996: 360).97 Blends such as camcorder, dancercise, infomercial,
vodkatini appear on a daily basis and are generally regarded by most Eng-
lish speakers as ordinary words. However, while blends are reasonably fre-
quent and widespread, the mechanisms governing their formation have
largely remained opaque. This is mainly due to the fact that they do not
follow a single forming principle but rather tend to exhibit divergent struc-
tural patterns (Hong 2004: 118). For this reason, linguists treat blends as
peripheral with respect to English word-formation (Scalise 1984), or of no
importance to morphological theory (Spencer 1991), and, consequently,
confine them, together with other non-rule-governed phenomena, to the
branch of morphology labelled extra-grammatical.
Although Bauer (1983: 232235) states that blends are random, fairly
arbitrary and therefore unpredictable, many attempts have been made to
demonstrate that the structure of English blends is quite predictable from
cognitive and linguistic viewpoints. Kubozono (1990), Lehrer (1996), Kelly
(1998), Kemmer (2003), Gries (2004a, 2004b), Hong (2004), and Bat-El
(2006) are worth mentioning in this respect.98 Plag (2003: 121126) even
includes blends within regular word-formation, describing them in terms of
112 Blends
prosodic categories and elaborating the so-called blending rule, a formula

which, however, as discussed in 2.3.4, does not cover the whole variety of
English lexical blends and can in fact be invalidated by many counterexam-
ples (e.g. ambisextrous above).
In this chapter, blending is considered as an extra-grammatical phenome-
non, but one which nevertheless exhibits recurrent patterns and regularities.
The regularities of blends, however, are neither similar to, nor comparable
with, morphological rules. They are merely preferences, mainly based on
semiotic parameters and universal principles elaborated within the theoreti-
cal frame of Natural Morphology. After a preliminary definition of blends
and a re-classification partially based on existing taxonomies, the focus of
my analysis will be both their extra-grammaticality and their regularities, or
preferences. Lastly, I will check whether generalisations can be made about
the formation of blends, and examine the validity of some general principles
predicting their structure, especially the order of their components, the
boundary (or switch point) and similarities between the components, and the
mechanism whereby components are combined, which is not always a con-
catenation process (cf. Kelly 1998: 579).
The extensive scholarship on blending displays wide disagreement on its

terminology, definition, and place within a modern taxonomy of similar phe-
nomena. Scholars often disagree about the terminology surrounding blends
and a unique clear-cut definition seems to be unattainable. Not only are defi-
nitions inconsistent from one writer to another, but they also show confusion
about what should be regarded as separate processes. While an exploration
of the various technical terms given to blends is beyond the scope of this
study,99 a definition of this very old process and a classification accommo-
dating its different patterns are in order.
4.1.1. Definition and main features
The term blending has been used in a number of different ways, usually to
denote a word-formation process which combines two (or, rarely, more than
two) source lexemes,100 at least one of which has been shortened in the com-
bination, sometimes with a graphic and/or phonological overlap.
Bauers (1983: 234) well-known definition of blends highlights the fact

that they are formed from parts of two (or possibly more) other words in
such a way that there is no transparent analysis into morphs. But the sen-
tence which follows questions his own definition by (correctly) specifying
that in some cases at least one of the elements is transparently recoverable
(Bauer 1983: 234); examples of this are partial blends such as sinema (
sin + cinema) and cinemenace ( cinema + menace) (4.1.3.2). We might
also add cases where both elements are recoverable because there is no
proper truncation of the source forms, but rather a superposition of one
form upon another (Cannon 1986: 730), as in the overlapping type (e.g.
alcoholiday, slanguage) (4.1.3.3).101
Other narrow definitions offered in the literature include Plag (2003) and
Bat-El (2006). Plags (2003) formal generalisation that in blends it is al-
ways the first part of the first element that is combined with the second part
of the second element (p. 123) and Bat-Els (2006) contention that blends
refer only to cases where the inner edges are truncated (p. 66) accommo-
date only traditional blends in which both source words are shortened in
such a way that only the outer part is left intact (see total blends in 4.1.3.1
below). Again, the above-mentioned examples are excluded, as are a number
of cases where the fore parts are combined, as in agitprop ( agitation +
propaganda) and modem ( modulator + demodulator).
Kubozono (1990: 1) even specifies that blending involves two source
words in a paradigmatic relation. Although this condition is necessary to
distinguish blends from clipped compounds, it excludes numerous cases
falling into the category of the attributive type (4.1.3.5), such as porta-light
( portable + light), whose source words are in a syntagmatic relation.
Another quite restrictive definition is in Kelly (1998), who stresses that
the components of the blend are stitched together either through simple
concatenation or through concatenation coupled with overlap of shared pho-
nological segments (p. 579). This definition can, in fact, be contrasted with
a number of English counterexamples, the most famous being Carrolls
chortle, consisting of the splinter ort ( snort) embedded in a discontinuous
splinter from chuckle (see the intercalative type in 4.1.3.14.1.3.3). Hong
(2004: 119) intentionally excludes noncontiguous blends such as askility
( ability + skill) from his analysis, stating that we cannot draw a cogent
generalization from their combining patterns.
More recent definitions emphasise the relationship between blends and
compounds. For instance, according to Lehrer (2007: 116), Blends are
underlying compounds which are composed of one word and part of another,
or parts of two (and occasionally three) other words, and Ronneberger-
114 Blends
Sibold (2006: 157) remarks that they are deliberately created out of existing
words in a way which differs from the rules or patterns of regular com-
pounding. Indeed, Kemmer (2003: 75) points out that what distinguishes
blends from compounds is that they combine parts of lexical sourcewords,
rather than whole sourcewords. Furthermore, in line with Cannon (1986:
730), the source words are separate, and not attested as compound bases
(cf. clipped compounds in 3.1.3.6, see also 4.1.2 below).
This brief characterisation of previous accounts shows that, although
definitions appear to be quite controversial, two crucial features are found in
almost all the voluminous scholarship on blends. First, there must be more
than one source lexeme, generally two, as a consequence of the universal
preference for binary relations (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). Second,
there must be some shortening of the source lexemes. Prototypically, the
beginning of the first lexeme and the end of the second one are retained, as a
consequence of the universal principle of perceptual salience (2.2.1).102
Thus, smoke and fog become smog, and breakfast and lunch are combined
into brunch. Related to this criterion, at times only one source lexeme is
abbreviated and the other is left unaltered. In dumbfound ( dumb + con-
found), the first lexeme is in its full form, whereas in paratroops ( para-
chute + troops), the second one is left unaltered. This is a more transparent
type, termed semi-complete blending by Ronneberger-Sibold (2006: 173)
and partial in my account (4.1.3.2).
Bertinetto (2001: 6465) identifies three main features for lexical blends:
1) the presence of an overlap, as in californicate ( California + forni-
cate), where the sequence forni belongs to both words,103 2) the full preser-
vation of the second word: e.g., in californicate, the second word is entirely
preserved, and 3) the possible existence of a shared lexical element, as in
blends obtained from two compounds.104
Other features are commonly highlighted in the literature on blends, espe-
cially in Cannon (2000), Plag (2003), and Bat-El (2006), although they are
not relevant to all blended words. For instance, the source lexemes generally
exhibit some semantic similarity (e.g. breakfast and lunch, as in brunch, are
co-hyponyms of meals), otherwise a combination of properties would be
impossible (Plag 2003: 123), but they are rarely synonyms (Cannon
2000: 952), as in ginormous ( gigantic + enormous) (see Similarity in
4.2.4; cf. Gries forth.).
Another feature is that the source words normally belong to the same
syntactic category (Kubozono 1990: 3). In order of frequency, combina-
tions include: noun + noun (boat + hotel boatel), verb + verb (guess +
estimate gues(s)timate), adjective + adjective, as in ginormous above,

adverb + adverb (absolutely + positively absotively).105
The source words may also exhibit some phonological similarity, such as
rhyming syllables, as in hesitation + inflation hesiflation, or near-rhyme,
as in channel + tunnel chunnel (Cannon 2000: 953). More frequently,
they overlap at their boundaries, as in slanguage, where a surplus lang from
slang or language is deleted. This is, as we will see, the most transparent
type, called overlapping or simply overlap by most scholars (tele-
scope in Ronneberger-Sibold 2006: 167). It is debatable whether or not
overlapping blends involve an actual truncation (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler
forth.). Sometimes only the sound shapes overlap, but not the graphic shapes
(e.g. pessimist + mystic pessimystic), or vice versa, the same ortho-
graphic sequence can have two different pronunciations, due to surrounding
graphemes, as in head + advertising headvertising, octopus
+ push octopush.
4.1.2. Delimitation: Blending vs. other processes
The first set of defining features reported in 4.1.1 immediately differentiates

blends from regular grammatical compounds, which are combinations of two
or more source lexemes with neither shortening (Lehrer 1996: 360; Fradin
2000: 27) nor overlapping constituents (Ronneberger-Sibold 2006: 159).106
In this respect, Cannon (2000: 952) admits that, although blends might be
analysed as a subclass of compounds, where there are clipped constitu-
ents, this would make the concept of compounds less transparent. In fact,
blends are extra-grammatical formations which syntactically and semanti-
cally resemble appositional or copulative compounds, except that their con-
stituents are obscured.
The above features also distinguish blends from other abbreviations, such
as clippings, acronyms, and initialisms, depending on the source lexemes and
the type of shortening involved. Whereas clipping shortens one lexeme (sim-
plex or complex), and acronyms or initialisms shorten a pre-existing multi-
word sequence retaining only the initial letters, blending shortens two lex-
emes which have no composite meaning, generally retaining larger portions
from them (see also Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat 2009: 42). Thus, mag
( magazine) and mobile ( mobile phone) are clippings, NATO and OTT
( Over The Top) are, respectively, an acronym and an initialism, whereas
brunch is a blend and can be analysed as neither a clipping nor as an acro-
nym for *breakfast-lunch. Furthermore, the components of a blend may be
116 Blends
either syntagmatically related, as in the above-mentioned porta-light, or

paradigmatically related, as in brunch. The components of acronyms, by
contrast, are always syntagmatically related (Kreidler 2000: 957). Hence,
my decision to keep the blending process distinct from the other abbreviatory
operations dealt with in the previous chapter.107
However, some formations reported in Lpez Ra (2002: 44) lie in be-
tween non-prototypical blends and acronyms (see the extended type in
3.1.6.4). For example, HoReCa ( Hotel, Restaurant, and Caf keepers),
Euratom ( European Atomic Energy Community), and the international
Benelux ( Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg) retain more than the initial
letters, but the source words are clearly part of a phrase or list, which ex-
cludes them from blends. A hybrid case between blend and abbreviation is
Ms, which is analysed by Cannon (1986: 743) and Lpez Ra (2002: 51) as
a peripheral blend from the separate Miss and Mrs. These borderline cases
will not be taken into consideration here.
The dividing line between blends and clipped compounds (3.1.3.6) is
even subtler. To distinguish the two concepts, Bauer (1983: 233) proposes
to adopt an ad hoc phonological criterion, that is, while blends take simple
word stress, clipped forms retain compound stress, as in sci-fi ,
sitcom , etc.
A semantic criterion is offered by Plag (2003: 122), who claims that the
base words of blends are typically not attested as compounds in their full
form. Accordingly, in blends the bases have an autonomous sense which is
entirely retained in the final form (e.g. a boatel is both a boat and a hotel;
cf. copulative compounds), while in abbreviated compounds the bases were
originally compound members, with a composite meaning, often of the type
determinant-determinatum (e.g. a mocamp is a type of camp). This crite-
rion is the most reliable in my view (Mattiello 2008a).
A formal criterion is instead adopted by Bat-El (2006: 66), who, as we
have seen, restricts blends to cases where the inner edges are truncated
(e.g. Oxbridge Oxford + Cambridge). In her opinion, modem, where both
right edges are truncated, and mocamp ( motor + camp), where only the
first word undergoes truncation, are cases of clipped compounds (see also
Lpez Ra 2002: 46). This criterion appears too restrictive, though, in that
it includes within the category of blends only prototypical cases, excluding a
variety of patterns which are part of all modern taxonomies, and which will
be analysed in this chapter.
Another necessary distinction, based on the difference between the syn-
tagmatic and the paradigmatic axis, is between blends (or paradigmatic
contaminations) and syntagmatic shortenings (Dressler 2000: 5). Accord-
ing to Kilani-Schoch and Dressler (forth.), only paradigmatic amalgams

such as smog can be considered real blends, whereas those formations which
can be analysed as syntagmatic truncations of potential compounds (e.g.
motel) cannot. However, as the authors themselves admit, their approach is
more restrictive than usually found in the literature (Kilani-Schoch and
Dressler forth.), examples of less restrictive treatments being Algeo (1977),
Thornton (1993), Fradin (2000), Lehrer (1996, 2007), and Mattiello
(2008a). Syntagmatic shortenings, in their turn, are different from shorten-
ings of attested compounds, as reported in Plag (2003: 122).
Blending has also been compared with combining forms, both being
viewed as unorthodox way[s] of coining new words by Fradin (2000: 11).
Although Fradin (2000: 53) draws the conclusion that blends may be in-
cluded under the heading of combining forms, the two phenomena are differ-
ent, in that blends lie outside morphological grammar, combining forms lie
at its boundaries. As explained in section 2.3.2, combining forms is a
cover term for three types of formatives: 1) neoclassical forms of Latin or
Greek origin, such as bio- and -logy occurring in biology, 2) secreted forms,
such as -holic ( alcoholic) in computerholic, which is reinterpreted as a
person obsessed with computer, and 3) abbreviated forms, with no semantic
reinterpretation, such as cyber- ( cybernetic) in cybercrime, Euro- (
European) in Europarliament. Against Fradin (2000: 54), who considers
only type 1 as a subpart of regular word-formation, I claim that type 2 is
also regular and therefore grammatical, although marginal in morphology.
Indeed, -holic, unlike cyber- or blend components, such as mo or tel, is pro-
ductively combined with other bases (e.g. bookaholic, foodaholic,
golfaholic, newsaholic, shopaholic, spendaholic, workaholic, etc.) to refer
to any addiction named by the base. In other words, -holic, like -burger from
hamburger, -fest from festival, -gate from Watergate, -scape from city-
scape, -thon from marathon, etc., has acquired morpheme status, and can-
not be viewed as part of a blend (see Warren 1990; Lehrer 1996, 2007;
Mattiello 2007, 2008b; cf. Carstairs-McCarthy 2002: 65).
Furthermore, although the term contamination is often used synony-
mously with the term blend (e.g. in Thornton 1993: 143), a distinction is
in order here. Ronneberger-Sibold (2006) clearly differentiates the two con-
cepts on the basis of the creators intention. That is, while in contaminations
the creator inadvertently mix[es] two words with the same meaning, in
blends he deliberately conflates two words with different meanings (Ron-
neberger-Sibold 2006: 158; see also Cannon 1986: 727). Hence, the case of
fantabulous, from two phonetically and semantically related words (fantas-
tic and fabulous), is rather in-between: i.e., it may have been created acci-
118 Blends
dentally, as a contamination, and afterwards been reused consciously, as a

blend, for its humorous effects.
Lastly, as remarked by Cannon (2000: 953), the term blend may be
used inappropriately when referred to slips of the tongue or brain. The
latter are mainly speech errors occasionally giving rise to nonce forms that
never find their way into the language (Cannon 2000: 953); blends, on the
other hand, are recognised neologisms that have entered or are likely to enter
the English lexicon (see lexicalisation in 2.3.5.1).
4.1.3. Classification and structure of blends
Elaborate taxonomies categorising the structure of blends abound in the

literature, from Algeo (1977) and Soudek (1978), to Cannon (2000), Kem-
mer (2003), Ronneberger-Sibold (2006), and Lehrer (1996, 2007). The vari-
ous types of combining patterns and the different names given to each of
them demonstrate that there are many parameters along which blends do
vary and can be differentiated. I propose to classify blends from three per-
spectives: the first is morphotactic, the second is morphonological (and
graphic), and the third is morphosemantic.
4.1.3.1. Morphotactically, blends can be subdivided into total and partial.108

Total blends are those in which all source words are reduced to splinters.
According to the retained part(s), we can further identify a number of sub-
patterns:
The beginning of one word is followed by the end of another. This is the
prototypical type of brunch, ginormous, Oxbridge, and smog, called
linear by Gries (2004a: 645). Other examples which belong to this
type are: ballute ( balloon + parachute), bisalo ( bison + buffalo),
blaxploitation ( Blacks + exploitation), boost ( boom + hoist),
Bublet ( bubble + tablet) trademark for foaming bath oil in tablet
form, camcorder ( camera + recorder), compander ( compressor
+ expander), dawk ( dove + hawk), donkophant ( donkey + ele-
phant, with an interfix -o-), fleep ( fly + jeep), geep ( goat + sheep,
also shoat), hurricoon ( hurricane + typhoon), Lipfinity ( lipstick
+ infinity) Max Factor lipstick brand, guaranteed to last, maridelic (
marijuana + psychedelic), mimsy ( miserable + flimsy), muppets (
marionette + puppets), popocrat ( populist + democrat), psychergy
( psychic + energy), Spanglish ( Spanish + English), swacket (

sweater + jacket). For these blends, Ronneberger-Sibold (2006: 170)
adopts the label contour, because there is a matrix word which is pri-
mary for analysis and provides the rhythmical contour, but is not en-
tirely included in the blend. For example, in brunch and smog, lunch
and fog are respectively the matrix words, providing the rhythm as well
as the rhymes -unch and -og of the blends. Algeo (1977: 51) also ob-
serves that some of these blends are shortened along morpheme
boundaries, as in Oxbridge, where both splinters (Ox and bridge) have
homophonous English words obscuring their input (see also the partial
blend dumbfound below).
Both splinters are the beginning of words. This type is less frequently
attested and generally includes names for chemicals or substances ob-
tained from the mixture of two elements, such as acetal ( acetic + al-
cohol), and chloral ( chlorine + alcohol). Other instances falling into
this group are: adorapresh ( adorable + precious, with respelling),
agitprop ( agitation + propaganda), Alcan ( Alaska + Canada)
the Highway, alternatuxes (alternative + tuxedos), Amerind, cabsat
( cable + satellite), Fedex ( Federal + express), fortran ( for-
mula + translation),109 Mexicali, modem, telex ( teleprinter + ex-
change), Vietvet, and the trademarks Sensi-Temp ( sensitivity + tem-
perature), and Simflex ( Simmons + flexible). Other examples
generally reported in this same group (e.g. sitcom situation + com-
edy) are not real blends, but clipped forms of existing compounds. Algeo
(1977: 50) also includes in this subclass of blends words such as laser
( Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), which
are evident cases of acronyms, as explained in 3.1.4 and in Conti and
Mattiello (2008).
Both splinters are the end of words. This type, which according to
Lehrer (1996, 2007) is impossible in English, is illustrated by Bullgarita
and Bullmeister ( Red Bull + margarita/Jgermeister), Kittylicious
( Hello Kitty + delicious), an adjective referred to Hello Kitty movies,
and, with partial overlap, by Kongfrontation ( King Kong + confron-
tation). Hence, although it is rather infrequent, this is not an impossible
pattern. In the case of netizen, as explained in the Introduction, net is no
longer felt to be the end of a word.
Either the beginning or the end of a splinter is embedded in a discontinu-
ous splinter. In this type, labelled intercalative by Kemmer (2003: 72),
the two splinters are so tightly integrated that there is no clear distinction
between them. In the following examples, the intercalated splinter is a
120 Blends
word beginning: askility ( ability + skill), autopathography ( auto-

biography + pathology), bamfuzzle ( bamboozle + fuzzy), busulfan
( butane + sulfonyl), delinguancy ( delinquency + lingual), slithy
( slimy + lithe). In entreporneur ( entrepreneur + porn) and mis-
cevarsitation ( miscegenation + varsity), the intercalated word is it-
self an attested clipping (see 3.1.3.13.1.3.2). Chortle ( chuckle +
snort) is the only case in which the end of a word (ort) is placed within a
discontinuous splinter, whereas in burble the middle of (m)ur(mur) is in-
serted within b(ub)ble.
4.1.3.2. Partial blends are those in which only one source word is reduced,
the other being left in its full form (see also Thornton 1993: 148). Again we
can distinguish between different subtypes according to the position of the
full word:
The full word is followed by a splinter in: blogerrific ( blog + terri-

fic),110 bride-/dad-/mum-zilla ( bride/dad/mum + Godzilla), carbe-
cue ( car + barbecue), chatire, cussnation ( cuss + damnation),
dumbfound ( dumb + confound), familymoon ( family + honey-
moon), fanzine ( fan + magazine, with fan being a lexicalised clip-
ping from fanatic, 3.1.3.1), floordrobe ( floor + wardrobe), gaydio
( gay + radio), Gorebots ( Gore + robots) people supporting Al
Gores presidential run, screamager ( scream + teenager), soundsa-
tional ( sound + sensational), staycation ( stay + vacation),
viewshed ( view + watershed), wintertainment. The splinter is a word
beginning in pixel ( pix + element, where pix is a graphic alteration of
pics pictures) and TomKat ( Tom (Cruise) + Katie (Holmes)), a pun
on the word tom-cat.
The full word is preceded by a splinter in: amajor ( amazing + ma-
jor), Amerindian ( American + Indian), Blasian ( Black + Asian),
Brangelina, cinemenace, copyleft ( copyright + left), Frankenfish (
Frankenstein + fish), narcoma ( narcotic + coma), paratroops. Here
the splinter is rarely the end of a word, blog ( web + log) and neti-
quette, although with a lexicalised clipping net, are major exceptions
(see also Lehrer 2007: 118).
The full word is intercalated within a discontinuous splinter (as a sort of
infix) in: adorkable ( adorable + dork), ambisextrous, autobydogra-
phy ( autobiography + by dog), blawg ( blog + law, with blog be-
ing itself a blend), carnibbleous ( carnivorous + nibble), cewebrity
( celebrity + web), destarture ( departure + start), disgrossting

( disgusting + gross), enshocklopedia ( encyclopedia + shock), os-
teopornosis ( osteoporosis + porn). Blends such as these are called
sandwich words by Wentworth (1939, in Algeo 1977: 49), and in-
cluded within the subclass of intercalative blends by Kemmer (2003:
72), and of noncontiguous or implanted blends by Hong (2004:
119). Blending here is generally favoured by sound similarity, e.g., be-
tween dork and dor, sex and dex, by dog and bio, etc. (see overlapping
blends in 4.1.3.3 below). As noted by Adams (1973: 150), since one
constituent echoes in some way the word or word-fragment it replaces,
this type creates a general punning effect (see Jocularity in 7.1).
4.1.3.3. Morphonologically and graphically, blends can be subdivided into

overlapping or non-overlapping, depending on whether or not there are
shared sounds or letters.
Overlapping blends (alias overlap blends) exhibit some degree of
haplology (Adams 1973: 150), that is, a phonological overlap of vowels,
consonants, or syllables between the constituents, with or without a proper
shortening. Various subclasses belong to this group:
The constituents may overlap both graphically and phonologically, with

no other shortening. This is the most transparent pattern, in which the
hind part of the first constituent overlaps with the fore part of the second
one, thus allowing transparent analysis into morphs.111 The extent of the
overlapping varies from one phoneme to several, as indicated by the un-
derlined letters in the following examples: anecdotage ( anecdote +
dotage), beefish ( beef + fish), cattitude ( cat + attitude), clandes-
tiny ( clandestine + destiny), faddition ( fad + addition), Funder-
wear ( fun + underwear), glasphalt ( glass + asphalt), glassteel
( glass + steel), palimony ( pal + alimony), Petcetera ( pet + et
cetera, name of a pet store), rat-a-tattoo ( rat-a-tat + tattoo), sex-
pert ( sex + expert), sexploitation ( sex + exploitation), slanguage,
snappetizer ( snap + appetizer).
In plot boiler, the overlap involves discontinuous segments, but the two
bases (plot and pot boiler) are still recognisable. Sometimes minor spell-
ing/sound changes may occur, such as dropping a final , as in co-
cacolonization ( Coca Cola + colonization), or two spellings may be
accepted: for example, gues(s)timate is in line with either the first or
122 Blends
second constituent (Adams 1973: 151). The overlap is between two

word ends in kleptoromania ( kleptomania + Romania).
The constituents overlap both graphically and phonologically, with the
shortening of (at least) one of them. The following examples illustrate
various patterns of combination: californicate, cinemenace, compfusion
( computer + confusion), criticular ( critical + particular), Mean-
derthal ( meander + Neanderthal), medicare ( medical + care),
motel ( motor + hotel), mousewife ( mouse + housewife), Piction-
ary ( picture + dictionary), Psychedelphia ( psychedelic + Phila-
delphia), robomb ( robot + bomb), steelionaire ( steel + million-
aire), telex, wintertainment. Also ambisextrous and other above-
mentioned intercalative blends belong to this subclass. The overlap is
between two word beginnings in crazyologist ( crazy + craniologist),
between two word ends in scandicalous ( scandalous + ridiculous).
In bo(a)tel ( boat + hotel) and opinion(n)aire ( opinion + ques-
tionnaire) two different spellings are acceptable.
Sometimes overlapping letters are distributed discontinuously, as in ai-
robics ( air + aerobics), animule ( animal + mule), astrocity (
astronaut + atrocity), beefalo ( beef + buffalo), clandestical (
clandestine + fantastical), daffynition ( daffy + definition), flustrated
( flustered + frustrated), Hungarican ( Hungarian + American),
pollutician ( pollute + politician), snark ( snake + shark), strip-
teuse ( striptease + chanteuse), suspose ( suspect + suppose),
wordrobe ( word + wardrobe). These are called imperfect blends
(Algeo 1977; Kelly 1998), because an overlapped segment shares
some, but not all, of its component features (Hong 2004: 131): e.g., air
vs. aer, mal vs. mul, etc.
With three splinters, generally, the second overlaps with both the first
and the third, as in Joyces camibalistics ( camisade + cannibalism +
ballistics) (in Grsillon 1984: 15), Intelevisionary ( Intel + television
+ visionary), Japornimation ( Japan + porn + animation). Alterna-
tively, the first source word may overlap with the other two words, as in
Joyces Meandertale ( Neanderthal + meander + tale), analysed
again in Grsillon (1984: 15).
The constituents overlap phonologically but not orthographically. Lehrer
(2007: 120) calls this type orthographic blends because they are
marked as blends only by their spelling. Examples are: buyography (
buy + biography), cartune ( cartoon + tune, from the Am.E. pronun-
ciation of tune), cellebrity ( cell + celebrity), fantasea ( fantasy +
sea), millionheiress ( millionaire + heiress), pursonality ( purse +
personality), racqueteer ( racquet + racketeer), rendezwoo ( ren-

dezvous + woo), shampagne ( sham + champagne), sinema. The
word backronym itself is presumably a blend of this type ( back + ac-
ronym). Also in eracism ( erase + racism) and wargasm ( war +
orgasm), pronunciation takes precedence over orthography.
The constituents overlap orthographically but not phonologically. This is
the case of smog, in which the shared letter is pronounced in smoke,
but in fog, or of bit ( binary + unit), where the shared i is differ-
ently pronounced in binary vs. in unit. In pomato, the shared
segment is pronounced differently in the source words: cf. in po-
tato vs. in tomato, although it is pronounced in the same way in
Am.E.
4.1.3.4. Non-overlapping blends (or substitution blends), on the other

hand, exhibit neither phonological nor graphic overlap between the constitu-
ents. For instance, in Calexico, the two constituents (California and Mexico)
do not share any letter or sound at their boundary, nor do boom and hoist,
obtaining the blend boost. Given the preference for transparency, this type is
less preferred than the overlapping one, because the reconstruction of the
etyma appears more difficult from small fragments (see fragment blending
in Ronneberger-Sibold 2006: 174). As we will see, the fact that many blends
are short and do not leave the source words intact (e.g. amping am-
phetamine + smoking) largely damages their recoverability (see 4.2.4;
Lehrer 1996: 366; Gries 2004b: 416).
4.1.3.5. The last differentiation that I propose for the categorisation of

blends is based on their morphosemantics. As with the constituents of com-
pounds, the components of blends also normally exhibit a semantic relation-
ship of some kind, allowing a distinction between attributive blends and
coordinate blends.112
Attributive blends (also syntactic or telescope) exhibit a relationship
in which the second member functions as a semantic head and the first one
as a modifier. Thus, a dogbella is an umbrella for a dog.113 This semantic
type is therefore endocentric in nature, and generally entirely transparent, as
in the following nouns: chemagination ( chemistry + imagination)
imagination in the use of chemicals, Funderwear trademark for underwear
that is gaily coloured, Kloran ( Klan + Koran) bible used by members
124 Blends
of the Ku Klux Klan, Perma-Gel ( permanent + gelatine) trademark for

a long-lasting textured underpaint, porta-light, porta-play ( portable +
player), psychergy vitality of the intellect, snobject object having snob
appeal, sterecorder tape recorder with the quality of a stereo, vodkatini
Martini made with vodka. Some adjectives also belong to this type, and in
the following examples the semantic head is modified by either a noun or an
adverb: airbrasive ( air + abrasive), funtastic ( fun + fantastic) very
enjoyable, maridelic ( marijuana + psychedelic), numberous ( num-
ber + numerous), and sugly ( so + ugly).
Bat-El (2006) observes that, like endocentric compounds, endocentric
blends of the type just illustrated are also right-headed. Yet exceptions exist:
e.g., dishmobile ( dishwasher + mobile) movable dishwasher and veg-
gie-Q ( veggie + barbecue, with a substitution of cue with the homopho-
nous letter) barbecued vegetables are left-headed.
Furthermore, this is the type often confused or conflated with clipped
compounds: for instance, for the word vidstation television station, it is
very difficult to discriminate between a partial blend analysis ( vid(eo) +
station), or a clipped compound analysis ( vid(eo) station).
Lastly, attributive blends exhibiting an exocentric relationship between
their members also exist. For instance, in Frutopia ( fruit + utopia), the
semantic head a beverage is outside.
4.1.3.6. Coordinate blends (also associative or portmanteau) display

two words having the same semantic status, which both serve as head (cf.
Bat-El 2006). For instance, windowall ( window + wall) is both a win-
dow and a wall, broccoflower has some characteristics of broccoli and
some of cauliflower, Optronic ( optic + electronic) is a trademark refer-
ring to an electronically controlled optical device. Hence, while motel (a
hotel for motorists) is attributive, boatel is coordinate, because it is both a
boat and a hotel. Other examples of this subcategory include the nouns
advertainment, beefalo, beefish, brunch, bulimarexia ( bulimia + ano-
rexia), cat(t)alo ( cattle + buffalo), Churchvelt ( Churchill + Roose-
velt), dramedy ( drama + comedy), dresshirt ( dress + shirt),
geep/shoat, infotainment, liger/tigon ( lion + tiger), Oxbridge, smog,
tangemon ( tangerine + lemon), zebrule (zebra + mule), the adjectives
alphameric, Hungarican, rapidry ( rapid + dry), Spanglish, and the ad-
verbs absotively and its counterblend posilutely.
The two members are therefore related both syntactically and semanti-
cally. Syntactically, they are paradigmatically equivalent, i.e. belong to the
same syntactic category, and both share their syntactic class with the final
blend. Semantically, they are generally co-hyponyms of a superordinate
term, as lion and tiger, which are both animals. As observed by Algeo
(1977: 57), the purest examples of associative blends are those that com-
bine synonyms,114 as in attractivating ( attractive + captivating), con-
fuzzled ( confused + puzzled), disastrophe ( disaster + catastrophe),
fantabulous, ginormous, guesstimate, insinuendo ( insinuation + innu-
endo), needcessity ( need + necessity), stocks ( stockings + socks), and
swellegant ( swell + elegant), although the association is also facilitated
by the overlapping constituents of most of these blends. Sometimes the con-
stituents are near-antonymically related (Cannon 2000: 955), as in com-
pander ( compressor + expander), demopublican ( democratic + re-
publican), frenemies ( friends + enemies), modem ( modulator +
demodulator), and transceiver ( transmitter + receiver).
I consider all the coordinate blends mentioned so far to be endocentric,
because, like coordinate compounds, they have two heads which are inside
the blend. However, within the category of coordinate blends, exocentric
cases also exist: for example, a helilift is neither a helicopter nor a lift,
but a group transported by helicopter, and fortran ( formula + transla-
tion) refers to a computer language that uses familiar words and symbols
(Bryant 1974: 175, 182). Hence, both are exocentric, but, while the former
is only partially opaque, exhibiting transparency of the first member, the
latter exhibits opaqueness of both members.
4.1.4. Blends: Further remarks
As has already been said, the above classifications operate with reference to
a number of different parameters. Thus, for example, the coordinate blend
advertainment belongs to the type of total blends in which the beginning of
one word is followed by the end of another (advert(isement +
ent)ertainment), and also exhibits overlapping constituents (the sequence
ert). The attributive blend snobject, on the other hand, belongs to the most
transparent type, with no truncation but only overlapping constituents.
The labels used to distinguish these blends are only partially taken from
the literature, either because I felt the need to create my own taxonomy, so
as to include all existing blends, or because I disagreed with some accounts,
such as Bat-Els (2006) distinction between endo- and exo-centric blends, or
126 Blends
the omission of those blends like motel, which are viewed by some scholars
(e.g. Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.) as syntagmatic abbreviations of
possible compounds. Table 4 summarises the types discussed in my study.
Table 4. Types and examples of English blends
Type Description Pattern Examples

Total Blend All source Beginning + End ginormous gigan-
words are re- tic + enormous
duced to splin- Beginning + Begin- agitprop agita-
ters ning tion + propaganda
End + End Bullgarita Red
Bull + margarita
Beginning/End entreporneur
intercalated into a entrepreneur + por-
splinter nography
Partial Blend Only one Word + Splinter gaydio gay +
source word is radio
reduced to a Splinter + Word narcoma narcotic
splinter + coma
Word intercalated ambisextrous
into a discontinuous ambidextrous + sex
splinter
Overlapping The source Graphic + phono- slanguage slang
Blend words overlap logical overlap with + language
no shortening
Graphic + phono- californicate
logical overlap with California + forni-
shortening cate
Only phonological cartune cartoon
overlap + tune
Only graphic over- smog smoke + fog
lap
Non- The source Calexico Cali-
overlapping words do not fornia + Mexico
Blend overlap
Attributive The first source Modifier + Head porta-play port-
Blend word modifies able + player
the second one
Blending as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 127
Coordinate The source Head + Head broccoflower

Blend words have the broccoli + cauli-
same semantic flower
and syntactic
status
4.2. Blending as an extra-grammatical phenomenon
Although a classification of existing blends appears a feasible task, and al-

though scholars more or less explicitly recognise that certain recurrent pat-
terns can be identified in blending, the grammatical status of the blending
process is generally excluded as an option. Marchand (1969: 451) briefly
affirms that Blending has no grammatical, but a stylistic status. Bauer
(1983: 234237) and Rainer (1993: 8790) agree that blends are different
from regular formations because of their unpredictability and irregularity.
The irregularity of blends is also stressed by Grsillon (1984), who meta-
phorically calls them linguistic monsters fluctuating between une certaine
rgularit [a certain regularity] and une incontournable irrgularit [an
inevitable irregularity] (p. 2). Cannon (1986) even concludes his account on
blends claiming that:
the numerous patterns that they exhibit are too diverse to be generated
within the traditional framework of generative rules, which must be either
recast or else abandoned in favor of a more powerful kind of device that
can accommodate these often unpredictable items. (p. 748)
Blending patterns are, according to Kemmer (2003: 71), so varied that
no neat taxonomy can do justice to the full range of the phenomenon. That
is, the heterogeneity of blends makes them difficult to describe in terms of
applicability, productivity, and grammatical rules. Ronneberger-Sibold
(2006: 159) attributes their exclusion from morphological grammar to their
lack of transparency and to the impossibility of predicting the exact out-
put of a blend, given its input.
Although many attempts have been made to predict the output of blends,
thus demonstrating that they do not occur randomly, their phonological and
semantic structures vary, depending on the characteristics of their source
words. Furthermore, alternative options are possible when the source words
allow this, for example options regarding the order of constituents
(posilutely vs. absotively), their combination (Amerind vs. Amerindian), or
128 Blends
spelling (guesstimate vs. guestimate). The few phonological regularities

identified by Plag (2003: 121126) cannot describe the whole variety of
blending patterns and his blending rule has many exceptions, being applica-
ble only to prototypical cases. Also, the principles governing the formation
of English blends indicated by Bat-El (2006: 70) are not always obeyed,
exceptions [being] often due to some extragrammatical factors (cf. Bat-El
2000).
The extra-grammatical nature of blends was first recognised by Dressler
and Merlini Barbaresi (1994), and repeatedly confirmed and demonstrated
by Dressler and Karpf (1995), Dressler (2000, 2005), Ronneberger-Sibold
(2006, 2008), Mattiello (2008a), and Kilani-Schoch and Dressler (forth.).
The irregularities of blends can be described in terms of a combination of
violations of grammatical morphological rules.
4.2.1. Irregularities in blends
According to Grsillon (1984: 138139), blends follow neither structural nor

phonological schemas: morphotactically, they break the linearity of the sig-
nantia, and semantically, they admit co-predication. Bat-El (2006: 67)
claims that the coordinate type alphameric and tangemon is headless. Yet
coordinate blends behave like coordinate compounds, while attributive
blends such as Kloran and keytainer ( key + container) behave like endo-
centric (right-headed) compounds.
Many scholars agree that blends are not transparently analysable into
morphemes (Bauer 1983), but composed of phonological strings that trig-
ger meaning (Kemmer 2003: 77). Their segmentation often violates mor-
pheme boundaries, as in info + tainment ( inform-ation + entertain-
ment), and also affix-stem boundaries, as in posi + lutely ( positive-ly +
absolute-ly).
Although there have been many attempts at predicting their structure,
blends exhibit no general syllabic regularities (cf. Plag 2003; Bat-El 2006),
their switch point is variable, and length and stress do not always follow
predetermined principles (cf. Hong 2004). Lastly, they violate many of the
rules of grammatical morphology. The major grammatical rules that appear
to be violated in blend formations, compared with canonical formations, are
those discussed in 4.2.1.14.2.1.7 below.
4.2.1.1. Morphotactic irregularity and output (un-)predictability. Gram-

matical derivatives and compounds are regular and predictable in terms of
their morphotactics, since they combine two or more entirely recognisable
morphemes through a concatenation process. In contrast, the basic compo-
nents of blends are typically blurred because of their abbreviatory nature,
and their output is often difficult to predict, allowing the combination of full
words with splinters (chat-(sat)ire, narco(tic)-coma), overlapping segments
(at and co in the previous examples), and intercalation of a shorter word (or
a splinter) into a longer matrix word, as in de(part)ure + start destar-
ture. Intercalative blends also contravene the rule of concatenation forming
all regular complex words (Grsillon 1984: 138).
4.2.1.2. Alternative outputs. Blends are more permissive than morphological

rules in terms of output structure. Thus, alternative forms are obtained from
the same source words, depending on their final segmental make-up (e.g.
zebra + donkey zedonk vs. zonkey, Amerind vs. Amerindian), or accord-
ing to the order of the segments (e.g. moon + earth moorth vs. earth +
moon earthoon).
4.2.1.3. Non-morphematic analysis. Whereas derivatives and compounds

are transparently analysable, total and most intercalative blends are made up
of one or more splinter(s), i.e., opaque fragments which often do not corre-
spond to word syllables, as in br(eakfast) + (l)unch, or even ch(uck)le +
(sn)ort. As a consequence, compounds and derivatives can be regularly seg-
mented into morphemes, while blends (with the exception of partial ones)
generally cannot, unless we analyse the source words of substitution blends
like bullionaire ( bullion + billionaire) and overlapping blends like slan-
guage ( slang + language) as not properly truncated. The homophonous
segment lang in the latter example has a double status (Grsillon 1984:
138).
4.2.1.4. Uncertain headedness. Whereas in prototypical derivatives and

compounds headedness is immediately identifiable, the head of blends is
difficult to assign. In contrast with Williams (1981) Righthand Head Rule,
it may be either the right-hand (as in dancercise dance + exercise) or the
left-hand member (as in dishmobile dishwasher + mobile), depending on
the head position in the source words (cf. Kubozonos 1990: 16 notion of
130 Blends
morphological/phonological head). In some cases the head is absent, as in

the afore-mentioned helilift, which, like exocentric compounds, has its head
outside the blend. Coordinate blends of the type beefish and Spanglish, on
the other hand, have two semantic heads (cf. Kemmer 2003; Bat-El 2006).
4.2.1.5. Irregular subtraction. Subtractive morphological rules are rare and

generally tend to remove small parts from their bases. By contrast, blend
formations are generally based on subtraction of word parts, and the deleted
parts are large and very erratic: e.g., the middle part, as in Ox(ford +
Cam)bridge Oxbridge, fan + (maga)zine fanzine, a(b)ility + skill
askility; two codas (mo(dulator) + dem(odulator) modem); the beginning
((we)b + log blog), or, rarely, two beginnings, as in (Hello) Kitty +
(de)licious Kittylicious, and (inter)net + (cit)izen netizen. The cases
of blog and netizen infringe what is normally considered the only regularity
of blends, i.e. the beginning of a blend cannot be the end of a word (Lehrer
1996: 364; also in Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). Even more exotic is
the case of chortle, where the end of a word (ort (sn)ort) is embedded in
a discontinuous base, ch(uck)le.
4.2.1.6. Discontinuity of bases. Word-formation rules do not allow discon-

tinuous bases, which, in contrast, are customary in intercalative blends, such
as the above-mentioned askility and chortle. Discontinuity may also involve
the overlapping segments of blends, as in beefalo ( beef + buffalo), plot
boiler ( plot + pot boiler), and snark ( snake + shark).
4.2.1.7. Alternative input categories. Whereas standard morphological rules

apply to specific categories of bases, blends allow a variety of combinations
between different base categories. This is also pointed out by Bat-El (2006:
67): Blends allow any possible combination of lexical categories, including
some that do not appear in compounds. For instance, two verbs, as in gal-
lop + triumph galumph are impossible compound members.115 Other
unusual base categories include adverbs (e.g. so + ugly sugly), proper
names (Federico Fellini + fool Federico Foolini, James Bond + industry
James Bondustry, Obama + economics Obamanomics), titles (Mrs +
missile Mrssile), and longer phrases, as in the intercalative blends The
Big Wiesy ( The Big Easy + Wie) nickname for the golfer Michelle Wie,
and big dame hunter (big game hunter + dame) ladies man. The original-
ity of blend words even permits combinations with phrases reduced to acro-
nyms or initialisms, as in ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) + symposium
Ziposium, and UN (United Nations) + onomatopoeia UNomatopoeia.
Even more strikingly, the first base of Abra CaBubble ( abracadabra +
bubble) trademark for a bubblegum is a nonsense word with no syntactic
category at all.
Furthermore, the bases of blends are often two semantically related
words which are paradigmatically equivalent, such as two nouns (smoke +
fog), two adjectives (fantastic + fabulous), two adverbs (absolutely + posi-
tively), and two verbs in guesstimate. Even synonymous bases are permitted
(gigantic + enormous).
Points 4.2.1.1 to 4.2.1.7 clearly accommodate blends within extra-
grammatical morphology (2.3.7.12.3.7.10), recognising that they are in
spite of their apparent resemblance to grammatical compounds character-
ised by many irregularities. Yet blends also present some recurrent patterns
and regularities which help understanding and aid the prediction of new for-
mations by analogical processes.
4.2.2. Regularities in blends
Previous studies have observed a certain number of more or less confirmable

regularities in blend formation. When speaking of regularities, scholars tend
to show statistical results from their data. However, it is my impression that
most of them select an ad hoc database. Only some of them (e.g. Lehrer
1996) really take into account all existing patterns, and a great majority (e.g.
Hong 2004) deliberately exclude the intercalative type from their analyses,
since it does not conform to the tendencies of the prototypical pattern. By
including all the patterns identified in 4.1.3, some generalisations can be
made about blend (sub)regularities and tendencies.
4.2.2.1. Phonological regularity. Blends do not infringe the phonological

rules of a language. This is stressed by Grsillon (1984: 135) for all natural
languages, and corroborated by Bat-El (2000: 78) for Hebrew blends. Eng-
lish blends are likewise consistent with the phonology of the English lan-
guage. Specifically, in line with Kubozono (1990), there are two phonologi-
cal constraints on the forms resulting from blending. The first constraint
prohibits forms which do not conform to the phonotactic structure of the
132 Blends
language (Kubozono 1990: 5) (e.g. *smonk smo(ke + dri)nk, vs. correct

smink). The second prohibits forms which happen to be identical in phone-
mic shape to either of the source words (Kubozono 1990: 5) (e.g. *best
be(st + mo)st, *which wh(at + wh)ich).
4.2.2.2. Conformity with the source words as regards stress.116 According

to Cannons (1986: 741) size-based approach, in blends primary stress gen-
erally occurs in the same position as one of the source words. For example,
in drmedy ( drma + cmedy) it corresponds to the primary stress of the
first word, in infomrcial ( informtion + commrcial) to that of the sec-
ond word, and in ambisxtrous to the primary stress of both words. Accord-
ing to the position-based approach (Bat-El 2006), instead, the stressed sylla-
ble in a blend corresponds to the stressed syllable of the right base word
(regular head position), as in aggranying ( ggravating + annying),
fertigtion ( frtilizer + irrigtion). A third approach, combining the
above views, is that of Bat-El and Cohen (forth.), who claim that, since there
is inter-word variation, in some blends size wins and in others position wins.
4.2.2.3. Conformity with the source words as regards length. English

blends tend to have the same number of syllables as, or one syllable more or
less than the longer source word (Cannon 1986: 741; Hong 2004: 134).
However, this is a somewhat rigid rule, and one which is only partially con-
firmed by some of Cannons (1986) examples: e.g. psychedelicatessen (
psychedelic 4 + delicatessen 5) is 7 syllables, that is two syllables longer
than its longer source word. Even stricter is Kobozonos (1990: 12) length
rule, according to which the right-hand source word and the resultant blend
consist of the same number of syllables. This rule is close to Plags (2003:
125) phonological constraints that either the blend is of the same size as the
constituents (e.g. boom 1 + hoist 1 boost 1, channel 2 + tunnel 2
chunnel 2, compressor 3 + expander 3 compander 3), or the size of the
blend is determined by the second element (e.g. boat 1 + hotel 2 boatel
2, breakfast 2 + lunch 1 brunch 1). These constraints erroneously rule
out both blends whose length is determined by the first word (e.g. narcoma 3
narcotic 3 + coma 2) and blends like happenident 4 ( happen 2 +
accident 3) and fanzine 2 ( fan 1 + magazine 3), which are either longer
or shorter than the second source word.
In intercalative blends, the embedded part is usually a short word,

whereas the discontinuous base is the matrix, providing the length and
rhythmic contour of the blend (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.).
4.2.2.4. Prototypical beginning-end pattern. Preferably, there will be two

components in a blend, in conformity with the naturalness preference for
binary relations (see 2.2.1 and Dressler 2005). The prototypical binary
structure takes the first part of the first source word and the final part of the
second source word, as in fanta(stic) + (fa)bulous fantabulous.117 Many
authors agree with Lehrer (1996: 364) that the beginning of a blend cannot
be the end of a word. Hong (2004) re-expresses this idea as follows: If a
splinter precedes a full word or another splinter, it must constitute the first
part of a word (p. 123 [emphasis in the original]). But this affirmation is
not without exceptions, as blog ( (we)b + log) and netizen ( (inter)net +
(cit)izen) demonstrate. Nor is Hongs (2004) ancillary contention If a splin-
ter follows a full word or another splinter, it is the final part of a word (p.
123 [emphasis in the original]): modem is made up of two word beginnings.
Thus, Plags (2003: 123) blending rule (AB + CD AD), after Kubo-
zonos (1990: 4) formation rule (AB/XY AY), is infringed by many Eng-
lish blends. For instance, in overlapping blends (e.g. alcoholiday), either B
or C are null. Moreover, neither partial blends (Brangelina, TomKat), com-
bining part of a word with a full word, nor intercalative blends (e.g. ambi-
sextrous, enshocklopedia), with an embedded word/splinter, comply with the
prototypical pattern.
4.2.2.5. Tendency towards transparency. Blends exhibit a tendency to

maximise semantic transparency by preserving as many segments from the
base words as possible (Bat-El 2006: 67; also in Cannon 1986; Gries
2004a). This point can be illustrated by overlapping blends, which ideally
combine the source words where they display homophonous segments (slan-
guage), resulting in no deletion at all (Kaunisto 2000a: 49, in Gries
2004a: 650). Partial blends (vodkatini) also seem governed by a desire to
guarantee the recognisability of at least one source word (see Recoverability
in 4.2.4). However, this tendency is disconfirmed by fragment blends, such
as amping ( amphetamine + smoking) and bit ( binary + unit), whose
source words are hard to recognise because only small fragments have been
preserved (Gries 2004b).
134 Blends
4.2.2.6. Similarity/Identity at the juncture. Another tendency is to segmental

or syllabic similarity, or even identity at the juncture (Kelly 1998; Cannon
2000; Kemmer 2003; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). In line with Kelly
(1998: 587), blends do tend to be arranged so that the boundary involves
similar phonemes, as in alcoholiday and slanguage above. In the attribu-
tive bisquick ( biscuit + quick), the adjective has even been postponed to
obtain similarity at the juncture. Thus, the overlap may be one of the pa-
rameters according to which blend components are ordered, others being the
frequency, length, prototypicality, and positive connotation of the compo-
nents (see Kelly 1998).118 Yet overlap blends do not necessarily share identi-
cal segments: in beefalo ( beef + buffalo), the overlap is imperfect or dis-
continuous.
4.2.2.7. Switch point at phonological (or morphological) joints. Switch

points between the blend components fall primarily at major phonological
joints, such as syllable (appestat appe.(tite + ther.mo.)stat) and onset-
rhyme boundaries (br(eak.fast + l)unch). Breaks at other boundaries, such
as body-coda, are disfavoured (Kubozono 1990; Kelly 1998; Hong 2004),119
unless they coincide with a morpheme boundary, as in pantdress
( pant(-s) + dress). Nevertheless, morphological switch points (earwitness
ear + (eye)witness) are less frequent.
4.2.2.8. Co-predication. Coordinate blends exhibit a co-predication, i.e. two

simultaneous predications (Grsillon 1984: 134138), which is different
from coordination, which involves one predication after another. Plag (2003:
125) goes even further, claiming that blends behave semantically and syn-
tactically like copulative compounds. Thus, Oxbridge simultaneously refers
to the two main British universities (Oxford + Cambridge), and brunch is
breakfast taken nearly at lunchtime, thus including both meals.120 Coordi-
nation is more frequent or prototypical of the meaning of blends than the
coordinate or copulative patterns in compounds, although other semantic
patterns exist in blends, such as modifier + head in the attributive type.121
4.2.2.9. New meaning. Unlike other subtractive techniques (see Abbrevia-

tions in chapter 3), blends generally add new meanings to the lexicon (Ki-
lani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). Although lexicalised blends such as smog
and brunch are not numerous, they contribute to lexical innovation (2.3.5),
as do other new formations characterised by a playful impact and surprising

effect.
4.2.2.10. Iconicity. In blends an iconic relation between the structure of the

signans and that of the signatum holds (Thornton 1993: 152). This moti-
vates their frequency, in spite of the blurred morphological boundaries,
which are dispreferred in Natural Morphology. The semantic composition of
hybrids (beefish, broccoflower, tangemon, zebrule) and chemicals (acetal,
chloral) is reflected in the naming process which has led to the blends. In the
case of couples (Brangelina, TomKat), the union of the members is iconi-
cally reproduced by the binary relation of the blend. In hybrid languages
(Amerind, Spanglish), the blurring of morphological boundaries reproduces
the blurring of intra-linguistic differences.
Grsillon (1984: 134, after Jakobson 1966), claims that the iconic rela-
tionship between signans and signatum is best illustrated by overlapping
blends, sharing a homophonous (or similar) string which belongs to both
source words (slanguage). Hence, the double structure and overlap of the
signans mirror the double predication (see 4.2.2.8 above).
4.2.3. Predictability in blends
As we have seen in the previous section, it is difficult to make generalisa-

tions about all blending patterns. Regularities are peculiar to specific types,
and even these individual regularities may, in many cases, be invalidated by
interesting counterexamples. Even Lehrers (1996: 364) claim that a blend
starts with the first part of the first source word, viewed by many scholars
(e.g. Hong 2004; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.) as the only true regular-
ity of blends, is infringed by some English cases. Predictions about stress,
length, order of the components, switch point, and general structure are bla-
tantly confuted, the intercalative type being completely excluded from any
prediction. The shortening of blends also remains a controversial issue, since
overlap blends with a homophonous string do not really exhibit a shortened
source word (Lpez Ra 2002: 46).
My question again is: Is there any predictability in blend formation? To
answer this question I propose to analyse the formation of some possible
blends from the source words (SW1SW2) reported in Table 5.
136 Blends
Table 5. Possible blends from existing source words
Source Word 1 (SW1) Source Word 2 (SW2) Possible blend

(1) milk coffee milkoffee, coffilk
(2) newspaper magazine newzine, newsine

(3) eat drink eatink
(4) look glorify lookify, glookify
(5) sexy excellent sexcellent, sexylent
(6) stupid silly stupilly, sillupid
(7) politely graciously politeciously, pola-
ciously
(8) absolutely absurdly absurdlutely

SW1 and SW2 have been chosen on the basis of their paradigmatic rela-
tion. Moreover, they are not casually ordered, but arranged so as to favour
similarity or identity at the juncture (4.2.2.6), or otherwise according to
Kellys (1998) parameters of frequency, length, prototypicality, positive
connotation, etc. (see also Gries forth.). When two parameters are in con-
trast, a compromise solution is offered giving prominence to frequency over
length, to length over prototypicality, and so on. Potentially, SW1SW2
should be the best order for the blend components.
Possible blend structures have been envisaged in line with criteria
4.2.2.14.2.2.10 above. That is, the final form of the blend should conform
to the phonology of English, its stress should correspond to primary stress of
either SW1 or SW2, the number of syllables should not be greater than one
more than the longer SW, etc.
However, some criteria have been considered as primary. For example,
the prototypical pattern combines the beginning of SW1 with the end of SW2
(4.2.2.4), SW1 and SW2 preferably overlap (4.2.2.6), either phonologically,
graphically or both, and their semantic transparency is maximised by pre-
serving as many segments as possible (4.2.2.5), which makes them more
recognisable and unambiguous (see Recoverability in 4.2.4 below).
Results show that more than one possible output can be predicted given
an input, each output disconfirming at least one criterion among 4.2.2.1
4.2.2.10 above. For instance, in (1), two possible blend forms have been
suggested. The first (milkoffee) retains as many segments as possible from
the base words (4.2.2.5), and combines them at a phonological overlap
(4.2.2.6), but does not conform to the prototypical AD structure (4.2.2.4),

retaining one word in full (milk), which makes milkoffee one syllable longer
than its SW2 (cf. 4.2.2.3). The second (coffilk) equals the syllables of SW2
(4.2.2.3), but it does not save the overlap.
In (2), both alternative outputs (newzine, newsine) are dispreferred: the
switch points between the blend components do not occur at syllable
boundaries (new(s.pa.per + mag.a.)zine, news.(pa.per + mag.a.z)ine), nor
at morphological boundaries (new(s-paper)), thus violating criterion 4.2.2.7.
In the case of newzine, the breakpoint falls at the coda, which is a disfa-
voured phonological pattern. Criterion 4.2.2.5 is also violated, because SW1
is nearly unrecognisable, and in newzine the semantic analysis is blurred by
the coincidence of the splinter new with a full word.
In (4), intercalative glookify displays both maximum preservation of
segments and overlap (4.2.2.54.2.2.6), but it does not follow the prototypi-
cal pattern (4.2.2.4), nor does the partial blend lookify, in spite of its con-
catenation. In the latter case, segmentation occurs at a morphological
boundary ((glor)-ify), in line with 4.2.2.7, but the suffix -ify does not say
much about SW2, infringing 4.2.2.5.
In (5), the overlap blend sexcellent, with a homophonous string at the
juncture (4.2.2.6), is certainly preferred over the partial blend sexylent,
which highly obscures SW2 to give prominence to SW1. Yet sexcellent jeop-
ardises criterion 4.2.2.8 on co-predication. In fact, there are two possible
interpretations: coordinate (both sexy and excellent) vs. attributive (excel-
lent in sex), reinterpreted as sex + excellent.
Both stupilly and sillupid in (6) exhibit prototypical structures (4.2.2.4),
but, against 4.2.2.7, they display dispreferred breakpoints, infringing sylla-
ble boundaries ( stu.p(id + s)ill.y, sill.(y + st)u.pid). Moreover, against
4.2.2.6, their overlapping segments are at the juncture only in stupilly, but
not in sillupid. The latter also imposes a reversal between the blend compo-
nents, disconfirming Kellys (1998) results about optimal order.
Politeciously and polaciously in (7) are prototypical in terms of their
morphotactics, but the latter does not conform to criterion 4.2.2.7, overcom-
ing major phonological joints ( po.l(ite.ly + gr)a.cious.ly). Furthermore,
both are one syllable longer than their SWs, contravening Kobozonos
(1990) length rule in 4.2.2.3.
Eatink and absurdlutely appear the best possible options in (3) and (8),
although they are respectively a partial blend with no similarity at the junc-
ture (cf. 4.2.2.4, 4.2.2.6), and a blend with an ambiguous analysis: i.e., ei-
ther intercalative (ab(so)lutely + (ab)surd(ly)) or prototypical (absurd(ly +
abso)lutely), with a reversed ordering of the components.
138 Blends
In reply to the above question, this brief discussion suggests that there is no
full predictability in blend formation, alternative outputs being consistent
with the phonology of English, and one or another output being inconsistent
with the regularities and tendencies discussed in 4.2.2.14.2.2.10. Moreover,
against Plag (2003) and Bat-El (2006), no valid generalisations can be made
for blends, which, as has been shown, appear to be much more heterogene-
ous and unpredictable than compounds. Criteria 4.2.2.14.2.2.10 show the
main preferences in blending patterns, in line with naturalness parameters,
but the number of actual and possible blends respecting all criteria is low,
smog being an ideal type.
Instead of rules or (sub)regularities, what can be offered for blends is a se-

ries of criteria of well-formedness. Again, analogy is the primary criterion
and the crucial principle governing the formation of blends.
Analogy. Like abbreviations (chapter 3), blends too are analogical for-
mations, i.e. formations created by analogy with previously encountered
patterns of formation (see Lehrer 2007). Thus, frappuccino (from
frapp + cappuccino) is based on the analogous formation mochaccino
(from mocha + cappuccino), Krustelope (from Krusty + Penelope),
used in an episode of The Simpsons, is analogical with Brangelina, and
Girlicious, the name of a female musical group, is comparable to many
prior formations of the same type (beaulicious, bootylicious, etc.). In
the latter case, -licious is a potential final combining form which may
gain an established status in the near future. In contrast with regular
compounds, which are entirely based on concatenation, new blends re-
semble existing ones, and also admit fusion, overlapping segments, and
even intercalation.
Pronounceability/Euphony. Blends must be easy to pronounce and
agreeable to the ear. They must conform to the general reading rules,
avoiding impossible clusters or unpronounceable sound sequences (see
Natural Phonology in 2.2.2). Their form must be audible and compre-
hensible to the hear. Only a few dispreferred cases (e.g. compfusion)
partially disobey these criteria.
Recoverability. In accordance with naturalness preferences for morpho-
tactic and morphosemantic transparency (Dressler 1999, 2000, 2005),
the components of the blend must be recognisable from its final segmen-
tal make-up. Blends must preserve as many segments from the source
words as possible (Cannon 1986; Gries 2004a; Bat-El 2006) in order to
guarantee recoverability (see overlapping blends). This criterion corre-
sponds to the notion of recognisability in Gries (forth.).
Semantic blocking. A blend cannot be formed in a given language if it
coincides with a homophone or homograph word of that language. In ac-
cordance with Aronoffs (1976: 43) notion of blocking, the formation
of a blend like *smoke ( sm(ell + ch)oke) would be blocked, because
it has the same form as an existing word. Moreover, the segments from
the source words must not coincide with existing lexemes. Accordingly,
blends such as *breaklunch or *lunchfast are blocked, because break
and fast are existing English words (cf. broccoflower where flower is an
existing word; see Recoverability above).
Prominence. One of the constituents of a blend must be prominent in
terms of length, stress, and, in the attributive type, position and meaning
(see Salience below). In other words, one component is the matrix: it
provides the rhythmical contour, the rhyme, and generally corresponds
to or is one syllable shorter than the whole formation. In the attribu-
tive type, this component is normally the right-most element and plays
the role of semantic head.
Salience. The order of the blend components must respect the semantic
criterion of salience. For instance, in wintertainment, the second element
(entertainment) is the most salient in determining the meaning of the
blend, and therefore occurs in head position. Of course, other factors
may come into play in determining the order of the source words: for in-
stance, in brunch, breakfast comes before lunch not only because this
latter is the matrix and more prominent word, but also because this order
iconically reproduces the chronological sequence of the two meals.
A further criterion is especially relevant for the coordinate and overlap-

ping types of blends:
Similarity. In most intentional (coordinate) blends (and also in speech-

error blends, though these are not dealt with in the present study), the
speaker tends to choose two source words which are similar to each
other in terms of: 1) phonemic and/or graphemic length and stress pat-
tern, 2) part of speech, and sometimes even 3) semantics (as in fantabu-
lous). Accordingly, the source words channel and tunnel are chosen and
combined into chunnel because they exhibit similarity at many different
levels: a) similar phonemes and graphemes, b) similar articulatory fea-
140 Blends
tures, even when the phonemes are not the same (cf. vs. ), c) iden-
tical structure with regard to CV segments (CVCVC), d) identical sylla-
ble length, e) identical stress pattern, and f) same part of speech (nouns)
(Gries forth.). Lastly, in many blends there also tends to be similarity or
identity at the juncture, as in the overlapping type.
Chapter 5
Reduplicatives
Reduplicatives, also called echo-words, sing-song words, wishy-washy

words, rhyming words, and a host of other names, are words obtained by
repeating sounds, syllables, or words, either exactly, as in boo-boo, or with
alternation of vowels (chit-chat), consonants (teeny-weeny), or groups of
sounds (creepy-crawly), sometimes with meaningfulness of both bases, as in
the latter case and in artsy-craftsy, based on art and craft.
Some authors distinguish between total reduplication, which doubles the
entire word or stem, as in boo-boo above, and partial reduplication, which
doubles some phonologically characterised subpart of the word or stem, as
in clickety-click, where the doubled part (the so-called replicans) only par-
tially reproduces the replicatum (Marantz 1982).
In many languages of the world, reduplication is a widespread morpho-
logical operation, regularly and grammatically employed in both inflection
and word-formation (see 2.3.5.2), whereas in Western European languages,
it is a rare and marginal phenomenon of word-formation only. English,
unlike its sister languages, widely and productively exploits reduplication,
but its mechanism of formation does not allow for its inclusion within the
grammar of the language (cf. grammaticalisation in 2.3.5.2), despite the
various regularities observable in the outputs.
In English, reduplication is mainly used for expressive, playful or aes-
thetic effects. For instance, in Yiddish English, shm-reduplication (e.g. baby-
schmaby, fancy-schmancy) belongs to expressive morphology (Zwicky and
Pullum 1987). Here sound repetition iconically represents insistence, stress,
emphasis. An intensifying function is also present in some rhyming exam-
ples, as in easy peasy (really simple) and super-duper (extremely good,
excellent). But its iconicity is especially evident in the ablaut type, where
vowel alternation may metaphorically indicate alternative movements (e.g.
flip-flop, ping pong, wigwag), alternating sounds (tick-tock), and indecision
(shilly-shally).
From a semantic point of view, onomatopoeic formations of the type bib-
ble-babble, bow-wow, chuff-chuff, and trit-trot have in common their ex-
pressivity, which links them to other phenomena exhibiting the same prop-
erty, such as sound symbolism and phonaesthesia. However, the latter
142 Reduplicatives
expressive phenomena are not included in the present analysis (see 6.56.6),
since they do not exhibit repetition as their main feature.
Within extra-grammatical morphology, reduplication is a particularly in-
teresting phenomenon, since it largely departs from those so far analysed. In
contrast to the shortening mechanisms of blending, clipping, and acronymic
formation, all oriented towards the principle of economy, reduplication ap-
pears to be based on lengthening and on a criterion of redundancy. However,
although it increases the communicative cost of an utterance without any
significant addition to the central meaning, it is, at the same time, useful both
for peripheral meaning and for memorisation. It should also be added that it
is sometimes accompanied by truncation, as in slang nig-nog, from a first
base shortened from nigger. English makes use of reduplication in depreca-
tive constructions (Art-shmart, I call it garbage!), as well as in less formal
(okey-dokey), humorous (Humpty-Dumpty), or nursery language (wee-wee
urine).
The importance of premorphological reduplications is unquestionable,
and many onomatopoeic forms (choo-choo), as well as forms used in child-
directed speech (din-din dinner, wa-wa water) increase the number of
either new words or connoted variants, although they are restricted to a spe-
cific variety (i.e. baby talk). The use of reduplicatives may also signal a
love-centred speech situation, where the users reduce their distance by
choosing childish names such as kissy-kissy or tootsy-wootsy. In general,
reduplication conveys a pragmatic meaning of non-seriousness (Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresi 1994), that is, it is indexical of the users emotional
states, or, at least of his non-serious attitude (Merlini Barbaresi 2008:
235).
Yet English reduplicatives contribute to the enrichment of the lexicon not
only in terms of connotation (2.3.5.1). Some fully lexicalised examples of
reduplicatives are knick-knack (a trinket), nitty-gritty (very detailed),
ping-pong, tussie-mussie (a small bouquet of flowers), yo-yo (the toy),
and zig-zag, some of them covering specific semantic spaces and having no
commonly used synonym. However, as we will see, reduplicatives tend to
exhibit a certain semantic indeterminacy, since their meanings are often con-
nected with vague concepts, namely indecision, confusion, carelessness,
disorder, foolishness, etc. (Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 235).
Reduplicatives are quite frequent and widespread, and, as the over 2,000
examples collected by Thun (1963) amply demonstrate,122 they have been so
for a number of centuries. The type with exact repetition (ha-ha) is first
recorded before the year 1000, and the rhyming (hotchpotch) and ablaut
(mish-mash) types respectively in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is,
Reduplicatives 143
however, since the sixteenth century that they have become more frequent,
and audacious nonce formations of this type are currently created in such
areas as poetry, song lyrics, political slogans, newspaper headlines, advertis-
ing, brand names, and slang. There are many recent examples in trade names
(Reeses Pieces a candy), songs (Laffy Taffy),123 and cartoons for children
(Igglepiggle and Makka Pakka in the series In the Night Garden; Laa-Laa,
Noo-Noo, and Tinky-Winky in Teletubbies; Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare
Before Christmas). Many well-established examples like chit-chat and
pooh-pooh are still in active use, for instance, in the sitcom The Simpsons,
and the noun hurly-burly has been reused for the title of a film (Hurlyburly,
based on the play of the same name). Other old reduplicatives acquire new
meanings and uses: for instance, fiddle-faddle (originally nonsense) has
also become the name of a candy-coated popcorn, and zigzag, commonly
used in the standard meaning sharp turns in alternating directions, is used
in slang to refer to a drunk person, from his typical way of walking.
Despite its frequency as a word-formation phenomenon, reduplication is
still neglected by morphologists dealing with the English system, mainly
because of its irregular mechanism of formation, which marginalises it to
extra-grammatical morphology or else to expressive morphology (Zwicky
and Pullum 1987; Baldi 2000). The variety of reduplicative patterns does
not allow scholars to analyse them as a homogeneous set. Moreover, it is not
clear where reduplicative words should be placed within a description of the
language, as they lie at the intersection of phonology and morphology, draw-
ing on both linguistic systems (Inkelas and Zoll 2005: 2; Merlini Barbaresi
2008: 229). I will focus only on the use of reduplication as a word-formation
device, and make reference to phonology especially for the ablaut and
rhyming types only insofar as it will be necessary to motivate structural
regularities.
The literature offers differing points of view as to whether reduplication
should be considered morphologically as an example of affixation or as
compounding (Inkelas 2006: 417). Many researchers adopt the proposal by
Marantz (1982) that both total and partial reduplication involve the affixa-
tion of a phonologically skeletal morpheme (cf. McCarthy and Prince 1986).
The alternative view sees reduplication as the morphological doubling of a
subconstituent, which occurs twice in the same word, at times with phono-
logical truncation, as in partial reduplication.
The morphological description of English reduplicatives dates back at
least to Jespersen (1942: 173183) and Marchand (1969: 429), who respec-
tively labelled these formations reduplicative compounds and pseudo-
compounds. Quirk et al. (1985: 1579) define reduplicatives as compounds
144 Reduplicatives
[that] have two or more constituents which are either identical or only
slightly different. Thun (1963), which is at present the most extensive
monograph on the subject, argues that it is not tenable to regard all forms
of reduplicative word-formation as a kind of composition (p. 11). As we
will see, reduplicatives are neither derivatives nor compounds in the tradi-
tional sense. They are difficult to describe in terms of rules, their bases being
often unrecognisable, and the onomatopoeic type (e.g. clip-clop) being typi-
cally acephalous. Their classification also poses problems: the traditional
division into total and partial does not cover all types of English reduplica-
tive, which, as the above-mentioned examples show, fall into various sub-
groups. A very convincing classification including all patterns, which will be
of central importance in 5.1.3, is that given by Merlini Barbaresi (2008:
230231).
Terminology on reduplication is, as we have seen, varied and heterogeneous.

Other terms also occur in the literature (e.g. gemination, duplication,
reiteration, see Thun 1963: 11), which, however, appear less appropriate
than the term reduplication used here. Opinions also diverge as to whether
this phenomenon should be classified as inflectional, derivational or compo-
sitional, which partly depends on the language involved. Some scholars give
such vague definitions that a delimitation of the phenomenon appears diffi-
cult. A broad view includes within reduplication both syntactic repetition, as
in black black or long long (very long) and syllabic repetition, as in kiwi,
while the narrow view includes only repetition with nonsense bases, as in
hubba hubba (Dienhart 1999). An exploration of existing definitions and
taxonomies and a clarification of what is meant by reduplication in this book
are therefore in order.
5.1.1. Definition
Reduplication is a word-formation process whereby some portion of a word

is repeated, either totally, as in copy reduplicatives (e.g. gogo), or partially,
with apophony of the (internal) vowel (as in riff-raff), or with rhyming con-
stituents and apophony of the initial (consonant) sound (as in boogie-
woogie). The rhyming type may exhibit two meaningful bases (as in walkie-
talkie), hence subcategorised by Merlini Barbaresi (2008: 231) as rhyming

compounds.
Some scholars provide much vaguer definitions, which are not as lan-
guage-specific as the one just offered. Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 18),
for instance, define reduplication as a rather unimportant, though often
amusing, resource for expanding the vocabulary in which part or all of a
word is repeated. Inkelas (2006: 417), dealing with various languages,
similarly describes it as a morphological word formation process in which
some portion of a word is doubled, and then distinguishes between the total
and partial types, whereas in Inkelas and Zoll (2005: 1) reduplication is
described as grammatical doubling.
A cross-linguistic study of (full and partial) reduplication is to be found
in Nadarajan (2006), who specifies that in reduplication some part of a
base (a segment, syllable, morpheme) is repeated, either to the left, or to the
right of the word or, occasionally, within the middle of the word (p. 40).
While the latter case is not pertinent to our set of examples, the fact that the
replicans can occur either to the right or to the left of the base will be con-
sidered one of the irregular features of English reduplicatives (5.2.1.4).
Dienhart (1999), rather than providing a proper definition, proposes an
algorithm to establish membership to the category of reduplicatives. He
starts by defining the broadest set, consisting of any sequence X1X2, where
X2 is related to X1 by being identical (boo-boo), by differing in consonant
onset (hocus-pocus), or by differing in vowel peak (mish-mash) (Dienhart
1999: 13). He then proposes two filters: the Single Phone Condition (SPC),
which removes forms like baby, and the Affix Condition (AC), which re-
moves forms like dismiss (see 5.1.2 below). Most studies on reduplication
including the one just mentioned focus on phonological aspects, such as
phonological shape, prosodic constraints, and stress patterns.
Baldi (2000), by contrast, stresses the pragmatic importance of the phe-
nomenon. Reduplicative constructions are part of unusual coinages, which
are expressive in that they convey a special pragmatic effect which extends
beyond their lexical meaning (Baldi 2000: 963). Admittedly, many redupli-
catives are more expressive variants of non-connoted words; and hence they
select a register (informal, playful) and often also an audience, children be-
ing their preferential addressees. Expressivity, however, is a relative notion,
depending on the language involved: although it holds for English, it does not
for languages where reduplication is used in ordinary morphology, especially
to denote pluralisation.
A recent publication by Merlini Barbaresi (2008) concentrates on the
word-formation patterns of English reduplicatives, considered in her account
146 Reduplicatives
as part of extra-grammatical morphology. She does not offer a definition of

the overall category, but carefully describes each type providing examples
and analyses. Although she admits that reduplicatives interface with both
phonology and morphology, it is in the latter that she finds an explanation
to the fact that they fail to conform to canonical morphological rules
(Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 229). This paper, together with the theoretical
analysis provided by Kilani-Schoch and Dressler (forth.) for French redupli-
catives, shed light on the irregularities of the phenomenon under investiga-
tion.
5.1.2. Delimitation: Reduplication vs. other processes
The definition given above allows a primary differentiation between the phe-
nomenon of reduplication and other processes that are sometimes conflated
with it because of their repetitive nature.124
A first distinction is between reduplication and repetition. Only the for-
mer can in fact be characterised as a word-formation device, the latter being
merely a syntactic reiteration of words belonging to various classes. Merlini
Barbaresi (2008: 234) stresses that there is much confusion and often over-
lap between copy reduplicatives of the type goo-goo and my-my and syntac-
tic repetition used to stress the true identity of an item as compared to imita-
tions (e.g. food food not junk food, fur fur real fur), the certainty of an
action (Are you leaving leaving really leaving now?), or as a form of in-
tensification, as in here here (precisely here). These two processes can be
distinguished on the basis of a number of criteria, as has been pointed out by
Thun (1963: 89). First, there is a prosodic difference between the stress
pattern of reduplicative formation, which acquires compound stress (be-
bye, prtty-pretty), and that of simple repetition, which maintains stress on
each single word repeated (be be, prtty prtty). Second, there is a mor-
phological difference, in that only reduplication allows pluralisation (bye-
byes, noun pretty-pretties), or derivation (pretty-pretti-ness). Third, there is
a semantico-pragmatic difference, in that the repeated adjective in pretty
pretty preserves its basic meaning, whereas pretty-pretty takes on a deroga-
tory meaning when used as an adjective (excessively pretty), and a com-
pletely new meaning when it is a plural noun (ornaments).125
Another necessary differentiation is between reduplicatives and other
words which, in spite of their apparent binary make-up, are the result of
some other process. From derivation we have words containing affixes
which happen to be phonologically similar to the roots to which they are
attached. For instance, prefixed dismiss, undone or suffixed kingling, sillily,

stresslessness involve an accidental reduplication, which can be filtered out
by applying Dienharts (1999) Affix Condition.126 Indeed, the affixes dis-,
un-, -less, -ling, -ly, and -ness have a general distribution, attaching freely
and productively to a range of roots, in addition to the ones in question.
In compounding there are a large number of regular compounds which
have a rhyming pattern that is again the effect of chance, or whose rhyming
quality is an additional element which facilitates memorisation (as in flower
power hippie love power). Other examples include: blackjack, brain drain,
cookbook, double trouble, grandstand, payday, and snail mail. Although
these compounds are clearly modelled on a rhyming pattern, they comply
with grammatical rules and in this differ from rhyming reduplicatives. Endo-
centric cookbook is a type of book, and it has a unitary meaning contrib-
uted by both bases. Compounds of this sort, as well as the previous set of
derivatives (e.g. dismiss), are examples of what Thun (1963: 1216) calls
false reduplicatives, which will be kept distinct from true rhyming redupli-
catives and also from rhyming compounds (see Merlini Barbaresi 2008 and
5.1.3.2.25.1.3.2.3).
Another category of words whose reduplicative-like shape needs to be
commented on are monomorphemic items like baby, bozo, cuckoo, khaki,
Nina, puppy, viva, and Zulu. In fact, these words cannot be analysed as *ba
+ by or *Ni + na, because, unlike true reduplicatives, they do not consist of
two components. The similarity between the two syllables is therefore due to
phonological accident rather than to any intentional reduplication. Dienhart
(1999: 12) establishes another filter (the above-mentioned Single Phone
Condition)127 to exclude these syllable rhymes128 from either copy redupli-
catives (boo-boo, go-go) or ablaut ones (click-clack, zig-zag).
Some clipped compounds of the type hi-fi, sci-fi, wi-fi or evo-devo (evo-
lutionary developmental biology), fro-yo, and slo-mo require further com-
ments in this section, although they have been previously discussed in 3.1.3
as instances of shortening.129 The bases of these compounds, although ab-
breviated, are well-established words and contribute to the meaning of the
overall compounds, which can be transparently analysed as high + fidelity,
science + fiction, frozen + yogurt, etc. On the other hand, the phonological
pattern is more significant, in that it favours rhyme between, for example, fi
and hi, sci or wi (Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 233234), and, through the addi-
tion of a suffix -o to the second constituent, between devo and evo. This
phonological bias makes them resemble rhyming reduplicatives, or rhyming
compounds (Marchand 1969: 438). But their morphosemantic transparency
is closer to that of canonical compounds. In my analysis, examples of this
148 Reduplicatives
kind are included within the category of clipped compounds (3.1.3.6), be-
cause it is their opaque morphotactics, more than their rhyming nature, that
confines them to extra-grammatical morphology.
5.1.3. Classification and structure of reduplicatives
While some scholars concentrate on one or more specific categories of Eng-

lish reduplicative (e.g. Marchand 1969 completely ignores the copy type,
while Minkova 2002 gives a convincing account of the ablaut type), others
offer complex taxonomies which take into consideration a heterogeneous set
of items. My own classification uses previous terminology (mainly Jespersen
1942; Dienhart 1999; Merlini Barbaresi 2008), but reorganises traditional
categories (generally, a tripartite division with the addition of a fourth type
by Merlini Barbaresi 2008) into subcategories, which results in a more de-
tailed differentiation of existing types. Reduplication is, as a consequence,
divided into two macro-classes and a number of subclasses.
5.1.3.1. Total (or Full) reduplication involves the exact repetition of a

sound, a word, or part of a word (e.g. bye-bye, cha-cha, gaga, gale-gale,
gogo, pom-pom). The result of this process is what is often called copy or
exact reduplicatives.
Copy reduplicatives, whose replicans is the exact copy of the replicatum
(called kernel by Jespersen 1942: 174), are the oldest in English (Merlini
Barbaresi 2008: 234), and the most profuse in languages generally. This
class in fact includes many foreign borrowings in English, for example beri-
beri (a type of disease), bonbon, chow-chow, couscous, hula-hula (Ha-
waiian dance), and wonga-wonga (large Australian pigeon).
We can further differentiate copy reduplicatives on the basis of the nature
of the kernel.
In copy reduplicatives belonging to baby talk, the kernel is normally

morphologically unmotivated. Babies tend to repeat long strings of iden-
tical syllables without attaching any meaning to them, and parents later
reuse such strings assigning meaning. Most of childrens copy reduplica-
tives are words used to name bodily functions (ca-ca, doo-doo, pee-pee,
poo-poo, wee-wee), but words like knock-knock (a type of joke),
mama, papa, ta-ta (goodbye), and yo-yo also belong to this group. The
word boo-boo used with babies to refer to a mistake, may be echoic of
peoples production of this sound when someone makes some sort of

mistake, especially in sports.
The kernel is an existing word, as in: buddy-buddy (brother, friend),
fifty-fifty (equally divided), footie-footie or footy-footy (slang, amo-
rous play with the feet), girly-girly (exaggeratedly girlish), goody-
goody, kissy-kissy (lovey-dovey), my-my (used to express surprise),
never-never (imaginary), no-no (forbidden thing), plotty-plotty
(trickery), sing-sing (a singing sound), so-so (indifferent), too-too
(overly), twenty-twenty (having normal vision), win-win (describes a
situation where both parties gain something), zero-zero (having zero
visibility), and the above-mentioned bye-bye and pretty-pretty.
The kernel is a shortened word, as in: goo-goo (an amorous look) from
googly, ju-ju (drug slang) from marijuana, nonny-nonny from non-
sense, rah-rah (very enthusiastic) and y-y (exuberant), respectively
from hurrah and yeah. Some copy reduplicatives involving reduction are
examples of baby talk (e.g. din-din, wa-wa).130
Copy reduplicatives obtained from truncated names are rare hypocoris-
tics in English: e.g., JoJo (from Josephine), CoCo (from Collette) (Inke-
las and Zoll 2005: 89).131
In a slight variant of the exact pattern, the two elements are not quite
identical because an extra syllable (or two) is added to the first element.
This extra material typically ends in -ety: bumpety-bump, clankety-
clank, clickety-click, cloppety-clop, and hippety-hop. According to Di-
enhart (1999: 18), another type of variant involves such constructions as
back-to-back, blow-by-blow, half-and-half, heart-to-heart, word-for-
word, or even numerals like forty-four, sixty-six. Personally, I do not
find cases like these to be purposefully constructed by reduplication.
The category of copy reduplicatives is not the most productive in English,

and certainly less frequent than the other subclasses included within partial
reduplication.
5.1.3.2. Partial reduplication involves reduplication of only a part of a

word (e.g. chit-chat, flip-flop, roly-poly). As these examples show, alterna-
tion may concern either vowel or consonant sounds.
5.1.3.2.1. Ablaut (or apophonic) reduplicatives exhibit repetition of the

same basic component (a morpheme or pseudo-morpheme) with vowel
aphophony, i.e. alternation of the (internal) vowel.
150 Reduplicatives
Ablaut reduplicatives have no fixed position for replicans and replicatum:

lexical stems can be positioned either in the left slot (e.g. mingle-mangle,
rickety-rackety, swing-swang), or in the right slot (e.g. chit-chat, criss-
cross, dingle-dangle, kit-cat, mish-mash) (cf. the head position in regular
compounds). Variability depends on what Minkova (2002: 137) calls pro-
sodic well-formedness. Furthermore, there are some ablaut reduplicatives in
which both parts are real stems, as in sing-song, and others in which neither
part is an attested lexical item, as in riff-raff.
Again in line with Minkova (2002: 133), ablaut reduplicatives in English
are characterised by two distinctive properties, namely: 1) identical vowel
quantity in the stressed syllable peaks, and 2) maximally distinct vowel
qualities in the two halves, with a high front vowel, normally , appearing
in first position, and a low back vowel, more often , in second position.
Hence, the most productive vowel alternation is ~,132 followed by
~ (Marchand 1969: 429; Bauer 1983: 213).
The pattern with an ~ alternation can be illustrated by bibble-

babble (idle talk), chitchat (gossip, also chitter-chatter), dilly-dally
(waste time), dingle-dangle (a swinging to and fro), fiddle-faddle
(trifle), flicflac (type of dance step), flim-flam (idle talk, rubbish,
deception), flip-flap (sudden reversal), gibble-gabble (senseless chat-
ter), kit-cat (the game of tipcat), knick-knack (also nick-nack orna-
mental trinket), mingle-mangle or mish-mash (confused mixture),
rickrack (kind of serpentine braid), riff-raff (disrespectable people),
riprap (broken stones used for a wall), skimble-skamble (confused),
ticky-tacky (shoddy; flimsy), trick-track (variety of backgammon),
whim-wham (odd, fanciful object, trifle), wigwag (move to and fro),
and zigzag. The bases of these words are often obscure, as in shilly-
shally, given by Jespersen (1942: 177) and Marchand (1969: 432) as
etymologically derived from shall I?.
The same alternation with an extension of one member is found in clin-
kety-clank.
The alternation ~ is sometimes found in two existing words (e.g.
drip-drop drop slowly, sing-song monotonous or regular voice; an in-
formal session of singing, tip-top first class). More often, only one
base is meaningful: criss-cross (move back and forth over something),
flip-flop (unexpected reversal), hip-hop (subculture of big-city teen-
agers), ping-pong (table tennis), slipslop (meaningless or trifling
talk), and wibble-wobble (move unsteadily). In ickle-ockle, this vowel
alternation is in initial position. In wish-wash and wishy-washy, it is

caused by the transition from to after .
Other vowel patterns are far less frequent, or even constitute isolated
cases (Marchand 1969: 431), as in feery-fary, gew-gaw, say-so, see-
saw, shiffle-shuffle. For evident physiological reasons, a high vowel is
generally in first position, with very few exceptions (hoo-ha).
Ablaut combinations, as Marchand (1969: 429) calls them, are con-

nected with iconicity and symbolism, represented by a systematic alternation
or polarity of vowels. This polarity may suggest to and fro rhythm in words
expressive of movement (criss-cross, flip-flop, wigwag, zigzag), or a two-
phase movement in games (kit-cat, ping-pong); it may also express an idea
of hesitation, vacillation, indecision, as in dilly-dally, shilly-shally. A vari-
ant to the same concept is the expression of ambivalence and double-faced
character, as we find in flim-flam and whim-wham. The idea of confusion
(mish-mash, skimble-skamble) is also suggested by the same polarity. In
general, this polarity may be expressive of a hesitant, doubtful or negative
attitude towards the referent, as in the many words for idle talk (chitchat,
gibble-gabble, twiddle-twaddle), or in nig-nog, ning-nong, riff-raff, and
ticky-tacky.133
5.1.3.2.2. Rhyming reduplicatives (or rime combinations in Marchand

1969: 432) exhibit repetition of the same basic component (a morpheme or
pseudo-morpheme) with consonant gemination. The two elements (twins or
daughters) are therefore joined by rhyme, but only one of them is meaning-
ful.
This type, like the previous one, does not exhibit constraints as to where
the meaningful constituent is positioned: it may be the left-most element, as
in fuzzy-wuzzy, hotsy-totsy (slang, based on hot), hurly-burly, roly-poly
(from roll), super-duper, or (more rarely) the right-most one, as in hubble-
bubble. It is to be noted that some reduplicatives given by Marchand (1969:
434) as based on the right element are described in OED2 as being of uncer-
tain etymology, for example the synonymous harum-scarum and helter-
skelter, or higgledy-piggledy, said to be a play on (almost unrecognisable)
pig. The adjective teeny-weeny, and its variant teensy-weensy (with a cumu-
lation of suffixes), are based both on alterations of tiny and of wee (as the
semantics suggests) (cf. Merlini Barbaresi 2008: 230; Marchand 1969:
434). In okey-dokey and okle-dokle, the base is an initialism (O.K.). Both
bases are unmotivated in boogie-woogie, hocus-pocus, and mumbo-jumbo.
152 Reduplicatives
Recurrent patterns of consonantal apophony are more difficult to identify

than the patterns of vowel apophony: we find only preferences. The element
occurring in the second part of the combination often starts with a labial
consonant (Dienhart 1999: 23).
Examples with the bilabial plosive include: Charlie-parlie (pet form

of the name Charles), clatter-patter (of a horse), Georgy-Porgy (from
a personal name), hanky-panky (trickery), higgledy-piggledy (confu-
sion), hocus-pocus (jugglery, trickery, also hokey-pokey), hodge-
podge (heterogeneous mixture), Lodgie-Podgie (Ruskin, from Logic),
namby-pamby (weakly sentimental in style), niminy-piminy (very
small; effeminate), roly-poly (short and pudgy), and rumpy-pumpy
(sexual intercourse).
The pattern with the corresponding voiced is illustrated by argle-
bargle, argy-bargy (vigorous discussion or dispute, both slang, from
argue), holus-bolus (altogether; all at once), hubble-bubble (uproar),
hunkum-bunkum (excellent), hurly-burly (confusion, struggle), and
itsy-bitsy (very small).
Another frequent pattern is with the bilabial approximant , as in
Andy Wandy, boogie-woogie (form of instrumental blues), curly-wurly
(a fantastically curling ornament), eensy-weensy (tiny), kickie-
whickie (wife, woman), palsy-walsy (friendly), peewee (very
small), pinkie-winkie (a pastime), popsy-wopsy (little girl; father),
pow-wow (a noisy assembly), slang-whang (nonsense, abusive talk),
snuggly-wuggly (caressing adjective), teensy-weensy and tootsie-
wootsie (slang, sweetheart and in pl. feet), and twisty-wisty (in a
twisty manner). Merlini Barbaresi (2008: 232) also mentions fuzzy-
wuzzy, Lizzy-Wizzy (also Liz-Wiz, from Elizabeth), owlie-wowlie, and a
series of reduplicatives used by Ruskin in some intimate letters to his
family: diary-wiary, diffy-wiffy (difficult), growly-wowly, puzzled-
wazzled, tabby-wabby.
A frequent occurrence is the initial glottal fricative in the first ele-
ment of the combination, as in handy-dandy (convenient or useful),
hanky-panky (jugglery; trickery; sex; foolishness), heebie-jeebie(s) (a feel-
ing of discomfort, apprehension, or depression), hobnob (associate on
very friendly terms), hocus-pocus, hodgepodge, hoity-toity (preten-
tious), holy moly (used to express surprise), hotsy-totsy (just fine,
satisfactory), and many of the previously mentioned words. Other con-
sonantal alternations include: fuddy-duddy, killer-diller, loco-foco,
mumbo-jumbo, pokemoke, ragtag (also tagrag), ram-jam, and super-

duper (Wang 2005: 513).
In the rhyming type, only rarely does one of the constituents start with a
vowel: argle-bargle, argy-bargy, artsy-fartsy or arty-farty (arty),
eensy-weensy, even Steven (also spelt even Stephen having no debt on
either side), itsy-bitsy, and itty-bitty constitute a small group of exam-
ples (see also Andy Wandy). The etymology of arsy-versy (in a back-
ward or thoroughly mixed-up fashion; contrary), from slang arse and
Latin versus, makes this reduplicative close to being a regular com-
pound (see 5.1.3.2.3).
In the final type, the initial consonant of the replicatum may be replaced
by the consonant cluster shm-, also spelt schm-, as in apple-shmapple,
art-shmart, cant-shmant, child schmild, clever-shmever, crisis-
shmisis, fancy-shmancy, marry-shmarry, moon-schmoon, etc. This sub-
type appears more predictable than the previous ones, in that variability
depends on the initial phoneme of the first constituent, which may be a
lone consonant (baby shmaby, table-shmable), a consonant cluster
(breakfast shmreakfast or gravity schmavity, plan shman), or a vowel
(arcade-shmarcade, opinion shmopinion). Furthermore, shm-
reduplication always exhibits a replicatum-replicans correspondence (i.e.
*shmopy copy is impossible). Syntactically, this type of formation is
marked by a topic-initial position (e.g. Europe-Shmeurope, who wants
to go there!). According to Nevins and Vaux (2007), shm-reduplication
came into English from Yiddish, where words beginning with s(c)hm-
have negative connotations. Indeed, this type of construction generally
shows a dismissive usage, but can also be employed to downplay a
situation or problem that is potentially overwhelming or threatening, or
to lighten a situation with humour (Nevins and Vaux 2007; see also
Katamba 2009).134
Rhyming reduplicatives, like ablaut combinations, can be accommodated

into a restricted number of semantic groups. Rhyme seems particularly used
in the sphere of jugglery, trickery, secrecy, as in handy-dandy, hocus-pocus,
hokey-pokey, or to convey an idea of confusion, disorder, as in higgledy-
piggledy, hurly-burly. Some rhyming reduplicatives also convey a deroga-
tory meaning, as in fuddy-duddy (old-fashioned person). Marchand (1969:
434) finds this type characterised by non-seriousness, and principally repre-
sented by nursery words: Humpty-Dumpty, popsy-wopsy. Rhyme is indeed
less serious than ablaut, which in English and other Indo-European lan-
guages can play a grammatical role: e.g., drink/drank/drunk.
154 Reduplicatives
5.1.3.2.3. Rhyming compounds as the name itself suggests are in be-

tween rhyming reduplicatives and canonical compounds. Like the former,
they are phonologically marked by rhyme, like the latter, they are motivated
by two meaningful constituents. Some examples are: artsy-craftsy (preten-
tious), chug-drug (the sound of an explosion), clap-trap (nonsensical
talk), flubdub (nonsense), funny bunny (peculiar), harum-scarum (reck-
less; disorganised, from the verbs hare and scare), hugger-mugger (se-
crecy; disorder, confusion), humdrum (bore), nitwit (stupid or foolish
person), peepie-creepie (a portable television camera), razzle-dazzle
(showiness; jollity), rumble-tumble (rough or chaotic activity), and stinky
pinky (type of word game). Although two bases are here recognisable, as a
consequence of a preference for binary relationships, they do not contribute
to the meaning of the rhyming combination as regular bases do in canonical
compounds. For instance, a chug-drug is not a type of drug, nor is funny
bunny a type of bunny. They are semantically non-compositional, and the
overall meaning is neither literally nor metaphorically suggested by the two
bases.
This class, pioneered by Merlini Barbaresi (2008), does not include what
Minkova (2002: 135) calls syntactic compounds with an anchored head,
that is regular compounds in which one part clearly modifies the other, as in
bedspread, brain drain, cookbook, funny money, payday, toy boy (the
younger partner of an older woman), zoot suit, etc.135 The regularity of
these combinations is evident from two main conditions: 1) they are endocen-
tric and hence clearly exhibit a syntactic head: i.e. a bedspread is a type of
spread, brain drain is a type of drain, a cookbook is a type of book, etc.,
and 2) they have a unitary meaning contributed by both bases, which can be
paraphrased as a spread for beds, a drain of brains, a book for cooking,
or, metaphorically, as a boy who is a toy.
Other regular compounds which have to be kept distinct from the class of
rhyming compounds include exocentric compounds (mainly belonging to
slang use or jargon), like culture vulture (a person who is voracious for
culture), fag hag (heterosexual female who seeks out male homosexuals,
fag is from faggot), fat cat (a political backer), fender-bender (a motor
accident), gender-bender (a person who deliberately affects an androgy-
nous appearance), jelly-belly (a fat person), town clown (a policeman
working in a village or small town), and the recent creature-feature (a
movie that includes a monster or similarly scary entity), happy-clappy
(excellent), lap tap (the act of left clicking on a computer by tapping
lightly on the touchpad instead of clicking the left mouse key, formed by
analogy with lap top), and Vomit Comet (airplane used to give astronauts
experience of weightlessness). These, again, are modelled on the phonologi-

cal pattern of rhyming compounds, but their overall meaning is regularly
contributed by both bases, at various degrees of metaphoric interpretation.
Other rhyming doublets which are semantically unmotivated, but have an
etymological explanation are: mayday (distress signal), seabee (member
of the construction battalion of the US Navy), and willy-nilly. According to
Dienhart (1999: 910), mayday, which is of course not a day in May, is
coined after French (venez) maider, its rhyme being a necessary addition to
ease memorisation. For seabee, Dienhart (1999) provides a different expla-
nation: the origin is from the pronunciation of the initialism C.B. (Construc-
tion Battalion), later turned into seabee to bring in naval associations.
Lastly, willy-nilly (willingly or unwillingly, without choice) is modelled on
Latin nolens volens and comes from the Old English bases will and nill
(2.3.5.1). However, its Australian sense a cyclone or dust-storm seems not
to be connected with this etymology.
A case of difficult classification is walkie-talkie (combined transmitter
and receiver), which Marchand (1969: 436) considers a playful combina-
tion whose elements were attracted by the aesthetic element of rhyme. Mer-
lini Barbaresi (2008: 231) includes it both in the class of rhyming reduplica-
tives and in the class of reduplicative compounds. Both bases are
meaningful, which suggests their exclusion from rhyming reduplicatives, but
the meaning of the verbal bases to walk and to talk is not totally distant from
the meaning of their combination a device through which one talks while
walking. Like copulative compounds, walkie-talkie is made up of two se-
mantically related modifiers which have their head (device) outside the
compound. This is the reason why I find walkie-talkie closer to regular com-
pounds marked by rhyme (the cookbook type) than to rhyming compounds
of the type chug-drug.
As this brief discussion shows, the line dividing rhyming compounds
from regular compounds exhibiting rhyming constituents is subtle, and in
ambiguous cases a semantic analysis appears the most legitimate and inter-
esting line to follow.
5.1.3.3. The last category of reduplicatives worthy of attention is the ono-

matopoeic type, examples of which have not been included in the above clas-
sification, though individual onomatopoeic reduplicatives do fall into the
copy, ablaut or rhyming classes, as in clop-clop, ding-dong, bow-wow.
Onomatopoeic reduplicatives or ideophones (cf. Voeltz and Kilian-
Hatz 2001), such as bow-wow, are not based on actual words. They are
156 Reduplicatives
primary phonosymbolic formations which resemble their referent audito-

rily (Baldi 2000: 964).136 They represent iterative sounds through the use of
repeated monosyllables, imitating either a natural sound, or one produced by
humans, animals, engines, etc. (cf. unrepeated onomatopoeic sounds like
bang, boom, meow). Following the previous groupings, we can further dis-
tinguish between three subcategories.
Repetitive items, which correspond most closely to the copy type, consti-
tute the largest number of onomatopoeic reduplicatives. Examples in-
clude animal noises, such as arf-arf (dog), baa-baa (sheep or lamb),
jug-jug (nightingale), meow-meow (cat), oink-oink (pig), quack-quack
(duck), tweet-tweet, weet-weet (bird), and woofle-woofle (dog). In baby
talk and nursery language, some of these reduplicative onomatopoeias
are used as nouns, to label the animals themselves.137
Sounds produced by humans also belong to this type: e.g., laughter (ha-
ha, hah hah), footsteps (chug-chug, clop-clop, patter-patter, pattle-
pattle), chatting (blah-blah, gobble-gobble), breathing (pech-pech), ex-
pressing derision or disdain (ho-ho, pooh-pooh), complaining (munge-
munge), swallowing (glut-glut), expressing enjoyment, especially in the
taste of food (yum yum), etc.
Sounds produced by musical instruments are represented by clang-clang
(bells), diddle-diddle (fiddle), honk-honk (motor horn), pip-pip (motor
car horn), tam-tam (gong), tan-tan, tom-tom (drum). They may be used
as verbs, as in tum-tum (to play monotonously).
The last group of reduplicative onomatopoeias comprise noises pro-
duced by objects or things in movement, such as choo-choo, chuff-chuff
(train), chug-chug (engine), click-click (pins, needles), frou-frou (cloth-
ing), hish-hish (rain), ramp-ramp (sea), snip-snip (scissors), ting-ting
(small bell, glass), tuff-tuff (gas), and woo-woo (wind). Tick-tick is not
only imitative of the sound of the clock, but also a childrens name for
the object itself.
In all these words, the bases are only motivated phonologically, and
word repetition iconically echoes the repetition of sounds.
In onomatopoeic reduplicatives following the ablaut pattern, vowel
variation symbolises polarity, especially a bipolar range of sound possi-
bilities (Marchand 1969: 431).
Again, there are words which indicate sounds produced by animals
(cherry-churry the note of the lesser pettychaps, plit-plat or trit-trot
sound of trotting, prid-prad the blue titmouse, twit-twat noise of the
house-sparrow), and sounds produced by people, especially indicating
vain chatter (bibble-babble, blib(ber)-blab(ber), blish-blash, bribble-

brabble, tittle-tattle) and the noise produced by many people talking at
once (gibbie-gabbie, giggle-gaggle, liglag), as well as other human
noises (pid-pad the sound of footsteps, smick-smack a smacking
noise, whittie-whattie to speak low or secretly, yolp-yalp a snarl,
with an unusual vowel alternation).
The imitation of sounds produced by musical instruments motivates the
following reduplicatives: bim-bom or ding-dong (the sound of bells),
diddle-daddle (violin music), strim-stram (a rude stringed instrument
of the guitar kind), strim-strum (unmusical), twing(le)-twang(le) (the
sound of a harp).
Other general noises include: brittle-brattle (hurried motion causing a
clattering noise), click-clack (the noise of the watch), pinkle-pankle
(the sound of liquid in a bottle), pipple-papple (to patter, pop), snip-
snap (the imitation of the sound of the scissors), (s)plish-(s)plash (to
splash repeatedly), tick-tack, tick-tock (imitation of the ticking of a
clock).
In onomatopoeic reduplicatives following the rhyming pattern we can
likewise include animal noises, such as bow-wow (barking), cawdey-
mawdey (the hooded crow), curmur (the purring of a cat), hee-haw
(the noise of the donkey), huzz-buzz (the common cockchafer), pink-
twink (the chaffinch), pooly-wooly (the cry of the curlew), row-dow
(the noise of the sparrow), terry-rerry (the song of the blackbird),
too-whoo (the sound of an owl), and wey-hey (the sound uttered by
horses).
Other rhyming reduplicatives of this type designate sounds produced by
people, such as cushle-mushle (a low whispering), howk-chowk (the
noise as if poking in deep mud), hummel-bummel (an imitation of
mumbling), mack-lack (to do something in a clattering way), mumble-
jumble (to speak indistinctly and incoherently), trill-ill (the sound of
flowing liquid, with two meaningful bases but no compositional mean-
ing), tug-slug (to make a noise in walking), and yaw-haw (to laugh
rudely and noisily).
The imitation of musical instruments generates the following onomato-
poeias: ran-dan (the sound of the bells), toodle-loodle (the sound of a
pipe or a flute), tra-ra (the noise of a horn), and, with a sort of infix,
rub-a-dub and hub-a-dub (the sound made in beating a drum).
Table 6 summarises the types, subtypes, and patterns described in this sec-
tion, though without a specific grouping of the onomatopoeic type.
158 Reduplicatives
Table 6. Types and examples of English reduplicatives
Type Description Subtype Pattern Examples

Total/Full A sound, Copy/Exact With non- ta-ta, onom.
Reduplica- word or word reduplicative existent rep- meow-meow
tion part is ex- licatum
actly repeated With existent fifty-fifty
in the repli- replicatum fifty
cans With short- ju-ju
ened replica- marijuana
tum
With extra cloppety-clop
syllable(s) clop
added to the
first element
Partial Redu- Only a part of Ablaut/ With ~ chitchat
plication a word is Apophonic alternation chat, onom.
repeated in reduplicative tick-tack
the replicans With ~ criss-cross
alternation cross,
onom. ding-
dong
With an shiffle-shuffle
infrequent shuffle,
alternation onom. yolp-
yalp
Rhyming The second hocus-pocus,
reduplicative element argle-bargle
starts with a argue,
labial , , slang-whang
or slang,
onom. bow-
wow
The first hocus-pocus,
element onom.
starts with a hooble-
glottal gooble
The replicans apple-
starts with shmapple
the cluster apple, child
s(c)hm- schmild
child
Reduplication as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 159
Rhyming With mean- funny bunny

compound ingful and peculiar,
rhyming onom. trill-ill
bases, but no the sound of
composi- flowing liq-
tional mean- uid
ing
5.2. Reduplication as an extra-grammatical phenomenon
Reduplicatives constitute a heterogeneous set of words typically character-

ised by phonetic features (repetition, rhyme, vowel alternation, consonant
gemination, onomatopoeia), but with a low degree of morphological regular-
ity. The main recurrent patterns which have been discussed are based on
phonological constraints rather than on morphological rules. This explains
why reduplication has attracted the attention of many phonological studies,
but has been neglected or marginalised in morphology.
English reduplicatives have been recently described in terms of extra-
grammatical morphology by Merlini Barbaresi (2008: 229), who claims that
the process of their formation is not rule-governed, in the sense that they
exhibit various violations of basic properties of morphological grammar.
She summarises the primary violations of grammatical rules as: 1) non-
componential semantics and irregular morphotactics, 2) absence of semantic
change, and 3) absence of head and unrecognisable bases. French reduplica-
tives have been described in similar terms by Kilani-Schoch and Dressler
(forth.), who exclude the possibility of treating reduplication in terms of
either grammatical or morphopragmatic rules. Like diminutives in several
languages (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994), it involves empathy or
endearment in child- or love-centred speech situations, but in other situations
it expresses derogatoriness or rudeness, as in hoity-toity, roly-poly, and all
shm-formations.
Onomatopoeias constitute the most irregular type. According to Voeltz
and Kilian-Hatz (2001: 3), ideophones have the unique property of simulat-
ing an event, an emotion, a perception through language.
160 Reduplicatives
5.2.1. Irregularities in reduplicatives
Reduplicatives represent a phonological class of their own, with several

phonetic and prosodic regularities (Dienhart 1999). However, from the point
of view of their morphology, many irregularities exclude them from word-
formation rules. English reduplication is confined to extra-grammatical mor-
phology (2.3.7.12.3.7.10) for the following reasons.
5.2.1.1. Morphotactic irregularity and output (un-)predictability. Redupli-

catives exhibit some degree of very general regularity but their output, which
involves either identical or partial repetition, is difficult to predict. Either the
internal vowel or the initial consonant may change in the replicans. At times
the base is truncated, as in din-din, or made unrecognisable by the modifica-
tion of some grapheme or phoneme (teeny-weeny from tiny and wee), or by
the addition of familiarising suffixes, as in lovey-dovey. Additional meaning-
less elements may be inserted, as in clickety-clack, clinkety-clank, clippety-
clop, where -ety increases the opaqueness of the ablaut formations.
5.2.1.2. Alternative outputs. As in the case of blends, reduplication is more

permissive than morphological rules in terms of its output structure.
Whereas the only variation in compounds concerns spelling i.e. as one
word, with a hyphen, or as two words (wordformation vs. word-formation
vs. word formation)138 reduplicatives are ony loosely restricted and vari-
ants may occur: e.g., argle-bargle and argy-bargy (from argue), chit-chat
and chitter-chatter (from chat). There is even more interspeaker variation
(Zwicky and Pullum 1987) in child-centred speech (teeny-weeny, teensy-
weensy, eensy-weensy). Alternative outputs may also discriminate between
one category or another (cf. copy tick-tick vs. ablaut tick-tock), or between
one pattern and another (cf. tick-tock vs. tick-tack with different vowel alter-
nation).
5.2.1.3. Non-morphematic analysis. While regular formations are transpar-

ently analysable and segmented into morphemes, the bases of reduplicatives
are almost unrecognisable and often meaningless (at least the replicans).
Onomatopoeic formations like bow-wow or choo-choo even repeat sounds,
rather than actual words, which cannot be considered bases, since they do
not occur autonomously in the language. When there is a meaningful base, it
is often made unrecognisable or opaque by shortening devices (gale-gale

nightingale, goo-goo, rah-rah), or by extra material added to convey a non-
serious feature (clickety-click, see 5.1.3.1 above). Note that there are no
clear morphological constraints on truncation, only preferences, for example
the preference for left-edged reduplications in baby talk (wa-wa water),
which may be compared with examples such as Liz-Wiz ( (E)liz(abeth)) in
hypocoristics and rah-rah ( (hur)rah) above.
5.2.1.4. Uncertain headedness. For reasons explained in 5.1.3.3, onomato-

poeic reduplicatives of the type clang-clang and frou-frou are typically
headless. Reduplicatives connected with child- or love-centred speech situa-
tions are also acephalous: there is no head in ta-ta. In the ablaut and rhym-
ing types, the head may occupy the left-most (super-duper, fuzzy-wuzzy) or
right-most position (criss-cross, hubble-bubble), variability depending on
prosodic factors. When both bases are meaningful (sing-song), neither of
them is the semantic head, when they are unmotivated (hocus-pocus, riff-
raff), no headedness can be assigned.
5.2.1.5. Alternative input categories. Whereas word-formation rules apply

to specific classes of bases, in the case of reduplicatives there are a number
of different types of base possible. We find nominal bases (kit-cat), proper
names (Charlie-parlie, Pedro-Schmedro), adjectives (arty-farty), full verbs
(argle-bargle), including participle forms (locked-shmocked), and even aux-
iliary verbs (cant-shmant, willy-nilly). In the case of okey-dokey, the input
is an initialism.
5.2.1.6. Unchanged denotative meaning. Reduplication in English does not

usually produce new words, unlike rules. Reduplicatives have no new deno-
tative semantic meaning, but only pragmatic values, such as empathy, en-
dearment, or even derogatory attitude depending on the speech context and
addressee. By contrast, grammatical derivation only rarely results in prag-
matic meaning (e.g. non-seriousness in diminutives, Dressler and Merlini
Barbaresi 1994; cautiousness or detachment in negative prefixes, Mattiello
2009); rather, it is generally accompanied by a change in semantic meaning
(e.g. smallness in diminutives; negation, contradiction, etc. in negative pre-
fixes).
162 Reduplicatives
To summarise, the operation of reduplication appears to have no grammati-

cal constraints regarding bases, but only vague tendencies, and these are of a
phonological nature. No homogeneous morphological classes can be estab-
lished among reduplicative forms. With the exception of certain lexicalised
forms (e.g. ping-pong, yo-yo, zigzag), reduplication does not form new
words, in terms of new semantic meanings, but only variants, selecting a
specific audience or speech situation. It only exhibits some pragmatic fea-
tures, which qualify it as an extra-grammatical phenomenon.
5.2.2. Regularities in reduplicatives
As we have seen in the classification provided in 5.1.3, English reduplica-

tives exhibit some regularities of a phonological nature. Their structural
properties are only preferences based on universal parameters. They do not
allow stable predictions, but only discriminate between prototypicality and
marginality. In the following subsections an attempt is made to list some
generalisations.
5.2.2.1. Preference for binary structure. Like blends and canonical com-
pounds, reduplicatives exhibit a tendency for a binary structure (bye-bye,
hob-nob, zigzag). Triplets (tick-tack-toe) or trinomials (Milly Molly Mandy)
are dispreferred. Insertions interrupting the concatenation process, as in ting-
a-ling, are also dispreferred. Rather, additions are made to both constituents,
as in Lizzy-Wizzy, lovey-dovey, in order to favour rhyme.
5.2.2.2. Preference for disyllabic structure. Reduplicatives are very often

reduplications of monosyllabic units. Thus, they tend to be disyllabic forma-
tions (clop-clop, liglag). However, polysyllabic reduplicatives may also
occur (clitter-clatter, limo-limo a hot lime drink), especially after -ie/-y or
-ety/-ity suffixation on either one (bibbity-bob, clickety-clack) or both con-
stituents (boogie-woogie, walkie-talkie, fuddy-duddy, hoity-toity).
The simplified structure of English reduplication includes some recurrent
templates. For full reduplication, CV.CV (wee wee) and CVC.CVC (dum-
dum) are the most frequent patterns. For partial reduplication, CV1C.CV2C
(ding-dong, zigzag) is most likely to occur in the ablaut type, C1VC.C2VC
(hob-nob, hub-bub) or C1V.C2V.C3V.C2V (roly-poly, willy-nilly) in the
rhyming type.
5.2.2.3. Tendency towards initial consonant. All types exhibit a tendency

towards consonantal onset. In copy reduplicatives, exceptions are rare: e.g.,
onomatopoeic arf-arf and oink-oink. In the ablaut type, vowel alternation is
more likely to occur in middle position, an exception being ickle-ockle. In
the rhyming type, the second element generally starts with a consonant, the
first one may also begin with a vowel, as in argle-bargle, art-shmart, itsy-
bitsy, okey-dokey.
5.2.2.4. Consonant/Vowel change. The rhyming and ablaut types exhibit an

apophony of the initial consonant or a gradation of the internal vowel. Wang
(2005: 513) distinguishes between the following patterns:
1) consonant apophony preferentially follows an h-C pattern (handy-
dandy, hobnob, hurly-burly), or a C-w pattern (bow-wow, popsy-wopsy,
teeny-weeny);
2) vowel gradation is normally between ~ (chitchat, drizzle-
drazzle, riprap) or ~ (criss-cross, ding-dong, flip-flop), with very few
exceptions (see 5.1.3.2).
5.2.2.5. Single or double stress pattern. For each type, Dienhart (1999)
distinguishes between single and double stress. Copy reduplicatives with
single stress are generally nouns from a monosyllabic base (bo-boo, chw-
chow), whereas those with double stress are not nouns (e.g. verb poh-poh,
adverb chp-chp), or their bases are polysyllabic (wnga-wnga type of
Australian wine). Rhyming reduplicatives with a primary stress on the first
syllable are based on monosyllabic elements (hdge-podge, ntwit), while
those with double stress are based on polysyllabic elements (hkey-pkey,
sper-dper). Rhyming compounds, by contrast, have single stress (clture
vulture, fnder-bender, gnder-bender). Lastly, ablaut reduplicatives also
exhibit single stress (cht-chat, clp-clop), regardless of the lexical category
or number of syllables. All the above generalisations, however, have coun-
terexamples in English (see Dienhart 1999).
5.2.2.6. Tendency towards nominal outputs. Another tendency of reduplica-

tion is to form nouns, as in argle-bargle (vigorous discussion), boo-boo
(an error), etc. But they can also cover other syntactic categories, such as
verbs (criss-cross to move back and forth over something, dilly-dally to
vacillate, waste time), adjectives, often with intensification (rah-rah very
164 Reduplicatives
enthusiastic), adverbs (chop-chop quickly, helter-skelter in headlong and

disorderly haste), and interjections (ha-ha used to express amusement, tut-
tut used to express contempt, yum yum).
5.2.2.7. Word status. English reduplicatives behave like other ordinary

words. That is, nouns are regularly inflected with a plural suffix (bye-bye-s),
and verbs with a past tense suffix (cha-cha-ed, yoyo-ed). With regard to
derivation, agentive nouns are regularly formed by adding an -er suffix (e.g.
a wig-wag-g-er is someone who moves to and fro), whereas nominal de-
rivatives are obtained with the addition of -ing, as in chit-chat-t-ing, criss-
cross-ing. The verb hiphop-ize mentioned in the Introduction is regularly
derived from a nominal base. Merlini Barbaresi (2000: 5) also mentions the
apophonic reduplicative knick-knack, giving rise to a series of derivatives:
e.g., knick-knackery, knick-knacky, knick-knackish, and the diminutive
knick-knacket.
5.2.2.8. Semantic indeterminacy. Unlike other extra-grammatical phenom-

ena, reduplication in English is characterised by a certain semantic indeter-
minacy and vagueness. With the exception of the onomatopoeic type and of
hypocoristics, reduplicatives can be accommodated within a limited number
of meaning areas: i.e., pretentiousness (artsy-fartsy), smallness (itsy-bitsy),
indecision (shilly-shally), confusion (higgledy-piggledy), trickery (hokey-
pokey), foolishness or inferior quality (nit-wit, nig-nog).139 Many such
words are mutually substitutable: examples are the numerous options indi-
cating smallness (bitsy-witsy, itty-bitty, teeny-weeny, etc.). Only rare cases
(nick-nack, nitty-gritty, tussie-mussie) are semantically specific.
5.2.2.9. Iconicity. Like blends, reduplicatives are characterised by their

iconic nature.140 Alternating movements or vacillation, hesitation, and disor-
der are iconically represented by the alternation of vowels or consonants (see
Alternation in 5.2.4). In the ablaut type (ding-dong, zigzag), alternation
metaphorically indicates movement in opposite directions. In the rhyming
type (shilly-shally, willy-nilly), it is more likely to indicate indecision. In
super-duper, formal redundancy is an index of meaning redundancy. In the
onomatopoeic type (bibble-babble, trit-trot), the iconicity lies between intra-
linguistic elements and the extra-linguistic world. Exact repetition, as in the
ha-ha or bye-bye type, is echoic of reiteration (repeated laughter, waving of

the hand, etc.).
5.2.3. Predictability in reduplicatives
Are the previous tendencies also criteria of predictability? Can we imagine

novel reduplicatives being coined on the basis of the templates for existing
ones? In English, reduplicatives show some regularities in their outputs, but
there are several examples which escape fixed patterns, and many which are
coined from the same inputs, following different types. Although reduplica-
tives are predictable, at least to a certain extent, in terms of their semantic
value (5.2.2.8) and iconic character (5.2.2.9), their form is very difficult to
predict. The exact shape of the ablaut and rhyming types is often erratic,
while the shape of onomatopoeic items is not morphologically, but phono-
symbolically determined.
Let us consider the new, invented, instances reported in Table 7.
Table 7. Possible reduplicatives from existing source words or onomatopoeic

sounds
Base Possible reduplicative

(1) quick quick-quick, quick-quack, quickie-
quackie, quick-quock, quick-wick,
hick-quick, quickety-quick, etc.
(2) dog dog-dog, dig-dog, diggie-doggie,
diggy-doggy, dog-wog, hog-dog
(3) stop stop-stop, stip-stop, stippy-stoppy,
stop-wop, stop-pop, hop-stop
(4) sexy sexy-sexy, sexy-wexy, sexy-pexy,
sexy-bexy, sexy-saxy
(5) Bob ( Robert) Bob-Bob, Bib-Bob, Bob-Wob, Bobbie-
Wobbie, Bob-Rob
(6) mag ( magazine) mag-mag, mag-wag, hag-mag, mig-
mag, mig-a-mag
(7) chip (onomatopoeic of a birds chip-chip, chip-chap, chippy-chappy,
noise) chip-wip, hip-chip
(8) trum (onomatopoeic of cars noise) trum-trum, trum-wum, trum-tram
Again, the choice of the bases in the first column is not arbitrary. With
the exception of sexy, they all consist of one syllable, which is a general
166 Reduplicatives
preference in reduplication (5.2.2.2). Two polysyllabic bases (Robert and

magazine) naturally give rise to monosyllabic truncated forms. All selected
bases start with a consonant, which is another tendency (5.2.2.3). The bases
belong to various syntactic categories, as do the outputs, although nouns
prevail over the other classes (5.2.2.6). The bases in (7) and (8) are intended
to be onomatopoeic of some noise or sound, and therefore to have no denota-
tional meaning. Accidentally, chip happens to be homophonous with an Eng-
lish word, but its meaning is different.
As for outputs, in accordance with 5.2.2.1, I have excluded triplets from
potential formations, since they are dispreferred. I have offered instances
falling into the various types and subtypes, and the recurrent templates in
5.2.2.2 seem to be well illustrated by these outputs. Extensions with an -ie/-y
(also -ety) suffix have been envisaged for nearly all cases (e.g. quickie-
quackie, quickety-quick, stippy-stoppy), mostly to favour rhyme, at the ex-
pense of shortness (cf. 5.2.2.2). In (4), the adjectival suffix -y could not be
added to the homophone -ie or the homograph -y. A (meaningless) infix -a-
has also been envisaged to divide the components in mig-a-mag.
The potential reduplicatives offered in the second column show that, for
all bases, an exact copy is possible. The ablaut type is possible with both
common vowel alternations (see 5.2.2.4) when the stressed vowel of the base
is (quick-quack, quick-quock). When it is , as in dog, only ~ (dig-
dog) has been offered. Other, infrequent, vowel alternations have not been
considered, except in (4), where the reduplication sexy-saxy has been in-
cluded as an attempt to apply the ablaut pattern. Onomatopoeic trum-tram
in (8) would be likewise dispreferred.
Results also show that the replicans may happen to be an existing word,
such as hick, quack, wick in (1), or hog, wog in (2). In these cases, the for-
mations are rhyming compounds rather than rhyming reduplicatives, because
both bases are meaningful, but they do not contribute to a unitary meaning
of the whole. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, the formations in
(7) are not based on the existing base chip, but on an onomatopoeic word
which is accidentally homophonous with it (cf. existing tweet-tweet, weet-
weet referring to a bird song).
As far as semantics is concerned, I have not attempted to assign mean-
ings to the above new formations, because what I wish to demonstrate is that
they are morphologically difficult to predict, and this appears corroborated
by the many alternative outputs produced.
This tentative analysis and the provisional results obtained verify my hy-
pothesis that there is no stability in reduplicative formation. Regularities and
tendencies do not operate on bases as word-formation rules do. While many

of the above-mentioned criteria can be disconfirmed by a number of counter-
examples, the extra-grammaticality of the overall phenomenon is certainly
confirmed.
The tendencies and (sub)regularities identified in 5.2.2 are not rigid or sta-
ble, and do not allow full predictability, but they can help us formulate some
preferential criteria of formation for reduplicatives. The first criterion con-
cerns their analogical nature.
Analogy. Existing types and subtypes of reduplicatives provide patterns

for new formations to be coined on the basis of analogy (structural simi-
larity). The names given to the characters of the television series In the
Night Garden are all based on existing patterns: e.g., Pinky Ponk and
Ninky Nonk belong to the ablaut type of tick-tock, with an ~ alter-
nation and an extension of the first element; Igglepiggle and Makka
Pakka, by contrast, belong to the rhyming type, especially that with a bi-
labial plosive at the beginning of the second element (as in higgledy-
piggledy and hanky-panky). The onomatopoeic type is found in the
name of the Haahoos.
Binarity. Reduplicative words exhibit a binary structure. Ternary pat-
terns are rare and can be viewed as double duplications of the same rep-
licatum. In onomatopoeic reduplicatives, binarity is an echo to sound
repetition. In the other types, it is an icon, an index, or a metaphor of
wavering movements or indecisive behaviour.
Similarity. In reduplicatives, replicans and replicatum are linked by a
relationship of similarity or even identity. In the copy type, one is the
exact replica of the other, whereas in the ablaut and rhyming types simi-
larity is in terms of the same consonantal contour or identical rhyme.
Rhythm. Reduplicatives can be viewed as rhythmical units, i.e. words
characterised by a repetition of sounds, morphemes, words, or parts of
words, and acquiring single or double stress depending on the syntactic
and phonological properties of the replicatum.
With the exception of the copy type, criteria of well-formedness also in-
volve:
168 Reduplicatives
Alternation. In the ablaut type alternation concerns a modification or

gradation of the internal vowel, whereas in the rhyming type the allitera-
tive sound is modified, generally fluctuating between two different con-
sonantal sounds, or sometimes alternating an initial consonant with a
vowel sound.
For rhyming compounds, another criterion must be mentioned:
Meaningfulness. The bases must be meaningful, although they do not

provide a unitary meaning. In other words, unlike transparent endocen-
tric compounds, rhyming compounds are non-compositional: i.e., the
meaning of the whole compound is not regularly derived by the combi-
nation of the meanings of the bases.
Chapter 6
Minor phenomena
This chapter deals with three minor phenomena, namely back-formation (e.g.
edit editor), infixation (e.g. -blooming- in abso-blooming-lutely), and
phonaesthemes (e.g. gl- in glass, gleam, glisten, etc.). These phenomena are
obviously different from many viewpoints and their treatment in the same
chapter may appear somewhat odd. My decision to include them under the
same heading is purely motivated by their marginal importance and lower
frequency in English. However, the use of marginal here does not refer to
marginal morphology (Doleschal and Thornton 2000; Dressler 2000).
Indeed, the three phenomena lie not at the boundary of morphological gram-
mar, but outside it, on the periphery of extra-grammatical morphology (see
2.3.2).
Both back-formation and infixation involve affixes, but not in the canoni-
cal sense. Back-formation involves subtraction of affixes from a supposedly
complex base, reanalysed as *edit + *-or by analogy with other formations
(e.g. act + -or). Infixation, by contrast, involves insertion of infixes within a
discontinuous base, as in the above-mentioned abso-blooming-lutely, or in
other peculiarly atypical positions, such as between morphemes (in-bloody-
tolerant). Therefore, they clearly depart from word-formation rules: unlike
ordinary derivation, back-formation removes, rather than adding, an affix,
whereas infixation interrupts a (simplex or complex) base, rather than regu-
larly attaching a bound morpheme to it, as in prefixation or suffixation (in-
+ tolerant + -ly). These considerations account for my inclusion of back-
formation and infixation in a book on extra-grammatical morphology.
The other phenomenon under investigation falls into the wider category of
phonetic symbolism, sound symbolism (Marchand 1969: 397), phono-
symbolism (Baldi 2000: 963), or echoism (Rastall 2004: 39). We have
seen some examples of primary phonosymbolism or onomatopoeia (i.e. di-
rect imitation of naturally occurring sounds or natural correspondence be-
tween sound and sense) in the classification of reduplicatives such as chuf-
chuf, ding-dong, tick-tack (5.1.3.3). Here I deal with another type of echoic
expression, which falls into the class of secondary phonosymbolism, or pho-
naesthesia, i.e. repetition for aesthetic or expressive effects (Firth 1930). For
instance, the initial phonemic sequence gl- is felt to be appropriate to the
meaning of the lexemes in the word group glass, gleam, glisten, and so
170 Minor phenomena
forth, in that it carries the idea of light, shine. This does not imply, how-
ever, that the phonomorph gl- can be systematically assigned a specific
meaning throughout the language: cf. the word gloom, whose meaning is
antithetical to lightness. Nor does it imply that the above-mentioned lex-
emes derive from a word-formation rule (e.g. *gl- + *ance), in that phonaes-
themes are not morphemes (Shisler 1997). As we will see in this chapter,
however, we can legitimately include them within extra-grammatical mor-
phology.
Among the phenomena discussed in this chapter, only back-formation
may be considered a derivational process, as the alternative label backderi-
vation used by Marchand (1969: 391) suggests. Back-formation changes
the syntactic class of the base, but it does so in an unusual direction (e.g.
Agent Noun Verb), and by subtracting, rather than adding material. In-
fixation, by contrast, is class-maintaining (adjective intolerant adjective
in-bloody-tolerant). Its relevance, indeed, is to expressive morphology
(Zwicky and Pullum 1987), because it is used not to form new words, but to
form negatively connoted variants, mostly, obscene deprecative formations
of the type just mentioned. Sound symbolism is equally irrelevant to deriva-
tion, in that its primary system of reference is phonology. Yet, against
Baldis (2000: 964) claim that words containing phonosymbolic segments
are not unconventional or expressive, I view phonaesthesia as emotionally
expressive: e.g., the sound , which is frequent with diminutive and pet
suffixes (dear-ie, girl-ie), is suggestive of the short emotive distance from
the addressee, while initial and , as in pish, pooh, fart, fuck, are gener-
ally used to express scorn, disapproval, or disgust (Marchand 1969: 397).
As discussed in 2.3.1, the terms extra-grammatical and expressive as
applied to morphology do not overlap, at least not completely. If it is true
that infixation and phonaesthemes have expressive value, the same is not
true for back-formation, which does not seem to convey any emotion,
whether positive or negative. The three phenomena examined in this chapter
lie outside morphological grammar because they infringe grammatical word-
formation rules, but they infringe different rules and not in the same ways.
Therefore a unitary account would be impracticable, and each phenomenon
will be described and analysed individually.
6.1. Back-formation: Definition, delimitation, and classification
The debate on back-formation is currently a heated one, and its relevance to

either diachronic or synchronic study is still a divisive issue. Aronoff (1976:
Back-formation: Definition, delimitation, and classification 171
27) and Quirk et al. (1985: 1522) claim that the process is of diachronic
relevance only, while from a synchronic perspective the shorter words (e.g.
edit) are to be considered the bases and the longer words (e.g. editor) the
derivatives. Bauer (1983: 230), Becker (1993: 6), and Nagano (2007: 35),
on the other hand, stress that it is a synchronic word-formation process in
English, in that, semantically, the shorter words depend on the longer ones
(e.g. edit means act as an editor), and not vice versa. Nagano (2007: 37
38, footnote 3) observes that the verb edit represents a special case of back-
formation, because it has not only a meaning involving the noun (i.e. act as
an editor), but also an independent, semantically detached, meaning, that of
prepare for publication. I believe that these two meanings are connected: in
fact, an editor prepares an edition of a work for publication.
Marchands (1963, 1969) position reconciles the two views. Although he
strongly claims that back-formation has diachronic relevance only and that
synchronic analysis is not affected by it (Marchand 1969: 391), he later
admits that content must be the final criterion of derivational relationship
for any pair of words (p. 392). Indeed, while the noun peddler can be se-
mantically analysed as one who peddles, although it is older than the verb,
the noun burglar cannot be analysed as one who burgles, because the verb
relies for its analysis on content features of the noun (i.e. burgle act the
burglar). Thus, if historically peddler and burglar are the bases, the former
must be regarded as the derivative for synchronic analysis, whereas the latter
is the derivational base. I agree with Marchand (1963, 1969) that semantic
analysis must be a fundamental criterion to distinguish between regular deri-
vation and back-formation. Yet diachronic study should also provide support
and evidence for the process involved, rather than contrasting with syn-
chronic study, as in the case of peddler/peddle.
Another controversial issue is whether back-formation should be consid-
ered as zero-derivation with affix dropping (Marchand 1969), as a kind of
shortening (Kreidler 1979, 2000; Stockwell and Minkova 2001), as a special
case of clipping (Bauer 1983), or as a combination of conversion and clip-
ping (Nagano 2007). Scholars do not agree on whether back-derivation is
actually the reverse of derivation, or on whether it involves real affixes, sup-
posed ones (Plag 2003: 37), or no affix at all. For Plag (2003: 37), back-
formation is not a derivational, but an analogical process, very close to the
process operating in the coinage of, for example, air-sick, after sea-sick. I
likewise believe that analogy is the principle governing back-formation
(6.2.4).
Terminology, by contrast, appears less contentious, since the most com-
mon labels used to refer to the process being discussed are back-formation
172 Minor phenomena
and back-derivation. I will not use them interchangeably, though, because,

as Bauer (1983: 230231) observes, it is not always a derivational process
which is reversed in back-formation. For instance, the process forming
cherry, from French cerise, with final felt as a plural marker, is not the
reverse of derivation, but of inflection.141 My definition and classification of
back-formation are given below.
6.1.1. Definition
Back-formation is the process whereby words like edit, televise, and type-
write are extracted from longer words whose apparent form is bimorphemic
(editor, television, type-writer), by deleting supposed affixes, on the analogy
with word pairs like exhibit/exhibitor, revise/revision, write/writer.
Pennanen (1966), rather than focusing his attention on the length of the
base words, identifies a number of defining criteria which delimit the process
of back-formation. In his view, a word is back-formed if: 1) the mechanism
of its formation has a regressive direction, as in the case of a verb obtained
from an agent noun, 2) it operates on the basis of analogy, and 3) the word
conforms with chronological and semantic criteria. Thus, he appears to
combine the diachronic with the synchronic view of back-formation.
Most definitions describe back-formation as the reversal of a word-
formation rule. Aronoff (1976: 27) briefly states that back-formation is a
backwards application of a WFR [Word-Formation Rule]. Becker (1993:
7) even claims that The question, whether back-formations are applications
of rules or analogies, is irrelevant, because for him the two notions corre-
spond (cf. 2.3.6.2), and what distinguishes back-formation from its inverse
is lower productivity.142 Similarly, Haspelmath (2002: 169) defines back-
formation as an application of a morphological rule in the less productive
direction.
Yet many scholars disagree with the above claims. Bauer (1983: 231),
for instance, considers the reversal hypothesis slightly misleading, because
it would not account for the formation of such verbs as cohese ( cohe-
sion), transcript ( transcription), or self-destruct ( self-destruction),
whose expected forms would instead be cohere, transcribe, and self-destroy.
Nagano (2007: 4243) likewise criticises the claim that back-formation is
the reversal of some affixation process, because in some counterexamples
there is no corresponding rule, or no real affix involved. For instance, al-
though the verb frivol is back-formed from the adjective frivolous, there
exists no deverbal -ous suffixation process in English; likewise, in the verb

liaise ( liaison), the deleted part -on does not exist as a suffix.
Bauers (1983: 232) redefinition of back-formation as the formation of
new lexemes by the deletion of actual or supposed affixes in longer words
appears to stress this same fact: i.e., the affixes deleted from the input are
not real but supposed. In fact, in the verb lase, back-formed from the acro-
nym laser, one cannot consider the deleted part -er as an actual suffix: it is
the shortening of Emission of Radiation. This is the reason why, as we will
see in 6.1.2, some scholars include back-formation among shortening proc-
esses.
Lastly, Nagano (2007: 45) claims that, within the framework of Natural
Morphology, back-formation is highly unnatural from the viewpoint of
constructional iconicity. In his opinion, it is anti- or counter-iconic, because
a decrease in form corresponds to an increase in meaning: e.g., the verb ro-
tavate, back-formed by subtracting -or from the input Rotavator ( rota-
tory + cultivator), means use a Rotavator, cultivate with a Rotavator. This
claim strongly contrasts with my contention that meaning change in back-
formation is not additional, but subtractive (2.3.7.9, 6.2.1.5). Hence, when a
verb base like edit is reconstructed from a human agent noun (editor), sub-
tractive meaning is iconic with the formal subtraction of -or.
6.1.2. Delimitation: Back-formation vs. other processes
The most important distinction to be drawn in this section is between back-

formation on the one hand and zero-derivation or conversion on the other
(Marchand 1969; Nagano 2007).
Marchand (1969: 392) states that back-formation is a type of zero-
derivation, followed by the clipping of a pseudo-morpheme. Accordingly, the
verbs peddle and stagemanage should be analysed as zero derivatives from
the nouns peddler + and stagemanager + , from which the typical noun-
ending -er has been dropped. This explanation, however, implies that cate-
gory change is caused by a zero morpheme, and that the deletion is nothing
but clipping, which is a class-maintaining process (see chapter 3). I believe,
by contrast, that category change is caused by the deletion of some material,
which often (and not accidentally) corresponds to an existing affix.
Nagano (2007) considers back-formation to be a type of conversion. Na-
gano (2007: 56) defines conversion as a word-formation process that in-
volves changing a words syntactic category without any concomitant
change of form. Thus, he analyses the verbs televise and baby-sit as cases
174 Minor phenomena
of conversion from the nouns television and baby-sitter, later adjusted by

clipping. I do not agree with this explanation either. First, as I have just
claimed, I attribute category change to the deletion of some material, and not
to syntactic change with no parallel formal change, as in conversion. Second,
the material deleted is neither phonologically-determined nor difficult to
predict, as in clipping, but generally corresponds to an existing morpheme,
which indicates that the analogy with other word pairs is fundamental in
back-formation. Lastly, in terms of Natural Morphology, conversion is a
non-iconic process because there is no form change corresponding to mean-
ing/category change, whereas back-formation is iconic, because subtraction
in meaning is paralleled by subtraction in form.
Various studies (Jespersen 1942: 537; Kreidler 1979: 26, 2000: 957;
Bauer 1983: 232; Stockwell and Minkova 2001: 10) suggest that back-
formation is a special case of shortening or clipping. Jespersen (1942: 537)
even calls back-formations subtraction-forms. As we have seen in the
relevant chapter (see Unchanged syntactic category in 3.2.1.7), shortenings
are class-preserving, whereas this is not the case with back-formation, which
changes the syntactic category of the input. Thus, tele and TV, shortened
from the noun television, are nouns as well, whereas televise, from the same
nominal base, is a verb. Glam is a shortened adjective or noun from glamor-
ous or glamour, but is a denominal verb in back-formation. Moreover, al-
though some back-clippings like butch(er), darl(ing), and flex(ible) delete a
final part which accidentally happens to correspond to a suffix, in many
cases (especially with polysyllabic bases) the deleted part does not corre-
spond to an affix: for example, in ad/advert(isement), anon(ymous),
neg(ative), tab(ulator), and vent(riloquist) more material has been deleted
than the mere suffixes -ment, -ous, -ive, -or, -ist.
In this study, therefore, back-formation is considered neither as a type of
zero-derivation/conversion, nor as a type of shortening, nor as a combination
of these processes, but, rather, as an autonomous process deserving further
investigation.
6.1.3. Classification and structure of back-formed words
Back-formed words can first of all be divided into two primary groups,
namely the simple-word type and the compound-word type.143
6.1.3.1. Simple-word back-formation includes those words that are back-

formed from non-compound bases, such as edit and televise mentioned
above. Within this group, we can differentiate between various patterns
showing different functional shifts:
Noun Verb: The most common pattern is the televise/television type

(also mentioned by Quirk et al. 1985: 1578), which involves a noun end-
ing in -ion. This type includes the already mentioned cohese and tran-
script, as well as many more instances: abduct ( abduction), advect
( advection), attrit ( attrition), automate ( automation), aviate
( aviation), coit ( coition), commote ( commotion), concuss (
concussion), conscript ( conscription), demarcate ( demarcation),
destruct ( destruction), emote ( emotion), evolute ( evolution),
excurse ( excursion), formate ( formation), inscript ( inscrip-
tion), insurrect ( insurrection), intuit ( intuition), locomote ( lo-
comotion), orate ( oration), perorate ( peroration), perspirate (
perspiration), repercuss ( repercussion), resolute ( resolution),
resurrect ( resurrection), reune ( reunion), sanitate ( sanita-
tion), vacate ( vacation).
Another rather frequent type is that illustrated by peddle/peddler. Many
back-formed verbs indeed originate from what Marchand (1969: 394)
calls pseudo-agent substantives: e.g., bum ( bummer), burgle, but-
tle ( butler), compute ( computer), cuttle ( cutler), demerge (
demerger), duff ( duffer), foray ( forayer), hijack ( hijacker),
lase, lech ( lecher), mug ( mugger), mull ( muller), outrig (
outrigger), scavenge ( scavenger), schoon ( schooner), spinst (
spinster), swindle ( swindler), tile ( tiler), trig ( trigger), tweeze
( tweezer), ush ( usher), york ( yorker). Examples based on
nouns with a variant -or ending are: auth ( author), edit, escalate (
escalator), mote ( motor), rotavate, sculpt. The verb perk is atypi-
cally from percolator. The variant -eur, as in chauffe ( chauffeur),
colport ( colporteur), is rarely used to back-form verbs. The verb
beg, back-formed from beggar, also belongs to this type.
A third type involves a -y ending being treated as a suffix, as in chiro-
mance/chiromancy. Other examples are: geomance ( geomancy), hy-
pocrise ( hypocrisy), jell ( jelly), jeopard ( jeopardy), and pillor
( pillory).
Another pattern involves the pseudo-suffix -ance/-ence, which can be
seen in the bases of reluct/reluctance and adolesce/adolescence. Other
176 Minor phenomena
examples are surveille ( surveillance); iridesce ( iridescence), lu-

minesce ( luminescence), and reminisce ( reminiscence).
Isolated or infrequent word pairs include the following: gondole (
gondola), propagand ( propaganda); salve ( salvage), vint (
vintage); loll ( Lollard); rotisse ( rotisserie); arch ( archery),
skuldug ( skulduggery); strump ( strumpet); bolsh ( Bolshevik);
rattle ( ratlin(e)), tiff ( tiffin); jog ( jogging), nut ( nutting),
quisle ( Quisling, act like Quisling), recycle ( recycling); lyse (
lysis), synostose ( synostosis); brux ( bruxism); nonconform (
nonconformist); fugle ( fugleman), rancel ( rancelman); eclair-
cisse ( eclaircissement); liaise; delir ( delirium), hoke ( hokum),
ultimate ( ultimatum); nomenclate ( nomenclature); pegase (
Pegasus). In some of these cases, deletion is motivated by an evident re-
semblance with an actual English suffix (e.g. -age, -ism, -ist). In others,
we can tentatively reconstruct resemblance with a foreign suffix (Italian
-a, French -erie, Greek -is, Latin -um/-us). But it is difficult to explain
the cancellations in bolsh or liaise, which are considered by some schol-
ars (e.g. Nagano 2007) as adjustments by shortening.
Adjective Verb: Verbs are also back-formed from adjectives, as in
the laze/lazy type. This type is also illustrated by: cose ( cosy), dizz
( dizzy), google ( googly), haze ( hazy), rort ( rorty), shab (
shabby), sprightle ( sprightly), and sulk ( sulky).
Another subtype appears to delete an -ed participial suffix, as in di-
shevel ( dishevelled), grizzle ( grizzled), and nake ( naked).
Other isolated or rare cases include: sull ( sullen); phosphoresce (
phosphorescent); cathect ( cathectic), romant ( romantic); manar-
vel ( manarvelin), maudle ( maudlin); peeve ( peevish), squeam
( squeamish); frivol, stupend ( stupendous); hush ( husht), rap
( rapt).
The following four patterns include sporadic, occasional formations re-

ported in Jespersen (1942), Pennanen (1966), Marchand (1969), Adams
(1973), and Nagano (2007):
Adjective Noun: epileptic epilept, greedy greed, illogical

illogic, paramedical paramedic, petty pet, polymeric polymer,
tatty tat, unrepaired unrepair, unsuccessful unsuccess, un-
surprising unsurprise.
Adverb Adjective: aslant slant, gingerly ginger.
Adverb Verb: darkling darkle, sideling sidle.
Noun Adjective: gullibility gullible.
Other rare patterns include instances which are labelled back-formations

in some dictionaries, for example Merriam-Webster and OED2:
Some English nouns are re-analysed as plurals and therefore singular-

ised by deleting the -s ending, as in biceps bicep, eaves eave,
staves stave. Also the word cherry is back-formed from Old French
cerise, treated as an English plural.
Some English adjectives are obtained by deleting a supposedly negative
prefix from the base, as in insipid sipid, non-committal commit-
tal, uncouth couth, unkempt kempt.
6.1.3.2. Compound-word back-formation includes those words that are

back-formed from compounds, like brainstorm ( brainstorming) and
type-write ( type-writer). Again, the two main patterns are represented by
denominal or deadjectival verbs:
Noun Verb: Denominal verbs are obtained from either compound

nouns headed by an agentive -er noun or compound nouns headed by an
action -ing noun.
The first type is illustrated by: air-condition ( air-conditioner), baby-
sit, bulldoze ( bulldozer), cheerlead ( cheerleader), cliff-hang (
cliff-hanger), hang glide ( hang glider), jay-hawk ( jay-hawker),
knuckle-dust ( knuckle-duster), loud-hail ( loud-hailer), match-
make ( match-maker), pile-drive ( pile-driver), prize-fight (
prize-fighter), ring-lead ( ring-leader), self-feed ( self-feeder),
slave-drive ( slave-driver), stage-manage ( stage-manager),
stenograph ( stenographer, which includes two neoclassical combin-
ing forms), supply-teach ( supply-teacher), tape-record ( tape-
recorder), trend-set ( trend-setter), tub-thump ( tub-thumper), tur-
bocharge ( turbocharger), vacuum-clean ( vacuum-cleaner),
whipper-snap ( whipper-snapper), wiredraw ( wiredrawer); art-
edit ( art-editor; cf. edit above), word-process ( word-processor).
Examples of the -ing type are: affix-hop ( affix-hopping), book-hunt
( book-hunting), die-cast ( die-casting), dry-farm ( dry-
farming), face-lift ( face-lifting), frostbite ( frostbiting), hand-
write ( hand-writing), house-clean ( house-cleaning), house-keep
( house-keeping), job-hunt ( job-hunting), kite-fly ( kite-flying),
178 Minor phenomena
lip-read ( lip-reading), logroll ( logrolling), map-read ( map-

reading), name-drop ( name-dropping), pan-broil ( pan-broiling),
pied-pipe ( pied-piping), possessor-raise ( possessor-raising),
queue-jump ( queue-jumping), Red-bait ( Red-baiting), role-play
( role-playing), role-take ( role-taking), safe-keep ( safe-
keeping), scat-sing ( scat-singing), shadow-cast ( shadow-
casting), shoplift ( shoplifting), show-jump ( show-jumping),
sight-see ( sight-seeing), skywrite ( skywriting), soft-land ( soft-
landing), sun-bathe ( sun-bathing), surf-cast ( surf-casting),
thought-read ( thought-reading), time-share ( time-sharing), tri-
ple-tongue ( triple-tonguing), type-cast ( type-casting), valet-park
( valet-parking), window-shop ( window-shopping).
Other minor types may be seen in: ill-use ( ill-usage); back-form (
back-formation), chain-react ( chain-reaction), phase-modulate (
phase-modulation), self-destruct, sound-substitute ( sound-
substitution), trickle-irrigate ( trickle-irrigation); cross-refer (
cross-reference); home-deliver ( home-delivery); ill-treat ( ill-
treatment), pressure-treat ( pressure-treatment), wh-move ( wh-
movement), and, with combining forms, bibliograph ( bibliography),
choreograph ( choreography), holograph ( holography).
Adjective Verb: Compound verbs may be obtained from compound
adjectival bases. The second component of the base is generally a parti-
ciple. The base has a regular participle in: hard-boil ( hard-boiled),
jam-pack ( jam-packed), tongue-tie ( tongue-tied), whereas the fol-
lowing verbs display an irregular participle in the base: awestrike (
awestruck), horrorstrike ( horror struck), jerrybuild ( jerrybuilt),
sunburn ( sunburnt), tailor-make ( tailor-made), thunderstrike (
thunderstruck).
Unproductive patterns are illustrated by: Adjective Noun (e.g. multi-
hulled multi-hull, poly-angular poly-angle) and Noun Adjec-
tive (e.g. greensickness greensick, homesickness homesick).
Table 8 summarises the various types and patterns described.
Table 8. Types and examples of English back-formations

Simple-word The base is a NV emotion emote,
Back-formation non-compound computer compute
word
Back-formation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 179
Adj V lazy laze, naked

nake
Adj N illogical illogic
Adv Adj/V aslant slant, side-
ling sidle
N Adj gullibility gullible
Pl. N Sg. N biceps bicep
Adj + Adj insipid sipid
Compound- The base is a NV bulldozer bull-
word Back- compound word doze, shoplifting
formation shoplift
Adj V hard-boiled hard-
boil
Adj N poly-angular
poly-angle
N Adj homesickness
homesick
6.2. Back-formation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon
Among extra-grammatical morphological phenomena, back-formation ap-

pears to be less irregular than other processes. The fact that in many cases
there is a corresponding word-formation rule that acts in the reverse direc-
tion makes back-formation more predictable than other shortenings. More-
over, the fact that there is a functional shift from the input to the output
makes it closer to derivation and conversion than other, class-maintaining
processes, such as clipping, acronym formation, reduplication, and, as we
will see, infixation.
Nevertheless, back-formation is excluded from morphological grammar
on account of a semantic criterion. That is, while rule operations involve the
conferring of additional meaning, back-formation is based on subtraction,
both formally and semantically.
According to Nagano (2007) and others, back-formed words exhibit
marked properties that the outputs of rule-governed word-formation proc-
esses do not. Firstly, they are generally restricted to colloquial style or slang,
and often used with humorous intent (see also Pennanen 1966: 132; Mar-
chand 1969: 106; Adams 1973: 112; Shimamura 1984: 81). However, this is
not the case with many lexicalised examples, such as the verbs baby-sit,
180 Minor phenomena
tape-record and type-write, now commonly used in any context. Secondly,

there is more interspeaker variation than with regular derivatives, since the
acceptability of back-formed words may vary from one native speaker to
another.
These unnatural properties of back-formed words partially explain why
they often have a regular counterpart, for instance, in conversion: e.g., from
the nouns author, martyr, and usher, we obtain both the converted verbs
(author, martyr, usher) and the back-formed verbs (auth, mart, ush). These
properties also explain why back-formation is not blocked when there is a
regular standard counterpart, as in the doublet verbs form and formate. Here
the standard verb form regularly derives the noun (formation), which then
back-forms formate.
The fact that back-formation shares some properties with conversion pre-
supposes that it shows some type of regularity, but its connection with short-
ening devices such as clipping is also symptomatic of its irregularity.
6.2.1. Irregularities in back-formation
Back-formation, like the other processes discussed so far, is irregular when

compared with word-formation rules. In particular, we can identify the fol-
lowing violations of canonical rules.
6.2.1.1. (Un-)predictable output. The output of back-formation is often

irregular and not easily predictable. Variability is not as high as in clipping,
but in many cases it does not permit an exact prediction of what the result of
the process will be. What is deleted from the base word may be a hypotheti-
cal or pseudo-affix, but not necessarily so. For instance, there is no -evik
suffix in English, and yet bolsh is back-derived from Bolshevik.
6.2.1.2. Non-morphematic analysis. Unlike regular derivatives and com-

pounds, back-formation bases are not transparently analysable into mor-
phemes: e.g., liaison cannot be segmented into *liaise + *-on, nor is laser
analysable as *las(e) + *-er.144 Also, input recoverability is often difficult,
especially when word-formation rules would lead to a different outcome, as
in verb form + -ation noun formation vs. noun formation -ion verb
formate. Lastly, in back-formed compound verbs, the output is not regularly

obtained by combining two free morphemes, but by subtracting a supposed
bound morpheme, as in noun baby-sitter -er verb baby-sit, and noun
brainstorming -ing verb brainstorm.
6.2.1.3. Irreversibility. Back-formation is not always based on a previous

rule. For instance, there is no English word-formation rule producing nouns
by -y suffixation of verbs. Yet when final -y is deleted from a noun such as
bibliography, a verb (bibliograph) is back-formed. Moreover, when it
seems to be rule-based, there may be competing rules allowing different
formations. Thus, there is no one-to-one correspondence between word-
formation rules and their reverse back-formations, especially with phonol-
ogically irregular words. The verb corresponding to cohesion could be either
cohede (after delude/delusion), cohere (after adhere/adhesion), or cohese
(after confuse/confusion), but only the latter is the result of back-formation
(Becker 1993: 7).145
6.2.1.4. Alternative input categories. Although nouns and adjectives prevail

as input classes in back-formation, other categories are admitted: e.g., ad-
verbs (aslant slant) and proper names (Quisling quisle). Acronyms
and blends are also admitted as inputs, as in the above-mentioned laser
lase and Rotavator rotavate.
6.2.1.5. Subtractive meaning. In back-formation, meaning change is not

additional, as in rules, but subtractive (see also Dressler and Merlini Bar-
baresi 1994; cf. Nagano 2007). For instance, the verbs auth, cheerlead,
compute, tape-record are reconstructed from agent (author, cheerleader) or
instrument nouns (computer, tape-recorder). Similarly, singulars are back-
formed by subtracting the plural marker, as in eave and non-standard bicep,
from eave-s and bicep-s.
While the irregularities in 6.2.1.16.2.1.5 confirm that back-formation is a
phenomenon of extra-grammatical nature (cf. 2.3.7.12.3.7.10), the follow-
ing regularities or tendencies appear to suggest some kind of predictability.
182 Minor phenomena
6.2.2. Regularities in back-formation
Pennanen (1966) formulates his theory of back-formation by trying to com-

bine the two principal methods of linguistic approach: diachronic research
and synchronic description. His defining criteria (see 6.1.1) may be viewed
as regularities that tend to occur in the back-formation mechanism. On the
basis of such regularities, the following main tendencies can be identified.
6.2.2.1. Regressive direction. The direction of the process is regressive,

namely, from a derivative/inflected form towards a primitive (e.g. editor
edit, type-writer type-write, cerise cherry, insipid sipid). Regres-
sion is both in form and in meaning. That is, formally, we subtract a sup-
posed affix from a base, and semantically, we subtract some meaning com-
ponent: e.g., agent, instrument, plural, or negative features in the above
examples.
6.2.2.2. Chronological antecedence of the input. The input of back-

formation must historically precede the output. In other words, the back-
formed word has to be chronologically more recent than the base word from
which it is obtained. However, as tekauer (2000: 72) observes, chronologi-
cal data has to be used carefully, because a genuine back-formation may
make its appearance in historical written sources earlier than the word it is
derived from. Hence, the definition of a word as back-formation should not
be based exclusively on chronological data.
6.2.2.3. Meaning agreement. Besides formal analogy, there must be ana-

logical meaning between the root word and the derivative.146 In particular,
the back-formed word must be semantically analysed on the basis of its root
word. For example, the verb laze relies for its analysis on the content of the
adjective lazy (be lazy), and televise must be analysed as put on televi-
sion. This criterion is of special importance for pseudo-compound verbs,
such as baby-sit, brainwash, and type-write. These cannot in fact be ana-
lysed as regular endocentric compound verbs (i.e. as sit by the baby, wash
the brain(s), write in type). For their semantic analysis, we have to make
reference to the related nouns: thus, baby-sit means act as baby-sitter,
brainwash subject to the process of brainwashing, type-write write with a

type-writer.
6.2.2.4. Class/Meaning change. Unlike clipping and other shortenings,

back-formation is a class-changing process which mainly forms verbs, but
also nouns or adjectives. It may also involve inflectional change, as from
plural to singular nouns. In any case, what we obtain is a new word or
grammatical form, as with rules.
6.2.2.5. Iconicity. Against Nagano (2007), I claim that back-formation ex-

hibits an iconic relationship between form and meaning. More specifically, a
subtraction in form diagrammatically corresponds to a subtraction in mean-
ing.
6.2.3. Predictability in back-formation
On the basis of the criteria listed above (6.2.2.16.2.2.5), I will now check
the predictability of both simple- and compound-word back-formation.
Table 9. Possible back-formations from existing source words
Source word Possible back-formation

(1) N volition an act of making a V volit make a volition
choice or decision
(2) N orthography the art of writing V orthograph practice orthography
words
(3) N synthesis the combination of V synthese combine by synthesis (cf.
parts synthesize)
(4) Adj religious manifesting faithful V relige act in a religious way
devotion to a deity
(5) Adj aleatory depending on an V aleate be aleatory
uncertain event
(6) Adj dissolute lacking restraint Adj solute not being dissolute (cf. N
solute a dissolved substance)
(7) N schoolteacher one who teaches V schoolteach act as a schoolteacher
in school
184 Minor phenomena
(8) N churchgoer one who habitually V churchgo be a churchgoer

attends church
Source words have been selected on account of their possible segmenta-

tion into at least two pseudo-morphemes. Furthermore, the meanings of ei-
ther the root word or the candidate back-formed word have been adjusted so
as to meet the semantic criterion in 6.2.2.3. Of course, the selected source
words cannot meet the chronological criterion 6.2.2.2, since their outputs are
invented words.147
Possible back-formations are principally verbs, as the outputs in the right
column show. Only one tentative instance obtaining the positive counterpart
of an apparently negative adjective dissolute has been offered, in (6).
All the examples seem to meet criterion 6.2.2.1. Each of them demon-
strates that the correct direction in back-formation is regressive, from the
supposed derivative/inflected word to the root word or primitive. The most
frequent pattern is Noun/Adjective Verb.
In (1)(8) a supposed affix (-er, -ion, -y; dis-) has been deleted to back-
form a new word (see 6.2.2.4). Yet the examples in (2)(4) are only analogi-
cal with other back-formation pairs, rather than with actual derivational
word pairs (cf. 6.2.4). As observed in the literature (Nagano 2007), there is
no deverbal adjective in English which is derived by -ous suffixation (cf. 4,
fabricated on the analogy with stupend/stupendous). The connection be-
tween the adjective aleatory and the verb aleate in (5) is even more obscure,
since there is no analogical pattern back-forming a deverbal adjective by
-ory suffixation.
As has been said, meaning agreement is respected in all the examples
(6.2.2.3). The compound verbs in (7) and (8) (schoolteach, churchgo) are
analysed as back-formed from synthetic compounds: i.e. [[school + teach] +
-er]; [[church + go] + -er].
The chronological criterion (6.2.2.2) is not of direct relevance to the in-
vented examples, since the selected source words of necessity precede the
(invented) words in the right-hand column.
By taking into account the above-mentioned regularities (6.2.2.16.2.2.5), I

will try to extract some criteria of well-formedness for back-formation.
Infixation: Definition, delimitation, and classification 185
Analogy. Back-formation operates on the basis of analogy, namely the

existence of a root word and a set of derivative(s) (or inflections) that
are formed in the reverse direction by a morphological rule. For in-
stance, on analogy with elect/election, execute/execution, re-
vise/revision, etc. television has back-formed the missing member tele-
vise. The frequent alternation verb/noun -ate/-ation, as in
modulate/modulation, has helped to back-form verbs such as donate
and orate from the respective nouns. Most verbs are back-formed from
pseudo-agent nouns, as in edit/editor, scavenge/scavenger,
sculpt/sculptor, etc. These word pairs correspond to other analogical
pairs in regular derivation (e.g. act/actor, speak/speaker, write/writer).
Thus, in contrast with abbreviations, blends and reduplicatives, in which
analogy is with pre-existing abbreviatory or reduplicating patterns, in
back-formation analogy is also with regular patterns of derivation or in-
flection, although not always (cf. liaise from liaison) and not in the ex-
pected e.g. verb-to-noun or singular-to-plural direction.
Conciseness. Back-formation entails a morphological choice which is
more concise and more efficient than a longer syntactic phrase: for in-
stance, the verbs baby-sit and compute are shorter than the verb phrases
act as baby-sitter, use a computer, or calculate by means of a com-
puter. This criterion differs from the Brevity criterion identified in sec-
tion 3.2.4 for clippings and alphabetisms (cf. conciseness in Gotti
2005: 40), in that back-formation is not an abbreviated morphological
form, like prof or PC, but a morphological choice instead of a syntactic
one.
Subtraction. In back-formation we have simultaneous deletion in form
and meaning. A supposed affix (e.g. -er, un-, -s) is generally deleted
from an apparently complex base, and this formal change corresponds to
the subtraction of some semantic feature, namely, agentivity (lase), in-
strumentality (tape-record), negativity (couth), plurality (cherry), etc.
6.3. Infixation: Definition, delimitation, and classification
Scholars generally agree that infixation is infrequent in English. Whereas

prefixation and suffixation are typically found in English derivational mor-
phology, infixation is typologically marginal in English, which is usually a
non-infixing language.
Furthermore, while some Indo-European and Austronesian languages like
Greek and Atayal rely on infixation to signify important grammatical func-
186 Minor phenomena
tions, English has infixes only within extra-grammatical morphology. For

instance, in colloquial speech and slang, it makes use of expressive exple-
tives like -bloody-, -blooming-, and -fuckin(g)- to form deprecative words
with additional emphasis, such as in-bloody-tolerant, abso-blooming-lutely,
and fan-fucking-tastic (Aronoff 1976; Siegel 1979; Bauer 1983; Baldi 2000;
Plag 2003; Dressler 2005; Mattiello 2008a).
Traditional infixation such as the type just illustrated is sometimes dis-
cussed as part of English derivational morphology. Aronoff (1976: 6970),
for instance, describes it as a very productive English infixing rule (see
also McMillan 1980: 167). Yet the derivational or inflectional status of in-
fixes could be objected to, since no new words are formed by inserting an
infix into the middle of a base word (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994:
41; cf. Plag 2003: 101103). This type of infixation is better seen as part of
Zwicky and Pullums (1987) expressive morphology, since it has the func-
tion of expressing a (generally negative) attitude on the part of the speaker
(Aronoff 1976: 69; Baldi 2000: 970; Plag 2003: 101), and because the ac-
ceptability of infixed words varies from speaker to speaker.
Expletive infixation has attracted considerable theoretical debate in the
literature (e.g. McCarthy 1982; Zonneveld 1984; as well as the above-
mentioned studies). Yet the present account of infixation will not be limited
to the expletive type. I will also include three recently studied phenomena
referred to respectively as Homeric or ma-infixation (e.g. tele-ma-
phone, vio-ma-lin) (Yu 2004, 2007), diddly-infixation (e.g. ac-diddly-
action, wel-diddly-elcome) (Elfner and Kimper 2008), and hip-hop or iz-
infixation (e.g. b-iz-itch, h-iz-ouse) (Viau 2002), some examples of which
are concomitant with partial reduplication (see chapter 5).
6.3.1. Definition
Infixation involves the insertion of an affix in the middle of a simplex word

(ah-iz-ead, per-bloody-haps, secre-ma-tary), or, rarely, of a complex word
(e.g. un-fucking-touchable, air con-friggin-ditioner), or of a lexicalised
phrase (e.g. Jehovah bloody Witnesses). As these examples show, the in-
serted affix (the infix) can either be a bound morpheme (-iz-, -ma-), or
correspond to a free morpheme (bloody, friggin, fucking). Sometimes in-
fixation can be accompanied by reduplication of part of the base word, as in
mur-diddly-urder, parta-ma-ty.
The above definition immediately distinguishes between infixes, which
occur in the body of a base, and affixes which appear before (e.g. re-touch),
or after a base (e.g. touch-able). It is to be noted that the presence of infixes

in a language entails the presence of prefixes and/or suffixes, but the reverse
is not true. In other words, no language employs infixes exclusively (Yu
2007: 1).
Some definitions of the expletive type stress the fact that expletives are
used to create new words expressing the strongly negative attitude of the
speaker (Plag 2003: 101). Although infixed words like kanga-bloody-roo
exhibit an additional nuance of meaning that tells us something about the
speakers attitude, I do not agree with Plag (2003) that infixation creates
new words. Furthermore, Plag (2003: 101) also claims that there are no
bound morphemes that qualify for infix status. This claim, however, does
not take into account other types of infixation which insert segments that
cannot be used in isolation, such as -diddly- (ac-diddly-action), -iz- (w-iz-
ork), or -ma- (underesti-ma-mate).
Yus (2007) definition also appears too restrictive, though for a different
reason. He considers affixation to involve infixing if the infix appears as a
segmentally distinct entity between two strings that form a meaningful unit
when combined but do not themselves exist as meaningful parts (Yu 2007:
11). Accordingly, -bloody- in abso-bloody-lutely can be considered an infix
because it is both preceded and followed by meaningless parts (abso, lutely),
becoming meaningful when they are combined (absolutely). However, in ac-
diddly-action mentioned above, the part following -diddly- (action) is not
meaningless; similarly, in Jehovah bloody Witnesses the parts preceding and
following -bloody- are not meaningless. The above definition would there-
fore exclude complex bases such as compounds or phrases from the input of
expletive infixation, as well as those infixes which admit reduplication.
Lastly, some recent definitions (e.g. Elfner and Kimper 2008: 150) focus
attention on the stress of the base word, and on the possibility to have redu-
plication of the stressed syllable, as in or-diddly-rder. The fact that infixa-
tion in English is determined by the metrical structure of the base has at-
tracted the attention of many scholars (Aronoff 1976; Siegel 1979;
McCarthy 1982), and is the reason why Plag (2003: 103) considers it a case
of prosodic morphology (like truncations and blends in his account).
6.3.2. Delimitation: Infixation vs. other processes
It has been suggested that English irregular past tense and participle forma-
tions (e.g. sing/sang/sung) may be analysed in terms of infixation (see the
references in Yu 2007). However, besides being a matter of inflection, rather
188 Minor phenomena
than a derivation operation, ablaut modification does not involve the same
insertion and discontinuity as in proper infixation.
Another frequent but erroneous confusion is between infixation and the
process of tmesis, commonly defined as the separation of the elements of
a compound word by the interposition of another word or words (OED, in
McMillan 1980: 166), as in chit and chat from chit-chat and what might be
soever from whatsoever. As we have seen, infixation not only interrupts
compounds, but also simplex words (fan-fucking-tastic, kanga-bloody-roo,
o-damn-clock), and therefore admits a wider range of bases than tmesis. On
the other hand, emotive intensifier insertion admits a very restricted class of
inserts, typically expletives such as -bloody-, -damn-, -fuckin-, and the like,
whereas traditional tmesis is more permissive with regard to the insert type:
cf., e.g., what place soever with what might be soever above.
Moreover, expletive infixation should not be conflated with the insertion
of emotive intensifiers into normally uninterruptible collocations. In my
opinion, the following examples belong to the process of syntactic interpos-
ing (McMillan 1980: 167168), so do not qualify as lexically infixed
forms: dont X forget, half X dead, fat X chance, happy X birthday, not X
likely, take your X time, thanks a X lot, etc. (cf. Baldi 2000: 970).
6.3.3. Classification of infixes
Although expletives still represent the best known type of infix in English, in
the contemporary language there are in fact four different categories of infix.
6.3.3.1. Expletive infixation (also called fuckin-infixation, from the most

common infix used) concerns the insertion of expressive (often vulgar or
obscene) expletives into words. Examples of expletive infixes include:
-bally-, -bleeding-, -blessed-, -bloody-, -blooming- (see the consonant clus-
ter bl- in 6.5.3 below), -friggin(g)-, -fuckin(g)-, -goddamn(ed)-,
-motherfuckin(g)-, -pissin(g)-, -piggin(g)-, -soddin(g)-, etc. These infixes
are typically used in low registers, such as colloquial language or slang.
The expletive type is the most permissive with regard to input category
(see 6.4.1.3 below). McMillan (1980: 163164) notes that any expletive
(symbolised by X) may appear:
1) inside morphemes, as in amalga-X-mated, Chi-X-nese, emanci-X-

pator;
2) between bases and affixes, as in dis-X-member, im-X-possible, in-X-

credible, also before a combining form in megalo-X-mania;
3) inside compounds, as in any-X-thing, every-X-body, kinder-X-garten,
rail-X-way;
4) inside letter and numeral words, as in 19-X-43, O-X-K, V-X-IP;
5) inside names, as in Massa-X-chusetts, So-X-ho, many of which are
made up of two words, as in Sir-X-Lancelot, United-X-Kingdom.
In B-Bloody-C, the infix replaces the internal B of BBC, acting as a

splinter in an intercalative blend (see 4.1.3).
In the case of 2, the infix is generally inserted between the prefix and the
base (e.g. un-believable un-fuckin-believable, in-tolerant in-bloody-
tolerant). McCarthy (1982: 585), however, provides examples of infixed
forms where the expletive does not fall at the prefix juncture: imma-bloody-
material (with partial reduplication), inde-goddamn-pendent, irre-fuckin-
sponsible. On the other hand, the expletive does not normally occur at the
suffix juncture: cf. emancipat(e)-or emanci-motherfuckin-pator. The
position of the infix is, indeed, not morphologically but prosodically deter-
mined.
Expletives in their infixal usage generally appear before a stressed sylla-
ble or between primary and secondary stress, as in bn-bloody-dnna,
crni-bloody-vre, frn-fuckin-ter (Plag 2003: 102; see also Aronoff 1976;
McCarthy 1982; more discussion in 6.4.2.1 below).
6.3.3.2. Homeric or ma-infixation concerns the insertion of the infix -ma-

into words, as in dia-ma-lectic and saxo-ma-phone. Homeric infixation is a
morphological construction which was popularised by the speech of Homer
Simpson, the main character in the television animation series The Simp-
sons, and has recently gained currency in vernacular American English (Yu
2004, 2007). The following examples reported in Yu (2007: 184) are taken
from either the World Wide Web or daily conversations: compli-ma-cated,
sophisti-ma-cated, syndi-ma-cated (from the Web); edu-ma-cate, saxo-ma-
phone, Urs(a)-ma-la, vio-ma-lin (from everyday speech).
Again, the category of the infixed base may vary from noun (e.g. tele-
ma-phone, vio-ma-lin), to adjective (e.g. wonder-ma-ful), verb (e.g. under-
esti-ma-mate), participle (e.g. unsub-ma-stantiated), and even to
place/personal/river names (e.g. Ala-ma-bama, Micha-ma-langelo, Missi-
ma-ssippi).
190 Minor phenomena
Another variation concerns the possibility of expanding the pattern by ei-

ther inserting a schwa immediately before the infix, as in lively
, lonely (schwa-epenthesis), or reduplicating
part of the base, as in oboe oba-ma-boe, washing washa-ma-shing
(see compensatory reduplication in Yu 2004: 619).
The basic pattern of ma-infixation is best illustrated by words with stress
on the first and third syllables: for example, in fudalism and hippoptamus,
the infix -ma- invariably appears after the unstressed second syllable (fuda-
ma-lism, hippo-ma-ptamus). In words which have stress on the first, third,
and fifth syllables, infix placement varies. It can follow either the second
syllable (e.g. unsubstntiated unsub-ma-stntiated), or the fourth sylla-
ble (e.g. understimate understi-ma-mate).
6.3.3.3. Diddly-infixation is a form of expletive infixation popularised by

the speech of Ned Flanders, the cheerful neighbour in the television show
The Simpsons (Elfner and Kimper 2008). It concerns the insertion of the
nonsense infix -diddly- into base words with initial stress, as in ac-diddly-
action, he-diddly-eaven, wel-diddly-elcome. In these words, infixation al-
ways involves reduplication of the rhyme of the stressed syllable (underlined
below), so that, in the resulting form, the infix -diddly- precedes main stress,
ac-diddly-ction, he-diddly-aven, wel-diddly-lcome.
This type of infixation therefore differs from other forms of expletive in-
fixation in English, in that the other forms can appear as independent words
(fuckin(g)) and occur outside the base (fuckin-fantastic). It also differs from
other forms since it does not have a marked preference to operate on base
words with non-initial stress (e.g. fan-fuckin-tstic). Finally, diddly-
infixation is distinguishable from expletive infixation by virtue of the fact
that it involves reduplication.
6.3.3.4. Hip-hop or iz-infixation is a type of infixation popularised by rap

and hip-hop music artists, such as Frankie Smith, especially in the songs
Double Dutch Bus and Slang Thang, and, more recently, by Snoop Dogg
and Missy Elliott (Viau 2002). Some examples include: ah-iz-ead, b-iz-itch,
d-iz-apper, h-iz-ouse, pl-iz-aying, s-iz-oldiers, etc. Sometimes, the allomor-
phic variants -ilz-, -izm-/-izn- are found, though in a lower percentage of
cases: e.g., B-ilz-arbara, B-ilz-obby, w-ilz-e; m-izm-illimeter; b-izn-ottle,
m-izn-ission, t-izn-elevision, v-izn-ideos, walkie-t-izn-alkies (Viau 2002).148
The position of the hip-hop -iz- infix depends on the stress of the word
into which it is inserted, lodging itself before the stressed vowel. Thus, if the
base is a monosyllabic word, -iz- occurs between onset and nucleus, as in c-
iz-oast, dr-iz-eam, str-iz-aw. With disyllables, -iz- aligns with the stressed
vowel, as in d-iz-llar, G-iz-ogle (with stress on the first syllable) vs. beh-
iz-ve, eff-iz-ct (with stress on the second syllable). Moreover, with infixed
disyllables, stress is preserved with trochees (sldiers s-iz-ldiers), but
shifts with iambs (surprse surpr-z-ise) (Viau 2002). With more than
two syllables, this type of infixation is rare (e.g. m-izm-llimeter, t-izn-
levision).
In Table 10 the various types of infix are organised more systematically.
Table 10. Types and examples of English infixes

Expletive The base is Insertion of -bloody-, bandanna ban-
Infixation interrupted -blooming-, bloody-danna, unbe-
by an exple- -fuckin(g)-, etc. into a lievable un-fuckin-
tive infix base believable
Homeric The base is Insertion of -ma- into saxophone saxo-
Infixation interrupted a base ma-phone
by the infix Insertion of -ma- into lively live-ma-ly
-ma- a base with schwa-
epenthesis
Insertion of -ma- with oboe oba-ma-boe
partial reduplication
of the base
Diddly- The base is Insertion of -diddly- action ac-diddly-
Infixation interrupted with partial redupli- action
by the infix cation of the base
-diddly-
Hip-hop The base is Insertion of -iz- (or house h-iz-ouse,
Infixation interrupted -ilz-, -izm-, -izn-) into Bobby B-ilz-obby,
by the infix a base millimeter m-izm-
-iz- illimeter, bottle
b-izn-ottle
192 Minor phenomena
6.4. Infixation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon
McMillan (1980: 163) calls infixes emotive intensifier[s], claiming that

they are normally obscene, profane or euphemistic.149 The infixation of ex-
pletives in English has been included in Zwicky and Pullums (1987) expres-
sive morphology. According to Baldi (2000: 970), it is part of expressive
morphology for the following reasons: 1) it is used in a specific register, 2)
the (obscene) meaning of the infix carries a pragmatic effect, 3) it applies to
a wide range of input categories, and 4) it is typologically marginal in Eng-
lish. There is no doubt, in fact, that its pragmatic effects, promiscuity with
regard to input category, and imperfect control are properties which charac-
terise expletive infixation as an expressive morphological phenomenon.
Similarly, for the Homeric type, Yu (2007: 184) claims that -ma- indicates
attitudes of sarcasm and distastefulness, although it can also be used as a
form of language play. Its expressiveness is therefore similar to that of
expletives. Yet, as we will see, infixation is also part of extra-grammatical
morphology.
Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi (1994: 41) exclude expletive infixations
of the type absolutely abso-blooming-lutely from morphological gram-
mar because neither new words nor inflectional word forms are formed
(see also Dressler 2005). Against this claim, Plag (2003: 103) treats exple-
tive infixation as regular word-formation, because the derived word acquires
a new meaning, especially in terms of additional information about the
speakers attitude (see also Aronoff 1976: 69). Plag (2003: 103) accommo-
dates this type of infixation, together with other phenomena (especially trun-
cations and blends), within prosodic morphology, that is a kind of morphol-
ogy where prosodic units and prosodic restrictions are chiefly responsible for
the shape of complex words. For the other types of infixation, Viau (2002),
Yu (2004, 2007), and Elfner and Kimper (2008) similarly offer some gener-
alisations, mainly based on prosodic aspects.
Although some generalisations are possible within infixation, it goes
against too many of the rules of English grammatical morphology to be con-
sidered part of regular word-formation.
6.4.1. Irregularities in infixation
Infixation, unlike other derivational affixes, exhibits a number of irregulari-

ties, summarised in the following subsections.
Infixation as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 193
6.4.1.1. Unchanged meaning. Whereas word-formation rules obtain new

words in terms of new meanings, infixation only obtains connoted variants.
There is a purely stylistic difference between the input absolutely and the
output abso-blooming-lutely, between action and ac-diddly-action, house
and h-iz-ouse, or between underestimate and underesti-ma-mate. The out-
puts of infixation share an extra pragmatic meaning, which may be either
obscene or simply playful, thus providing information about the users atti-
tude. In other words, infixes like -bloody- or -damned- do not maintain their
denotational lexical meanings in the insert position, but convey to the new
word a special stylistic and pragmatic meaning. Infixes of this kind are, in-
deed, typically used as intensifiers, and their function is that of emotive
stress amplifier[s] (McMillan 1980: 165).
6.4.1.2. Unchanged syntactic category. As the above-mentioned outputs

show, infixation does not change the grammatical category of the input.
Thus, like their respective inputs, abso-blooming-lutely is still an adverb,
ac-diddly-action and h-iz-ouse are nouns, and underesti-ma-mate is a verb.
6.4.1.3. Alternative input categories. As a corollary, infixation permits

various syntactic categories as bases. The Homeric type, for instance, also
admits place and person names as input (Ala-ma-bama, Micha-ma-langelo,
Or-ma-well). The expletive type is even more permissive, admitting, as
bases, an adjective (e.g. fan-fucking-tastic, im-fuckin-portant), an adverb
(e.g. abso-bally-lutely, to-bloody-gether), a verb (e.g. ad-bloody-vance, e-
goddamned-vaporate), a noun (e.g. de-fuckin-fence, hypo-bloody-crite), a
pronoun (e.g. no-bloody-body), an interjection (e.g. halle-bloody-lujah, ho-
bloody-ho, Jesus-fucking-Christ), and, like ma-infixation, personal/place
names (e.g. Dan friggin Quayle, Kalama-goddamn-zoo, Minne-bloody-
sota, Santa-fuckin-Cruz).
6.4.1.4. Discontinuous bases. Unlike prefixes and suffixes, which are regu-
larly added to a continuous base, infixes interrupt a base, as in terri-ma-
tory, where the infix is inserted into the base territory. Because of the pref-
erence for morphotactic transparency, discontinuous bases are dispreferred
in Natural Morphology (2.2.1; see also Dressler 2005).
194 Minor phenomena
6.4.1.5. Non-morphematic analysis. As a consequence of the preceding

point, infixed forms cannot be segmented into morphemes, in that, in the
above example, the two segments terri and tory do not have meaning in iso-
lation, but only acquire meaning when they are combined. Furthermore,
some infixes also occur as free morphemes (e.g. bloody, fucking), and there-
fore can occur outside the base (bloody-fantastic along with fan-bloody-
tastic), while others can only occur inside the base (*oboe-ma vs. oba-ma-
boe).
McCarthys (1982: 589) remark that there is essentially no rule of Exple-
tive Infixation appears evident from the above irregularities. Subsections
6.4.1.16.4.1.5 validate the hypothesis that infixes are not only part of ex-
pressive morphology, but they are also part of extra-grammatical morphol-
ogy (2.3.7.12.3.7.10), in that they are not analysable in terms of canonical
rules. Let us now check the regularities and preferences of infixation.
6.4.2. Regularities in infixation
Aronoff (1976) elaborates a rule of English derivational morphology called

the infixing rule (p. 69). He observes that the insertion of expletives is not
just a matter of morphology, but also depends on phonological factors, more
specifically on the stress pattern of the base word in which the expletive will
be infixed. Similarly, expletive infixation has been considered a robust
phenomenon by McCarthy (1982: 589) on account of properties that can be
derived from a prosodic theory of foot-level metrical structure. Plag (2003:
103) likewise notes the regularity of expletives in prosodic terms, which
accounts for their inclusion within prosodic morphology. Viau (2002) posits
various generalisations for the hip-hop type. Lastly, Yu (2007) observes that
the various types of infixes seem to be attracted by stress, although the latter
also determines the diversity of the positions where infixes are found rela-
tive to the stem (p. 2). The main tendencies and regularities in infixation
seem to be based on prosody, and generalisations can be made only within
each type, and not for the whole phenomenon. As we have seen, the expletive
type differs from the others in that expletives can also stand as independent
words, while -diddly-, -iz-, and -ma- are not found in isolation.
Let us now look at infixation regularities in more detail.
6.4.2.1. Predictable infix position. Infixation patterns are predictable in

terms of the infix position. Both stress and syllable boundary appear to play
a role in infixation. In the expletive type, the infix generally appears immedi-
ately before the syllable of the base that bears primary stress (McMillan
1980: 164; McCarthy 1982: 575; Bauer 1983: 90), as in Ala-fuckin-bma,
al-bloody-mghty, fan-fuckin-tstic, propa-fuckin-gnda (cf. Aronoffs
1976: 70 restatement of Siegels 1971 Fuckin Rule).150 Plag (2003: 102
103) adds that it must be inserted between two feet, before (i.e. to the left of)
a stressed trochaic foot.151 Some counterexamples are offered by McMillan
(1980: 164): i.e., in-X-consstent and un-X-belevable.
The Homeric infix, by contrast, must come after (i.e. to the right of) a
trochaic foot, as in sxo-ma-phone, scre-ma-tary, where the main stress is
on the first syllable, or hippo-ma-ptamus, Missi-ma-ssppi, where stress
falls on the third syllable.
The -iz- infix is attracted by stress as well. However, it differs from the
previous two patterns by lodging itself before the stressed vowel, as in d-iz-
llar and s-iz-ldiers. Moreover, with infixed disyllables, stress shifts with
iambs (effct eff-z-ect), but is always on the penultimate syllable (Viau
2002). However, syllable boundaries are not respected, in that the infix may
also be inserted within a monosyllabic word, between onset and nucleus, as
in dr-iz-eam, or even before it, as in iz-at, ilz-are, with no onset. The latter
case actually contravenes the definition of infix, which, unlike prefixes, is
typically inserted within a word.
The -diddly- infix is similarly motivated by the main stress of the stem
word, being lodged before it, as in ac-diddly-ction, wel-diddly-lcome.
6.4.2.2. Base expansion. In ma-infixation, disyllabic stems must be ex-

panded in order to host the Homeric infix (Yu 2004). One kind of expansion
involves the insertion of a schwa to form an additional unstressed syllable
before ma-infixation, as in lively . Another kind involves par-
tial reduplication of the base, as in oboe oba-ma-boe. Like the Homeric
type, diddly-infixation involves partial reduplication, as the repetition of ac
and el in the above examples (see 6.4.2.1) shows. The expletive type does
not normally involve an expansion of the base word, although some words
have an added syllable to make insertion possible: see, for example, the
forms bea-X-utiful and umber-X-ella in McMillan (1980: 164).
196 Minor phenomena
6.4.2.3. Polysyllabic base. For the expletive type, the minimal form in which
an infix can occur is a disyllabic base, as in ur-fucking-bane, although
words of three or more syllables are preferred bases in infixation, as in im-
fucking-possible, and incan-fucking-descent. Similarly, in the Homeric type,
naturally polysyllabic bases are preferred, or an added syllable is obtained
through either vowel insertion or reduplication (see 6.4.2.2 above). In the
diddly-type, polysyllabic bases are likewise obtained by partial reduplica-
tion. On the other hand, the hip-hop type also accepts monosyllabic bases.
6.4.3. Predictability in infixation
As the previous section shows, regularities are scarcely identifiable in infixa-

tion and the rare tendencies are based on prosodic constraints rather than on
morphological ones. Moreover, infixes do not qualify as a homogeneous set,
and each type appears to follow different patterns. The expletive type also
exists in syntagmatic constructions, whereas the other types are only found
in infixal position. Sometimes reduplication of the base occurs as an addi-
tional feature, but not in all types.
In the light of these various points, full predictability would seem to be
excluded, but let us make a tentative analysis of some hypothetical cases
before drawing conclusions.
Table 11. Possible infixations from existing source words
Source word Possible infixation

(1) probability proba-fuckin-bility, proba-ma-bility,
probab-iz-ility (rare)
(2) fanatic fa-bloody-natic, fana-ma-natic, fan-iz-
atic, fan-diddly-atic
(3) New York New-fuckin-York, New Y-iz-ork
(4) fabulous fabu-ma-lous, f-iz-abulous, fa-diddly-
fabulous
(5) again a-bloody-gain, aga-ma-gain, ag-iz-ain
(6) inadmissible inad-bloody-missible, inad-ma-
missible, inadm-iz-issible
As these examples show, not all words are appropriate bases for infixa-
tion, and, especially, some are inappropriate with some types. For instance,
a polysyllabic base with stress on the third syllable, as in (1) (probability),
would be acceptable in the expletive and Homeric types, but less adequate in
the hip-hop type, and unacceptable in the diddly-type, because of an unpro-
nounceable cluster bd. A complex base with primary stress on the second
element, as in (3) (New York), would block both -ma- and -diddly- insertion,
because of either prosodic or pronunciation reasons. The base fabulous in
(4) would block expletive infixation, because the main stress falls on the first
syllable, which means that the expletive before it would be in prefixal rather
than infixal position. The bases again and inadmissible in (5) and (6), by
contrast, do not admit diddly-infixation, which is often blocked because of
the difficult or even impossible pronunciation of the derivative. The only
base which appears suitable to all types is fanatic in (2), although infixation
does not occur homogeneously in the same position: cf. fa-bloody-natic vs.
fan-iz-atic. With the infix -ma-, an extension of the base is necessary to
admit insertion. These are further confirmations of the inconsistency and
difficult predictability of the phenomenon.
In the case of infixation, the criteria of well-formedness identified for the

other extra-grammatical processes investigated so far are not valid. In fact,
there seems to be no appropriate parameter according to which well-formed
infixed words are obtained, in that there are no relevant criteria that apply
prototypically or generally, e.g.:
Compositionality. The general criterion of compositionality, i.e. compo-

sitional meaning obtained by the meanings of the base words (or af-
fixes), is not relevant for infixation, in that infixes do not obtain new
words in terms of new semantic meanings. The expletive type is only an
emotive stress amplifier (McMillan 1980), whereas the other types are
purely accessories with jocular effects.
Pronounceability/Euphony. The criteria of pronounceability and
euphony do not apply, in that infixed words are often difficult to pro-
nounce or made pronounceable by schwa epenthesis, as in grave-ma-
yard and live-ma-ly, or else by the aid of partial reduplication of the
base word, as in ac-diddly-action, wel-diddly-elcome. In the hip-hop
type, the infix -iz- is even inserted within monosyllabic bases, making
them nearly unpronounceable and often incomprehensible to the listener,
as in c-iz-oast, dr-iz-eam, str-iz-aw.
198 Minor phenomena
Salience/Recoverability. The criteria of salience and recoverability do

not apply either. There are no salient parts in the new infixed forma-
tions. On the contrary, the base words are interrupted to lodge the infix,
and thus made less salient, more opaque and nearly unrecognisable, as in
emanci-motherfuckin-pator, Tata-fuckin-magouche, he-diddly-eaven,
B-ilz-obby.
Concatenation/Linearity. Concatenation does not apply because infixes
are not added to bases, as in regular derivation or composition, but in-
serted within them. Hence, infixation does not obey the parameter of
linearity either, because it is a processes which involves discontinuous
bases. In fact, infixes interrupt the linearity of the source words, as in
ad-bloody-vance, Ha-bloody-waii, and im-frigging-portant. They may
even interrupt syllables, as in the above-mentioned he-diddly-eaven and
B-ilz-obby, and are not necessarily placed at morpheme boundaries: see,
e.g., inde-goddamn-pendent (vs. in-depend-ent), underesti-ma-mate
(vs. under-estimate), unsub-ma-stantiated (vs. un-substantiat(e)-ed).
The only principle which controls the formation of infixed words is anal-
ogy:
Analogy. All the above-mentioned formations are analogical with exist-

ing patterns, allowing both the insertion of the same infix within a dif-
ferent word (e.g. abso-bloody-lutely and fan-bloody-tastic) and the in-
sertion of a different infix of the same type within the same word (e.g.
abso-bloody-lutely and abso-blooming-lutely). Analogy also governs
the formation of similar infixed words of the ma-type (saxo-ma-phone,
secre-ma-tary), of the iz-type (b-iz-itch, h-iz-ouse), and, with partial re-
duplication, of the diddly-type (ac-diddly-action, wel-diddly-elcome).
6.5. Phonaesthemes: Definition, delimitation, and classification
In line with the principle of sound symbolism (Marchand 1969: 397), and
against the Saussurian view that the sign is arbitrary (i.e. not motivated by
its meaning) (Saussure 1916),152 there appear to be cases of non-arbitrary
relationship between sound and meaning, as when we imitate things per-
ceived through our senses (direct imitation or onomatopoeia), or when we
use speech sounds to express feelings (expressive symbolism or phonaesthe-
sia).
Phonaesthemes: Definition, delimitation, and classification 199
Anderson (1998: 43) identifies five forms of sound symbolism: kinesthe-

sia, synaesthesia, chromaesthesia, phonaesthesia, and onomatopoeia. A clas-
sical case of kinesthesia, based upon correspondences of meaning and the
physical attributes of articulation is, for example, when phonemes pro-
nounced with bilabial rounding occur in words whose meaning includes
roundness, such as round, mound, mouth, whirl, world. A well-known ex-
ample of synaesthesia, based upon the relationship between language and
psychological reality, is the association of front or high front vowels , ,
with smallness, constriction or narrowness, lively activity, hardness,
thinness, or brightness, as in bit, chink, chit, kid, little, slim, teeny-weeny,
thin, wee (with a few counterexamples, like big, thick, reported in Merlini
Barbaresi 2000: 7). I have mentioned cases of English onomatopes based on
sound imitation in the previous chapter (see onomatopoeic reduplicatives in
5.1.3.3). Other typical non-reduplicated examples include: bang, gulp, slam,
sniff, splash, and non-grammaticalised aha, ahem, ho-hum, humph, oh,
phew, etc. In this part of chapter 6, I will deal only with phonaesthesia.
Phonaesthesia is a phenomenon based mainly on affinity among sets of
words sharing non-etymological clusters of phonemes and, consequently,
evoking similar sensations, feelings, and meanings. Phonaesthemes (Firth
1930), also labelled secondary associations (Hockett 1958), submor-
phemic differentials (Bolinger 1965), emotionally expressive symbols
(Marchand 1969), phonomorphs (Baldi 2000), non-morphemic sequences
of phonemes, and psychomorphs (Philps forth.), are relatively pervasive
in human languages.
In an analysis of over 660 monosyllabic words in standard and dialectal
English, Fred Householder (1946) discovered that words sharing a mid-
central lax vowel , as in jump, generally have a pejorative meaning related
to contempt, disgust, failure. Bolinger (1965) later noticed that the pho-
neme suggests foolishness in boob, coo-coo, galoot, nincompoop,
rube, stooge. According to Waugh (1994), in the series clip, dip, drip, flip,
grip, nip, pip, quip, tip, yip, the post-vocalic stop is synaesthetically sensed
to be like a blow and the sound-symbolic seems to suggest a briefer
focus upon the action (vs. in clap, flap, lap, rap, slap).
The existence of phonaesthetic elements has been amply documented in
English (Firth 1930; Bolinger 1940, 1965; Marchand 1969; Anderson 1998;
Bergen 2004; Philps forth. and the literature therein), as well as in other
diverse languages of the world (Indonesian, Japanese, Swedish, Greek, etc.).
Their relevance is confirmed not only by distributional evidence, but also by
their role in language change, especially in the generation of neologisms
(Bergen 2004), which are symptomatic of the productivity of phonaes-
200 Minor phenomena
themes. Their cognitive status and their role in the synchronic mental organi-
sation of language still remain open questions. The appropriate place for
phonaesthemes in morphological theories and their relevance to expressive or
unconventional word-formation is still a heated issue (Baldi 2000).
Phonaesthemes have been recently investigated by linguists not only be-
cause they may occur in words whose internal structure is non-compositional
which excludes their morphemic status but also because they pose con-
siderable problems for the analysis of meaning. The most recurrent sound-
meaning pairings have been described empirically by means of corpus stud-
ies based on statistical, distributional and frequency analysis, thus providing
objective data for some of the features involved. Drellishak (2006), however,
claims that statistical tests alone do not convincingly prove the existence of
phonaesthemes, nor do they validate particular proposed phonaesthemes.
Psycholinguistic experiments such as those conducted by Bergen (2004) may
instead be a more valid approach.
My interest in this part of the book will not focus on the cognitive status
or the psycho-/neuro-linguistic relevance of phonaesthemes, but rather on
their place, if any, within expressive and extra-grammatical morphology, or
within morphology at large.
6.5.1. Definition
Phonaesthemes are recurrent sound-meaning pairings, i.e. sounds, or groups

of sounds which, although they are not classifiable as proper morphemes,
are usually associated with some kind of meaning. An example is the English
onset gl-, which is infrequent in English, except among words with meanings
related to vision and light (e.g. gleam, glimmer, glint, glisten, glitter,
glow, etc.) (Baldi 2000). Another frequently discussed phonaestheme is the
onset sn-, which occurs in a large number of words relating to nose and
mouth (e.g. snack, snarl, sneeze, sniff, snore, snort, snout, etc.) (Philps
forth.).
Bloomfield (1933) discusses phonaesthemes (without using the term) in a
chapter on morphology, stating that, since they represent phonetic-semantic
relationships, they should be treated as morphemes. Rhodes and Lawler
(1981, in Drellishak 2006: 5) also maintain that phonaesthemes are merely
sub-syllabic morphemes, not different in principle from other morphemes.
Of course, the morphemic analysis of phonaesthemes has not been uni-
versally adopted. For instance, Bergen (2004: 290) negatively defines pho-
naesthemes as frequently recurring sound-meaning pairings that are not
clearly contrastive morphemes, thus stressing the fact that they are not
morphemes. Actually, their morphemic value has been rejected by many
scholars, as the various labels used to denote them suggest. Marchand
(1969: 403) claims that they differ from full morphemes such as words,
prefixes, or suffixes because they combine into units which are not syntag-
mas in a grammatical sense, but monemes (one-morpheme words). This is a
feature that phonaesthemes appear to share with other extra-grammatical
formations. Like blends (smog) and acronyms (NATO), they are not analys-
able into morphemes. That is, glimmer cannot be segmented into *gl- and
*immer, nor can snore be analysed as the combination of *sn- and *ore,
because glimmer and snore are words made up of only one morpheme. In
other words, forms containing phonaesthemes are non-compositional (see
Bergen 2004 for a similar position).
Baldi (2000: 964) likewise lays emphasis on the fact that words contain-
ing phonosymbolic segments are structurally simple, and, therefore, do
not derive from any rule of word-formation. Moreover, he claims that they
are not unconventional or expressive in that they have no unusual effect
extending beyond their lexical meaning (Baldi 2000: 964). Merlini Bar-
baresi (2000: 8), by contrast, observes that lexical words linked by a hori-
zontal paradigm, like glimmer, glisten, glitter, etc., give rise to a lexical
context and create in each word of the set the ability to evoke the thought of
other words and their meanings. This potential is interpreted by Waugh
(1994) as a tendency of sounds toward independent signification. In Ander-
son (1998: 66) they are said to evoke a feeling rather than a meaning.
Phonaesthemes seem, indeed, to be loaded with extra meaning, an inde-
pendent evocative, associative potential which allows sophisticated exploita-
tion in creative language, and at the same time excludes certain dispreferred
sounds in new coinages. For instance, in English-speaking countries, words
with an initial sound sequence sl- (e.g. slug, slurp, slut) are considered un-
desirable, because they are associated with a pejorative connotative value
(Firth 1930: 185). Or the internal sequence -oo- has a deprecative connota-
tion in fool, goof, goon, loon, spoof, etc. (as noted by Bolinger 1965). Con-
sequently, these sequences convey, like other expressive or extra-
grammatical phenomena, a special pragmatic effect. Although it is not inves-
tigated here, phonaesthemes like these are avoided in brand naming (see
Baldi 2000).
202 Minor phenomena
6.5.2. Delimitation: Phonaesthemes vs. other morpho(no)logical concepts
Although Bloomfield (1933) describes them as a system of initial and final

root-forming morphemes, of vague signification (p. 245 [emphasis in the
original]), phonaesthemes are not morphemes. There are many obvious simi-
larities between a phonaestheme and a morpheme: both a prefix and an ini-
tial cluster, for example, exhibit a characteristic sound and meaning. Yet
there are also several differences between these two concepts. Unlike pho-
naesthemes, morphemes can change the part of speech of a word and, often,
they can be inserted only in certain locations within a word. Phonaesthemes
can appear anywhere in a word (although initial and final positions prevail
over internal clusters or vowel sounds), and they never play a syntactic role.
Moreover, the semantic content of a morpheme is more stable than that of a
phonaestheme. For example, in general, every word starting with a prefix
proto- has something to do with earliness, but only a portion of words with
an initial sequence gl- have anything to do with light or shining (cf. glory
and the above-mentioned gloom).
Another necessary distinction is between phonaesthemes and onomato-
poeia. Both are echoic words which form part of sound symbolism, or
phonosymbolism, and generally treated together (e.g. by Bloomfield 1933;
Marchand 1969; Stockwell and Minkova 2001). What distinguishes words
containing phonosymbols from onomatopoeic words is the fact that ono-
matopoeic formations such as bang, boom, burp, cuckoo, meow, etc. are
imitative of a sound, that is, they imitate by speech the sounds or noises that
we hear. Phonaesthemes, by contrast, are not imitative in character, but
expressive of a feeling.153 Since they are relevant to expressive morphology
(cf. Baldi 2000), I have decided to investigate their relevance also to extra-
grammatical morphology.
6.5.3. Classification of phonaesthemes
Suggested phonaesthemes typically belong to open classes, that is to content

words such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The most recurrent ones can be
categorised on the basis of their position in the words containing them.
6.5.3.1. Initial phonaesthemes are found at the word beginning. Some ex-
amples are:
bl- : The phonaestheme bl- is widely used in words associated with a

negative (deprecative) value, as in bleeding, blessed, bloody, blooming,
often used in infixal position (see expletive infixation in 6.3.3 above).
cr- : This phonaestheme is frequent with words denoting harsh
sounds or twisted movement or position. Typical formations with this
consonantal cluster as beginning are: crack (also reduplicated as crick-
crack), cramp, crankle (run zigzag), crawl, creep, crick, crimp,
cringe, crinkle, crisp, crouch, crumple.
fl- : The phonaestheme fl- introduces a number of words usually as-
sociated with phenomena of movement, flying, flowing, or liquid mo-
tion. Examples are: flack, flag, flare, flee, fleet, flicker, flirt, flit, flitter,
float, flood, flop, flow, fluid, flump, flunk, flurry, flush, fly.
gl- : This sound, as we have seen, occurs in many words expressive
of the idea of light or vision. It occurs, for instance, in the following
words: glade, glare, glass, gleam, glent (glean, shine), glimmer,
glimpse, glint, glister, glitter, glitz, gloss, glow.
gr- : This cluster is probably of onomatopoeic origin with words
denoting deep-toned, menacing noises, such as grin, grim, grimly,
groin, grouse, growl, grudge, gruff, grum, grumble, grunt, gruntle,
grutch.
m- : The bilabial consonant is found initially with a number of words
denoting movements of mouth or indistinct talk. The pronunciation of
this consonant is made with the lips firmly closed preventing clear ar-
ticulation, and the act of pronouncing a word with such an initial sound
iconically mimics a key aspect of its meaning. Words such as mumble,
mump, munch, murmur, and mutter involve this sound at least once.
However, this consonantal sound does not occur only initially, it can
also be inserted in the middle of a word conveying the same meaning, as
in bumble, grumble, yammer, and the above-mentioned mumble, mump,
murmur.
sl- : The phonaestheme sl- is initial in many words indicating falling
or sliding movement or slime, slush, liquid, as in slash, sled, sledge,
sleight, slide, slime, slip, slithers, sloppy, slosh, slouch, sludge, sluice,
slumps, slush. A few linguists (e.g. Firth 1930) claim that words involv-
ing this particular phonaestheme share a pejorative meaning. This idea is
supported by the fact that sl- often appears as beginning of words to in-
dicate negative actions or negative effects, such as 1) slave, slavery,
sleep, sleepy, sloth, slow, which refer to inaction or passive action; 2)
slime, sloth, slush, which involve the notion of dirty; 3) slide, slip,
slippery, slither, with a meaning component of instability; 4) slander,
204 Minor phenomena
slight, slur, meaning denigration; 5) slim, slit-eyed, sliver, meaning

narrowness.
sn- : Another frequent phonaestheme in English is initial sn- related
to mouth, nose, or face, or, by metaphorical extension, to snobbish-
ness, inquisitiveness. Examples of this group include: sneeze, sniff,
sniffle, snivel, snoop, snoot, snore, snort, snot, snout, snuff, snuffle.
sw- : This phonaestheme is related mainly to the meaning of flour-
ish or swinging, as in swagger, swank, swap, sways, swell, swerve,
swiftly, swinge, swings, swip, swirle, swish, swoon, swoop, swoosh.
tw- : The initial phonaestheme tw- occurs in words denoting small
sounds or twisting movements, as in twang, twank, twat, tweak, tweet,
twick, twiddle, twine, twinge, twinkle, twirl, twist, twister, twit, twitch,
twitter, and reduplicated twingle-twangle, twittle-twattle.
6.5.3.2. Final phonaesthemes occur at the end of words which are connected
by rhyme:
-ack : This phonaestheme is frequent with words denoting sound

with abrupt decay, such as brack (noise, outcry), clack (chatter,
prate, cluck, cackle), crack, flack (slap, blow), quack (said of
ducks), smack (kiss noisily), snack, thwack (beat soundly), whack
(thwack).
-ash : The phonaestheme -ash is final in many English words mean-
ing violent impact, violence, breaking, or fragments, as in clash,
crash (gnash, dash, smash), dash, flash (originally said of water),
gnash, hash, lash, mash, pash (dash, smash), plash, quash, rash
(dash), slash, smash (have sex), splash, squash, swash (fall of a
heavy body), thrash, trash.
-ick : The phonaestheme -ick tends to appear at the end of words
indicating a quick sound, as in click, crick (sound of grasshopper,
spasm of the muscles), flick, kick, nick, pick, prick, snick (click),
tick.
-ump : This particular sound is often found at the end of words
which are associated with heaviness and clumsiness, or heavy, awk-
ward movements. Some examples are: bump, clump (tread heavily),
crump (noise of horses or pigs when eating), dump (fall heavily),
flump, jump, plump, slump, thump, wump (throb, sound of fall). It is
also expressive of displeasure in: frump (noun cross, old-fashioned
woman, or verb put in a bad humour), glump/grump (sulk), hump

(ill-humour), lump (look sulky), mump.
-urry : The phonaestheme -urry conveys to the word in which it is
contained the meaning haste or confusion, as in flurry, hurry, scurry
(also combined as hurry-scurry), worry.
-ush : This phonaestheme, instead, tends to convey the meaning of
something oozy and moist, as in crush, dush (dash), flush, frush
(strike violently), gush, lush (dash, strike), rush, slush.
6.5.3.3. Middle phonaesthemes are rarely found and occur in medial posi-
tion:
-i-/-ee-/-ea-/-ie- , : The high front vowels and frequently oc-

cur as phonaesthemes in words associated with smallness, as in brief,
lean, little, meagre, mini, miniature, pinkie, teeny-weeny, thin, tiny,
wee. They are frequently used also finally, as a diminutive or non-
serious suffix (see -y/-ie in Merlini Barbaresi 2001).
-oo- : This phonaestheme is generally associated with a deprecative
meaning, as in boob, fool, goof, goon, loon, spoof.
-u- : This vowel sound is very often found within words associated
with various kinds of dullness or indistinctness, as in blunt, clump,
dull, dusk, mud, sludge, slump, slush, thud, thump.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but to provide an illustrative sam-

ple of some representative sound-meaning pairings. Other cases are reported
and discussed in, among others, Firth (1930), Bloomfield (1933), Bolinger
(1940, 1965), Marchand (1969), Waugh (1994), and, more recently, in
Baldi (2000), Bergen (2004), Drellishak (2006), and Philps (forth.). A com-
prehensive collection of English phonaesthemes is to be found in Shislers
online Dictionary of English Phonestemes (1997).
Table 12 summarises the above-mentioned types of phonaesthemes.
Table 12. Types and examples of English phonaesthemes
Type Description Sound-Meaning Examples

Pair
Initial Phonaes- The phonaes- gl- light or glade, glare,
theme theme occurs in vision glass, gleam,
initial position glent, glimmer,
206 Minor phenomena
glimpse, glint,
glister, glitter,
glitz, gloss, glow
Final Phonaes- The phonaes- -ash violent clash, crash,
theme theme occurs in impact, break- dash, flash,
final position ing gnash, hash, lash,
mash, pash,
plash, quash,
rash, slash,
smash, splash,
squash, swash,
thrash, trash
Middle Phonaes- The phonaes- -u- dullness, blunt, clump,
theme theme occurs in indistinctness dull, dusk, mud,
medial position sludge, slump,
slush, thud,
thump
6.6. Phonaesthemes as an extra-grammatical phenomenon
It is not clear whether phonaesthemes belong more to the morphological or

to the phonological system of the language. Their pertinence to the phono-
logical system has been amply recognised after all, this is the reason why
most scholars deal with them in terms of sound or phono-symbolism. How-
ever, seminal works, such as Marchand (1969), include them in their ac-
count of word-formation, which suggests that they are also part of morpho-
logical organisation.
However, as observed by Merlini Barbaresi (2000), morphologists tend
to marginalise phonaesthesia as being extra-grammatical: affinity among
these sets of words is based on non-etymological clusters of phonemes which
do not coincide with any meaningful morphemes. Critics also point out that
phonaesthemes are vague, in comparison with morphemes, in that they evoke
vague sensations rather than meanings.
This attitude towards extra-grammatical and expressive morphology ap-
pears rather short-sighted. As Merlini Barbaresi (2000) critically states,
grammarians fail to see the communicative power of these means and how
widely they are actually exploited in language. Much word-play, including
Shakespeares punning in Romeo and Juliet where connections are made
between the words coals, colliers, choler, and collar is based on such
phenomena (Merlini Barbaresi 2000: 9).
Phonaesthemes as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 207
Baldi (2000) even excludes phonaesthemes from his treatment of uncon-

ventional word-formation processes, on account of the typical structure and
lack of pragmatic effect of the words which contain them. However, al-
though it may be true that these words do not allow segmentation into
smaller meaningful units (unlike morphologically complex words), it is, at
the same time, inaccurate to say that they are inexpressive or unemotional.
The psychological reality of English phonaesthemes has been demon-
strated through priming experiments on native speakers (e.g. Bergen 2004;
Drellishak 2006). In these experiments, phonaesthemes, despite being non-
compositional in nature, display priming effects close to those that have been
reported for compositional morphemes. The pejorative value of sl- and du-
words (slag, slug; dunce, dullard), for instance, has been investigated by
McCrum (2002). These words not only have a negative meaning per se, but
develop an independent pejorative value on the basis of their phonic similar-
ity to other words sharing the same initial phonaesthemes.
Words containing phonaesthemes are therefore part of expressive mor-
phology, because they have a pragmatic effect, and can be said to violate
some of the properties of canonical derivation and compounding, allowing
their marginalisation to the extra-grammatical phenomena of the language.
6.6.1. Irregularities in phonaesthemes
The following irregularities motivate my inclusion of phonaesthemes within

extra-grammatical morphology (2.3.7.12.3.7.10).
6.6.1.1. Non-morphematic analysis. While regular derivatives and com-

pounds can be segmented into morphemes, we cannot attribute morpheme
status to phonaesthemes. Words such as slash, sled, sledge, sleight, slide,
etc. are not formed by adding a prefix *sl- to a base (*ash, *ed, *edge, etc.),
although this consonantal cluster appears repeatedly across the lexicon to
convey a pejorative value.
6.6.1.2. Variable position. Unlike bound morphemes, which are placed ei-
ther in initial (prefixes) or in final (suffixes) position, and more rarely inter-
nally (infixes, see 6.36.4 above), phonaesthemes may have a movable posi-
tion within the words containing them. For instance, the vowel sound is
associated with smallness both when it is in internal position (e.g. little,
208 Minor phenomena
tiny), and in final position, especially to indicate emotionally small, as in

dearie/-y, lassie, etc. Similarly, the consonant sound is associated with
the movements of the mouth when it is found initially, as in munch, mutter,
internally, as in bumble, grumble, or in both positions, as in mumble, mur-
mur.
6.6.1.3. Variable meaning. The meaning conveyed by phonaesthemes is

more variable than the meaning conveyed by regular affixes. While all words
beginning in a prefix anti- are assigned the meaning against (anti-social,
anti-virus), or ending in a suffix -less are assigned the category of adjective
indicating without (care-less, use-less), words containing phonaesthemes
can be attributed different meanings activated by the same sound. For in-
stance, the phonaestheme can be associated with energy, strength (pas-
sion, power), weapons, fighting (petard, pistol), pity, paleness (pale,
passive, perish, pity), contempt (patch fool, pig, piss, poop, puerile),
and anchored path or movement (pass, pull, pump, push, put), etc.
As far as regularities are concerned, neither morphological rules nor regu-
larities characterise words containing phonaesthemes. Only a phonic-
semantic relationship allows a categorisation into groups of words. But this
relationship, although not arbitrary, cannot be said to be as stable as that
between a bound morpheme and its meaning in regular word-formation.
The phenomenon under investigation in this section does not require fur-
ther examination as to its predictability, since this would entail studies of
cognitive and psychological associations which go beyond the scope of the
book. Moreover, preferential criteria of formation cannot be found for words
which are structurally simple or not derivative in nature. Below I propose
some criteria for the identification of phonaesthemes.
6.6.2. Criteria for identification
Phonaesthemes represent a category to be kept distinct from the other phe-

nomena investigated in this book in that they combine sounds with meanings
and do not involve morphological processes in the traditional sense. Thus,
what I offer is not a series of criteria of well-formedness, but rather criteria
for identification, i.e. determining the status of sounds as phonosymbols.
Phonaesthemes as an extra-grammatical phenomenon 209
Recursiveness. The sporadic distribution of sounds in a limited number

of words cannot count as a criterion for determination of phonaesthemic
status. Phonaesthemes must be recursive, productive, and occur fre-
quently in a significant number of items.
Homogeneity. Sounds acting as symbols must occur in a group of words
which represent a homogeneous set. Homogeneity is to be seen both in
phonetic terms (i.e. same pronunciation), and in structural terms (i.e.
same location within the words).
Semantic coherence. The words exhibiting phonaesthemes must also be
uniform in semantic terms, in that they should share some regular se-
mantic feature or expressive value which allows them to be grouped to-
gether, and allows the assignment of new items to the group on the basis
of their semantic coherence.
Chapter 7
Extra-grammatical formations in use
My morphological description, investigation, and analysis of extra-

grammatical phenomena would appear rather ineffectual without an appro-
priate contextualisation of the words mentioned in this book. Do English
people really use them? Or are they a purely morphological invention allow-
ing a discussion on creative formations? What type of users prefer extra-
grammatical formations, as opposed to ordinary, rule-governed formations?
What contexts, environments, registers favour the choice of marked (opaque)
words over more natural (transparent) ones? Why are these words so fre-
quent nowadays?
To answer these questions, in the present chapter I will offer contextual-
ised examples of clippings, acronyms, blends, reduplicatives and similar
formations taken from an array of sources, including films, sitcoms, televi-
sion series, newspaper headlines, news articles, magazine advertising, web-
sites, songs, and so on. The variety, even heterogeneity of the sources used
for the socio-pragmatic study of my data, provides evidence for the fact that
irregular formations do not constitute a uniform phenomenon, confined to
colloquial speech, excluded from written language or formal situations, and
hence devoid of scholarly interest. The notion of informality, as we will see,
applies only to some of them, and there are other principles of contextual
suitability which may help discriminate between grammatical and extra-
grammatical formations, and determine the preference for the latter over the
former, or for one extra-grammatical process over another.
Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 44) sustain that most extra-
grammatical processes may be well excluded from the vocabulary of a lan-
guage with no evident consequences or considerable losses. This claim ap-
pears contradicted by the massive presence of items that are created, nowa-
days, by means of extra-grammatical processes, and by the large
exploitation of these processes in specific, or even specialised contexts
(Mattiello forth.).
Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 44) indeed assume that there are
sociolinguistic reasons underlying the recent extensive use of extra-
grammatical formations, though they do not go into details. In this chapter I
intend to identify these reasons, since I believe that extra-grammatical for-
mations are essential communicative means in contemporary English and
Extra-grammatical formations in use 211
that their exclusion from the lexicon would involve a loss not only in terms
of alternatives to existing words, but also in terms of different shades of
meaning serving specific functions or producing particular effects on the
listener. Indeed, if at times extra-grammatical formations do not change the
meaning of a word, but only provide a differently connoted (more efficient,
more informal, less serious) variant (Dressler and Merlini Barbaresi 1994;
see also 3.2.1.6), at other times they cover semantic meanings which are not
expressed by any regular word. For instance, when a new scientific discov-
ery is made, an acronym or an acrostic is often purposefully created to name
it (Mattiello forth.), and when a new product enters the market, a creative
blend or reduplicative may be invented to label it (Ronneberger-Sibold
2000).
Present-day English is pervaded by abbreviated forms, interspersed in the
rich range of (textually) economical communications, from e-mails to text
messages. It is permeated by new creative terms either neologisms or mere
occasionalisms which are both attractive and persuasive. Adverts, promo-
tional websites, magazine and news headlines exploit the strong impact of
extra-grammatical words, such as clippings, blends, reduplicatives, and the
like, in order to capture the attention of, or even mesmerise, their receivers
(Cacchiani 2007). The media and commercial sectors often use such words
to name new products, thus helping customers to remember the names and
buy the products. Blends, acronyms, and initialisms are also innovative and
often humorous (Lehrer 2003; Cacchiani 2007). They signal, in the language
of young speakers, an effort to appear up-dated, fashionable, trendy, or sim-
ply to show off (Mattiello 2008a). Acronymic formations, however, may
also suit more formal contexts, such as medical jargon, the language of the
law, or other in-group vocabulary, where a minimal language form is suffi-
cient to make the referent comprehensible.
Ambiguity, or even vagueness may be the consequences of this extra-
grammatical use of the language. Another consequence is its expressivity in
terms of an additional playful, humorous, jocular, informal, or otherwise
secret, in-group tone. Extra-grammatical morphological phenomena often
coincide with phenomena of expressive morphology, because both are nor-
mally used to produce a pragmatic effect on the hearer or the addressee.
However, as we will see in the following sections, extra-grammatical forma-
tions are often lexicalised (2.3.5.1), or they may acquire the status of normal
words when they act as bases to regular inflection or word-formation. This
is symptomatic of their widespread recognition throughout the language and
its users.
212 Extra-grammatical formations in use
Section 7.1 is devoted to the detection of some general principles of con-

textual suitability for extra-grammatical phenomena, and 7.2 identifies their
primary domains of use. The sections which follow provide a variety of con-
texts which are intended to illustrate how the choices of specific phenomena
are favoured and motivated. These are: clippings (7.3.1), acronyms and ini-
tialisms (7.3.2), blends (7.3.3), reduplicatives (7.3.4), and other minor for-
mations (7.3.5). As we will see, each phenomenon meets more than one
principle, and suits different domains/contexts, depending on: 1) the users,
the addressees, and the social relationship between them, 2) the social func-
tions that the new formations are meant to serve, and 3) the pragmatic ef-
fects that they are meant to achieve.
7.1. Principles of contextual suitability
The socio-pragmatic principles which govern the users choices and which
establish contextual suitability for the phenomena investigated so far are as
heterogeneous as the set of processes, mechanisms, and formations involved.
The following principles appear to be prominent:
1) Informality. Many extra-grammatical formations suit familiar con-

texts and select an informal, unofficial, slang, at times even debased, register
(Mattiello 2008a). Most clippings provide a connoted variant to standard
forms. For example, the words bike, mike, brolly and telly and their non-
connoted options bicycle, microphone, umbrella and television co-exist and
select different registers. Other abbreviations, such as DJ, TV, or reduplica-
tives of the type bibble-babble or chit-chat, tend to be used in relaxed con-
versation, but are normally avoided in formal contexts.
2) Social or Professional closeness. The use of clippings, blends, and
reduplicatives allows users to attain a higher degree of social closeness with
their addressees.154 Moreover, alphabetisms are used to indicate either social
or professional closeness. Therefore, closeness is not only in terms of famili-
arity and intimacy, but also of in-group restriction, privacy, and secrecy
(Mattiello 2008a). In secret languages, and in social and professional jar-
gons, insiders generally use abbreviations to exclude outsiders. For example,
CI is used by physicians to refer to cardiac insufficiency and Woof (
Well-Off Older Folk) is used in juvenile slang (Ronneberger-Sibold 2008:
206).
3) Economy. Clipped forms and alphabetisms, being derived from a
conscious action of economizing (Dressler 2005: 269), play a fundamental
Principles of contextual suitability 213
role in language economy. That is, they conform to Zipfs (1949) Principle
of Least Effort and Martinets (1955) Principle of Linguistic Economy,
according to which shorter and simpler communication is favoured over
redundancy.
In their specialised, scientific and journalistic uses, abbreviations repre-
sent marked choices, but are highly accessible to the community of speakers
who belong to the same group and share a certain terminology, allowing
them to abbreviate what is easily recoverable (e.g. CA carcinoma used
by doctors for cancer) (Mattiello forth.). Blends are likewise more eco-
nomical than canonical compounds. They often iconically represent, through
an amalgamated noun, things or substances consisting of several amalga-
mated components, as in chloral for an amalgam of chlorine and alcohol.
These formations, therefore, answer the need for conciseness which is
typical of specialised discourse (Gotti 2005: 40).
4) Naming. Acronyms and initialisms often serve a naming function, that
is they name new discoveries, inventions, institutions, organisations, etc.,
providing specific labels which can circulate internationally. For instance,
LH is the recent name for the Laboratory corporation of America Holdings
and CVA is the medical term for Cherry Virus A. They are often im-
promptu coinages, which later acquire the status of stable widespread de-
nominations. As noted by Ronneberger-Sibold (2008: 206), not only are
these denominations easy to pronounce, perceive, and memorise, they are
also motivated by the iconic principle that one thing should be named by
one word, instead of being described by several words. Whereas, in general,
The full form is virtually always available as an alternant in the language
system (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 16321633), the abbreviated form
may be more common and widespread (cf. DNA vs. deoxyribonucleic acid).
In specialised domains, it becomes even monoreferential (see monoreferen-
tiality in Gotti 2005: 33), that is, it acquires specificity and semantic
uniqueness, so that its association to the context immediately suggests the
referent.
Blends serve the same naming principle when they are chosen to name
new products put on the market: e.g., Go-Gurt ( go + yogurt, perhaps
analogical with go-kart) yogurt in a tube for eating on the go, Palmolive
( palm oil + olive oil) trade name for soap, Wheatables ( wheat +
eatables) trade name for crackers, and Yobaby ( yogurt + baby) or-
ganic yogurt for babies.
5) Jocularity. Most abbreviations and atypical combinations are used to
convey a jocular, ludic, or playful tone to ones speech. The effect of play-
fulness is commonly produced by blends, which often exploit the phonological
similarity between the source words for humorous purposes, as in ambisextrous

or foolosopher. Similarly, embellished clippings like preggers (Huddleston and
Pullum 2002), or rhyming reduplicatives like okey-dokey, and most recent
infixes (wel-diddly-elcome, wonder-ma-ful) aim at amusing their listeners or
readers.155 An interesting phenomenon of modern slang is to choose, for exam-
ple, car brand names and form humorous backronyms, such as FIAT ( Fix It
Again Tony), TOYOTA ( Too Often Yankees Overprice This Auto), and
VOLVO ( Very Odd Looking Vehicular Object).
6) Novelty. Since speakers have internalised regular formations gram-
matically, what deviates from the norm is generally impressive and attrac-
tive, since it is felt to be novel, fresh, original, or even odd. Blends like
curvessence ( curve + essence) and mousewife share the property of
originality with some acronyms (LOL, nimby, Wysiwyg) and initialisms
(CWOT, JIC, TTFN), but especially with reduplicatives (slang footie-footie
and ju-ju), as well as with some less prototypical types of clipping, such as
secy and za. Back-formations are often viewed as anomalous words, with the
exclusion of well-known lexicalised cases (cf. 2.3.5.1). Infixes (especially
the Homeric and diddly-types) also convey an idea of novelty and creativity
to the new words. In general, most extra-grammatical formations signal an
attempt to renew the lexicon of a language, as well as the users desire to
impress their hearers, or to catch their attention by some unexpected and
novel means.
7) Musicality. Reduplicatives and phonaesthemes are particularly suitable in
contexts where rhythm and musicality are required. Reduplicative words, espe-
cially the onomatopoeic type, are preferential choices in child-centred speech,
because their musicality helps memorisation and facilitates imitation. Reduplica-
tives are predominant in premorphology. For example, small childrens first
word manipulations belong to the copy (din-din, wa-wa) or onomatopoeic types
(meow-meow, quack-quack) (see Dressler 2000; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler
forth.). Phonaesthemes are favoured in advertising and brand naming, where
sounds must be suggestive of meaning and be attention-catching. As noted by
Thornton (2000: 123), trademarks containing the sounds -ex and -tex (e.g.
Fairtex, Fortex, Fourex, Magitex) are often emphatic denominations which
suggest exceptional or even magical performance by the product named. Hip-hop
infixation (pl-iz-ay) may also contribute to the rhythm and musicality of song
lyrics, lengthening a line and providing phonological cohesion to the whole text.
8) Prominence. Some extra-grammatical formations are deliberately chosen
because of their prominence effect (cf. the Principle of Economy in 3 above), that
is to highlight words, to emphasise concepts, to accentuate the speakers inten-
tions, and to attract the hearer. Expletive infixes and most reduplicatives, based
Typical contexts and domains 215
on either an insertion (megalo-bloody-mania) or a phonic repetition of

words (boo-boo), are governed by the principle of prominence. Infixation
interrupts words, adding a negative (deprecative) value to them. Shm-
reduplication gives prominence to words, which are also syntactically em-
phasised by their topical initial position in the sentence (e.g. Cant-shmant:
you did it yesterday!).
Paradoxically, we can also give prominence to words by reducing their
linguistic form to an abbreviation, which may be more attractive than its full
form to the hearers/readers. In newspaper headlines, for example, reduced
forms like clippings and acronyms/initialisms are given more significance
and the readers of such forms are expected to read the article which follows.
The above-mentioned principles represent two distinct sets. The qualities of
Informality, Social/Professional closeness, Economy, and Naming corre-
spond to the functions served by extra-grammatical formations, whereas
Jocularity, Novelty, Musicality, and Prominence can be seen as effects ob-
tained by their use in specific contexts/domains.
7.2. Typical contexts and domains
The typical communicative contexts and domains calling for the use of ex-
tra-grammatical formations are the following:
a) Professional jargons often provide contexts in which a word or phrase

is so frequent that a shorter and more efficient form is required to save time.
This is the realm of acronyms and initialisms.
b) The mass media are also a form of communication in which there is
typically a shortage of both time and space. News headlines, television news,
and more recent means of communication, such as text messages and e-mail,
make use of various types of abbreviation to condense information into
smaller units.
c) Humorous literature which aims at amusing or impressing its readers
tends to use ludic formations, such as blends and sound symbolic words.
d) Literature for children (especially nursery rhymes) also abounds in
sound symbolic words, as well as in reduplicatives, which are attractive for
children for their onomatopoeic character.
e) Advertising makes particular use of sound symbolic words and
blends, not only in product names, but also in television commercials, which
are rich in new formations and attractive occasionalisms.156
f) Cartoons and television series also have the tendency to exploit the
power of most types of extra-grammatical formation, in order to attract and
entertain their hearers, whether children or adults.
In general, the majority of extra-grammatical phenomena tend to occur in

colloquial speech. Exceptions are the use of acronyms and initialisms in
specialised (technical and scientific) jargons, and the use of creative blends
to name pharmaceutical products, chemical substances, or diseases. As we
will see, oral language is more frequently affected by clippings, reduplica-
tives, and infixes than written language, since their immediacy, jocularity,
and effectiveness are best expressed in face-to-face interaction, where com-
prehension is facilitated by the aid of extra-linguistic (e.g. paralinguistic)
features.
7.3. Contextualising extra-grammatical phenomena
The sources that I have chosen for contextualised examples are heterogene-
ous in nature, and are meant to represent some of the typical contexts and
domains in which extra-grammatical formations are preferred to their corre-
sponding full or standard forms. They include the following:
a) Television series and films. Sitcoms, such as How I Met your

Mother, Friends, and The Simpsons, are representative of the language of
young people, who are strongly influenced by the mass media, especially by
television series, and often tend to reuse words and expressions that they
hear on television to seem more trendy and up-to-date.
The comedy-drama film Juno, whose protagonist is a sixteen-year-old
high-school girl confronting an unplanned pregnancy, is likewise representa-
tive of the language of teenagers.
Films like Trainspotting and A Scanner Darkly, whose characters adopt
specific slang words, are useful to illustrate the language of restricted groups
and minorities (e.g. drug users or drug dealers).
Other films, belonging either to the American or to the British cultural
tradition, illustrate various extra-grammatical formations in use.
b) Magazines, journals, newspapers, etc. The online Celebrity Gossip &
Lifestyle Magazine shows the language used in magazines whose targeted
readership is the general (especially female) public, interested in celebrity
gossips, fashion, beauty, and entertainment. By contrast, scientific journals
(Science, Nature) and websites (Medscape Reference) provide an illustra-
Contextualising extra-grammatical phenomena 217
tion of the jargon used in specialised sectors such as science and medicine.
Wikipedia is the source for an expository article using specific and technical
terminology. Moreover, articles and headlines from newspapers (e.g. Chi-
cago Sun-Times) and BBC news provide an illustration of news jargon.
Lastly, an extract from the electronic archive Eur-Lex is used to exemplify
the language of the law.
c) Blogs and websites. Extracts from blogs and forums show the lan-
guage of the Internet, whereas the website BBC Learning English provides
an interesting example of baby talk, especially useful to show reduplication
in child-directed language.
d) Literature. An extract from Kiplings novel Kim as well as an exam-
ple of a nursery rhyme (Dingly Dangly Scarecrow), and of a fairy story
(Chicken Little) are used to exemplify reduplication.
e) Musics. Extracts from songs like Destinys Childs Bootylicious and
Wests Through the Wire exemplify modern and sometimes ephemeral ter-
minology.
f) Conversation. Another useful source is Kemmers collection of Ne-
ologisms, where new words and occasionalisms are described and contextu-
alised by her students using excerpts from spontaneous conversation.
g) Advertising. Advertisements taken from Pennarola (2003) are used to
illustrate the novelty and musicality of advertising language.
7.3.1. Clippings
Clippings are currently used in many heterogeneous contexts and types of

discourse, although they are preferentially found in low informal register and
in spoken rather than written language (Fischer 1998: 64). Huddleston and
Pullum (2002: 1635) remark that they are deployed only in informal style
or even constitute slang when they are first coined (see also Mattiello
2008a). Clippings are widely used in English varieties; Australian English is
particularly rich, especially as regards the suffixed type (Katamba 2009).
Many of them are so commonly used that they are highly accessible to any-
one.
7.3.1.1. The frequent and constant use of clipped words has largely contrib-
uted to the process of their lexicalisation (2.3.5.1). Indeed, they may wholly
or largely displace the original (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 1635), losing
their in-group flavor (Plag 2003: 121). Below is a series of extracts from
dialogues in which no disambiguation is necessary:
(1) Waitress: Can I get you some coffee?

Monica: (pointing at Rachel) De-caff.
(Friends, Season 1, Episode 1, 1994)
(2) Ted: Congrats buddy.

Marshall: Thanks. Its kinda weird hugging with porn on.
(How I Met your Mother, Season 3, Episode 6, 2007)
(3) Robin: Actually it didnt end at all. I started getting bummed out, so
I came here. Its what I do. When my grandma died, I got a perm.
Lily: Ooh, two tragedies in one day.
(4) Barney: Oh, dude, if theyre selling condos you gotta get me in. And
dont give me the shaft.
Marshall: Yeah you did.
(5) Leah: Well, maybe you could look at one of those adoption ads. I see
them all the time in the Penny Saver.
Juno: There are ads? For parents?
Leah: Oh yeah! Desperately Seeking Spawn. Theyre right by the
ads for like, iguanas and terriers and used fitness equipment. Its to-
tally legit.
(Juno, 2007)
(6) Juno: Wicked pic in the Penny Saver, by the way. Super classy. Not
like those other people with the fake woods in the background. Like
Im really going to fall for that, you know?
(Juno, 2007)
(7) William: Yeah. Brilliant, thanks.

Honey: Ill see you tonight. Hi, Marty Oh, sexy cardi.
(Notting Hill, 1999)
(8) Robin: Whats the matter with you? Im his girlfriend and Im not
even trying that hard. Way to wreck the curve, kiss-ass.
Barney: Robin, Im his best friend. Thats a commitment. Girlfriend,
thats like a bad flu, out of your system after a couple of weeks in
bed.
(9) Juno (V.O.): The funny thing is that Steve Rendazo secretly wants
me. Jocks like him always want freaky girls. Girls with horn-rimmed
glasses and vegan footwear and Goth makeup. Girls who play the
cello and wear Converse All-Stars and want to be childrens librari-
ans when they grow up. Oh yeah, jocks eat that shit up.
(Juno, 2007)
Because of a preference for the word beginning over the end or other less
salient parts, back-clippings largely prevail over fore-clippings (cello vio-
loncello), and edge-clippings (flu influenza). On the basis of this prefer-
ence, it is possible to predict new outputs or to exclude some patterns of
formation. Consider the three different clippings from the same base the
personal name Victoria in (10):
(10) Lily: OK, lets not lose hope. Well call the hotel, maybe she was
staying there. Well have them check the registry for anyone named
Victoria. Or maybe she goes by Vicky or Toria
Marshall: Or Ictor. Probably doesnt go by Ictor.
Here, the hypothesis of an edge-clipping (Ictor) is in fact rejected by the

second speaker, because of its opaqueness and the difficult recoverability of
the base, whereas the back-clipping Vicky or the fore-clipping Toria are
considered more natural choices on the parameter of transparency (2.2.1).
Another aspect of the lexicalisation of clippings is their use in complex
words. Compare, in (11) and (12) below, the use of porn in isolation and as
part of a clipped compound:
(11) Barney: While guys like Ted and Marshall may hide their porn
Lily: Marshall doesnt have porn.
Barney: (laughs) Thats sweet. While guys like Ted and Marshall
may hide their porn, I have mine professionally lit.
(12) Barney: Ted, Ted, Ted, guy in a hat, three stripes. Ladies and gen-
tleman, I give you Ted Mosby, porn star.
The back-clipping porn, as observed by Jamet (2009: 2021), has gained

the status of a genuine lexical item. This is the reason why the compound
pornography star, full form of porn star, would sound abnormal in common
speech.
Some clippings even act as bases in inflection and derivation, as a further
evidence of their word status:
(13) Ted: We were bros! These swords represent our bro-hood. And you
took em down to make room for your fiancs stupid painting?
Marshall: My fianc suddenly, shes my fianc.
(Marshall picks up other sword)
Marshall: Lilys a part of who I am. And if youre such a bro, shes a
part of who you are too. Shes a bro by extension.
The back-clipping bro, from brother, is so widely used and understood

today that, like any other word which is part of the lexicon, it can take a
plural suffix, bro-s, and become the base for an abstract noun bro-hood (cf.
brotherhood).
7.3.1.2. The primary functions of clipping are to establish or reinforce in-

formality and social closeness. Clipping normally involves an informal regis-
ter and contributes to the regulation of social relationships. In speech act
terms, clipped words have a fundamental role in the modulation of the illocu-
tionary force of a speech act. In particular, they appear to have a mitigatory
function (Bazzanella, Caffi, and Sbis 1991; Caffi 2001) of the unwelcome
effects that an act such as an order, a request, a criticism, or the announce-
ment of bad news may have on the addressee. Below is an example of a
mitigated request:
(14) Ted: Uh, listen, can I speak to you outside for a sec?
Mr. Mosby: Sure.
The abbreviated form of the word second iconically represents in (14) a

shortened lapse of time, and a reduced risk to obtain a dispreferred answer
(i.e. a refusal) from the hearer.
Analogously, the assertive speech act in (15) below takes the form of a
mitigated criticism thanks to clipping devices:
(15) Rachel: Hes so cute! And he seems to like you so much.

Phoebe: I know, I know. So sweet and so complicated. And for a
shrink, hes not too shrinky, yknow?
The shortened word shrink, originally from headshrinker and used as a

slang word to refer to a psychiatrist (OED2), is here iconic of a reduced
distance between the speaker and her referent. The clipped word is even
jocularly used as the base of adjective-forming -y suffixation (shrink-y), as a
further confirmation of the non-serious attitude of the speaker (Dressler and
Merlini Barbaresi 1994) and of the jocular effects she intends to achieve.
The immediacy of clipped words makes them a favourite choice in famil-
iar contexts, especially to mark an intimate or close relationship between the
interactants. The familiarising use of this process is often confirmed by the
addition of a suffix, predominantly -ie/-y:
(16) Bridget: Am suddenly hard-headed journalist ruthlessly committed to

promoting justice and liberty. Nothing can distract me from my
dedication to the pursuit of truth. Well, almost nothing. Right. Ill
just pop to the shop for some ciggies.
(Bridget Joness Diary, 2001)
(17) Gaz: Even go and see a footie game.

Nathan: Yeah?
Gaz: Yeah Sunday League going down the park. Thats got some
right good players.
(The Full Monty, 1997)
(18) Barney: What are you gonna do tonight?

Lily: Oh, I was just gonna watch Letterman, but God, this bed is so
comfy. I wish you had a TV in here.
(19) Ted: So, what brings you guys to Philly [Philadelphia]?

Brunette Girl: Were visiting our boyfriends.
Blonde Girl: I think Chris is going to propose this weekend.
Brunette Girl: Isnt that great?
Ted: So great.
The clippings in (16)(19) share a common function, specifically, they

express familiarity with the denotation of the derivative (Plag 2003: 121).
The suffix -o is also frequently used with clipped bases, as in (20) below:
(20) Juno: I remain unconvinced.

Rollo: This is your third test today, Mama Bear. Your eggo is preggo
[pregnant], no doubt about it!
(Juno, 2007)
where pregg-o is jocularly combined with egg-o to obtain a musical effect.

Yet there are also clippings naturally ending in o, in which the latter is
not a suffix. The following are some examples:
(21) Marshall: Its all the information your spouse might need all in one
convenient location.
Lily: Yeah, account info, important addresses, a letter to the other
person, all that stuff. Ill get the next round.
(22) Juno: Well, you dont just invite a random pregnant teenager into
your house and leave her unsupervised. I could be a total klepto
[kleptomaniac], for all you know.
Mark: I dont get a klepto vibe from you. Evil genius? Maybe. Ar-
sonist? Wouldnt rule it out.
(Juno, 2007)
(23) Juno: Your guitar is named Kimber?

Mark: Yeah.
Juno: Thats all right. My axe is named Roosevelt. After Franklin,

not Ted. Franklin was the hot one with the polio.
(Juno, 2007)
(24) Bleeker: (meekly) Were getting a stretch limo.

Juno: Your mom must be really glad youre not taking me.
(Juno, 2007)
(25) Lily: Six cups of mayonnaise? That cant be right.

Mrs. Ericksen: Oh no, dear, sixteen cups.
(Mrs. Ericksen places a large glass cylinder next to Lily)
Mrs. Ericksen: Mayos in that cabinet.
There is no specific function or effect associated with an o ending, but

familiarity, informality, and social closeness are certainly increased by the
use of the clipped words in (21)(25), and a jocular effect is favoured by the
choice of klepto in (22).
The function of social closeness is especially evident in euphemistic clip-
pings, normally used to disguise taboo or offensive words. Terms related to
sex and sexual body parts are often replaced by an abbreviated variant,
which may appear less direct or less insulting than the standard form.
(26) Leah: Oh, gruesome. I wonder if the babys claws could scratch your
vag [vagina] on the way out?
Juno: Im staying pregnant, Le.
Leah: Keep your voice down dude, my moms around here some-
where. She doesnt know were sexually active.
Juno: What does that even mean? Anyway, I got to thinking on the
way over. I was thinking maybe I could give the baby to somebody
who actually likes that kind of thing. You know, like a woman with a
bum ovary or something. Or some nice lesbos [lesbians].
(Juno, 2007)
(27) Ellen: How do you think I feel? I have a 100% success rate. Its my
hook. I could probably find somebody for you if you were gay.
Ted: Well, Im not.
Ellen: A little bi [bisexual] maybe?
Many clippings are specific terms which are used to establish or maintain
cohesion within a social group, as among students or young people:
(28) Juno: Well! Nothing like experimenting.

Bleeker: I did the prep [preparatory] questions for this lab last night.
You can copy my answers if you need to.
(Juno, 2007)
(29) (Rachel starts to load her clothes)

Ross: Rach, do you uh, are you gonna separate those?
Rachel: Oh god. Oh, am I being like a total laundry spaz [spastic]? I
mean, am I supposed to use like one machine for shirts and another
machine for pants?
As Marchand (1969: 447) observes, clippings originate as terms of a

special group, in the intimacy of a milieu where a hint is sufficient to indi-
cate the whole. Thus, prep and lab clearly originated as school slang (Mar-
chand 1969: 447), although they are accessible today also to outsiders. The
use of the hypocoristic Rach (from Rachel) in (29) helps increase social
proximity between the interactants.
The colloquial or slangy use of the terms hash (from hashish) in (30) and
coke (from cocaine) in (31) is more specific, almost technical, among insid-
ers, i.e. drug addicts:
(30) Diane: Calm down, Im just asking. Is that hash I can smell?
Renton: No.
Diane: I wouldnt mind a bit, if it is.
(Trainspotting, 1996)
(31) Jim: Donna does coke, all right?

Charles: Three dollars doesnt get you a line of coke.
(A Skanner Darkly, 2006)
With regard to communicative effects, besides the jocularity observed in

(15), (20) and (22), I would like to draw attention to the prominence effect
achieved by clipped words in headlines such as (32) and (33), respectively
from a gossip magazine and a scientific journal on the Web:
(32) Celebs [celebrities] Increase Cocaine Use in Women

(Celebrity Gossip & Lifestyle Magazine, article title, 11 June, 2009)
(33) Melanoma Drug Combo [combination] Shows Promise in Early Trial

(Science, article title, 4 June, 2011)
Regardless of the different readerships they target, both celebs and

combo produce the effect of attracting, intriguing and encouraging readers to
discover the content of the article. In the websites of specialised journals like
Science, this effect is connected with the popularisation process that new
genres of scientific discourse are undergoing, as a consequence both of tech-
nological advances and of the need to attract a larger (including non-expert)
readership (Mattiello forth.).
7.3.2. Acronyms and initialisms
Acronyms and initialisms are as common as clippings in informal contexts

and spontaneous conversation. However, they often acquire a scientific and
technical flavour, which makes them suitable for written or formal language
and more specialised discourse.
7.3.2.1. Some acronyms have lost their connection with the original phrase
they stand for. Laser and radar, for instance, are now fully lexicalised, as
the examples below illustrate:
(34) Lasers, the key to optical communications, data storage, and a host
of other modern technology, are usually made from inanimate sol-
ids, liquids, or gases. Now, a pair of scientists have developed what
could be the worlds first biological laser. Built into a single cell,
the laser might one day be used for light-based therapeutics, per-
haps killing cancer cells deep inside the body.
(A cell becomes a laser, Science, 12 June, 2011)
(35) Marine radars are used to measure the bearing and distance of
ships to prevent collision with other ships, to navigate and to fix
their position at sea when within range of shore or other fixed refer-
ences such as islands, buoys, and lightships. In port or in harbour,
vessel traffic service radar systems are used to monitor and regulate
ship movements in busy waters. Police forces use radar guns to
monitor vehicle speeds on the roads.
(Radar, Wikipedia, last modified 23 June, 2011)
Analogously, the initialisms VCR and DIY are now profusely used and
amply recognised, as demonstrated by the extracts below (though VCR may
not survive long since it represents a largely superseded form of technology):
(36) Sally: Is that Jess on the phone?

Jess: Its Jane Fonda on the VCR.
(When Harry Met Sally, 1989)
(37) Dave: I didnt go on the nick in Asda for some chuffin womens DIY
video.
Gaz: Its Flashdance, Dave. Shes a welder, isnt she?
(The Full Monty, 1997)
However, not all alphabetisms are well-established and commonly ac-

cepted. Some are ephemeral, created on the spot, and highly idiosyncratic:
(38) Lily: But the best part of SF, oh, thats what we call San Francisco.
The people! Even just riding around on the bus all summer, it was
like a human tapestry.
In (38), SF requires immediate clarification. In other cases, by contrast,

the referent is made clear from the immediately preceding co-text, as in (39):
(39) Robin: Quick announcement. I am so glad that youre here, fellow

travelers. A couple of rules, not even rules, lets call them guidelines
for harmonious living. Guideline for harmonious living number one,
the kitchen sink is for dishes, the toilet is for pee-pee. GFHL number
two, marijuana is illegal in the United States, even when baked into
a blueberry muffin that someone might mistakenly eat for breakfast
right before they leave for their job as a TV newscaster.
Here, GFHL helps avoid repetition of the full phrase guideline for har-
monious living.
Because they do not have to conform to reading rules, initialisms have a
higher distribution than acronyms, as the following two sections will con-
firm.
7.3.2.2. Among the principles (1)(8) identified in 7.1, the functions of es-
tablishing informality and social or professional closeness, as well as the
economy and naming principles, are all met by acronyms.
By way of illustration, consider examples (40)(42) below:
(40) Juno: You should be happy, Holmes. Im giving you and Vanessa the
gift of life. Sweet, screaming, pooping life! And you dont even have
to be there when the baby comes out of me all covered in
Mark: Viscera?
Juno: Blood and guts.
Mark: Wed better get back downstairs ASAP [As Soon As Possi-
ble].
(Juno, 2007)
(41) Lisa: Listen to this one. Seeking sensitive WASP [White Anglo-
Saxon Protestant] doctor to share candlelit dinners long walks in
Coconut Grove, marriage?
Brenda: What is she looking for, a corpse?
(Theres Something about Mary, 1998)
(42) The Committee for Research & Independent Information on Genetic

Engineering (CRIIGEN) in Caen, France, which lobbies for stricter
controls over genetic engineering, is particularly upset because in
the experiments the students modify the bacteria to become resistant
to the antibiotic ampicillin.
Gilles-Eric Sralini, president of the organizations scientific com-
mittee, says that CRIIGEN is in favour of genetic engineering, as
long as it is properly controlled. But the necessary restrictions are
not currently in place, he says.
(Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools, Nature, 31
January, 2011)
These examples illustrate the use of acronyms in three different situ-

ational contexts: namely an informal conversation, an announcement in a
newspaper, and an extract from an article taken from a scientific journal.
Both informality and social closeness are illustrated by the use of ASAP,
whose abbreviated form is indexical to the meaning. The linguistic economy
which is typical of newspapers is shown by the acronym WASP, which is
particularly appropriate to the immediacy required in announcements.
Lastly, the naming function is well served by the elliptic acronym CRIIGEN,
which is given in brackets immediately after the full phrase in (42), but later
reused in the text to refer anaphorically to the same entity. Thus, this acro-
nym is not perceived as well-established, but as an attempt to find an identi-
fying label for the Committee.
Other acronyms obeying both the principle of economy and that of nam-
ing are more established. This is the case of POTUS, which is included in
OED3 as a label for the President of The United States and frequently
found in journalistic terminology:
(43) Love was in the air at the White House tonight, as the President and
First Lady hosted a concert to honor Stevie Wonder, a man whose
music they said brought them together.
FLOTUS opened the event, and explained that she grew up listening
to Stevie Wonders music with her grandfather.
We returned to the room in time for POTUS to present the Gershwin
award.
(Stevie Wonder honored at the White House Obamas huge fans,
Chicago Sun-Times, 25 February, 2009)
As (43) shows, in the news jargon this acronym has jocularly attracted
the analogous formation FLOTUS, used for the First Lady (see Analogy in
2.3.6.2 and 3.2.4). The effects obtained by these formations are therefore
threefold: first, they impress the reader because of their originality; second,
they amuse him because they are playful and out of the ordinary; and, third,
they catch his attention by giving prominence through the use of capitalisa-
tion.
The novelty of acronyms is also illustrated by the following extract:
(44) Freshman guy: Dude! That chick is a MILF!

Freshman guy #2: What the hell is that?
Freshman guy: M-I-L-F! Mom Id Like to Fuck!

(American Pie, 1999)
Here, the acronym requires disambiguation by the first speaker. Notice

that, for the sake of clarity, the second time the acronym is spelt out letter by
letter, as an initialism.
7.3.2.3. Initialisms are likewise versatile in terms of both functions and ef-
fects. Below are three different situational contexts which exploit this abbre-
viatory process:
(45) Robin: I havent shaved my legs. Ive begun a strict no-shave

policy for the first three dates. Its all about self-control. If I dont
shave, I must behave.
Barney: FYI [For Your Information], it doesnt matter, baby. Guys
just wanna get on the green. They dont mind going through the
rough.
(46) GPs Need To Understand That Theres More To Depression

(Celebrity Gossip & Lifestyle Magazine, article title, 19 April, 2011)
(47) The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said no E. coli cases had been
reported in the UK.
(British seed firm linked to French E. coli outbreak, BBC, 25
June, 2011)
In (45), the initialism FYI is used to lower the level of discourse to infor-
mal register and to increase social closeness. The same is true of GPs in
(46), which has now superseded the full form General Practitioner(s),
whereas FSA in (47) has a naming function (see the clipping E. coli, from
Escherichia coli, for the same function, Mattiello forth.).
The naming function, however, seems to prevail over the others when the
interactants share knowledge about the referent, as in (48) and (49) below:
(48) Marshall: I got the job at the NRDC [Natural Resources Defense
Council].
Ted: You got the job!

(49) Ted: Hello.

Larry: Hi, Im looking for Ted Mosby. Its Larry Ross from AVW.
Ted: My God, AVW.
(Ted covers phone and whispers to Lily and Marshall)
Ted: Its Architecture Vision Weekly.
Specialised languages also have recourse to initialisms in order to in-

crease professional closeness among people who belong to the same group,
and to use an unambiguous specific terminology. GDP, for instance, is fre-
quently used in the language of economics:
(50) The governments no longer confident that its GDP [Gross Domestic
Product] target will be met at the end of the year.
(China deficit biggest in decades, BBC, 06 March, 2009)
whereas CFI is part of legal vocabulary:
(51) Also, since 1 December 2009, the Court of First Instance (CFI) is
named the General Court. However, the term CFI has been main-
tained in the present Communication for those judgments taken be-
fore that date.
(Report from the Commission Report on Competition Policy 2009,
Eur-Lex, 03 June, 2010)
HVAC, instead, belongs to technical terminology, although it is used by a

non-specialist in (52):
(52) Juno (V.O.): My dad used to be in the Army, but now hes just your
average HVAC [Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning] special-
ist. He and my mom got divorced when I was five.
(Juno, 2007)
In police slang, the use of cryptic, secret initialisms serves both to estab-
lish group membership and to maintain in-group cohesion:
(53) Harry: This guy has no MO [Modus Operandi]. A bomber falls in

love with one kind of bomb and theyre very monogamous. This guy
uses C-four, dynamite, different trigger every time, and now he
throws in this watch.
Robin: Hes an encyclopaedia of bombs. He knows every kind.
(Speed, 1994)
With regard to communicative effects, novelty and jocularity are both

present in colloquial contexts:
(54) Lily: Marshall just ditched out on our own party. Can you get me in
there? I kinda need to kill him.
Robin: Actually I cant even get myself in.
(Lily sits down next to Robin)
Robin: Im such a dork. I get recognized one time and I start think-
ing Im Julia Roberts. Im no VIP. Im not even an IP. Im just a
lowly little P sitting out here in the gutter.
This may be contrasted with formal contexts, as in (51) above, where the
primary effect is that of laying emphasis on significant entities or concepts.
In newspaper articles, initialisms may be either anaphoric or cataphoric
with respect to the entire phrase they refer to. In headlines, they are generally
cataphoric (anticipatory) references, as in:
(55) SNP advocates independent Scotland

The leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, has long
advocated independence but is also realistic.
(BBC, 15 August, 2007)
Within texts, on the other hand, initialisms are normally anaphoric refer-
ences to a previously encountered phrase, as in:
(56) The catches are authorised by the International Whaling Commis-

sion.
Japan has reason to be bolder this year. At last years IWC meeting,
it persuaded a majority of other nations to make a symbolic show of
support for an eventual lifting of the ban on commercial whaling.
(Japanese begin annual whale hunt, BBC, 13 December, 2006)
7.3.3. Blends
Lexical blends are generally used in informal contexts and oral language,
with the exception of some words that are specifically formed to define
chemical or pharmaceutical products. As Bertinetto (2001: 6263) observes,
they are particularly frequent in specific domains, like humour, advertising,
and denomination of enterprises or new products (particularly those involv-
ing a mixture of two substances or objects or individuals). Some blends,
however, do not belong to specific domains, but to ordinary language.
7.3.3.1. Examples of blends abound in film dialogues as well as in songs:
(57) Juno: Yes, hello, I need to procure a hasty abortion? What was
that? Im sorry, Im on my hamburger phone and its kind of awk-
ward to talk on. Its really more of a novelty than a functional appli-
ance.
(She smacks the phone a couple of times)
Better? Okay, good. Yeah, as I said, I need an abortion, two six-
teen Um, it was approximately two months and four days ago that
I had the sex. Thats a guestimate. Okay, next Saturday? Great.
(Juno, 2007)
(58) Waiter: Can I get you something?

Kathleen: No, no. Hes not staying.
Joe: Mochaccino, decaf, non-fat.
(Youve Got Mail, 1998)
(59) I dont think youre ready for this

cause my bodys too bootylicious for ya babe
(Destinys Child, Bootylicious, 2001)
Some blends are so repeatedly used that they have become lexicalised.
Smog and brunch, for instance, circulate internationally. The following ex-
tract includes examples of the use of brunch:
(60) Marshall: Why cant two guys who are friends go to brunch?
Ted: Because brunch is kind of
Robin: Girlie.
Marshall: Girlie? Breakfast isnt girlie. Lunch isnt girlie. What

makes brunch girlie?
Furthermore, brunch behaves like any other lexeme and is regularly plu-
ralised:
(61) Marshall: You know what? You two are just threatened because Im
a single guy moving on your couples turf. Well, guess what, its my
territory now. Im peeing all over brunches, fancy dinners and mu-
sicals. Thats right, Brad and I are taking back Broadway.
Some blends are even formed after clipping (see infotainment in the In-
troduction). For instance, the clipping bro, lexicalised from brother (see
7.3.1.1), is a splinter in the following blends:
(62) Barney: Ted, youre my bro. And youre about to become a hen-
pecked, beaten-down shell of a man. So tonight, we are going to ha-
ve one last awesome night together as bros. Its a bro-ing away
party [bro + going-away party]. A special bro-ccasion. A bro-choice
rally. Brotime at the Apollo!
(Barney Stinsons blog)
(63) Brad: I have two tickets for Mamma Mia Friday night. You like
Abba, right? What am I saying, who doesnt? Anyway, I was gonna
take Kara but now, its all you and me. Were gonna do Broadway,
bro-style. What do you say?
Marshall: Yeah!
Needless to say, some blends are fairly ephemeral. Humorous conversa-

tion is especially creative in the formation of new blends, as shown by the
following excerpts:
(64) Lieutenant: Hey, Im just doing my job. You gimme that juris-my-
dick-tion crap and you can cram it up your ass!
Agent Smith: The orders were for your protection.
(The Matrix, 1999)
(65) Lily: Youre gonna go play hockey?

(Mr. Ericksen tosses a basketball to Marcus)
Lily: With a basketball?
Mr. Ericksen: Well, its a combination of the two. We call it
baskiceball.
Lily: Baskiceball? Not iceketball?
Mr. Ericksen: Iceketball? Just sounds weird.
Ericksens: Yeah.
(66) Barney: So did you get a good look at it?

Lily: Yeah. It has six legs, a hard exoskeleton like a roach
Marshall: But it has mouse-like characteristics. Grey-brown tufts of
fur, a tail.
Robin: So which is it, a cockroach or a mouse?
Lily: Its a cockamouse.
Robin: What?
Lily: Its some sort of mutant combination of the two.
(67) Ted: Is that a toilet in your kitchen?

Robin: Or a stove in your bathroom?
Lily: Oh, thats not just a stove. Thats a stoveinkerator. A combina-
tion of stove, oven, sink and refrigerator. Stoveinkerator. Isnt that
futurist?
Ted: God, I hope not.
(68) Barney: The Thankstini. A fun and delicious new novelty drink I
invented. Cranberry juice, potato vodka and a bouillon cube. Tastes
just like a turkey dinner.
(Barney puts bouillon cube in each of their drinks, Marshall drinks
his Thankstini)
Marshall: Its like Thanksgiving in my mouth.
In spite of their ephemerality, some of these formations are transparent.

For instance, the intercalative juris-my-dick-tion in (64) does not involve any
truncation, but a mere insertion of a short phrase within a word at a point
where the two overlap. Baskiceball in (65) is likewise intercalative, but the
two components do not overlap. However, they are easily recoverable, be-
cause the deleted middle part is the least salient in a word. Cockamouse in
(66) comes immediately after the mention of its components, whereas
stoveinkerator in (67) cataphorically anticipates them. Thankstini in (68) is
also quite transparent, not only by the aid of the co-text, but also thanks to a
stable blend (vodkatini), by analogy with which it has been formed (4.2.4).
7.3.3.2. Cacchiani (2007: 103) observes that blends can be created for all
kinds of purposes: e.g., 1) to name new communities (netizen), products
(courseware course + software), concepts (coopetition cooperation +
competition), etc., 2) to express mental states like sarcasm or disapproval
(bridezilla for a bossy bride), or 3) just for fun (airogance air + arro-
gance).
The above-mentioned data shows that, with the exception of lexicalised
examples like brunch, the prevailing functions of blending are informality
and social closeness. For instance, blends are used to downgrade the tone in
a conversation, normally signalling a familiar attitude towards the hearer.
The following extracts illustrate this aspect:
(69) Brad: Damn, zucchini bread is ridonculous [ridiculous + tonk espe-

cially amazing, big].
Marshall: This isnt weird, right?
(70) Brad: It gets better. The foliage in Vermont this time of year is ri-
donk.
Marshall: Vermont?
Both the total blend ridonk and the intecalative ridonculous, from the
same bases, indicate that the intention of the speaker is to reduce the level of
discourse to informal speech. Below are three further instances, taken from
Kemmers database, which serve this same function:
(71) The car doors lock automagically [automatically + magic] when you
go over a certain speed.
(Neologisms, Conversation, 10 September, 2003)
(72) Some people have beerios [beer + cheerios, cereals topped with beer
instead of milk] for breakfast the morning of Beer Bike.
(Neologisms, Conversation, 24 October, 2003)
(73) Im so confuzzled [confused + puzzled]. Where are we?

(Neologisms, Conversation, 10 September, 2003)
The economy and naming principles are more rarely met by blends, and
only in specific domains. For instance, scientific discourse may exploit the
blending mechanism to form new words which iconically represent the fu-
sion of two (branches of) sciences, products, ingredients, etc. In the follow-
ing medical article, the naming function is clearly carried out by the new
blend cosmeceuticals:
(74) Cosmeceuticals represent a marriage between cosmetics and phar-

maceuticals.
(Medscape Reference: Drugs, Diseases and Procedures, 02 May,
2011)
As for effects, blending tends to generate jocularity and to convey the

idea of novelty. Most blends are playful anomalous formations which im-
press the hearer, especially when they are fresh, original and not previously
attested, as in (75)(78) below:
(75) (Lindsay, Ted, Barney and Colleen sitting in booth)

Colleen: This is our favorite restaurant in the city.
Ted: Yes, Im sure its the best of their 57 spudtacular [spud +
spectacular] East Coast locations.
Lindsay: Im gonna run to the restroom.
Colleen: Im gonna go too.
(76) So I run 3 miles around the loop. After doing that in a disgustingly
craptacular [crap + spectacular, annoyingly bad, unpleasant] time,
I run another half mile to Chipotle
(Neologisms, Conversation, 17 November, 2003)
(77) Sherman: Shes around. Seems that shes taken a liking to me. Fel-
las, its time that she experienced The Sherminator [Sherman +
Terminator].
Kevin: Yeah, okay Sherman, whatever.
Sherman: Im a sophisticated sex robot, sent back through time to
change the future for one lucky lady.
(American Pie, 1999)
(78) Ross: No, no, NO, you cannot go to dinner with him.
Rachel: What? You dont want me to get a job?
Ross: Oh yeah, Im sure hes gonna give you a job. Maybe make you
his SEXretary [sex + secretary].
Most of these formations exploit the similarity between the source words
to obtain humorous effects, as in sexretary, playing on the phone-
mic/graphemic resemblance between sex and sec, or in spudtacular, with a
similarity between spud and spec (Mattiello 2008a; Greis forth.).
As Lehrer (2007: 116) observes, when a word-formation device like
blending becomes common, other speakers and writers create similar forms
by analogy simply because it is fashionable to do so; they want to show that
they, too, are trendy, creative, and cool. Analogy, as we have seen in 4.2.4,
is the primary criterion of well-formedness for blends, as well as for other
extra-grammatical formations. Yet blends are also creative and novel.
In advertising and journalistic terminology, novel blends even acquire a
certain prominence with respect to their co-texts. This is the effect created
by crunk, which is capitalised in the forum below so as to be more eye-
catching:
(79) Come get your party on and get CRUNK [crazy + drunk] with The
Ying Yang Twins Saturday, JUNE 11th at The Crunk Summer Kick-
Off Party!!!
(PartyUtah (edm) Forum, 11 June, 2011)
Similarly, in the following extract from Time magazine, Governator (re-

ferring to Arnold Schwarzenegger) acquires further prominence through
the alliteration with al-Gaiyar:
(80) Heres a look at how al-Gaiyar and the Governator [governor +

Terminator] matched up over the years.
(Neologisms, Time, 29 October, 2003)
7.3.4. Reduplicatives
Reduplicative words are normally not used in formal circumstances, in that

the register they select is unofficial, colloquial language. They are predomi-
nant in child-centred speech, especially in early language acquisition (pre-
morphology), when small children have no knowledge or perception of mor-
phological structures and rules.
7.3.4.1. Compared to the previous formations, reduplicative words are more

rarely lexicalised, although many are accessible to most speakers. Some
examples of lexicalised reduplicatives may be seen in the following extracts:
(81) Youre a consolin little imp. Lie down between the Drums an go to
bye-bye. Those two boys will watch your slumbers.
(Kim, R. Kipling, Chap. 5)
(82) Few, though, realise that the itsy-bitsy two-piece was one of
Frances main gifts to the fashion world invented by a French car
engineer, Louis Reard, who clearly understood the laws both of
gravity and aerodynamics.
(Bikini anniversary, BBC, 05 July, 2006)
(83) Genetic studies of fossil and modern bears have revealed some
hanky-panky 45,000 years ago, when polar bears interbred with
now-extinct Irish brown bears.
(Polar Bears Rooted in Ireland, Science, 07 July, 2011)
(84) Hibbert: Homer, Im afraid youll have to undergo a coronary by-

pass operation.
Homer: Say it in English, Doc.
Hibbert: Youre going to need open heart surgery.
Homer: Spare me your medical mumbo-jumbo.
(The Simpsons, Season 4, Episode 9, 1992)
(85) Angel Guy: Whoa, I wouldnt do that if I were you. Theres people
walking down there.
Barney: Come on, Ted, who are you going to listen to? Me or Mr.
Goody-goody over there.
(86) Phoebe: Where are you going, Mr. Suity-Man?

Chandler: Well, I have an appointment to see Dr. Robert Pillman,
career counsellor a go-go. (Pause) I added the a go-go.
Rachel: Career counsellor?
Chandler: Hey, you guys all know what you want to do.
Interestingly, the second extract is from a BBC article,157 and the third
one is from the scientific journal Science. This signals that the reduplicatives
itsy-bitsy and hanky-panky are widely recognised and, in spite of their collo-
quial flavour, exploited also in written language and formal contexts.
On the other hand, some reduplicative expressions do not have a very
long history, and may be formed spontaneously, for instance, to disguise
taboo words. This is the case with the interjection in (87), from the phrase
shit a brick:
(87) William: Oh. Well, great. Fantastic. Thats er Oh shittity

brickitty. Its my sisters birthday. Shit. Were meant to be having
dinner.
Anna: Okay, thats fine.
(Notting Hill, 1999)
The rhyming elements make this neo-formation close to other rhyming

reduplicatives, but the irregular form suggests its ephemeral nature.
A less ephemeral case is the slang compound in (88) below, from chick
(girl) and flick (film):
(88) Rachel: Hi, how was the movie?

Monica: Wonderful!
Phoebe: So good!
Joey: Suck-fest.
Chandler: Toootal chick-flick.
7.3.4.2. The onomatopoeic character of some reduplicatives makes them a

favourite choice in informal contexts. The copy reduplicative blah-blah, for
instance, signals the intimate relationship of the interactants:
(89) Future Ted (V.O.): Kids, back in the fall of 2007, I was dating this
girl named oh God, what was her name? Its been 23 years, I
cant remember all this stuff. For the sake of the story, lets call
her
Ted: Everyone, this is Blah-blah.
Blah-blah: Please call me Blah.
The functions of informality and social closeness are equally served by

the rhyming reduplicative okey-dokey in (90) (from OK, see also okily dokily
in example 114):
(90) Morpheus: You have to let it all go Neo. Fear doubt and disbelief.
Free your mind.
Neo: Whoa. Okey-dokey. Free my mind.
(The Matrix, 1999)
and by wee-wees and hoo-hoos, referring to male and female sexual or-
gans, in (91):
(91) Monica: Thank you so much for seeing us. Phoebe has told us such
great things about you guys.
Colleen: Oh, please, were happy to help.
Bill: We went through the same thing when we were adopting.
Chandler: So, a lot of malfunctioning wee-wees and hoo-hoos in this
room, huh?
In child-centred speech, apophonic, exact and less prototypical types of

echo-words signal the close, intimate relationship between parents and their
children:
(92) Father: Come on Alex, beddy-byes! Beddy-byes! Have you got your
teddy? Put on your jim-jams. Put on your jim-jams thats it! On
they go. Jump into bed, then. Sleepy time!
Shall I sing you a song? Twinkle, Twinkle little star, how I wonder
what you are. Night-night!
(Baby talk, BBC Learning English)
Reduplicatives are rarely used to name scientific processes or technical

concepts. They may, however, be the source of names for new characters in
fairy tales, as in the following extract:
(93) They met Foxy Loxy.

Goosey Loosey said, The sky is falling, Foxy Loxy.
How do you know, Goosey Loosey?
Ducky Lucky told me.
How do you know, Ducky Lucky?
Turkey Lurkey told me.
How do you know, Turkey Lurkey?
Henny Penny told me.
How do you know, Henny Penny?
Chicken Little told me.
How do you know, Chicken Little?
I saw it with my eyes. I heard it with my ears. Some of it fell on my
tail.
Foxy Loxy said, We will run. We will run into my den, and I will
tell the king.
(Chicken Little)158
They may also be used in the names of book titles, especially in chil-
drens literature (e.g. Bearum Scarum by Vic Parker, Bling Blang by
Woody Guthrie, Crunch Munch by Jonathan London). Reduplicative words
are also frequently used as the names of games (e.g. Bubble Bobble), gar-
ments (e.g. Criss Cross a bra), and food products (e.g. Crick Crock
crisps, Happy Hippo a Kinder chocolate, Chickn Quick breaded
chicken patties produced by Tyson Foods). In the following example, the
speaker uses the name of a brand of mints:
(94) Bleeker: Did you put like a hundred things of Tic Tacs in my mail-
box?
Juno: Yeah. That was me.
Bleeker: Why?
Juno: (blushes) Because theyre your fave. And you can never have
too much of your favorite one-calorie breath mint.
(Juno, 2007)
The use of echo-words in jokes has an unavoidably playful effect. The

tone is non-serious, ironic or even sarcastic in (95)(97) below:
(95) Barney: This is the easiest date ever. You know what Im gonna try
next? A knock-knock joke.
Ted: Somehow we have managed to find the two lamest New Yorkers
of all time.
Lindsay: Hey, our friends invited us to a party. You guys wanna
come along?
Barney: Knock knock.
Lindsay: Whos there?
Barney: Yes we do.
(96) Ross: Hes a brilliant diagnostician!

Chandler: Diagnostician or boo-boo fixer?
Rachel: Ross, seriously! Youve gotta go to an appropriate doctor.
Chandler: Hey, you guys all know what you want to do.
(97) Bridget: So how do you feel about this whole situation in Chech-
nya? Isnt it a nightmare?
Daniel: I couldnt give a fuck, Jones. Now, look, how do you know
Arsey Darcy?
Bridget: Apparently, I used to run round naked in his paddling
pool.
In (96), Chandler laughs at Ross by using a slang reduplicative word

originating from boobies (a womans breast), whereas in (97) Daniel even
laughs at a person named Mark Darcy by coining a derogatory reduplicative,
rhyming with arse-y.
The use of echo-words in advertising produces a comparably humorous
effect, as noted by Pennarola (2003: 29) with reference to the following two
examples:
(98) Death by Chocolate is no fwuffy wuffy lickle cakey-wakey full of air

and good intentions. (p. 30)
(99) If your lipstick is more like lipslip, you need Lipcote. (p. 30)
in which baby talk is combined with paronomasia.

Reduplicatives may also be seen as original words, renewing the English
lexicon:
(100) Mac: Im not ready to be a Pop-Pop.

Bren: Youre not going to be a Pop-Pop. And Junos not going to be
a ma. Somebody else is going to find a precious blessing from Jesus
in this garbage dump of a situation. I friggin hope.
(Juno, 2007)
Here Pop-Pop stands for father (cf. popsy-wopsy), although only con-
text can help disambiguation.
The musicality of these formations is especially evident in the apophonic
type:
(101) Una: Tick-tock, tick-tock. Hello, Dad. Hello, darling. Hows it

going? Torture.
Dad: Your mothers trying to fix you up with some divorcee. Uhh.
Human-rights barrister. Pretty nasty beast, apparently.
Bridget: Hoo. Ding-dong. Maybe this time Mum had got it right.
Come on. Why dont we see if Mark fancies a gherkin?
Such reduplicatives are also found in nursery rhymes:
(102) Im a Dingly Dangly Scarecrow.

With a flippy floppy hat.
I can shake my hands like this.
I can shake my feet like that.
(Dingly Dangly Scarecrow)
Lastly, musicality and prominence are the effects produced by win-win in

the headline below:
(103) Reserves win-win for fish and fishermen

(Nature, article title, 23 February, 2010)
7.3.5. Back-formation, infixation, and phonaesthemes
The three phenomena investigated in chapter 6 differ in domains of usage,

functions performed, and effects produced. For this reason, I will discuss
them individually.
7.3.5.1. Like many other extra-grammatical formations, some back-formed

words are now lexicalised. This is the case of the verb baby-sit, of which we
can find copious examples:
(104) Ted: Look, while were away this weekend, you keep an eye on him
and make sure he doesnt call that hotel.
Barney: You want me to baby-sit him? $ 20 an hour and money
for pizza.
Ted: Uh, yeah, how about you do it for free or every time we hang
out we do this.
However, against Naganos (2007: 66) claim that many back-formed

verbs are limited in use to a colloquial style or slang, back-formation also
seems to suit more formal contexts, such as scientific discourse. The follow-
ing extracts are taken from two famous scientific journals:
(105) Building a laser requires two things: a lasing material that amplifies
light from an external source (a gain medium) and an arrangement
of mirrors (an optical cavity), which concentrates and aligns the
light waves into a tight beam.
Technologies to make such cavities are emerging, he says, and
once they are available they could be used to create a cell that could
self lase from inside tissue.
(Human cell becomes living laser, Nature, 12 June, 2011)
(106) To lase, the GFP in the cells needed to be pumped with another la-
ser, one that sends pulses of blue light at a low energy of about 1
nanojoule.
(A cell becomes a laser, Science, 12 June, 2011)
Both journals use the back-formed verb lase (or self lase), from the re-
spective acronym laser, and Nature also uses the corresponding back-
formed adjective lasing. Yet the overall tone is far from familiar. The main
functions are certainly those of economising in language and increasing pro-
fessional closeness at the same time.
To confirm the above assumption that back-formation is not reserved to
colloquial contexts, another formal example taken from the BBC shows the
use of the verb bulldoze, back-formed from the complex noun bulldozer:
(107) Up to 200,000 tons of stinking household trash is being bulldozed by

the army and loaded onto cargo ships and freight trains to destina-
tions in various parts of Italy. Local landfills around Naples are all
full.
(Italy in rubbish crisis, BBC, 16 January, 2008)
I would not deny, however, that back-formation is predominantly used in

informal language, to establish social bonds and to produce humorous ef-
fects. Below is an excerpt from a conversation which corroborates this
viewpoint:
(108) Robin: Oh, you are gonna love Kelly. Shes fun, shes smart, she
lives in the moment.
Barney: Translation: Shes ugly, shes ugly, she ugs in the ugly.
Robin: Oh, and shes totally hot.
The verb ug(s) has been coined to create a parallelism with the previous
sentence. Interestingly, the supposed suffix -ly is deleted from an adjective to
form a verb, whereas in regular derivation it is normally attached to a nomi-
nal base (e.g. noun friend adjective friendly), and even more commonly
added to an adjective base to form an adverb (e.g. adjective sad adverb
sadly).
A comparable jocular effect may be produced by conversion, but the

regularity of the latter process makes it more predictable and therefore less
striking. Compare (108) with (109) below:
(109) Ted: She said itd take three days. Its been five days. Should I be
worried?
Lily: Oh, just play it cool. Dont Ted out about it.
Ted: Did you just use my name as a verb?
Barney: Oh, yeah, we do that behind your back. Ted-out: to
overthink. Also see Ted-up. Ted-up: to overthink something with
disastrous results. Sample sentence: Billy Tedded up when
Ted: OK, I get it. Dont worry, Im not gonna ted anything up or
out. Ill just give it a few more days.
Here a phrasal verb (Ted-out/up) is converted from a personal name, but

the effect is less comical than the one obtained through back-formation.
7.3.5.2. Infixation qualifies as an expressive phenomenon because the vari-

ous types of infixes are all said to produce an emotive effect. For instance,
according to McMillan (1980), expletives do not add lexical meaning to their
matrices, but an emotive intensity (p. 167). They are viewed as intensifiers
which signal the speakers emotions (e.g. vehemence, (dis)approval, playful-
ness, irritation) through a marked construction interrupting a base.
The use of expletive infixation certainly selects an informal register and
contributes to strengthen social connections, as in (110) and (111) below:
(110) Ted: Look. Heres why I should get the place. You and Lily, you get
to be married. What do I get, right? I get to be unmarried, alone,
minus two roommates. And on top of that I could be homeless. Does
that seem fair?
Marshall: Oh, boo-freakin-hoo.
Ted: What?
(111) Begbie: Picture the scene. Wednesday morning in the Volley. Me and
Tommy are playing pool. No problems, and Im playing like Paul
fucking Newman by the way.
(Trainspotting, 1996)
Furthermore, infixation brings in a tinge of novelty and jocularity, espe-

cially when it is spontaneous and highly idiosyncratic, as in the following
cases:
(112) Girl: Jerk! That was fun.

Barney: De-wait for it-nied! Denied.
Ted: Were going out tomorrow night.
(113) Barney: Fine, do you want to know what Robins secret is?
Ted: You know?
Barney: Of course I know. She couldnt look at us. Her face got
flushed. Thats shame. Our friend, Robin, used to do porn-wait for
it-ography.
(114) Ned: Hi-diddly-ho, neighbor!

Homer: Get lost, Flanders.
Ned: Okily dokily.
(115) Ned: I wish there was some other explanation for this, but there
isnt. Im a murderer, Im a murderer!
Bart: Then thats not the real Ned Flanders.
Ned: (yelling) Im a mur-diddly-urderer!
Although it is not meaning-bearing (Viau 2002), infixation in English is

useful for pragmatic purposes. This explains why it is restricted to non-
standard varieties, such as colloquial or bad language, vernacular, and hip-
hop slang. Below is a verse from a hip-hop song, in which the infix -iz- con-
tributes to the general musicality:
(116) I drink a boost for breakfast, and ensure for dizzert

Somebody ordered pancakes, I just sip the sizzurp
That right there could drive a sane man bizzerk
Not to worry yll Mr. H 2 the Izzos back to wizzerk
(K. West, Through the Wire, 2003)
7.3.5.3. Musicality is the primary effect of phonaesthemes. The examples

below are all taken from advertisements reported in Pennarola (2003). They
all appear to play with the initial consonant clusters sh-, sl-, spl-, sm-, st-:
(117) Add moisture and a pearly shine to bring out their natural shimmer
with Nivea Lipcare and Shine. (p. 36)
(118) Splash on some shine! (Maybelline) (p. 73)
(119) Soft smooth lips in a handy stick (Labello) (p. 59)
(120) Slimming has never tasted so good (Slimma-shake) (p. 58)
(121) Smooth, smoother, smoothest

3 blades to shave you close, close, close. (p. 51)
Although most of these sounds have been described and associated in the
literature to various concepts (falling or sliding movement, frictional noise,
slimy, slushy matter, etc.), the above words containing them are suggestive
of something positive, charming, even magical. Thus, they are exploited for
their evocative character, to give prominence to words and concepts, or even
to name products (Slimma-shake).
This brief survey of the social contexts, lexical domains, and registers which
select or favour the use of extra-grammatical formations has shown that they
are by no means unusual phenomena. Although they are more marked on the
parameter of transparency, because their meaning is usually difficult to
penetrate and their input(s) is/are often inaccessible, they are nonetheless
widely used in English, as a result of: 1) their informal nature and the social
bonds they create among users (clipping, blending, reduplication), 2) their
potential efficiency in specialised fields and their suitability for labelling
both concepts and material things in unambiguous fashion (acronyms, ini-
tialisms, back-formation), and 3) their potential to amuse or attract the
hearer (blending, reduplication), to express the speakers feelings (infixa-

tion), or to evoke ideas and sensations (phonaesthemes).
These considerations can now allow us to answer the questions I posed at
the beginning of this chapter. The use of extra-grammatical formations does
appear to be amply confirmed and widely attested by the examples investi-
gated so far. The individual users of the various extra-grammatical opera-
tions do not all belong to the same social or professional group (cf. acro-
nyms and initialisms in 7.3.2). The various phenomena investigated serve
different functions and produce various effects which are not obtained by
using comparable word-formation rules. We cannot, indeed, economise with
the language or create new and attractive terms by applying rules based on
concatenation and the addition of material; subtraction, by contrast, both
favours economy and is well suited to the function of naming. Nor can we
generate humour or suggest novelty by using a common derivative or a regu-
lar endocentric compound, whereas infixed, reduplicative and blended words
generally achieve ludic effects. These socio-pragmatic motivations account
for the frequency and pervasiveness of extra-grammatical formations, and
for their tendency towards productivity in English.
Chapter 8
Conclusions
Not every regularity in the use of language is a matter of grammar.

(Zwicky and Pullum 1987: 330)
By way of conclusion, I would like to sum up the results of my analysis of

extra-grammatical phenomena. The principal aim of this book has been to
bring together all those phenomena that have been labelled as extra-
grammatical and to find unifying criteria for their formation as well as
similarities as regards rule violation. What I have demonstrated, both
through the study of individual phenomena and through comparisons be-
tween the various types, is that the central unifying property of extra-
grammatical phenomena is 1) the impossibility to predict a stable regular
output from their input. A corollary property is 2) the difficulty to recognise
the input from the output, because 3) extra-grammatical formations are gen-
erally not transparently analysable into morphemes, and 4) their head is
often blurred or even absent. Each chapter of the book was meant to con-
tribute to the theoretical debate on extra-grammatical morphology and the
results obtained seem consistent enough to provide a unitary picture of ex-
tra-grammaticality.
In chapter 2, a comparison between extra-grammatical morphology and
the other branches of morphology, namely grammatical and marginal mor-
phology (2.3.22.3.3), shows what the main features characterising extra-
grammatical formations are 2.3.7.12.3.7.10, thus differentiating between
what is to be considered regular word-formation and what is instead outside
morphological grammar.
In particular, from a theoretical perspective, this chapter explains the
reasons why extra-grammatical formations are excluded from the theory of
Generative Grammar, and generally marginalised or denigrated within mor-
phological theories (2.1). The numerous patterns that extra-grammatical
formations exhibit are too heterogeneous to be generated within the tradi-
tional framework of generative rules. Moreover, the bases to which they
apply are various and not unitary, and the same is true of the outputs, which
Conclusions 251
do not belong to a distinct class and are less predictable than those obtained
when rules of ordinary word-formation are at work. These formations are
excluded from the set of regular words by Aronoff (1976), because most of
them are not new words, only connoted variants. Since they are not analys-
able in terms of rules, Scalise (1984), Spencer (1991), and Haspelmath
(2002) even believe that they are not worthy of morphological study (cf.
Dressler 2000), and it is this opinion, with which I instinctively disagreed,
which led me to undertake a systematic study of extra-grammatical phenom-
ena.
Chapter 2 also explains that the notions of extra-grammatical and ex-
pressive morphology do not completely overlap. Expressive morphology is
always connected to an expressive, playful or poetic pragmatic effect
(2.3.1). However, extra-grammatical morphology is not, as is shown by the
use of acronyms and initialisms in specialised discourse.
This chapter demonstrates that the patterns forming blends, acronyms,
reduplicatives, and similar formations appear to be best described and ex-
plained within the framework of Natural Morphology, in terms of prototypi-
cal and marginal types (2.2.1). Although these formations are not the pri-
mary focus of Naturalness Theory (2.2), they can be viewed as marked
choices on the parameters of morphotactic/morphosemantic transparency,
biuniqueness, figure/ground, etc. But the analysis also reveals aspects of
iconicity which make formations natural choices in some circumstances.
Lastly, chapter 2 provides an overview of the role played by extra-
grammatical formations in lexical change. Many such formations are stable
and contribute to the process of lexicalisation (2.3.5.1), or even to gram-
maticalisation (2.3.5.2), especially in languages other than English. Al-
though they are not analysable in terms of productive rules (2.3.6.1), abbre-
viations, blends and reduplicatives are mostly governed by the principle of
analogy, i.e. structural similarity to pre-existent (available) patterns
(2.3.6.22.3.6.3). Analogy is more permissive than rules, allowing only
partial predictability, but does provide an explanation for the existence of
creative formations of the type investigated in this book.
Chapter 3 demonstrates that, in opposition to Plags (2003: 117121)
claim that truncations are predictable and highly systematic in nature, espe-
cially from the viewpoint of prosodic morphology, abbreviations exhibit a
high degree of irregularity and a low degree of predictability. Indeed, the
wide taxonomy of clippings, acronyms, and initialisms provided here (3.1.3,
3.1.6) offers evidence for their inclusion within extra-grammatical morphol-
ogy (3.2). The irregularities of abbreviations typically concern their irregular
morphotactics, their alternation between different outputs, the impossibility
252 Conclusions
to segment them into morphs, and the uncertainty of their head. Furthermore,
they do not apply to a distinct class of bases, subtract unpredictable parts
from them, and leave the input unaffected in terms of semantic (denotative)
meaning and part of speech (3.2.1.13.2.1.8). The regularities identified in
3.2.2.13.2.2.8 turn out to be only tendencies and preferences, because they
do not apply indifferently to all patterns, but only to prototypical ones.
Moreover, they do not allow a certain prediction of new outputs based on
hypothetical shortenings of existing words or phrases (3.2.3), because they
are not as stable as rules, but, at most, are based on analogy with current
(previously-attested) patterns.
Therefore, the most significant results for the category of abbreviations
are what I call criteria of well-formedness (3.2.4). To be well-formed,
abbreviations must comply with the general criteria of analogy and brevity
(see the Principle of Economy in 7.1). Moreover, the part retained in the
output must preferably be the most salient, so as to facilitate recoverability
of the source word/phrase and easy memorisation. But the output must also
be specific and unambiguous, a contextualisation being otherwise required to
disambiguate it. Other criteria namely, pronounceability, homonymy, line-
arity, and maximisation prove to be relevant only to some of the subcate-
gories.
Chapter 4 demonstrates that blending is not easily predictable (4.2.3),
since the combination of blend components disregards too many of the rules
of canonical composition. This is in opposition to Plags (2003: 121126)
claims that blends exhibit a surprising degree of regularity and should there-
fore not be excluded from grammatical morphology (see Bat-El 2000 for a
related position). The regularities and tendencies discussed in 4.2.2.1
4.2.2.10 only partially confirm Bat-Els (2006) contention that the formation
of blends is governed by certain general principles. This is not surprising,
since Bat-Els analysis of English blends is confined to prototypical cases,
and excludes most of the examples that I include in my analysis. The interca-
lative type (Kemmer 2003), for instance, proves to be irregular because
there is no real concatenation of words but only an intercalation of a short
word into a longer matrix word. The overlapping type, with a homophonous
string, also exhibits an irregular pattern, especially when no proper trunca-
tion occurs. Many of the irregularities identified in blending are not specific
to this phenomenon, but shared with abbreviations: specifically, irregular
morphotactics, with consequent difficult predictability of the output, alterna-
tive outputs, a non-morphematic analysis, uncertain headedness, irregular
subtraction, and alternative input categories. Unlike abbreviations, however,
there is meaning change in blending, in that two, or rarely more than two,
Conclusions 253
bases are fused together to result in a new word. In general, there is concate-
nation in blends, but there may also be intercalation of one base into another,
causing discontinuity. These remarks give support to my assumption that
lexical blends are extra-grammatical in nature, and regulated, at most, by
analogical processes.
In this chapter, a number of criteria of well-formedness are identified for
lexical blends (4.2.4). Firstly, analogy with previously coined blends facili-
tates the creation of new ones, whereas the existence of a homophonous
word in a language may block their coinage. Furthermore, to be well-formed,
blends must be pronounceable and euphonious, their source words must be
easily recoverable, and one of them must function as matrix word, i.e. be
prominent in terms of length, stress and position, and salient in terms of
meaning. Lastly, similarity between the components at various levels is pre-
ferred in the coordinate type of blends, whereas similarity or identity at the
juncture is favoured in the overlapping type.
In chapter 5, my analysis of English reduplicatives corroborates the as-
sumption that reduplication, like the previous phenomena, should be ex-
cluded from the module of English grammatical morphology (5.2). The main
regularities identified in 5.2.2.15.2.2.9 are mere tendencies, and do not
result in a homogeneous and unified phenomenon. Furthermore, the various
types described do not lend themselves to rule-based analysis, since the
bases of reduplicative words are often blurred or absent, and even when they
can be recognised, the variability of their position either in the right or the
left slot makes the output unpredictable, or even fluctuating between dif-
ferent alternatives (see 5.2.3). Unlike regular endocentric compounds, many
reduplicatives are acephalous (e.g. the onomatopoeic type), and rarely ex-
hibit two meaningful constituents. When they do, as with rhyming com-
pounds, their semantics is non-compositional. Moreover, like English blends
and abbreviations, English reduplicatives exhibit irregular morphotactics
and are not transparently analysable into morphemes. However, unlike
blends and abbreviations, reduplication is not based on abbreviatory mecha-
nisms, such as shortening, truncation, fusion, or overlap. Rather, it is redun-
dant in character, which makes it an independent phenomenon.
In addition to the general criterion of analogy (5.2.4), the criteria of well-
formedness identified for reduplicatives include: binary structure, with simi-
larity (or even identity) between replicans and replicatum, and rhythm. The
ablaut and rhyming types (but not the copy type) also obey an alternation
criterion, involving either gradation of the internal vowel, or consonant
gemination and final rhyme. Lastly, meaningfulness of both bases is a rele-
254 Conclusions
vant criterion for rhyming compounds, though this does not lead to a unitary
meaning.
In chapter 6, which deals with minor phenomena, the most significant re-
sults concern back-formation, which is clearly distinguished both from other
extra-grammatical phenomena, like clipping, and from grammatical phe-
nomena, like zero-derivation/conversion (6.1.2). Indeed, there has been much
confusion in the literature on this point, and a clarification was necessary to
find the exact locus of this phenomenon. I demonstrate that back-formation
is to be considered an extra-grammatical phenomenon because, unlike con-
version and regular derivation, it is unpredictable, not transparently analys-
able into morphemes, applicable to various input categories, and its meaning
is subtractive rather than additional (6.2.1, 6.2.3). It is not even the reversal
of a word-formation rule, as many scholars suggest (e.g. Adams 1973;
Aronoff 1976; Becker 1993; Haspelmath 2002), because there is not always
a real affix corresponding to the deleted part. However, like the other phe-
nomena under investigation in this work, it does obey some criteria of well-
formedness, namely, it is concise, in that it selects a morphological option
rather than a syntactic one, it involves simultaneous form/meaning subtrac-
tion (cf. abbreviations), and its mechanism of formation is based on analogy.
Moreover, in back-formation analogy is not only with other back-formed
words, but also with word pairs regularly obtained by derivation or, rarely,
inflection. These latter word pairs provide patterns for the reanalysis of
monomorphemic forms as morphologically complex ones.
For the process of infixation, this study offers a thorough classification
which takes into account not only the traditional (expletive) type, but also
recently investigated types (ma-infixation, diddly-infixation, iz-infixation)
(6.3.3.26.3.3.4). This re-classification obviously increases the number of
possible patterns, and impedes the analysis of infixation as a uniform phe-
nomenon. Indeed, what can be considered as regularity for one type is not
applicable to the others. Again, predictability of the output is hardly attain-
able (6.4.3). A specific irregularity of infixes, qualifying them as extra-
grammatical, is their insertion into bases. Discontinuous bases are indeed
marked and dispreferred in Natural Morphology (2.2.1). Interestingly, there
seems to be no appropriate parameter according to which well-formed in-
fixed words are obtained, in that there are no relevant criteria that apply
prototypically or generally (cf. 6.4.4). Only analogy with previously created
infixed forms holds as a relevant criterion.
Lastly, for phonaesthemes this study shows some irregularities (6.6.1.1
6.6.1.3) as well as criteria for identification: i.e. recursiveness, homogeneity
in phonetic and structural terms, and semantic coherence (6.6.2). Their
Conclusions 255
communicative power makes phonaesthemes an expressive phenomenon (cf.

Baldi 2000), whereas the impossibility to segment the words which contain
phonaesthemes into smaller units excludes them from regular word-
formation processes. Their variability in terms of both meaning and position
motivates their exclusion from morphological grammar.
As a more general aim, the analysis conducted here intended to re-
evaluate all these phenomena in the light of their frequency in language use
and their contribution to the development of the English lexicon.
Chapter 7 explores extra-grammatical morphology at work, and demon-
strates that the reasons for its pervasiveness in English are connected with
the specific functions it serves as well as with the pragmatic effects it pro-
duces in certain communicative contexts/domains. As far as functions are
concerned, I pinpoint four main principles of contextual suitability, namely,
Informality, Social or Professional closeness, Economy, and Naming (7.1,
points 14). As far as effects are concerned, I indicate the following princi-
ples: Jocularity, Novelty, Musicality, and Prominence (7.1, points 58).
Extra-grammatical phenomena are more appropriate than regular forma-
tions in many different contexts and domains. Abbreviations are largely
exploited in professional jargons and in communication where time is short,
because they are brief and efficient (7.3.17.3.2). Furthermore, acronyms
and initialisms (more rarely blends) are particularly productive naming de-
vices, since they are highly specific and ease memorisation as well as
worldwide circulation (7.3.2) (Mattiello forth.). Blends and sound symbolic
words are well suited to humorous literature, television series, and advertis-
ing, since they are original and playful (7.3.3, 7.3.5.3), whereas reduplica-
tives are naturally suited to childrens literature, nursery rhymes, and car-
toons, thanks to their musicality and generally attractive qualities (7.3.4).
Back-formation and infixation are typical of oral conversation, being used to
obtain humorous effects (7.3.5.17.3.5.2), but are also useful to express the
speakers emotions (expletive infixation), and to economise in specialised
discourse (back-formation). Shm-reduplication and phonaesthemes both give
prominence to words, although for different purposes.
In general, the present study contributes to the debate on extra-
grammatical morphology from different viewpoints:
Firstly, it sheds light on the differentiation between grammatical phe-

nomena and phenomena which are morphologically extra-grammatical;
Secondly, it clarifies that phenomena which have a regular occurrence
and high frequency are not necessarily grammatical;
256 Conclusions
Lastly, it demonstrates that the wide range of extra-grammatical phe-

nomena should be neither neglected nor marginalised, not only because
they are common and widespread, but also because they are interesting
from the point of view of their contextual specificity and pragmatic im-
portance.
Therefore, this study offers a new notion of regularity, which is rooted in

Zwicky and Pullums (1987: 330) idea that not every regularity in morphol-
ogy has to be expressed in terms of grammatical rules. Although extra-
grammatical phenomena are not analysable in terms of traditional rules, they
exhibit some recurring patterns which Kilani-Schoch and Dressler (forth.)
call irregular regularities, in that they differ from both grammatical regu-
larities and subregularities. In this study, regularities of extra-grammatical
operations involve: 1) the notion of analogy, which helps motivate new coin-
ages on the basis of pre-existing patterns, 2) other criteria of well-
formedness, which help distinguish between prototypical and marginal types,
and 3) principles of contextual suitability, which help understand the reasons
at the basis of their coinage and their incidence in English.
The study of morphological extra-grammaticality in English also raises
several interesting questions for further research in different areas, for ex-
ample:
Cross-linguistic study: Are there similarities between different languages

in the field of extra-grammatical word-formation? Do all languages use
the same mechanisms to serve the functions and/or produce the effects
discussed in chapter 7?
Translation: How are the extra-grammatical formations of a source lan-
guage rendered into a target language? How can missing types of forma-
tions be compensated in translation?
First language acquisition: Do English children use the same extra-
grammatical morphological processes as adults in their early language
acquisition process? Do they use other patterns, or perhaps the same
patterns but in different proportions?
Second language acquisition/Foreign language learning: What is the role
played by extra-grammatical formations in second language acquisition
or in foreign language learning? At what stage of the learning process
are these formations taught? Are they taught at all?
Some of the questions related to first language acquisition have partly

been answered by Dressler and his colleagues (Dressler and Karpf 1995;
Conclusions 257
Dressler et al. 2005; Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.), but not specifically
with regard to English.
In general, it seems that extra-grammatical morphology has been ne-
glected and still is by teachers, students, and professional workers in
many subjects and fields. This part of morphology is not only the realm of
linguists, but is also of relevance to many other academic and occupational
contexts. This suggests that it is an important field of investigation, and that
future morphological research should be expanded in this direction.
Notes
1. Phenomena of extra-grammaticality are not restricted to morphology. For

example, interjections such as ho-hum, humph, and phew illustrate phonetic
extra-grammaticality, and telegrams exemplify syntactic extra-
grammaticality (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.).
2. In OED3, the first citation for the word POTUS is dated 1895. Originally, it
was a newspaper wire and telegraph code word, and it was later used espe-
cially among White House staff before passing into more general use. It has
probably been revived quite recently (see, e.g., a 1999 citation in the OED).
3. Since the online version of the OED is being continuously updated from the
2nd edition to the 3rd edition, when citing in the text, I distinguish between
entries belonging to either the second (OED2) or the third (OED3) edition.
4. In this work, blending is referred to in a strictly morphological sense, not to
be confused with the Theory of Conceptual Blending (or Conceptual Integra-
tion) developed by Fauconnier and Turner (2002).
5. As Lehrer (2007: 116) states, In infotainment information + entertain-
ment, info is a clipping and can stand as an independent word. The usual
pronunciation of the first two syllables of infotainment would also corrobo-
rate the origin from info and entertainment. See also OED3, where both info-
and -tainment are viewed as combining forms, and compare infomercial.
6. Not all uses of expletive infixes are in fact deprecative. For example, bea-
fucking-utiful is a very positive word. What they all have in common is the
very informal nature of the lexical items used for infixation, some of which
are considered to be swear words (hence, expletive infixation), and the fact
that the infixes are intensifiers.
7. The term splinter was first used by Adams (1973: 149) to define the ele-
ments in ball/ute ( ball/on + parach/ute), and later by Cannon (1986,
2000), Lehrer (1996, 2007), Hong (2004), and others. In Lehrer (1996: 361),
splinters are defined as parts of words in blends which are intended to be
recognized as belonging to a target word, but which are not independent
formatives.
8. Also called submorphemes (Philps forth.).
9. Cf. Dressler (2000: 2), who considers Aronoffs (1976) unitary base con-
straint an extreme formulation, but suggests that, unlike morphological
rules, extra-grammatical operations do not apply to distinct classes of
bases.
10. Aronoff and Anshen (1998: 242) define morphological productivity as the
extent to which a particular affix is likely to be used in the production of new
words in the language.
Notes 259
11. The most extensive collection of studies on various languages is edited by

Doleschal and Thornton (2000). But see the Introduction (1.2) for specific
studies on each phenomenon.
12. Full reduplication is more iconic than partial reduplication because identity
is more iconic than similarity between base and copy (Dressler et al. 2005:
456).
13. See Mattiello (2003) for the morphotactic and morphosemantic complexity of
slang compounds.
14. The term telonym is taken from Dressler et al. (1987: 117).
15. According to Dressler (1984: 38), Dissimilatory processes refer to the per-
ception of the phonological intentions; assimilatory processes to their adapta-
tion to the speech-tract.
16. In line with Jespersen (1922: 278), euphony depends on both ease of articu-
lation and ease of perception. Thus, what requires difficult movements of
the organs of speech or what is indistinct to the ear is considered cacopho-
nous.
17. See Jespersens (1922) Ease Theory, according to which the changes of
language go in the direction of greater ease, in other words, they manifest
a tendency towards economy of effort (p. 261).
18. In this hypothesis, Shariatmadari (2006: 207) supports the idea that there
exists a tendency to conserve energy in the use of the articulatory organs,
with easy sounds being those that require less physical effort to produce on
the part of the speaker.
19. Ronneberger-Sibold (2008: 203) defines word creation as a subtype of
extragrammatical morphology characterized by intentionality.
20. With reference to acronyms, Bat-El (2000: 64) affirms that when the base is
a phrase and the output is a noun the grammatical category is changed. On
the other hand, Conti and Mattiello (2008: 568) state that there is no proper
change of syntactic class when we pass, for instance, from a phrase such as
Very Important Person, with a noun as its head, to the noun vip/VIP.
21. On the basis of etymological description in OED2, itty-bitty could also be
seen as being double-headed, itty being a baby-form of little. Cf. Williams
(1981) Righthand Head Rule.
22. Clipping of final A may be enabled by the fact that USA is often pronounced
US of A, where of A is a modifier. However, US could also be analysed as a
direct abbreviation from United States.
23. Cf. Dresslers (2000: 1) tripartition into extragrammatical morphology vs.
marginal grammatical morphology vs. prototypical grammatical morphol-
ogy.
24. Warren (1990: 119) distinguishes secretion from abbreviation in the follow-
ing terms: Secretion is a process in which certain semantic elements in a
linguistic unit are kept and others discarded. Abbreviation is a process in
260 Notes
which all the semantic elements are kept, although the form of the unit is
made shorter.
25. Cf. Dresslers (2000: 7) association of non-productivity with marginality
in morphology.
26. Cf. Algeos (1977: 50) inclusion of foodoholic within the category of blends
with clipping. This inclusion may have diachronic motivations: i.e. in the
1970s the combining form -holic had not yet acquired morpheme status.
27. Warren (1990: 115) includes -gate in an independent group, but I believe
that this is only a subtype of the second group, since its meaning is com-
pletely unrelated to the meaning of gate. Note, however, that the word Wa-
tergate, in its original meaning (from which the name of the building in
Washington derives), contains the word gate in one of its normal senses.
28. For a thorough study of English secreted combining forms (e.g. -burger,
-fest, -gate, -holic, -rama, -scape, -speak, -thon), see Mattiello (2007,
2008b).
29. Dressler (2000: 2) observes that The performance of linguistic games is
more error-prone than that of MRs [Morphological Rules].
30. Cf. Doleschal and Thorntons (2000: iii) remark: since [Dressler and Mer-
lini Barbaresis (1994)] discussion is hidden in a book on diminutives and in-
tensifiers, it has not had much impact on morphological theory.
31. Bat-El (2000) reports examples taken from Hebrew, which, however, are
beyond the scope of my discussion.
32. See Plags (2003: 103) prosodic morphology. See also McCarthy and
Prince (1986).
33. Following Dressler (2000), Plag (2003: 122123) does not consider forma-
tions of the type motel ( motor hotel) as proper blends, but rather as
shortened compounds. More on this distinction is in 4.1.2.
34. In Brinton and Traugott (2005: 40), abbreviations like narc and pub are
called ellipses. Cf. 3.1.2 in the present work.
35. Cf. OED2, where teeny is given as an emphasised form of tiny, and weeny as
analogical with teeny when they combine.
36. Bertacca (2009: 118) considers productivity to be the prototypical property
of rules in that it reinforces their strength and diachronic stability.
37. Plag (1999: 1314) also mentions the criterion of unintentionality, but does
not take it to be a necessary characteristic of productive processes, in that, as
Bauer (2001: 68) puts it, all rules can be applied intentionally.
38. For instance, -th nominalisation, as in depth and strength, is obtained by
rule, but it is an unproductive process, in that it is no longer used to form
new words.
39. Bauer (2001: 64) considers creativity and productivity as hyponyms of inno-
vation, to be distinguished according to whether or not rule-governedness is
envisaged.
Notes 261
40. In Bauer (2001: 46) institutionalised and lexicalised are complementary

terms, i.e. co-hyponyms of established.
41. The word analogy comes from Greek (analoga), a mathematical
term which Greek grammarians like Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aris-
tarchus of Samothrace used to indicate a real mathematical proportion in
order to find out morphological forms (Schironi 2007: 322).
42. Roman grammarians inherited the Greek word analoga and translated it
with proportio, comparatio, similitudo, or even with regula (Schironi 2007;
cf. rule).
43. Plags (1999: 45) list includes: a) the word base hypothesis, b) the composi-
tionality hypothesis, c) the binary branching hypothesis, d) locality condi-
tions, e) recursion and repetition constraints, f) the open-class base hypothe-
sis, g) the unitary base hypothesis, h) the unitary output hypothesis, i)
blocking, j) stratal constraints. Some of these points are discussed in 2.1 of
the present book.
44. According to Fischer (2007: 324), formal and functional analogy (see Ant-
tilas 2003 analogical grid) can be viewed as one of the main mechanisms or
motivating factors in language change. Analogy indeed operates not only in
morphosyntactic change, as widely demonstrated by Fischer (2007), but also
in the coinage of new words.
45. Fischer (2007: 123) argues that analogy is primary or at least stands on an
equal footing with reanalysis. Cf. the notions of reanalysis and analogy
involving innovation on a syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic axis in Hopper and
Traugott (2003).
46. Surface analogies also occur in child speech, and play a significant role in
first language acquisition (see Laaha 2004), but this aspect goes beyond the
scope of my study.
47. The original French terms are rentabilit, regularit, and disponibilit.
Their English translations namely, profitability, regularity, and avail-
ability are taken from Carstairs-McCarthy (1992: 37).
48. As Bertacca (2009: 118) remarks, productivity can only be based on regular-
ity, but regularity by itself does not necessarily result in productivity.
49. Cf. other terms (reported in Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat 2009: 21 [my
translation]) to define what does not conform to rules: i.e., non- or un-
grammatical, marginal, minor, peripheral, creative, expressive,
unconventional. None of these labels coincides with the notion of extra-
grammatical adopted here.
50. The dividing line between conscious and unconscious blends is actually de-
batable, as shown by the word torrible ( terrible + horrible) classified in
Gries (2004b: 425) and Cacchiani (2007: 110) as a real blend, but very close
to its counterpart herrible, which others consider a simultaneous pronuncia-
tion.
262 Notes
51. See Zwicky and Pullum (1987: 337, criterion 4.5) for the same property in
expletive infixation, and see Dressler (2000: 2) for this property in language
games.
52. Cannon (1989) critically observes that, instead of relegating alphabetisms to
a peripheral process of word manufacturing, we should study them for possi-
ble insights into language change (p. 122).
53. Kreidler (1979: 24), for instance, defines blends as multiple clippings and
does not discuss them separately from other abbreviations. Analogously,
Quirk et al. (1985: 1580) include clippings, acronyms, and blends under the
same label, Abbreviations (cf. Fischer 1998: 1).
54. The etymology of the term taxi is actually more complex, its source phrase
being taximeter cabriolet. Hence, the clippings taxicab and Am.E. cab refer
to the same vehicle.
55. The meaning of pants in Am.E. (i.e. trousers) is more closely connected
with the full word pantaloons (cf. Br.E. a pair of underpants).
56. Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1634) name the source of the clipping the
original, the phonological material that is cut away the surplus, and the
remaining material the residue.
57. Back-formation will be dealt with in chapter 6.
58. Some exceptions are noted by Jamet (2009: 17): adjectival clipped forms are
often converted into nouns, which confirms the supremacy of nouns as
clipped forms (bisexual bi; traditional trad, etc.). However, trad is ac-
tually a clipped compound from the noun traditional jazz (Marchand 1969:
442), so its syntactic class does not vary from input to output.
59. A similar position is to be found in Jespersen (1942: 538): shortenings of
this category [i.e. back-formations] differ from the other categories in that
they often lead to a new word belonging to another word-class than the origi-
nal word.
60. This type is called apocopation or apocope by Jamet (2009: 17; also in
Fradin 2003: 211). However, as appropriately observed by Lpez Ra (2006:
677), apocope, aphaeresis and syncope are phonetic concepts concerning oral
clippings, which are graphically marked by means of apostrophes, as in
fraid for afraid, deed for indeed, and oer for over.
61. Also from gymnastics. Note that stress here is on the second syllable (gym-
nsium/gymnstics), which is deleted (Marchand 1969: 442). The same is
true for other words, such as prof(ssor), uni(vrsity), etc. See also 3.2.2.1.
62. Also from the noun psychology.
63. According to Quirk et al. (1985: 1581), informal spelling, as in mike, praps
(perhaps), telly, etc., reflects The informality that is typical of clipped
forms.
64. In OED3, the relationship between quiz and inquisitive is less certain, the
former being viewed as probably influenced by (but not necessarily derived
from) the latter.
Notes 263
65. See OED2 for the more complicated original form of cortisone, the chemical
name 17-hydroxy-11 dehydrocortico-sterone.
66. Cf. the word prepreg, which is clipped from a derivative (pre-impregnated),
discarding the less salient parts.
67. According to Marchand (1969: 444), the origin of most shortened names
with altered spelling is in child language. Since children are unable to pro-
nounce difficult sounds, they substitute them with easier forms: Dol, Hal,
Sal, where the original has been replaced by a liquid . Back-clippings as
well as sound substitutions in the pronunciation of names also characterise
Italian child language, especially in the phase of pre-morphology, as in Loi
for Lolita, Ma for Matilde, and Sa, Saa or Sava for Sara (also reduplicated as
Sasa). However, these tendencies do not influence hypocoristics of adult lan-
guage (cf. Loli, Mati or Tilde).
68. Plag (2003: 117) makes a distinction between -y diminutives, on the one
hand, and truncated names and clippings, on the other. For him, truncated
names and clippings are used to express familiarity, whereas diminutives are
used to express familiarity as well as a (usually) positive attitude towards the
referent. For this topic, the reader is referred to Dressler and Merlini Bar-
baresi (1994).
69. Cf. Italian childrens tendency to assimilate consonants, especially with clus-
ters of difficult pronunciation, in Italian personal names, like Vacco for
Vasco, as well as in English ones, like the famous dolls name, Barbie, pro-
nounced Babbi.
70. For cute from acute, see also Kreidler (2000: 962).
71. A collection of Australian English clippings can be found in Rossi (2007:
7074).
72. Because of its marginality and low frequency, the suffix -a has not been in-
cluded in this classification. Two attested examples are sanga for sandwich
and cuppa for cup of tea (Kidd, Kemp, and Quinn 2011: 365).
73. By clipped word I mean a clipped simplex word: i.e., a clipped noun, ad-
jective or verb.
74. See also TTIC ( Terrorist Threat Integration Center), pronounced tee-tic
(Fandrych 2008: 112).
75. Forms like this one, as we will see in chapter 5, can be confused with rhym-
ing reduplicatives of the type hocus-pocus, in that they analogously exhibit
consonant alternation and rhyme.
76. Cf. pure vs. impure acronyms in Baum (1962).
77. Cf. Lpez Ras (2002) analysis as a less prototypical acronym from the
phrase United NatIons Childrens (Emergency) Fund, with the addition of
isolated constituents which are not strictly initials (p. 42).
78. There are divergent views on the origin of AWOL, which is either from Ab-
sent WithOut Leave or from Absent Without Official Leave. Only in the latter
case would the acronym be considered elliptic. Baum (1955: 105) is even un-
264 Notes
certain about the status of AWOL as an acronym word, in that in speech it

may be alternatively pronounced letter by letter.
79. A maximal degree of shortening is viewed as prototypical for acronyms
(Lpez Ra 2002).
80. For NWAVE an expanded pronunciation (new wave) also exists.
81. See also SNCC ( Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and ROTC
( Reserve Officers Training Corps), both with imported vowels to make
them pronounceable within the existing canons, i.e. SNCC and ROTC
(Kreidler 1979: 25).
82. Cf. WASP 18, the name of a star.
83. According to Plag (2003: 128), the political acrostic START has been pur-
posefully chosen to persuade an audience and favour political adherence.
84. Fandrych (2008: 112) also includes within the category of reverse acronyms
initialisms of the type ABC ( A Better Chance (program)).
85. Although the use of TTFN is especially frequent nowadays in text messages
and Internet slang, the initialism does in fact have quite a long history (see
OED2).
86. Cf. the analysis provided by Huddleston and Pullum (2002: 1633), who in-
terpret the final y of dinky as the initial of yet (double income, no kids yet).
This analysis, however, would not account for the alternative spelling dinkie.
87. See Jamet (2009: 18) for quantitative data.
88. For this reason, the word bike is analysed by Lpez Ra (2002: 43) as com-
ing from bi(cy)c(l)e. Indeed, only the second graphic c corresponds to the
sound of bike.
89. C stands for Consonant, V for Vowel. Note also that in Plags (2003: 118)
template, two vowels (VV) stand for either a long vowel or a diphthong.
90. Aronoff (1976: 43) defines blocking as the nonoccurrence of one form due
to the simple existence of another. For instance, the existence of the noun
glory blocks the -ity derivative from the adjective glorious (i.e. *gloriosity;
cf. curious curiosity). This notion can also be applied to semantics, se-
mantic blocking being the nonoccurrence of one word due to the existence of
another having the same form but a different meaning (cf. homonymy).
91. More examples are reported in Kreidler (1979).
92. Note that the initialism has taken a distinct negative prefix un- (vs. in-
correct).
93. Cf. the full form Master-s of Ceremonies.
94. In line with Jamet (2009: 24), a long and frequent word is more frequently
clipped than a short and rare (scarcely-used) word.
95. See Bertinetto (2001: 62): LEX-BLs [Lexical blends] are a fairly old phe-
nomenon, known at least since the times of classical Greek.
96. For a catalogue of the earliest attested blends, see Adams (1973).
97. This claim is of diachronic relevance, since, about forty years ago, Adams
(1973: 148) stated that: compound-blends are rather rarely used, and
Notes 265
around twenty-five years ago, Cannon (1986: 725) claimed: blending

mainly produces oral forms that quickly die. The process has not signifi-
cantly expanded the English lexicon. Cf. Bertinetto (2001: 66): English
seems to be the language that makes the largest use of this word formation
procedure.
98. Cf. Pound (1914), Algeo (1977), and Cannon (1986), which are mainly taxo-
nomic in nature and contribute little to the explanation of why blends have
the structure they have.
99. For the rich and often contradictory terminology employed to label blends,
see Cannon (1986, 2000).
100. An example of an English blend containing three lexemes is compushity (
compulsion + push + necessity) reported by Kelly (1998: 582). Cf. syntactic
blends in Algeo (1977: 48) and Cannon (1986: 726).
101. See Ronneberger-Sibold (2006) for a scale of transparency in lexical blends.
102. Hence the German name Kopf-Schwanz-Wort (lit. head-tail-word,
Dressler et al. 1987: 126).
103. Actually, Bertinetto (2001: 60) analyses this blend as overlapping only in the
sequence for: Cali<fornia + for>nicate.
104. Property 3 is found in some languages, for example German (e.g. Apfelkern-
reaktor Apfelkern + Kernreaktor), but not attested in English: cf. bone-
fisherman ( bonefish + fisherman), where fish and fisher are not the same
word (Bertinetto 2001: 65, footnote 9).
105. See Algeo (1977) and Cannon (1986) for taxonomic analyses with corre-
sponding descriptive statistics.
106. Cf. Kreidler (1979: 24), who describes blends as words made by decomposi-
tion and composition.
107. See chapter 3 of the present book for a distinction between clippings, acro-
nyms, and initialisms. See Cannon (1989) for a discussion on terminological
and conceptual distinctions in the literature.
108. Both total and partial blends are included within the category called blends
with clipping by Algeo (1977: 50), i.e. with some part(s) omitted.
109. This blend exhibits an alternative form in capitals (FORTRAN), which, ac-
cording to Lpez Ra (2002: 44), makes it less prototypical (cf. alphabetisms
in 3.1.4).
110. Here the first source word (blog) is itself a blend; see below in the classifica-
tion.
111. According to Kaunisto (2000a: 49, in Gries 2004a: 650), Ideal blends then
would naturally be ones where the ending of the first source word and the be-
ginning of the second one overlap, resulting in a way in no deletion at all.
112. For the main semantic relationships between the components of French
blends, see Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 3942).
266 Notes
113. Kubozono (1990: 3): the word whose non-initial component constitutes the
non-initial component of blend forms serves as the head of the whole ex-
pression. Thus, motel is a kind of hotel rather than a kind of vehicle.
114. Cacchianis (2007: 109) pleonastic blends.
115. Compare OED2s suggestion that galumph was perhaps formed with some
reminiscence of gallop and the adjective triumphant.
116. According to Cacchiani (2007: 105), The similarity-motivated preservation
of one source words stress pattern is considered more important than the
recognizability-motivated preservation of letters and phonemes. Cf. my cri-
teria of Recoverability and Similarity in 4.2.4.
117. For prototypicality in blends, see Lpez Ra (2002: 4344).
118. The first component tends to be, according to Kelly (1998), shorter, more
frequent, more prototypical and positively connoted than the second one, or
to occur before the second one on a temporal scale (as in breakfast + lunch).
119. Cf. Plags (2003: 125) constraint that blends only combine syllable constitu-
ents (onsets, nuclei, codas, rimes, or complete syllables).
120. Cf. Quirk et al. (1985: 1583), who claim that brunch is a special kind of
lunch which has some of the features of breakfast.
121. The meaning of blends constitutes a highly debated issue and for some schol-
ars it is more than the addition of the meanings of the blend constituents
(Kemmer 2003: 83). For instance, Pictionary ( picture + dictionary) is
neither a picture nor a dictionary, but a game where you have to guess
words based on drawings. See also Bat-El (2006).
122. See Wang (2004) for a corpus-based study of reduplication and repetition.
123. This is the song title of the music group D4L, but also a brand of candy
manufactured by the Willy Wonka Candy Factory, and distributed by Nestl
(Wikipedia).
124. Examples of triplication like copy drip-drip-drip and ablaut flip-flap-flop
(Marchand 1969: 439) will not be discussed in this book, since they are ex-
ceptional in English and often unattested in dictionaries (though not always
see, e.g., impure tick-tack-toe a childrens game in OED2).
125. See Nadarajan (2006) for more on syntactic repetition.
126. According to the Affix Condition, membership is denied to any polymor-
phemic construction consisting of an affix (or more than one, as in -less
-ness) and a root, where the form of the affix is not conditioned by the pho-
nological make-up of the root (Dienhart 1999: 12).
127. According to the Single Phone Condition, membership is denied to any
monomorphemic construction consisting of the form CVCV, where the redu-
plication involves only a single phone, either C or V (Dienhart 1999: 12).
128. Dienhart (1999: 12) uses this term, although in some of the cases he men-
tions (e.g. khaki) there is no proper rhyme.
129. Additional cases with a final consonant include fam(ily) dram(a), lit(erary)
crit(icism), and rom(antic) com(edy) (cf. also blends in 4.1.2).
Notes 267
130. The practice of creating infantile words by reduplicating the initial syllable of
a word is common in French: e.g., facile (easy) fafa, poisson (fish)
poipoi, mignon (small) mimi (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.). In
Italian, small children tend to reduplicate either the initial (Kitty Kikky)
or the final syllable (Bambi Bibi).
131. Cf. frequent and productive hypocoristics for names in French (e.g. Viviane
Vivi, Zindine Zidane Zizou) (Kilani-Schoch and Dressler forth.), as
well as in Italian (e.g. Lele from Emanuele, Gabriele and Raffaele, Mim
from Domenico and Sas, and Tot from Salvatore). These are difficult to
distinguish, however, from truncated names, with or without suffixation, as
in Liliana Lili/-y.
132. This is also the most frequent type in many languages of the world (Jespersen
1942: 176).
133. Merlini Barbaresi (2008: 238) notes that the same vowel pattern, from high
to low, is found in other categories, for instance, to evoke proximity vs. re-
moteness in this/that, these/those, here/there, etc.
134. According to Katamba (2009: 89), The meaning of the reduplicated word
tends to have uncomplimentary connotations, as in You call yourself a cap-
tain? Captain shmaptain, what leadership did you show?.
135. In his analysis of stress in reduplicatives, Dienhart (1999) also includes
within this group syntactic phrases like power tower and shock rock, which
have not yet acquired the status of compounds.
136. Cf. secondary phonosymbolism, that is, phonaesthemes such as gl- in glance,
glimmer, glitter, etc. (see 6.5).
137. See the same tendency in Italian, where pio pio is used for chick and cip
cip for bird in child-parent talk.
138. For some reduplicatives, the same types of orthographic variation may be
found in English: e.g. hiphop, hip-hop, hip hop; zigzag, zig-zag, zig zag all
attested in the British National Corpus (Wang 2005: 507).
139. Only one representative example for each semantic area is reported here.
More data may be found in Merlini Barbaresi (2008: 235).
140. In languages throughout the world, reduplication is often semantically iconic,
conferring not only plurality on nouns, but also iterativity on verbs, as in
many Bantu languages: e.g., in Swahili, piga means to strike and pigapiga
to strike repeatedly (Wikipedia).
141. In view of this, a distinction should be made between back-derivation and
back-inflection.
142. Cf. cross-formation if there is no difference of productivity between the two
directions (Becker 1993: 8).
143. For a semantic categorisation of back-formed verbs, see Nagano (2007: 60
64).
144. Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 10) claim that back-formations are opaque:
They came into the language, after all, because the form they came from
268 Notes
was itself opaque and open to the wrong analysis, or misanalysis, as they
call it (cf. metanalysis in Jespersen 1942: 537).
145. According to Aronoff (1976: 28), the appropriate choice in back-formation is
motivated by the principle of least effort: when, in the course of our recon-
struction, we arrive at a choice which is arbitrary, we choose the form which
is closest to the one we started out from.
146. According to tekauer (2000: 73), disagreement in meaning excludes pairs
such as the infinitive verb unwish (to retract, to cancel, to make an end by
wishing, 1594), and the participle unwished (not desired, unwelcome,
1583) from back-formation, despite the formal analogy and chronological
data.
147. For the origin of the source words, the Online Etymology Dictionary was
consulted.
148. Viau (2006: 2) mentions other less frequent allomorphs, namely -id- and -in-,
without, however, providing examples. Cf. the phenomenon of -izzle or -eezy
suffixation, often occurring after truncation: e.g., for sure fo shizzle or fo
sheezy.
149. McMillan (1980: 163164) distinguishes between different kinds of items
used as infixes. Some are obscene, profane and irreverent: e.g., bloody-hell,
by God, by heaven, damned, fucking, goddamn, motherfucking, the devil, the
fuck, the hell. Others are euphemistic: e.g., bally, bleeding, bleep, blessed,
blooming (cf. bloody), fugging (cf. fucking), jolly. Neutral terms are rarely
used as infixes, a few exceptions being absolutely in guaran-absolutely-tee
and extremely in terra-extremely-firma, with a purely intensifying function.
150. According to Aronoff (1976: 6970, after Siegel 1971), the infix must imme-
diately precede the primary stress and must be preceded somewhere in the
word it is inserted into by a tertiary stress, as in fan-fuckin-tastic, Santa-
fuckin-Cruz.
151. Plag (2003: 102) defines a foot as a metrical unit consisting of either one
stressed syllable, or one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed sylla-
bles.
152. On the arbitrariness of signs and their meaning, see Aronoff (1976: 8, 15).
153. Bloomfield (1933: 156) actually subdivides echoic words into three groups:
1) those that are really imitative (ah, ouch), 2) those that are coined to sound
like a noise made by some object or creature (bang, meow, splash), and 3)
those that have the property that to the speaker it seems as if the sounds
were especially suited to the meaning (flap, flicker, flimmer, flip, flitter,
flop, etc.).
154. Cf. Social closeness with the notion of connivence affective [affective con-
nivance] in Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 35).
155. Cf. Jocularity with the notion of connivence ludique [ludic connivance] in
Fradin, Montermini, and Plnat (2009: 35).
Notes 269
156. In English, many instances of blending coined in advertising are reported in

Pennarola (2003: 30): e.g., Appletiser, Diorific, Essensuals, Innervigoration,
Innovalue, LogiCook, Revitalift, Vitaminfo. In Italian, recent advertisements
have included the coined words cerchiotto ( cerchietto hairband + orsac-
chiotto teddy bear), referring to a hairband for little girls, and morbistenza
( morbidezza softness + resistenza strength) to define a type of toilet
paper.
157. Since itsy-bitsy is used here in reference to bikinis, the choice of word is
undoubtedly due to its association with a famous song by Brian Hyland enti-
tled Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.
158. In some versions of the fairy tale, the name of the main character is also a
reduplicative word, i.e. Chicken Licken (Wikipedia).
References
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1973 An Introduction to Modern English Word-formation. London:
Longman.
2001 Complex Words in English. Harlow: Pearson Education/Longman.
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1977 Blends, a structural and systemic view. American Speech 52 (1/2):
4764.
Anderson, Earl R.
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Lexical index
As explained in 1.1, the present index includes my total database, arranged

into lists representing different morphological categories. The entries of the
index are ordered alphabetically within the lists. For each entry, the index
provides the part-of-speech, a definition, word sources (where opaque), and
cross-references.
Clippings, clipped compounds, clipped names, hypocoristics
Abe (name) Abraham. Andy (name) Andrew.

ad (noun) administration. Angie (name) Angela.
ad, advert (rarely adv, advt) anon (noun) anonymous.
(noun) advertisement. anthro (noun) anthropology.
addy (noun) address. app (noun) application; appetizer.
ade (noun) fruit juice. From lem- Archie (noun) an anti-aircraft
onade, orangeade. gun. From Archibald.
ADG (noun) adermatoglyphia. Argie (noun, adjective) Argentin-
adman (noun) advertising man. ian.
admin (noun) administration (also arvo (noun) afternoon.
ad). Aussie (noun) Australian.
adv (ppl adjective) advanced; auto (noun) automobile.
(noun) adverb; advertisement; Ave (noun) Avenue.
advocate. Babs, Babbie (name) Barbara.
afish (noun) aficionado. baccy (noun) tobacco.
after (noun) afternoon. backstitution (noun) backsubsti-
Ag (name) Agatha. tution.
aggro (noun) aggravation; ag- Barb, Barbie (name) Barbara.
gression. barbie (noun) barbecue.
Al (name) Albert; Alfred (also Bart (name) Bartholomew.
Alf); Alonzo (cf. Lon). bathers (noun, plural) bathing
alky (noun) alcoholic. shorts.
ambo (noun) ambulance worker. beano (noun) bean-feast.
ammo (noun) ammunition. bedder (noun) bedroom.
amp (noun) amplifier. bed-sitter (noun) bed-sitting room.
ana (noun) anorexia.
288 Lexical index
Beeb (noun) British Broadcasting breathalyser (noun) breath ana-

Corporation. From BBC. lyser.
Belle (name) Arabella; Belinda. brekker (noun) breakfast.
benny (noun) benzedrine tablet. brill (adjective) brilliant.
berg (noun) iceberg. bro (noun) brother.
bermies (noun, plural) bermudas. brolly (noun) umbrella.
Bernie (name) Bernard. bronc (noun) bronco.
Bert, Bertie (name) Adelbert; bus (noun) omnibus.
Albert; Bertram; Herbert; Ro- butch (noun) butcher.
bert. B-way (name) Broadway.
bet (noun) abet. c. (noun) century; chapter.
Bet, Beth, Betty, Bes (name) CA (noun) cancer. From carci-
Elizabeth. Cf. Lisa, Liz(zy). noma.
bevie, bevvy (noun) beverage. cab (noun) taximeter cabriolet.
B-girl (noun) bar girl. Caddie/-y (noun) Cadillac.
Bham (name) Birmingham. caf (noun) cafeteria.
bi (adjective, noun) bisexual. caff (noun) caf.
bib (noun) library. From Fr. bib- cam (noun) camera.
liothque. camo (noun) camouflage.
biccy (noun) biscuit (cf. Aus.E. cap (noun) captain.
bickie). capital (noun) capital city; capital
bike (noun) bicycle. letter.
bikie (noun) motorbike. caps (noun, plural) capital letters.
billies (noun) dollar bills. cardi, cardie (noun) cardigan.
binos (noun) binoculars. carny (noun) carnival worker.
biopic (noun) biographical pic- Catho (noun) Catholic.
ture. cause, cos, cos (conjunction)
biz (noun) business. because.
bldg (noun) building. celebs (noun, plural) celebrities.
boatie (noun) boatman. cell phone (noun) cellular tele-
Bob (name) Robert. phone.
bodbiz (noun) body business. cello (noun) violoncello.
Bogey (name) Bogart. celly (noun) cellular phone.
Boney, Bonny (name) Bonaparte. cept (preposition) except.
boob (noun) a stupid fellow. champers, shampers (noun)
From booby. champagne.
bot (noun) robot. Charlie (name) Charles; Char-
Bozzy (name) Boswell. lotte.
bra (noun) brassire. chemo (noun) chemotherapy.
Chevy (noun) Chevrolet.
Clippings, clipped compounds, clipped names, hypocoristics 289
Chicom (noun) Chinese commu- cuke (noun) cucumber.

nist. curio (noun) curiosity.
chippie/-y (noun) chip-shop. cute (adjective) acute.
choke (noun) artichoke. cutie/-ey (noun) an attractive
Chrissie (name) Christine. young woman. From cute,
chute (noun) parachute. originally an aphetic form of
cig, ciggie/-y (noun) cigarette. acute.
civvies (noun, plural) civilian cuz (noun) cousin.
clothes. cyborg (noun) cybernetic organ-
coke (noun) coca cola; cocaine. ism.
collekkers (noun) collections, an darl (noun) darling.
Oxford examination. deb (noun) debutante.
combo (noun) combination. Debby (name) Deborah.
comfy (adjective) comfortable. decaf, de-caff (noun) decaffein-
Commie, Commo (noun) Com- ated coffee.
munist. deed (adverb) indeed.
common (noun) common sense. deets (noun, plural) details.
comp (noun) computer; competi- def, defs (adverb) definitely.
tion. deli (noun) delicatessen.
compo (noun) compensation. delish (adjective) delicious.
Comsymp (noun) Communist Dem, dem (noun) Democrat.
sympathizer. demo (noun) demonstration; de-
condo (noun) condominium. molition.
congrats (noun, plural) congratu- des res (noun) desirable resi-
lations. dence.
conlang (noun) constructed lan- dif (noun) difference; (adjective)
guage. different.
coon (noun) raccoon. digi cabes (noun) digital cable.
copter (noun) helicopter. dino (noun) dinosaur.
corp (noun) corporation. dis (verb) to show disrespect.
cortisone (noun) corticosterone. From the noun.
cozzie (noun) costume. disco (noun) discotheque.
cred (noun) credit; credibility. divi., divvy (noun) dividend.
credie (noun) credit card. Dizzy (name) Disraeli.
crim (noun) criminal. dlr (noun) dollar.
croc (noun) crocodile. doc (noun) doctor; document.
cruits, cruits (noun, plural) re- Dol (name) Dorothy.
cruits. Dolph (name) Adolphus.
C-section (noun) Caesarean sec- Dora (name) Theodora.
tion. dorm (noun) dormitory.
290 Lexical index
droid (noun) android. Fred (name) Alfred.

druggie (noun) drug addict. fridge (noun) refrigerator.
E. coli (noun) Escheri- fries (noun) French fried potatoes.
chia/Entamoeba coli. Fro (noun) Afro.
edbiz (noun) educational busi- fro-yo (noun) frozen yogurt.
ness. Gail (name) Abigail.
ekker (noun) exercise. gainst (preposition) against.
emo (adjective) emotional. garbo (noun) garbage collector.
Eve (name) Evelyn. Cf. Lyn. gas (noun) gasoline.
evo-devo (noun) evolutionary gator (noun) alligator.
developmental biology. general (noun) general servant.
ex (noun) ex-husband; ex-wife. gents (noun) gentlemens lava-
exam (noun) examination. tory.
exec (noun) executive officer. Gerry (name) Gerald.
fab (adjective) fabulous. gin (noun) spirit obtained from
fag (noun) a male homosexual. juniper berries. From Dutch
From faggot. genever.
fam dram (noun) family drama. glam (noun) glamour; (adjective)
fan (noun) fanatic. glamorous; (verb) to glamor-
fanfic (noun) fan fiction. ize.
fash (noun) fashion; (adjective) glutes (noun) gluteus maximus.
fashionable. goalie (noun) goalkeeper.
fave (adjective) favourite. Gorby (name) Gorbachev.
fax (noun) facsimile. grad (noun) graduate.
fem (adjective) feminine. grandma (noun) grandmother.
fence (noun) defence. grannie (noun) grandmother;
fend (verb) to defend. grandfather.
Fergie (name) Ferguson. graph (noun) graphic formula.
fess, fess (verb) to confess. grotty (adjective) grotesque.
fiche (noun) microfiche. gussie (noun) an effeminate man.
finals (noun, plural) final exami- From Augustus.
nations. gym (noun) gymnasium; gymnas-
flex (adjective) flexible. tics.
Flo, Floss (name) Florence. gypsy, gyppo (noun) Egyptian.
flu (noun) influenza. H. (noun) hydrogen; heroin.
folkie (noun) folk singer. Hal (name) Harry.
footer, footie/-y (noun) football. hanky (noun) handkerchief.
fraid (adjective) afraid. hard (noun) hard labour.
frat (noun) fraternity; (verb) to hash (noun) hashish.
fraternize.
hetero (noun, adjective) hetero- leccer, lecker, lekker (noun) lec-

sexual. ture.
hi-fi (noun) high fidelity. leet (noun) lite.
high-tech (noun) high technology. legit (noun, adjective) legitimate.
hippo (noun) hippopotamus. lesbo (noun) lesbian.
hols (noun, plural) holidays. Lexie (name) Alexandra. Cf. Xan.
homo (noun, adjective) homosex- lib (noun) liberation.
ual. limo (noun) limousine.
Honkers (name) Hong Kong. Lisa, Liz, Lizzy (name) Elisabeth.
HRN (noun) heroin. Cf. Bet(h), Betty.
hubby (noun) husband. lit crit (noun) literary criticism.
hyper (adjective) hyperactive. Lizzie/lizzie (noun) an effeminate
ID (noun) identification. man. From Elizabeth.
imposs (adjective) impossible. loco (noun) locomotive.
inf (adverb) infinitely. loid (noun) celluloid.
info (noun) information. Lon (name) Alonso.
intercom (noun) intercommunica- loony/-ey (noun, adjective) mad
tion system. (person). From lunatic.
intro (noun) introduction. lor (interjection) lord.
ism (noun) doctrine; theory; prac- Ltd (ppl adjective) limited (of a
tice. From fascism, commu- company).
nism. Lum, Lom (name) Columbus.
J. Lo (name) Jennifer Lopez. lunch (noun) luncheon.
jams (noun) pyjamas. Lyn (name) Evelyn. Cf. Eve.
Jeez (interjection) Jesus. ma (noun) mama.
Joburg (name) Johannesburg. mac (noun) an Italian. From
jollo (noun) jollification. macaroni.
journo (noun) journalist. Mac (noun) Macintosh.
Jpn (noun) Japan. mag, maggie (noun) magazine.
jst (adverb) just. maggie/-y (noun) a prostitute.
jumbo (noun) jumbo jet. From Margaret.
juvie/-ey (noun) juvenile delin- Mandy (name) Amanda.
quent. marvy (adjective) marvellous.
kid-vid (noun) kid video. mate (noun) checkmate.
klepto (adjective) kleptomaniac. maths (noun) mathematics.
lab (noun) laboratory. matric (noun) matriculation.
lat (noun) latissimus dorsi. maybs (adverb) maybe.
lax (ppl adjective) relaxed. mayo (noun) mayonnaise.
lax (noun, verb) (to) relax. Mel (name) Amelia.
memo (noun) memorandum.
292 Lexical index
mend (verb) to amend. neath (preposition) beneath;

mensh (verb) to mention, chiefly underneath.
in dont mensh. neg (noun) negative photograph.
meth (noun) methamphetamine; Net, Netty (name) Antoinette.
methylated spirit, also with -s. niff (verb) to sniff.
Mex (noun) foreign currency. nig (noun) a black person. From
From Mexican. nigger.
mgr. (noun) manager. nightie (noun) nightdress.
mia (noun) bulimia. nr. (adverb, preposition) near.
midcult (noun) middle culture. nuff (noun, adjective, adverb)
Mike (name) Michael. enough.
mike (noun) microphone; micro- oer (preposition) over.
gram (of a drug). offie (noun) off-licence shop.
milko (noun) milkman. op art (noun) optical art.
mimeo (noun) mimeograph. op (noun) operator; opportunity;
misper (noun) missing person. (adjective) operative; optical.
miss (noun) mistress. op-ed (noun) opinion editorial.
mizzy (adjective) miserable. oppo (noun) opposite number.
mob (noun) mobile vulgus. org-man (noun) organization
mobes, mobile (noun) mobile man.
telephone. p. (noun) page.
mocs (noun, plural) moccasins. pants (noun, plural) a pair of
mono (noun) mononucleosis. underpants. Am.E. trousers.
Montie (name) Montgomery. From pantaloons.
movie (noun) moving picture. pash (noun) passion.
mozzie (noun) mosquito. Pat, Patty (name) Patricia. Cf.
msg (noun) message. Trish.
mum (noun) chrysanthemum. patsy (noun) someone who is the
mush (noun) an umbrella. From object of ridicule. From Pat-
mushroom. rick.
muso (noun) musician. pecs (noun, plural) pectoral mus-
Musso (name) Mussolini. cles.
Nam (name) Vietnam. peeps (noun, plural) people.
nana (noun) a foolish person. pen (noun) penitentiary.
From banana. perm (noun) permanent wave.
narc, nark (noun) narcotics agent; perv, perve (noun) perversion;
narcotics informant. (sexual) pervert; (adjective)
Nasho (noun) National Service. perverted (also pervy).
natch (adverb) naturally. phenom (noun) phenomenon.
natural (noun) natural life. Philly (name) Philadelphia.
phone (noun) telephone. primaries (noun, plural) primary

photo (noun) photograph. elections.
photog (noun) photographer. pro (noun) professional (prostitu-
physio (noun) physiotherapist. te).
piano (noun) pianoforte. pro-am (noun) professional
pic (noun) picture. amateur.
pix (noun, plural) pictures, espe- probs (noun, plural) problems;
cially photographs. (adverb) probably.
pike (noun) turnpike. proctor (noun) procurator.
plane (noun) airplane, aeroplane. prof (noun) professor.
pls (verb) to please. prog (noun) proctor.
ply (verb) to apply. promo (noun) promotion.
poke (noun) pocket book. pros, pross (noun) prostitute.
pokies (noun, plural) poker ma- Prot (noun) Protestant.
chines. psych (noun) psychology; (verb)
pol, pollie (noun) politician. to psychoanalyse.
polio (noun) poliomyelitis. psycho (noun) psychopath; (ad-
polly, Polly (noun) Apollinaris jective) psychopathic.
mineral water. pub (noun) public house.
pop (noun) popular music. pulmotor (noun) pulmonary mo-
porn, pornie (noun) pornography. tor.
Also in porn star. quake (noun) earthquake.
possum (noun) opossum. quasar (noun) a celestial object
postie (noun) postman. that resembles a star optically.
ppl (noun, plural) people. From quasi-stellar.
pram (noun) perambulator. quiz (noun) a questionnaire, an
praps (adverb) perhaps. examination or test of knowl-
preemie (noun) premature baby. edge. From inquisitive.
prefab (noun) prefabricated struc- rad (adjective) fantastic. From
ture. radical.
preg, preggers, preggo (adjec- Rasta (noun) Rastafarian.
tive) pregnant. ref (noun) referee.
pre-nup (noun) pre-nuptial reffo (noun) refugee.
agreement. rego (noun) car registration.
prep (verb) to prepare; (adjective) rehab (noun) rehabilitation;
preparatory. (verb) to rehabilitate.
prepreg (ppl adjective) pre- rellies (noun, plural) relatives.
impregnated. rents (noun, plural) parents.
pres (noun) president. rgds (noun, plural) regards.
rhino (noun) rhinoceros.
294 Lexical index
Rick, Richie (name) Richard. slomo, slo-mo (noun) slow mo-

roach (noun) cockroach. tion.
Robbie (name) Roberta. smoko (noun) break from work.
robbo (noun) a horse and trap. From smoke.
From Robinson. soccer, socker (noun) association
rom com (noun) romantic com- football.
edy. spag bol (noun) spaghetti bolo-
Ron (name) Aaron; Ronald. gnese.
rugger (noun) rugby football. spaz (noun) spastic.
Sainters (name) St Kilda Football spec (noun) speculation; special-
Club. ist; specification.
Sal (name) Sarah. specs (noun, plural) spectacles.
Salvo (noun) Salvationist. spite (preposition) despite.
sammo (noun) sandwich. spk (verb) to speak.
Sandy (name) Alexander. sport (verb) to disport.
sarge (noun) sergeant. spy (verb) to espy.
sausie (noun) sausage. sry (adjective) sorry.
sax (noun) saxophone. starkers, starko (noun) stark na-
sci-fi (noun) science fiction. ked.
Scouse (noun) a native or inhabi- stereo (noun) stereophonic (sys-
tant of Liverpool. From lob- tem).
scouse. still (verb) to distil.
script (noun) prescription. story (noun) history.
sec (noun) second. strange (verb) to estrange.
secko (noun) a sexual pervert. stude (noun) student.
From sex. stupe (noun) a stupid person;
secy (noun) secretary. (adjective) stupid.
servo (noun) service station. sub (noun) submarine; substitute.
shake (noun) milkshake. Sue (name) Suzanne.
sheen (noun) machine. sum (verb) to summarize.
Sherry (name) Sheridan. sunnies (noun, plural) sunglasses.
shoppie/-y (noun) shop assistant. surfie (noun) surfer.
showbiz (noun) show business. swimmers (noun, plural) swim-
shrink (noun) a psychiatrist. From ming shorts.
head-shrinker. Sydders (name) Sydney.
siggy (noun) significant other. sysop (noun) system operator.
sim (noun) simulation. tab (noun) tabulator; tablet (of
sis, sissy (noun) sister. LSD).
sitcom (noun) situation comedy. tab show (noun) tabloid show.
skin (noun) skinhead. tache (noun) moustache.
talc (noun) talcum. van (noun) advantage; caravan.

tard (noun) retard. varsity (noun) university. Cf. U,
tato, tatie, tattie (noun) potato. uni.
taxi, taxicab (noun) taximeter vator (noun) elevator.
cabriolet. Vee (name) Veronica.
TB, tb (noun) tuberculosis. veg (noun) vegetable; vegetarian;
teach (noun) teacher. (verb) to vegetate, to pass the
tec (noun) detective. time in vacuous inactivity.
tech (noun) technology. veggie (noun) vegetarian;
teen (noun) teenager. vegetable.
tele, telly (noun) television. vent (noun) ventriloquist.
tempo (noun) temporary building. venture (noun) adventure.
tend (verb) to attend. Ves (name) Sylvester.
tick (noun) ticket. vet (noun) veteran; veterinarian.
Tilda (name) Mathilda. vibes (noun) vibraphone.
Tish (name) Letitia. Vicky (name) Victoria. Cf. Toria.
Tom (name) Thomas. vry (adjective, adverb) very.
Toria (name) Victoria. Cf. Vicky. vs. (preposition) versus.
trad (noun) traditional jazz. whatevs (pronoun) whatever.
trank (noun) tranquillizer. wi-fi (noun) wireless fidelity.
Trish (name) Patricia. Cf. Pat(ty). wig (noun) periwig.
Trix (name) Beatrice. wino (noun) alcoholic. From
tu (noun) tuition. wine.
tude (noun) attitude. wk (noun) week.
turps (noun) turpentine. Woolies (name) Woolworths.
TV (noun) television (also teevee); Wordy (name) Wordsworth.
transvestite. Xan (name) Alexandra. Cf. Lexie.
tween (preposition) between. Yard (noun) Montagnard.
typo (noun) typographical error. za (noun) pizza.
U, uni (noun) university. Cf. var- zep (noun) zeppelin.
sity. zine (noun) magazine.
U-ey (noun) U-turn. zing (adjective) amazing.
Underground (noun) underground zoo (noun) zoological garden.
railway.
undies (noun, plural) underwear.
vag (noun) vagina.
vamp (noun) seductive woman.
From vampire.
296 Lexical index
Acronyms and initialisms
4H (noun) head, heart, hands, and ASBO (noun) anti-social behav-

health. iour order(s).
4WD (noun) four-wheel drive. ASCII (noun) American Standard
A3 (adverb) anytime, anyplace, Code for Information Inter-
anywhere. change.
A.-A. (noun) anti-aircraft. ASL (noun) American Sign Lan-
ABC (noun) a better chance pro- guage (also AMESLAN).
gram. ASLEF (noun) Associated Society
AC (noun) Aero Club; Air Corps; of Locomotive Engineers and
Alpine Club; alternating cur- Firemen.
rent; Appeal Court. ASP (noun) Anglo-Saxon protes-
A.D.C. (noun) aide-de-camp. tant. Cf. WASP.
AFK, afk (adverb) away from A/S.R.S. (noun) Air-Sea Rescue
keyboard. Service.
AI (noun) Artificial Intelligence; A.T.&T. (noun) American Tele-
Amnesty International; (adjec- phone and Telegraph Com-
tive) all-inclusive. pany.
AID (noun) Agency for Interna- AVW (noun) Architecture Vision
tional Development. Weekly.
AIDS, Aids (noun) Acquired Im- A.W.O.L., AWOL, awol (adjec-
mune Deficiency Syndrome. tive) absent without (official)
AIM (noun) American Indian leave.
Movement. B.A. (noun) Bachelor of Arts;
A.-G. (noun) Attorney-General. British Airways; Breathing
AKA, Aka, aka (adjective) also Apparatus; bad ass.
known as. BAFTA (noun) British Academy
ALLEGRO (noun) Allegro low of film and television arts.
level game routine. BANANA (noun) build absolutely
a.m. (adverb) ante meridiem. nothing anywhere near any-
AMESLAN (noun) American Sign thing.
Language (also ASL). B. and S. (noun) brandy and soda.
AOL (noun) America online. BASIC (noun) the name of a high-
ARCA (noun) Automobile Racing level programming language
Car of America. designed for easy learning.
A.S.A.P., ASAP, a.s.a.p. (adverb) From Beginners All-purpose
as soon as possible. Symbolic Instruction Code.
Acronyms and initialisms 297
B.B.C., BBC (noun) British Compensation, and Liability

Broadcasting Corporation. Act.
B.C.E. (adverb) Before the Com- C. & W. (noun) country-and-
mon Era. western music.
b. & b. (noun) bed and breakfast. CFI (noun) Court of First In-
Benelux (noun) Belgium, Nether- stance.
lands, Luxembourg. CI (noun) cardiac insufficiency.
B.L. (noun) Bachelor of Law. CIA (noun) Central Intelligence
BLT (noun) bacon, lettuce and Agency.
tomato sandwich. C. in C. (noun) Commander in
BOAT (noun) byway open to all Chief.
traffic. C.O.D. (noun) cash on delivery.
BORAX (noun) boiling reactor C. of A. (noun) Certificate of
experiment. Airworthiness.
BRB (adverb) be right back. C. of E. (noun) Church of Eng-
B.S. (noun) bullshit. land.
BTEC (noun) Business and Tech- COLA (noun) cost of living ad-
nician Education Council. justments.
BYOB (abbreviation) bring your colidar (noun) coherent light de-
own bottle. tecting and ranging.
CAB (noun) Citizens Advice Bu- CORE (noun) Congress of Racial
reau. Equality.
CAD (noun) Coronary Artery CRIIGEN (noun) Committee for
Disease; computer-aided de- Research & Independent In-
sign. formation on Genetic Engi-
CAE (noun) computer-aided engineering.
neering. c.v. (noun) curriculum vitae.
CALIPSO (noun) Cloud-Aerosol CVA (noun) Cherry virus A.
Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder CWOT (noun) complete waste of
Satellite Observations. time.
CARE (noun) Cooperative for d and p (noun) developing and
American Relief Everywhere. printing.
CAVE (noun) cave automatic DAT (noun) digital audio tape.
virtual environment. D.B.S. (abbreviation) de bonis
CD (noun) compact disc. suis.
CD-ROM (noun) compact disc DC (noun) diet coke.
(with) read-only memory. dinkie/-y (noun) either partner of
CERCLA (noun) Comprehensive a working couple who have no
Environmental Response, children. From double/dual
income no kids.
298 Lexical index
DIY (noun, adjective) do-it- FIV (noun) feline immunodefi-

yourself. ciency virus. Cf. HIV.
D.J., DJ (noun) disk-jockey (also FLOTUS (noun) First Lady of the
deejay). United States. Cf. POTUS.
DL (noun) down-low, secret. FNMA (noun) Federal National
DNA (noun) deoxyribonucleic Mortgage Association (also
acid. Fannie Mae).
DORA, Dora (noun) Defence of FoaF (noun) friend of a friend.
Realm Act. FOB, fob (noun) a recent immi-
DOS (noun) disk operating sys- grant. From fresh off the boat.
tem. Footsie (noun) Financial Times-
DRAM (noun) dynamic random- Stock Exchange.
access memory. FREE (noun) Fathers Rights and
EBD (noun) electronic brake Equality Exchange.
force distribution. FSA (noun) Food Standards
ECB (noun) European Central Agency.
Bank. FUSE (noun) Faiths United for
EEC (noun) European Economic Sustainable Energy.
Community. FYI (abbreviation) for your in-
e.g. (abbreviation) for example. formation.
From Lat. exempli gratia. G5, G10 (noun) group of five/ten.
ESL (noun) English as a Second G.A.S.G.A.S.G.A.S. (noun) gild of
Language. ancient suppliers of gas appli-
ESPRIT (noun) European strate- ances, skill, gins, accessories,
gic programme for research and substances.
and development in informa- GCSE (noun) General Certificate
tion technology. of Secondary Education.
Eto (noun) European theater of GDP (noun) Gross Domestic
operations. Product.
Euratom (noun) European Atomic GFHL (noun) guideline for har-
Energy Community. monious living.
FAQ (noun) frequently asked GHOST (noun) global horizontal
questions. sounding technique.
F.B.I., FBI (noun) Federal Bureau GMO (noun) genetically modified
of Investigation. organism.
FC (abbreviation) fingers crossed. GMT (noun) Greenwich Mean
F.I.N.E. (adjective) fucked up, Time.
insecure, neurotic, and emo- GOP (noun) Grand Old Party.
tional.
GP (noun) general purpose vehi- JPEG (noun) joint photographic

cle (also jeep); General Practi- experts group.
tioner. LA (name) Los Angeles.
HIG? (abbreviation) Hows it LAB (noun) Logistics Assault
going?. Base.
HIV-1, HIV-2 (noun) human im- ladar (noun) laser detection and
munodeficiency virus type 1/2. ranging.
HOPE (noun) Health Opportunity LAME (noun) Lame aint an MP3
for People Everywhere. encoder.
HoReCa (noun) Hotel, Restau- laser (noun) light amplification
rant, and Caf keepers. by stimulated emission of ra-
HTLV-1, HTLV-2 (noun) human diation.
T-cell lymphotropic virus type lem (noun) lunar excursion mo-
1/2. dule.
HTML (noun) Hypertext Markup LH (noun) laboratory corporation
Language. of America holdings.
Humvee (noun) high-mobility LIFE (noun) laboratory for inter-
multi-purpose wheeled vehicle. national fuzzy engineering re-
HVAC (noun) heating, ventilation, search.
and air-conditioning. LOL (abbreviation) laughing out
ICA (noun) Institute of Contem- loud; lots of love/luck.
porary Art. MACHO (noun) massive (astro-
i.e. (abbreviation) that is to say. physical) compact halo object.
From Lat. id est. MAE (noun) Master of Arts in
IMHO (abbreviation) in my hum- Education.
ble opinion. MAFF (noun) Ministry of Agri-
INSET (noun) in-set education culture, Fisheries, and Food.
and training. MANIAC (noun) mathematical
I/O (noun) input/output. analyzer, numerical integrator,
IPA (noun) International Phonetic and computer.
Alphabet. M.C. (noun) Master of Ceremo-
IWC (noun) International Whal- nies (also emcee).
ing Commission. MEGO (noun) a boring subject or
J.C. (noun) Junior Chamber of story. From my eyes glaze
Commerce member (also jay- over.
cee). MIDI (noun) musical instrument
JFK (name) John Fitzgerald Ken- digital interface.
nedy. MILF (noun) sexually attractive
JIC (abbreviation) just in case. person. From mom Id like to
fuck.
300 Lexical index
MISHAP (noun) missiles high- NHS (noun) National Health Ser-

speed assembly program. vice.
mms (noun) Multimedia Messag- NIMBY, Nimby, nimby (noun) a
ing Service. person who objects to the sit-
MO (noun) modus operandi. ing of something unpleasant or
MOT (noun) Ministry of Trans- dangerous in his or her local-
port. ity. From the slogan Not in my
M.P., MP (noun) Member of Par- backyard.
liament. NORAD (noun) North American
MPEG (noun) moving picture Aerospace Defense Command.
experts group. NOTAR (noun) no-tail rotor.
MS-DOS (noun) Microsoft disk NOW (noun) National Organiza-
operating system. tion of Women.
MUF (noun) material unac- NRDC (noun) Natural Resources
counted for. Defense Council.
mung (verb) to destroy or corrupt n/s (adjective) non-smoking.
(data, etc.). From mung until NSAID (noun) non-steroidal anti-
no good. inflammatory drug.
N/A (abbreviation) not applicable. NWAVE (noun) new ways of
NACRO (noun) National Associa- analyzing variation in English.
tion for the Care and Reset- NYC (name) New York City.
tlement of Offenders. O. and M. (noun) Organization
NASA (noun) National Aeronau- and Methods.
tics and Space Administration. OD (noun, verb) (to) overdose.
NASDAQ (noun) National Asso- OED (noun) Oxford English Dic-
ciation of Securities Dealers tionary.
Automated Quotations. OFFER (noun) Office of Electric-
N.A.T.O., NATO, Nato (noun) ity Regulation.
North Atlantic Treaty Organi- OHMS (abbreviation) On Her/His
sation. Majestys Service.
NBC (noun) National Broadcast- O.K. (adjective) oll/orl correct
ing Company. (also okay/okey).
NC-17 (abbreviation) no children OTE (abbreviation) on target
under 17. earnings.
NDP (noun) New Democratic OTT (adjective) over the top.
Party. PACE (noun) Police and Criminal
Ned (noun) National Economic Evidence Act.
Development Council. PAL (noun) phase alternate line.
NFT (noun) neurofibrillary tangle. PB & J (noun) peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.
PC, pc (noun) personal computer; SAD (noun) Seasonal Affective

postcard; (adjective) politically Disorder.
correct. SALT (noun) Strategic Arms
P. & O. (noun) Peninsular and Limitation Talks.
Oriental steam navigation co. SARAH (noun) a portable radar
PETA (noun) People for the Ethi- transmitter. From search and
cal Treatment of Animals. rescue and horning.
PG-13 (noun) Parental Guidance Satcoma (noun) Satellite Com-
for children under 13. munications Agency.
PIN (noun) personal identification SCSI (noun) small computer sys-
number. tems interface.
p.m. (adverb) post meridiem. scuba (noun) self-contained un-
POG (noun) a drink. From pas- derwater breathing apparatus.
sion-fruit, orange, guava. S/E (noun) Stock Exchange.
POTUS (noun) President of the SETI (noun) search for extrater-
United States. Cf. FLOTUS. restrial intelligence.
PUSH (noun) People United to SF (name) San Francisco.
Save Humanity. S.F.T.P.O.D.R.A.B. (noun) soci-
p-y-o (adjective) pick-your-own. ety for the prevention of dis-
Q and A (noun) question and paraging remarks about
answer. Brooklyn.
radar (noun) radio detection and SHAPE (noun) supreme head-
ranging. quarters allied powers in
RAF, Raf (noun) Royal Air Force. Europe.
RAM (noun) random access mem- SIDS (noun) Sudden Infant Death
ory. Syndrome.
RASC (noun) Royal Army Service SLEEP (noun) scanning low en-
Corp. ergy electron probe.
REACT (noun) Remote Electroni- SLRF (noun) Second Language
cally Activated Control Tech- Research Forum.
nology. SMART (noun) Swatch Mercedes
R&D (noun) Research and Devel- ART.
opment. SMILE (adjective) small, intelli-
RHIP (abbreviation) rank has its gent, light, efficient.
privileges. SMS, sms (noun) Short Message
RNA (noun) ribonucleic acid. Service.
rnb (noun) rhythm and blues. snafu (noun, adjective, verb)
rnr (noun) rock and roll. situation normal: all
ROTC (noun) Reserve Officers fouled/fucked up.
Training Corps.
302 Lexical index
SNCC (noun) Student Nonviolent UNHCR (noun) United Nations

Coordinating Committee. High Commission for Refu-
SNP (noun) Scottish National gees.
Party. Unicef (noun) United Nations
S. of S. (noun) Secretary of State. international childrens emer-
SOP (noun) standard operating gency fund.
procedure. Univac (noun) universal auto-
S-R (noun) Stimulus-Response. matic computer.
START (noun) Strategic Arms UNSC (noun) United Nations
Reduction Talks. Security Council.
SUV (noun) sport utility vehicle. URL (noun) Uniform Resource
SWOT (noun) strengths, weak- Locator.
nesses, opportunities, threats. U.S.A., USA, U.S. of A., U.S., US
TBI (noun) Traumatic Brain In- (noun) United States (of
jury. America).
T. & A. (noun) Tonsils and Ade- USAMSMADHS (noun) United
noids. States army medical service
TEFL (noun) Teaching English as meat and dairy hygiene school.
a Foreign Language. V. and A. (noun) Victoria and
TESSA (noun) Tax Exempt Spe- Albert museum.
cial Savings Account. VAT, vat (noun) Value Added
TGIF (abbreviation) Thank God Tax.
its Friday. VCR (noun) video cassette re-
TOEFL (noun) Test of English as cording.
a Foreign Language. V.I.P., VIP, vip (noun) very im-
TOP (noun) termination of preg- portant person.
nancy. V.J. (noun) video-jockey (also
TTFN (abbreviation) ta-ta for veejay).
now. VP (noun) vice-president (also
TTIC (noun) Terrorist Threat Veep).
Integration Center. WAGs (noun, plural) wives and
U.F.O., UFO, Ufo, ufo (noun) girlfriends (of a football team).
unidentified flying object. WASP (noun) white Anglo-Saxon
UK (noun) United Kingdom. protestant. Cf. ASP.
UN (noun) United Nations. WH (noun) White House.
UNESCO (noun) United Nations WHO (noun) World Health Or-
Educational, Scientific and ganization.
Cultural Organization. Woof (abbreviation) well-off older
folk.
Blends 303
WREN (noun) Womens Royal appearance on a page. From

Naval Service. What you see is what you get.
W/T (noun) Wireless Telegraphy. YAVIS (adjective) young, attrac-
WTC 9/11 (name) commemora- tive, verbal, intelligent, suc-
tive composition by Steve cessful.
Riech. From World Trade YMCA (noun) Young Mens
Center September 11. Christian Association.
WTO (noun) World Trade Or- yuppie (noun) young urban pro-
ganization. fessional; young upwardly
Wysiwyg (adjective) denoting the mobile professional.
representation of text, graph- ZPG (noun) Zero Population
ics, etc., onscreen in a form Growth.
exactly corresponding to its
Blends
Abra CaBubble (name) trademark alcoholiday (noun) alcohol and

for a bubblegum. From abra- holiday.
cadabra and bubble. alphameric (adjective) alphabetic
absotively (adverb) absolutely and numeric.
and positively (also alternatuxes (noun) alternative
posilutely). and tuxedos.
acetal (noun) acetic and alcohol. amajor (adjective) amazing and
adorapresh (adjective) adorable major.
and precious. ambisextrous (adjective) bisexual.
adorkable (adjective) adorable From ambidextrous and sex.
and dork. Amerind, Amerindian (adjective)
advertainment (noun) advertise- American and Indian.
ment and entertainment. amping (noun) amphetamine and
aggranoying (adjective) aggravat- smoking.
ing and annoying. anecdotage (noun) anecdote and
agitprop (noun) agitation and dotage.
propaganda. animule (noun) animal and mule.
airbrasive (adjective) air and appestat (noun) appetite and
abrasive. thermostat.
airobics (noun) air and aerobics. askility (noun) ability and skill.
Alcan (name) the Alaska High- astrocity (noun) astronaut and
way. From Alaska and Can- atrocity.
ada.
304 Lexical index
attractivating (adjective) attrac- blaxploitation (noun) blacks and

tive and captivating. exploitation.
autobydography (noun) autobiog- blendalicious (noun) jocularly
raphy and by dog. coined from blend and deli-
automagically (adverb) automati- cious.
cally and magic. blog (noun) web and log.
autopathography (noun) autobi- blogerrific (adjective) blog and
ography and pathology. terrific. Cf. blog above.
backronym (noun) back and acro- bo(a)tel (noun) boat and hotel.
nym. bonefisherman (noun) bonefish
ballute (noun) balloon and para- and fisherman.
chute. boost (verb) to boom and to hoist.
bamfuzzle (verb) to bamboozle bootylicious (adjective) booty and
(deceive) and fuzzy. delicious.
banniversary (noun) ban and Brangelina (name) Brad Pitt and
anniversary. Angelina Jolie.
baskiceball (noun) basketball and bridezilla (noun) bride and God-
ice (hockey). zilla.
beaulicious (adjective) beautiful broccasion (noun) brother and
and delicious. occasion.
beefalo (noun) beef and buffalo. broccoflower (noun) broccoli and
beefish (noun) beef and fish. cauliflower.
beerios (noun, plural) cereals bro-choice (noun) brother and
topped with beer instead of choice.
milk. From beer and Cheerios. bro-ing away party (noun)
Bennifer (name) Ben Affleck and brother and going-away party.
Jennifer Lopez. bro-style (noun) brother and style.
big dame hunter (noun) ladies brotime (noun) brother and time.
man. From big game hunter brunch (noun) breakfast and
and dame. lunch.
bilk (noun) beer and milk. Bublet (name) trademark for
bisalo (noun) bison and buffalo. foaming bath oil in tablet
bisquick (noun) biscuit and quick. form. From bubble and tablet.
bit (noun) binary and unit. bubblicious (adjective) bubble
Blasian (adjective) Black and (gum) and delicious.
Asian. bulimarexia (noun) bulimia and
blatterature (noun) blatter and anorexia.
literature. Bullgarita (name) Red Bull and
blawg (noun) blog and law. margarita.
Blends 305
bullionaire (noun) bullion and chortle (verb) to chuckle and to

billionaire. snort.
Bullmeister (name) Red Bull and chunnel (noun) channel and tun-
Jgermeister. nel.
burble (verb) to bubble and to Churchvelt (name) Churchill and
murmur. Roosevelt.
busulfan (noun) butane and sul- cinemenace (noun) cinema and
fonyl. menace.
buyography (noun) to buy and clandestical (adjective) clandes-
biography. tine and fantastical.
cabsat (noun) cable and satellite. clandestiny (noun) clandestine
Calexico (noun) California and and destiny.
Mexico. cocacolonization (noun) coca
californicate (verb) California cola and colonization.
and to fornicate. cockamouse (noun) cockroach
Californication (noun) California and mouse.
and fornication. compander (noun) compressor
camcorder (noun) camera and and expander.
recorder. compfusion (noun) computer and
Camford (name) Cambridge and confusion.
Oxford (also Oxbridge). compushity (noun) compulsion,
camibalistics (noun) camisade, push, and necessity.
cannibalism, and ballistics. confuzzled (adjective) confused
carbecue (noun) car and barbe- and puzzled.
cue. copyleft (noun) copyright and left.
carnibbleous (adjective) carnivo- cosmeceuticals (noun, plural)
rous and to nibble. cosmetics and pharmaceuti-
cartune (noun) cartoon and tune. cals.
cat(t)alo (noun) cattle and buf- craptacular (adjective) annoy-
falo. ingly bad, unpleasant. From
cattitude (noun) cat and attitude. crap and spectacular.
cellebrity (noun) cell and celeb- crazyologist (noun) crazy and
rity. craniologist.
cewebrity (noun) celebrity and criticular (adjective) critical and
web. particular.
chatire (noun) chat and satire. crunk (adjective) crazy and drunk.
chemagination (noun) chemistry curvessence (noun) curve and
and imagination. essence.
chloral (noun) chlorine and alco- cussnation (noun) cuss and dam-
hol. nation.
306 Lexical index
dadzilla (noun) dad and Godzilla. Eurasia (name) Europe and Asia.
daffynition (noun) daffy and defi- e-voting (noun) electronic and
nition. voting.
dancercise (noun) dance and ex- faddition (noun) fad and addition.
ercise. familymoon (noun) family and
dawk (noun) dove and hawk. honeymoon.
delinguancy (noun) delinquency fantabulous (adjective) fantastic
and lingual. and fabulous.
demopublican (noun, adjective) fantasea (noun) fantasy and sea.
democratic and republican. fanzine (noun) fan and magazine.
destarture (noun) departure and Fedex (noun) federal and express.
start. fertigation (noun) fertilizer and
disastrophe (noun) disaster and irrigation.
catastrophe. fleep (noun) fly and jeep.
disgrossting (adjective) disgust- floordrobe (noun) floor and ward-
ing and gross. robe.
dishmobile (noun) dishwasher flustrated (adjective) flustered
and mobile. and frustrated.
dogbella (noun) dog and um- Foolini (noun) Fellini and fool.
brella. foolosopher (noun) fool and phi-
donkophant (noun) donkey and losopher.
elephant. fortran, FORTRAN (noun) a
dramedy (noun) drama and com- computer language that uses
edy. familiar words and symbols.
dresshirt (noun) dress and shirt. From formula and translation.
dumbfound (verb) to dumb and to Frankenfish (noun) Frankenstein
confound. and fish.
earthoon (noun) earth and moon frappuccino (noun) frapp and
(also moorth). cappuccino.
earwitness (noun) ear and eyewit- frenemies (noun, plural) friends
ness. and enemies.
e-love (noun) electronic and love. Frutopia (name) fruit and utopia.
enshocklopedia (noun) encyclo- Funderwear (name) fun and un-
pedia and shock. derwear.
entreporneur (noun) entrepreneur funtastic (adjective) fun and fan-
and porn(ography). tastic.
eracism (noun) to erase and ra- galumph (verb) to gallop and to
cism. triumph.
e-shopping (noun) electronic and gaydio (noun) gay and radio.
shopping.
Blends 307
geep (noun) goat and sheep (also insinuendo (noun) insinuation and
shoat). innuendo.
ginormous (adjective) gigantic Intelevisionary (noun) Intel, tele-
and enormous. vision, and visionary.
Girlicious (name) a musical lady James Bondustry (noun) James
trio. From girl and delicious. Bond and industry.
glasphalt (noun) glass and as- Japornimation (noun) Japan,
phalt. porn, and animation.
glassteel (noun) glass and steel. juris-my-dick-tion (noun) juris-
Go-Gurt (name) yogurt in a tube diction and my dick.
for eating on the go. From go keytainer (noun) key and con-
and yogurt. tainer.
Gorebots (noun, plural) people Kittylicious (adjective) Hello
supporting Al Gores presiden- Kitty and delicious.
tial run. From Gore and ro- kleptoromania (noun)
bots. kleptomania and Romania.
Governator (name) an appellation Kloran (noun) bible used by
for Arnold Schwarzenegger. members of the Ku Klux Klan.
From governor and Termina- From (Ku Klux) Klan and Ko-
tor. ran.
gues(s)timate (verb) to guess and Kodacolor (name) Kodak and
to estimate. color.
happenident (noun) to happen Kongfrontation (noun) King
and accident. Kong and confrontation.
headvertising (noun) head and Krustelope (name) Krusty and
advertising. Penelope, two characters of
helilift (noun) a group transported the series The Simpsons.
by helicopter. From helicopter liger (noun) lion and tiger (also
and lift. tigon).
hesiflation (noun) hesitation and linner (noun) lunch and dinner.
inflation. Lipfinity (name) Max Factor lip-
Hungarican (noun, adjective) stick brand, guaranteed to last.
Hungarian and American. From lipstick and infinity.
hurricoon (noun) hurricane and maridelic (adjective) marijuana
typhoon. and psychedelic.
infomercial (noun) information Meandertale (noun) Neanderthal,
and commercial. meander, and tale.
infotainment (noun) information Meanderthal (noun) meander and
and entertainment. Neanderthal.
308 Lexical index
medicare (noun) medical and opinion(n)aire (noun) opinion and

care. questionnaire.
Mexicali (name) Mexico and Optronic (name) an electronically
California. controlled optical device. From
millionheiress (noun) millionaire optic and electronic.
and heiress. osteopornosis (noun) osteoporo-
mimsy (adjective) miserable and sis and porn.
flimsy. Oxbridge (name) Oxford and
miscevarsitation (noun) miscege- Cambridge (also Camford).
nation and varsity. palimony (noun) compensation
mocamp (noun) motor and camp. made by one member of an
mochaccino (noun) mocha and unmarried couple to the other
cappuccino. after separation. From pal and
modem (noun) modulator and alimony.
demodulator. Palmolive (name) trademark for
moorth (noun) moon and earth soap. From palm oil and olive
(also earthoon). oil.
motel (noun) motor and hotel. pantdress (noun) pants and dress.
mousewife (noun) mouse and paratroops (noun, plural) para-
housewife. chute and troops.
Mrssile (noun) Mrs and missile. Perma-Gel (name) trademark for
mumzilla (noun) mum and God- a long-lasting textured under-
zilla. paint. From permanent and
muppets (noun, plural) marionette gelatine.
and puppets. pessimystic (adjective) pessimist
narcoma (noun) narcotic and and mystic.
coma. Petcetera (name) a pet store.
needcessity (noun) need and ne- From pet and et cetera.
cessity. Pictionary (name) a game where
netiquette (noun) Internet and you have to guess words based
etiquette. on drawings. From picture and
netizen (noun) Internet and citi- dictionary.
zen. pixel (noun) pix (graphic altera-
numberous (adjective) number tion of pics pictures) and
and numerous. element.
Obamanomics (noun) Obama and plot boiler (noun) plot and pot
economics. boiler.
octopush (noun) a game similar to pollutician (noun) to pollute and
ice hockey. From octopus and politician.
push. pomato (noun) potato and tomato.
Blends 309
popocrat (noun, adjective) popu- sexretary (noun) sex and secre-

list and democrat. tary.
portalight (noun) portable and shampagne (noun) sham and
light. champagne.
porta-play (noun) portable and Sherminator (name) Sherman and
player. Terminator.
posilutely (adverb) positively and shoat (noun) sheep and goat (also
absolutely (also absotively). geep).
psychedelicatessen (noun) psy- sial (noun) silicon and aluminium.
chedelic and delicatessen. Simflex (name) Simmons and
Psychedelphia (name) psyche- flexible.
delic and Philadelphia. sinema (noun) sin and cinema.
psychergy (noun) vitality of the slanguage (noun) slang and lan-
intellect. From psychic and guage.
energy. slithy (adjective) slimy and lithe.
pursonality (noun) purse and smink (noun) smoke and drink.
personality. smog (noun) smoke and fog.
racqueteer (noun) racquet and snappetizer (noun) snap and ap-
racketeer. petizer.
rapidry (adjective) rapid and dry. snark (noun) snake and shark.
rat-a-tattoo (noun) rat-a-tat and snobject (noun) snob and object.
tattoo. soundsational (adjective) sound
rendezwoo (noun) rendezvous and and sensational.
woo. Spanglish (noun) Spanish and
ridonculous, ridonk (adjective) English.
from ridiculous and tonk es- spudtacular (adjective) spud and
pecially amazing, big. spectacular.
robomb (noun) robot and bomb. staycation (noun) stay and vaca-
Rotavator (name) rotatory and tion.
cultivator. steelionaire (noun) steel and mil-
scandicalous (adjective) scandal- lionaire.
ous and ridiculous. sterecorder (noun) tape recorder
screamager (noun) scream and with the quality of a stereo.
teenager. From stereo and recorder.
Sensi-Temp (name) sensitivity stocks (noun) stockings and
and temperature. socks.
sexpert (noun) sex and expert. stoveinkerator (noun) stove, oven,
sexploitation (noun) sex and ex- sink, and refrigerator.
ploitation. stripteuse (noun) striptease and
chanteuse.
310 Lexical index
sugly (adjective) so and ugly. UNomatopoeia (noun) UN

suspose (verb) to suspect and to (United Nations) and ono-
suppose. matopoeia.
swacket (noun) sweater and veggie-Q (noun) barbecued vege-
jacket. tables. From veggie (vegeta-
swellegant (adjective) swell and ble) and barbecue.
elegant. Vietvet (noun) Vietnam and vet-
tangemon (noun) tangerine and eran.
lemon. viewshed (noun) view and water-
telecast (noun) television and shed.
broadcast. vodkatini (noun) Martini made
telex (noun) teleprinter and ex- with vodka.
change. wargasm (noun) war and orgasm.
Texaco (name) Texas and New Wheatables (name) trademark for
Mexico. crackers. From wheat and eat-
Thankstini (name) the name of a ables.
drink. From Thanksgiving and windowall (noun) window and
Martini. wall.
The Big Wiesy (name) nickname wintertainment (noun) winter and
for the golfer Michelle Wie. entertainment.
From The Big Easy and (Mi- wordrobe (noun) word and ward-
chelle) Wie. robe.
tigon (noun) tiger and lion (also Yobaby (name) organic yogurt for
liger). babies.
TomKat (name) Tom Cruise and zebrule (noun) zebra and mule.
Katie Holmes. zedonk, zonkey (noun) zebra and
torrible (adjective) terrible and donkey.
horrible. Ziposium (noun) ZIP (Zone Im-
transceiver (noun) transmitter and provement Plan) and sympo-
receiver. sium.
Reduplicatives
Andy Wandy (name) from An- argument. From the verb ar-
drew. gue.
arf-arf (noun) the noise of a dog. Arsey Darcy (name) jocular name
argle-bargle, argy-bargy (noun) for Mark Darcy. From arse.
vigorous discussion or dispute; arsy-versy (adverb) in a backward
(verb) to exchange words in or thoroughly mixed-up fash-
Reduplicatives 311
ion; (adjective) contrary. From boogie-woogie (noun) form of

arse and Lat. versus. instrumental blues. From
artsy-craftsy (adjective) preten- boogie.
tious. From art. bow-wow (interjection) reproduc-
artsy-fartsy, arty-farty (adjective) ing the sound of a dog barking;
pretentiously artistic. From (noun) a dog (nursery).
art. brittle-brattle (noun) hurried
baa-baa (noun) the noise of a motion causing a clattering
sheep or lamb. noise.
Bearum Scarum (name) title of a Bubble Bobble (name) trade name
book by Vic Parker. of a game.
beddy-bye(s) (noun) bed; sleep buddy-buddy (noun) brother,
(nursery). companion, friend.
beri-beri (noun) type of disease. bum-bum (interjection) represen-
bibbity-bob in the phrase to go tation of the sound of monoto-
bibbity-bob, to move up and nous music.
down. bumpety-bump (adverb) with a
bibble-babble, blib(ber)- bump, suddenly, violently.
blab(ber), bribble-brabble bye-bye (interjection) good-bye.
(noun) idle talk. From babble. bye-byes (noun) especially in go
bim-bom (interjection) reproduc- to bye-byes, a childish name
ing the sound of bells; (noun) for sleep or bed.
bells. ca-ca (noun) faeces (nursery);
bitsy-witsy (adjective) tiny. From rubbish, nonsense.
bit. cakey-wakey (name) the name of
blah-blah (noun) meaningless, a cake manufacturing com-
nonsensical, insincere, or pre- pany. Perhaps based on Wakey
tentious talk. wakey, an informal reduplicate
Bling Blang (name) title of a meaning Wake up!.
book by Woody Guthrie. cawdey-mawdey (noun) the
bling bling (noun) (the wearing hooded crow.
of) expensive designer clothing cha-cha (noun) type of dance.
and flashy jewellery. Charlie-parlie (name) pet form of
blish-blash (noun) vain chatter. the name Charles.
bonbon (noun) candy. cherry-churry (noun) the note of
boo-boo (noun) an error. From the lesser pettychaps.
boob; the breasts. From boo- Chickn Quick (name) trade name
bies. for breaded chicken patties
produced by Tyson Foods.
312 Lexical index
chick-flick (noun) a film for girls. clip-clop (noun) an abrupt alter-

From slang chick and flick. nating sound as of the beating
chip-chop (interjection) the sound of a horses hoofs on a hard
of axes. surface; (verb) to make such a
chit-chat, chitchat, chitter- sound.
chatter (noun) gossip, light clippety-clop (noun) the sound of
conversation. a horse trotting.
choo-choo (noun) the noise of a clitter-clatter (noun) a light or
train; train (nursery). repeated clatter; idle gossip.
chop-chop (adverb) quickly; (in- From clatter.
terjection) hurry up!. clop-clop, cloppety-clop (noun)
chow-chow (noun) type of Chi- an abrupt sound as of heavy
nese dog; a mixture or medley shoes or a horses hoofs on a
of food. hard surface; (verb) to make
chuff-chuff (noun, interjection) the such a sound.
noise of a train. CoCo (name) Collette.
chug-chug (noun, interjection) the couscous (noun) a spicy North
sound of footsteps; the sound African dish.
of an engine. creepy-crawly (adjective) that
chug-drug (noun, interjection) the creeps and crawls; sneaking;
sound of an explosion. servile; (noun) a creature that
clang-clang (noun) imitation of creeps and crawls, an insect.
the ringing of bells. Crick Crock (name) trade name
clankety-clank (noun) a repeated for crisps.
clanking sound. crick-crack (noun, interjection)
clap-trap (noun) nonsensical talk. (reproducing) a repeated
clatter-patter (interjection) repro- sharp, explosive, or light
ducing the trotting of a horse. cracking noise.
click-clack (noun) the noise of the Criss Cross (name) trade name of
watch; (noun, verb) (to make) a bra.
a repeated sound like a click. criss-cross (verb) to move back
click-click (noun) clicking noise and forth over something.
made by steel pins, a needle, a Crunch Munch (name) title of a
loom. book by Jonathan London.
clickety-clack, clickety-click culture vulture (noun) person
(noun) a fast and rhythmic with an excessive or preten-
click-clack. tious interest in the arts.
clinkety-clank (noun) a repeated curly-wurly (noun) a fantastically
usually rhythmic clanking curling ornament.
sound.
Reduplicatives 313
curmur (noun) the purring of a even Steven, even Stephen (adjec-

cat. tive) having no debt on either
cushle-mushle (noun) a low whis- side.
pering; a confused muttering feery-fary (noun) bustle, confu-
and movement. From mushle, sion. From fary, a state of tu-
confusion. mult or consternation.
diary-wiary (noun) diary. fender-bender (noun) collision
diddle-daddle (noun) violin mu- between vehicles in which
sic. there is only minor damage.
diddle-diddle (noun) the sound of fiddle-faddle (noun) trifle, non-
a fiddle. sense; the name of candy-
diffy-wiffy (adjective) difficult. coated popcorn.
dilly-dally (noun) trifling hesi- fifty-fifty (adverb, adjective)
tancy; (verb) to vacillate; to equally divided.
waste time. flicflac (noun) type of dance step.
dimber-damber (adjective) very flim-flam (noun) idle talk, rub-
pretty (dated). bish, deception; (adjective)
din-din (noun) dinner (nursery). frivolous, nonsensical.
dingdong, ding-dong (interjec- flip-flap (noun) sudden reversal.
tion) reproducing the sound of flip-flop (noun) unexpected rever-
bells. sal.
dingle-dangle (noun) a swinging flippy floppy (adjective) making
to and fro. unexpected reversals.
dingly dangly (adjective) which flubdub (noun) nonsense.
swings to and fro. footie-footie, footy-footy (noun)
doo-doo (noun) faeces (nursery). amorous play with the feet.
drip-drop (noun) continuous Foxy Loxy (name) the name of a
dripping with alternation of character in the fairy tale
sound; (verb) to drop slowly. Chicken Little.
drizzle-drazzle (interjection) imi- frou-frou (noun) frills on clothing.
tating the sound of rain. fuddy-duddy (noun) an old-
Ducky Lucky (name) the name of fashioned person; (adjective)
a character in the fairy tale old-fashioned.
Chicken Little. funny bunny (adjective) peculiar.
dum-dum (noun) a stupid person. fuzzy-wuzzy (noun) a black per-
from the adjective dumb. son; nickname for a Sudanese
easy-peasy (adjective) really sim- warrior.
ple. fwuffy wuffy (noun) used in an
eensy-weensy (adjective) tiny, advertisement.
very small (nursery).
314 Lexical index
gaga (adjective) senile; mad, ha-ha, hah hah (interjection) used

crazy; foolish; (noun) a senile to express amusement or to
or foolish person. represent laughter.
gale-gale (noun) a noisy fellow. handy-dandy (noun) a childrens
A perversion of nightingale. game; (adverb) alternately.
gender-bender (noun) someone hanky-panky (noun) jugglery;
who blurs the differences be- trickery; sex; foolishness.
tween the sexes. Happy Hippo (name) trade name
Georgy-Porgy (name) from for a Kinder chocolate.
George. harum-scarum (adjective) reck-
gew-gaw (noun) a (gaudy) play- less, careless, disorganised;
thing or ornament; a (showy) (adverb) recklessly. From the
worthless thing or person. verbs hare and scare.
gibbie-gabbie, gibble-gabble, heebie-jeebie(s) (noun) a feeling of
giggle-gaggle (noun) senseless discomfort, apprehension, or de-
chatter. pression.
girly-girly (adjective) exaggerat- hee-haw (noun) (a representation
edly girlish, effeminate. of) a donkeys bray.
glut-glut (interjection) imitating helter-skelter (adverb) in head-
the sound of swallowing. long and disorderly haste.
gobble-gobble (interjection) re- Henny Penny (name) the name of
producing the sound of chat- a character in the fairy tale
ting; (noun) turkey. Chicken Little.
gogo, go-go (adjective) unre- higgledy-piggledy (noun) confu-
strained, energetic; (of music) sion; (adverb) in utter confu-
full of verve, movement, and sion or disorder.
excitement. hip-hop, hiphop, hip hop (noun)
goody-goody (adjective, noun) (a subculture of big-city teenag-
person who is) sentimentally, ers; brand name of a watch;
affectedly virtuous. (adverb) with successive hops
goo-goo (noun) an amorous look. (also hippety-hop).
From googly. hish-hish (interjection) reproduc-
Goosey Loosey (name) the name ing the sound of the rain.
of a character in the fairy tale hobnob (verb) to drink to each
Chicken Little. other or together; to associate
growly-wowly (adjective) like a on very friendly terms.
growl. hocus-pocus, hokey-pokey (noun)
Haahoos (name, plural) the name jugglery, trickery.
of some characters in the tv se- hodgepodge, hodge-podge (noun)
ries In the Night Garden. heterogeneous mixture.
Reduplicatives 315
ho-ho (interjection) expressing Humpty-Dumpty (name) egg-

derision or reproducing deri- shaped character in a nursery
sive laughter. rhyme.
hoity-toity (adjective) pretentious; hunkum-bunkum (adjective) ex-
petulant. cellent.
holus-bolus (adverb) altogether; hurly-burly (noun) confusion,
all at once. struggle, tumult.
holy moly (interjection) used to Hurlyburly (name) the title of a
express surprise. play/film.
honk-honk (noun) the harsh sound huzz-buzz (noun) the common
of a motor horn. cockchafer.
hoo-ha (noun) uproarious com- ickle-ockle (adjective) hypoco-
motion; (interjection) used to ristic form of little (nursery).
express mock surprise or ex- Igglepiggle (name) the name of a
citement. character in the tv series In the
hoo-hoo (noun) female sexual Night Garden.
organ. itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty (adjective)
hotchpotch (noun) thick soup or very small.
stew; a mixture of heterogene- jim-jams (noun) pyjamas (nurs-
ous things. ery).
hotsy-totsy (adjective) just fine, JoJo (name) Josephine.
satisfactory. From slang hot. jug-jug (noun, interjection) (re-
howk-chowk (noun) the noise as if producing) the noise of a
poking in deep mud. nightingale; the sound of a mo-
hub-a-dub (noun) the sound made torcycle.
in beating a drum. ju-ju (noun) marijuana.
hubble-bubble (noun) simple kickie-whickie (noun) wife,
form of the hookah; uproar; woman.
confused talk. killer-diller (noun) something
hub-bub (noun) a confused noise having a devastating effect.
of a crowd shouting or talking. kissy-kissy (noun) a term of en-
hugger-mugger (noun) secrecy; dearment, lovey-dovey. From
disorder, confusion. kiss.
hula-hula (noun) Hawaiian kit-cat (noun) the game of tipcat.
dance. knick-knack (noun) ornamental
humdrum (noun) monotony, bore. trinket (also nick-nack).
hummel-bummel (interjection) an knock-knock (noun) type of joke.
imitation of mumbling. Laa-Laa (name) the name of a
character in the tv series
Teletubbies.
316 Lexical index
Laffy Taffy (phrase) a song title mumbo-jumbo (noun) an object of

by the music group D4L; an unintelligent veneration;
(name) a brand of candy meaningless talk; nonsense.
manufactured by the Willy munge-munge (verb) to moan, to
Wonka Candy Factory. bellow; to grumble in low, in-
liglag (noun) the noise produced distinct tones.
by many people talking at my-my (interjection) expressing
once. From the verb lig, to talk surprise or admiration.
a great deal. namby-pamby (adjective) weakly
limo-limo (noun) a hot lime drink. sentimental in style.
lipslip (noun) used in an adver- never-never (adjective) imagi-
tisement. A word play on lip- nary, unrealistic.
stick. nick-nack (noun) a trinket (also
Liz-Wiz, Lizzy-Wizzy (name) from knick-knack).
Elizabeth. night-night (interjection) good-
loco-foco (noun) New York City night.
radical democratic faction. nig-nog (noun) a foolish person
Lodgie-Podgie (noun) from (also ning-nong); a black per-
Logic. son. From nigger.
lovey-dovey (noun) used as a term niminy-piminy (adjective) very
of endearment, sweetheart. small; effeminate.
mack-lack (verb) to do something Ninky Nonk (name) the name of a
in a clattering way. sort of airship in the tv series
Makka Pakka (name) the name of In the Night Garden.
a character in the tv series In nitty-gritty (noun) the heart of the
the Night Garden. matter; (adjective) very de-
mama (noun) mother. tailed.
mayday (noun) distress signal. nitwit, nit-wit (noun) stupid or
After Fr. (venez) maider. foolish person.
meow-meow (interjection) the nonny-nonny (noun, interjection)
noise of a cat. used as a meaningless or
Milly Molly Mandy (name) from euphemistic refrain in songs,
Amanda. etc. From nonsense.
mingle-mangle (noun) confused no-no (noun) forbidden thing.
mixture. Noo-Noo (name) the name of a
mish-mash (noun) confused mix- character in the tv series
ture. Teletubbies.
mumble-jumble (verb) to speak oink-oink (noun, interjection)
indistinctly and incoherently. (reproducing) the grunt of a
From mumble. pig.
Reduplicatives 317
okey-dokey, okily dokily, okle- pip-pip (noun, interjection) (re-

dokle (adjective, interjection) producing) the sound of a mo-
used to express agreement. tor car horn.
From O.K. pipple-papple (verb) to patter, to
Oogie Boogie (name) the name of pop, to do anything with sud-
a character in The Nightmare den noise or motion.
Before Christmas. plit-plat (interjection) expressive
owlie-wowlie (noun) an owl of the sound made by a horses
(nursery). hoofs as it trots along the road.
palsy-walsy (noun) a friend; (ad- plotty-plotty (noun) trickery.
jective) friendly. From plotty, connected with
papa (noun) father. plot or intrigue.
patter-patter, pattle-pattle (verb) pokemoke (noun) a swindle.
to walk in and out constantly; pom-pom (noun) tuft (e.g. of
to fidget about. From patter, feathers).
to walk with quick short steps. pooh-pooh, poo-poo (noun) fae-
pech-pech (noun) the sound of ces (nursery); (verb) to ex-
heavy breathing made during press disdain.
any severe exertion. pooly-wooly (interjection) the cry
pee-pee (noun) urine (nursery). of the curlew.
peepie-creepie (noun) a portable pop-pop (noun) father.
television camera. popsy-wopsy (noun) little girl;
peewee (noun) a small child; (ad- girlfriend; term of affection.
jective) very small. pow-wow (noun) a noisy assem-
pid-pad (interjection) imitation of bly.
the dull sound of footsteps. pretty-pretty (adjective) exces-
From pad, sound of steps on sively pretty; (noun, plural)
the ground. ornaments.
ping pong, ping-pong (noun) prid-prad (noun) the blue tit-
table tennis. mouse.
pinkie-winkie (noun) a pastime; puzzled-wazzled (ppt adjective)
childrens game. puzzled.
pinkle-pankle (noun) the sound of quack-quack (noun, interjection)
liquid in a bottle; (verb) to (reproducing) the harsh sound
emit such a sound. characteristic of a duck; a
pink-twink (noun) the chaffinch. nursery name for a duck.
Pinky Ponk (name) the name of a ragtag (noun) the rabble; a low-
kind of train in the tv series In class or disreputable person
the Night Garden. (also tagrag).
318 Lexical index
rah-rah (noun, interjection) (a see-saw (noun) an up-and-down

cry) expressing encourage- or to-and-fro motion; (verb) to
ment, approval; (adjective) move up and down or back-
very enthusiastic. From hur- wards and forwards.
rah. shiffle-shuffle (noun) trickery.
ram-jam (adverb) crammed (full). From shuffle, to bring in a de-
ramp-ramp (noun, interjection) ceitful, tricky, or surreptitious
the sound of the sea. manner.
ran-dan (noun, interjection) the shilly-shally (verb) to show inde-
sound of the bells. cision.
razzle-dazzle (noun) showiness; shittity brickitty (interjection)
jollity. from shit a brick.
Reeses Pieces (name) trade name silly-billy (noun) a foolish person.
of a candy. sing-sing (noun) a singing sound,
rickety-rackety (adjective) un- monotonous or regular voice.
steady. skimble-skamble (adjective) con-
rickrack (noun) kind of serpentine fused; (noun) confused talk.
braid. slang-whang (noun) nonsense,
riff-raff (noun) disrespectable abusive talk.
people, the rabble. slipslop (noun) meaningless or
riprap (noun) broken stones used trifling talk.
for a wall; a sharp blow. smick-smack (noun) a smacking
roly-poly (adjective) short and noise.
pudgy; (noun) a kind of pud- snip-snap, snip-snip (noun) the
ding. From roll. action or sound of clipping
row-dow (noun) (the noise of) the with the scissors; (verb) to clip
sparrow. with a snipping sound.
rub-a-dub (noun) the sound made snuggly-wuggly (adjective) a
in beating a drum. caressing adjective.
rumble-tumble (noun) rough or so-so (adjective) indifferent.
chaotic activity. (s)plish-(s)plash (verb) to splash
rumpy-pumpy (noun) sexual in- repeatedly.
tercourse. stinky pinky (noun) type of word
say-so (noun) ones personal game.
statement or assertion. strim-stram (noun) a rude
seabee (noun) member of the stringed instrument of the gui-
construction battalion of the tar kind.
US Navy. From the pronuncia- strim-strum (adjective) unmusi-
tion of C.B. (Construction cal.
Battalion).
Reduplicatives 319
super-duper (adjective) extremely tip-top (noun) first class; (adjec-

good, excellent. tive) superlatively good; at the
swing-swang (noun) a swinging to very top.
and fro. tittle-tattle (noun) gossip; foolish
tabby-wabby (noun) from tabby. chatter.
tagrag (noun) the rabble (also titty-totty (adjective) very small;
ragtag). extremely tiny.
tam-tam (noun) a large metal tom-tom (noun) the sound of a
gong. drum.
tan-tan (noun) the sound of a toodle-loodle (noun) the sound of
drum. a pipe or a flute.
ta-ta (interjection) goodbye. too-too (adverb) overly.
teensy-weensy (noun) sweetheart. tootsy-wootsy, tootsie-wootsie
teeny-tiny (adjective) very small. (noun) a term of endearment,
teeny-weeny, teensy-weensy (ad- sweetheart; (plural) feet.
jective) tiny, very small. too-whoo (interjection) the sound
terry-rerry (noun) the song of the of an owl.
blackbird. tra-ra (interjection) the noise of a
tick-tack, tick-tock (interjection) horn.
imitation of the ticking of a trick-track (noun) variety of
clock. backgammon.
tick-tack-toe (noun) a childrens trill-ill (interjection) the sound of
game. flowing liquid.
tick-tick (noun) the sound of the trit-trot (interjection) the sound of
clock; clock (nursery). trotting.
ticky-tacky (adjective) shoddy; tuff-tuff (interjection) the sound of
flimsy. gas.
Tic tac (name) brand name of tug-slug (verb) to make a noise in
small hard mints. walking.
ting-a-ling (noun, interjection) tum-tum (verb) to play monoto-
(reproducing) the sound of a nously.
small bell ringing. Turkey Lurkey (name) the name
ting-ting (noun, interjection) (re- of a character in the fairy tale
producing) the sound of a Chicken Little.
small bell, glass, etc. tussie-mussie (noun) a small bou-
Tinky-Winky (name) the name of quet of flowers.
a character in the tv series tut-tut (interjection) used to ex-
Teletubbies. press contempt.
tiny-winy (adjective) very small.
320 Lexical index
tweet-tweet (interjection) imitation win-win (adjective) describes a

of the noise of a bird (also situation where both parties
weet-weet). gain something.
twenty-twenty (adjective) having wish-wash (noun) foolish talk or
normal vision. writing; weak, insipid, watery
twiddle-twaddle (noun) idle talk. drink.
twing(le)-twang(le) (noun) a con- wishy-washy (adjective) weak and
tinuous or repeated resonant insipid.
sound made by a harp. wonga-wonga (noun) a large
twisty-wisty (adverb) in a twisty Australian pigeon.
manner. woofle-woofle (interjection) the
twittle-twattle (noun) idle talk. barking or snarling of a dog.
twit-twat (noun) the house- woo-woo (interjection) imitative
sparrow. of the sound of the wind.
walkie-talkie (noun) combined yaw-haw (verb) to laugh rudely
transmitter and receiver. and noisily.
wa-wa (noun) water (nursery). y-y (adjective) exuberant. From
weet-weet (interjection) imitation yeah.
of the noise of a bird (also yolp-yalp (noun) a snarl.
tweet-tweet). yo-yo (noun) type of toy.
wee-wee (noun) urine (baby talk); yum yum (adjective) excellent,
an act of urination; the penis. first-rate; (interjection) used to
wey-hey (interjection) a conven- express enjoyment, especially
tional representation of the in the taste of food.
sound uttered by horses. zero-zero (adjective) having zero
whim-wham (noun) odd, fanciful visibility.
object, trifle. zig-zag, zigzag, zig zag (noun)
whittie-whattie (noun) vague talk; sharp turns in alternating di-
indecision; (verb) to speak low rections; a drunk person.
or secretly; to be undecided.
wibble-wobble (adjective) un-
steady; (verb) to move un- Shm-/schm- items
steadily, to vibrate, to quiver.
wigwag (verb) to move to and fro. apple-shmapple (noun) from
willy-nilly (adverb) willingly or apple.
unwillingly, without choice; arcade-shmarcade (noun) from
(noun) Aus.E. a cyclone or arcade.
dust-storm. art-shmart (noun) from art.
baby-schmaby (noun) from baby.
Back-formations 321
breakfast shmreakfast (noun) marry-shmarry (verb) from

from breakfast. marry.
cant-shmant (verb) from cant. moon-schmoon (noun) from
captain shmaptain (noun) from moon.
captain. opinion shmopinion (noun) from
child schmild (noun) from child. opinion.
clever-shmever (adjective) from Pedro-Schmedro (name) from
clever. Pedro.
crisis-shmisis (noun) from crisis. plan shman (noun) from plan.
Europe-Shmeurope (name) from table-shmable (noun) from table.
Europe. transformations shmansforma-
fancy-schmancy (verb) from tions (noun, plural) from
fancy. transformations.
gravity schmavity (noun) from variables shmariables (noun,
gravity. plural) from variables.
locked-shmocked (ppt adjective)
from locked.
Back-formations
abduct (verb) from abduction. beg (verb) from beggar.

adolesce (verb) from adoles- bibliograph (verb) from bibliog-
cence. raphy.
advect (verb) from advection. bicep (noun) from biceps.
affix-hop (verb) from affix- bolsh (verb) from Bolshevik.
hopping. book-hunt (verb) from book-
air-condition (verb) from air- hunting.
conditioner. brainstorm (verb) from brain-
arch (verb) from archery. storming.
art-edit (verb) from art-editor. brux (verb) from bruxism.
attrit (verb) from attrition. bulldoze (verb) from bulldozer.
auth (verb) from author. bum (verb) from bummer.
automate (verb) from automa- burgle (verb) from burglar.
tion. buttle (verb) from butler.
aviate (verb) from aviation. cathect (verb) from cathectic.
awestrike (verb) from awestruck. chain-react (verb) from chain-
baby-sit (verb) from baby-sitter. reaction.
back-form (verb) from back- chauffe (verb) from chauffeur.
formation.
322 Lexical index
cheerlead (verb) from cheer- eclaircisse (verb) from eclaircis-

leader. sement.
cherry (noun) from Old Northern edit (verb) from editor.
Fr. cherise, Modern Fr. cerise. emote (verb) from emotion.
chiromance (verb) from chiro- epilept (noun) from epileptic.
mancy. escalate (verb) from escalator.
choreograph (verb) from chore- evolute (verb) from evolution.
ography. excurse (verb) from excursion.
cliff-hang (verb) from cliff- face-lift (verb) from face-lifting.
hanger. foray (verb) from forayer.
cohese (verb) from cohesion. formate (verb) from formation.
coit (verb) from coition. frivol (verb) from frivolous.
colport (verb) from colporteur. frostbite (verb) from frostbiting.
committal (adjective) from non- fugle (verb) from fugleman.
committal. geomance (verb) from geomancy.
commote (verb) from commotion. ginger (adjective) from gingerly.
compute (verb) from computer. glam (verb) from glamour.
concuss (verb) from concussion. gondole (verb) from gondola.
conscript (verb) from conscrip- google (verb) from googly.
tion. greed (noun) from greedy.
cose (verb) from cosy. greensick (adjective) from green-
couth (adjective) from uncouth. sickness.
cross-refer (verb) from cross- grizzle (verb) from grizzled.
reference. gullible (adjective) from gullibil-
curate (verb) from curator. ity.
cuttle (verb) from cutler. handwrite, hand-write (verb)
darkle (verb) from darkling. from handwriting.
delir (verb) from delirium. hang glide (verb) from hang
demarcate (verb) from demarca- glider.
tion. hard-boil (verb) from hard-
demerge (verb) from demerger. boiled.
destruct (verb) from destruction. haze (verb) from hazy.
die-cast (verb) from die-casting. hijack (verb) from hijacker.
dishevel (verb) from dishevelled. hoke (verb) from hokum.
dizz (verb) from dizzy. holograph (verb) from ho-
dry-farm (verb) from dry- lography.
farming. home-deliver (verb) from home-
duff (verb) from duffer. delivery.
eave (noun) from eaves. homesick (adjective) from home-
sickness.
Back-formations 323
horrorstrike (verb) from horror luminesce (verb) from lumines-

struck. cence.
house-clean (verb) from house- lyse (verb) from lysis.
cleaning. manarvel (verb) from manarve-
house-keep (verb) from house- lin.
keeping. map-read (verb) from map-
hush (verb) from husht. reading.
hypocrise (verb) from hypocrisy. mart (verb) from martyr.
illogic (noun) from illogical. match-make (verb) from match-
ill-treat (verb) from ill-treatment. maker.
ill-use (verb) from ill-usage. maudle (verb) from maudlin.
inscript (verb) from inscription. mote (verb) from motor.
insurrect (verb) from insurrec- mug (verb) from mugger.
tion. mull (verb) from muller.
intuit (verb) from intuition. multi-hull (noun) from multi-
iridesce (verb) from iridescence. hulled.
jam-pack (verb) from jam- nake (verb) from naked.
packed. name-drop (verb) from name-
jay-hawk (verb) from jay-hawker. dropping.
jell (verb) from jelly. nomenclate (verb) from nomen-
jeopard (verb) from jeopardy. clature.
jerrybuild (verb) from jerrybuilt. nonconform (verb) from noncon-
job-hunt (verb) from job-hunting. formist.
jog (verb) from jogging. nut (verb) from nutting.
kempt (adjective) from unkempt. orate (verb) from oration.
kite-fly (verb) from kite-flying. outrig (verb) from outrigger.
knuckle-dust (verb) from knuckle- pan-broil (verb) from pan-
duster. broiling.
lase (verb) from the acronym paramedic (noun) from para-
laser. medical.
lasing (adjective) from the acro- pea (noun) from Fr. pease.
nym laser. peddle (verb) from peddler.
laze (verb) from lazy. peeve (verb) from peevish.
lech (verb) from lecher. pegase (verb) from Pegasus.
liaise (verb) from liaison. perk (verb) from percolator.
lip-read (verb) from lip-reading. perorate (verb) from peroration.
locomote (verb) from locomotion. perspirate (verb) from perspira-
logroll (verb) from logrolling. tion.
loll (verb) from Lollard. pet (noun) from petty.
loud-hail (verb) from loud-hailer.
324 Lexical index
phase-modulate (verb) from role-play (verb) from role-

phase-modulation. playing.
phosphoresce (verb) from phos- role-take (verb) from role-taking.
phorescent. romant (verb) from romantic.
pied-pipe (verb) from pied- rort (verb) from rorty.
piping. rotavate (verb) from the blend
pile-drive (verb) from pile-driver. Rotavator.
pillor (verb) from pillory. rotisse (verb) from rotisserie.
poly-angle (noun) from poly- safe-keep (verb) from safe-
angular. keeping.
polymer (noun) from polymeric. salve (verb) from salvage.
possessor-raise (verb) from pos- sanitate (verb) from sanitation.
sessor-raising. scat-sing (verb) from scat-
pressure-treat (verb) from pres- singing.
sure-treatment. scavenge (verb) from scavenger.
prize-fight (verb) from prize- schoon (verb) from schooner.
fighter. sculpt (verb) from sculptor.
propagand (verb) from propa- self-destruct (verb) from self-
ganda. destruction.
queue-jump (verb) from queue- self-feed (verb) from self-feeder.
jumping. shab (verb) from shabby.
quisle (verb) to act like Quisling. shadow-cast (verb) from shadow-
From Quisling. casting.
rancel (verb) from rancelman. shoplift (verb) from shoplifting.
rap (verb) from rapt. show-jump (verb) from show-
rattle (verb) from ratlin(e). jumping.
recycle (verb) from recycling. sidle (verb) from sideling.
Red-bait (verb) from Red-baiting. sight-see (verb) from sight-
reluct (verb) from reluctance. seeing.
reminisce (verb) from reminis- sipid (adjective) from insipid.
cence. skuldug (verb) from skulduggery.
repercuss (verb) from repercus- skywrite (verb) from skywriting.
sion. slant (adjective) from aslant.
resolute (verb) from resolution. slave-drive (verb) from slave-
resurrect (verb) from resurrec- driver.
tion. soft-land (verb) from soft-
reune (verb) from reunion. landing.
ring-lead (verb) from ring- sound-substitute (verb) from
leader. sound-substitution.
spinst (verb) from spinster.
Back-formations 325
sprightle (verb) from sprightly. trend-set (verb) from trend-setter.

squeam (verb) from squeamish. trickle-irrigate (verb) from tric-
stagemanage, stage-manage kle-irrigation.
(verb) from stagemanager. trig (verb) from trigger.
stave (noun) from staves. triple-tongue (verb) from triple-
stenograph (verb) from stenog- tonguing.
rapher. tub-thump (verb) from tub-
strump (verb) from strumpet. thumper.
stupend (verb) from stupendous. turbocharge (verb) from turbo-
sulk (verb) from sulky. charger.
sull (verb) from sullen. tweeze (verb) from tweezer.
sun-bathe (verb) from sun- type-cast (verb) from type-
bathing. casting.
sunburn (verb) from sunburnt. typewrite, type-write (verb) from
supply-teach (verb) from supply- typewriter, type-writer.
teacher. ug (verb) jocular verb from ugly.
surf-cast (verb) from surf- ultimate (verb) from ultimatum.
casting. unrepair (noun) from unrepaired.
surveille (verb) from surveil- unsuccess (noun) from unsuccess-
lance. ful.
swindle (verb) from swindler. unsurprise (noun) from unsur-
synostose (verb) from synostosis. prising.
tailor-make (verb) from tailor- ush (verb) from usher.
made. vacate (verb) from vacation.
tape-record (verb) from tape- vacuum-clean (verb) from vac-
recorder. uum-cleaner.
tat (noun) from tatty. valet-park (verb) from valet-
televise (verb) from television. parking.
thought-read (verb) from vint (verb) from vintage.
thought-reading. whipper-snap (verb) from whip-
thunderstrike (verb) from thun- per-snapper.
derstruck. wh-move (verb) from wh-
tiff (verb) from tiffin. movement.
tile (verb) from tiler. window-shop (verb) from win-
time-share (verb) from time- dow-shopping.
sharing. wiredraw (verb) from wire-
tongue-tie (verb) from tongue- drawer.
tied. word-process (verb) from word-
transcript (verb) from transcrip- processor.
tion. york (verb) from yorker.
326 Lexical index
Infixations
Expletive items emanci-(mother)fuckin-pator

(noun) emancipator.
19-bloody-43 (numeral) 1943. every-bloody-body (pronoun)
abso-bally-lutely, abso-bloody- everybody.
lutely, abso-blooming-lutely, fan-fucking-tastic (adjective)
abso-fuckin-lutely (adverb) fantastic.
absolutely. fron-fuckin-tier (noun) frontier.
ad-bloody-vance (verb) to ad- guaran-absolutely-tee (verb) to
vance. guarantee.
air con-friggin-ditioner (noun) Ha-bloody-waii (name) Hawaii.
air-conditioner. halle-bloody-lujah (interjection)
al-bloody-mighty (adjective) al- hallelujah.
mighty. ho-bloody-ho (interjection) ho-ho.
amalga-bloody-mated (participle, hypo-bloody-crite (noun) hypo-
adjective) amalgamated. crite.
any-bloody-thing (pronoun) any- im-bloody-possible, im-fucking-
thing. possible (adjective) impossi-
ban-bloody-danna (noun) ban- ble.
danna. im-frigging-portant, im-fuckin-
B-Bloody-C (noun) the initialism portant (adjective) important.
BBC. imma-bloody-material (adjective)
bea-fucking-utiful (adjective) immaterial.
beautiful. in-bloody-consistent (adjective)
boo-freakin-hoo (interjection) inconsistent.
boohoo. in-bloody-credible (adjective)
carni-bloody-vore (noun) carni- incredible.
vore. in-bloody-tolerant (adjective)
Chi-bloody-nese (noun, adjective) intolerant.
Chinese. incan-fucking-descent (adjective)
Dan friggin Quayle (name) Dan incandescent.
Quayle. inde-goddamn-pendent (adjec-
de-fuckin-fence (noun) defence. tive) independent.
dis-bloody-member (verb) to in-fuckin-stantiate (verb) to in-
dismember. stantiate.
e-goddamned-vaporate (verb) to irre-fuckin-sponsible (adjective)
evaporate. irresponsible.
Infixations 327
Jehovah bloody Witnesses umber-fucking-ella (noun) um-

(phrase) Jehovah Witnesses. brella.
Jesus-fucking-Christ (interjec- un-fuckin-believable (adjective)
tion) Jesus Christ. unbelievable.
Kalama-fuckin-zoo, Kalama- un-fucking-touchable (adjective)
goddamn-zoo (name) Kalama- untouchable.
zoo. United-bloody-Kingdom (name)
kanga-bloody-roo (noun) kanga- United Kingdom.
roo. ur-fucking-bane (adjective) ur-
kinder-bloody-garten (noun) bane.
kindergarten. V-bloody-IP (noun) the initialism
Massa-bloody-chusetts (name) VIP.
Massachusetts.
megalo-bloody-mania (noun)
megalomania. -Ma- items
Minne-bloody-sota (name)
Minnesota. Ala-ma-bama (name) Alabama.
no-bloody-body (pronoun) no- compli-ma-cated (adjective) com-
body. plicated.
O-bloody-K (interjection) the dia-ma-lectic (adjective) dialectic.
initialism OK. edu-ma-cate (verb) to educate.
o-damn-clock (adverb) oclock. feuda-ma-lism (noun) feudalism.
Paul fucking Newman (name) grave-ma-yard (noun) graveyard.
Paul Newman. hippo-ma-potamus (noun) hippo-
per-bloody-haps (adverb) per- potamus.
haps. live-ma-ly (adverb)
propa-fuckin-ganda (noun) pro- lively.
paganda. lone-ma-ly (ad-
rail-bloody-way (noun) railway. verb) lonely.
Santa-fuckin-Cruz (name) Santa Micha-ma-langelo (name) Mi-
Cruz. chaelangelo.
Sir-bloody-Lancelot (name) Sir Missi-ma-ssippi (name) Missis-
Lancelot. sippi.
So-bloody-ho (name) Soho. oba-ma-boe (noun) oboe.
Tata-fuckin-magouche (name) Or-ma-well (name) Orwell.
Tatamagouche. parta-ma-ty (noun) party.
terra-extremely-firma (noun) saxo-ma-phone (noun) saxo-
terra firma. phone.
to-bloody-gether (adverb) to- secre-ma-tary (noun) secretary.
gether.
328 Lexical index
sophisti-ma-cated (adjective) ilz-are (verb) are.

sophisticated. iz-at (preposition) at.
syndi-ma-cate (verb) to syndicate. m-izm-illimeter (noun) millimeter.
tele-ma-phone (noun) telephone. m-izn-ission (noun) mission.
terri-ma-tory (noun) territory. pl-iz-ay (verb, noun) (to) play.
underesti-ma-mate (verb) to un- s-iz-oldiers (noun, plural) sol-
derestimate. diers.
unsub-ma-stantiated (participle) sizzurp (noun) syrup.
unsubstantiated. str-iz-aw (noun) straw.
Urs(a)-ma-la (name) Ursala. surpr-iz-ise (noun) surprise.
vio-ma-lin (noun) violin. t-izn-elevision (noun) television.
washa-ma-shing (participle) v-izn-ideos (noun, plural) videos.
washing. walkie-t-izn-alkies (noun, plural)
wonder-ma-ful (adjective) won- walkie-talkies.
derful. w-ilz-e (pronoun) we.
w-iz-ork, wizzerk (noun) work.
-Iz- items
-Diddly- items
ah-iz-ead (adverb) ahead.
beh-iz-ave (verb) to behave. ac-diddly-action (noun) action.
B-ilz-arbara (name) Barbara. he-diddly-eaven (noun) heaven.
B-ilz-obby (name) Bobby. From hi-diddly-ho (interjection) hi-ho.
Robert. mur-diddly-urder (noun) murder.
b-iz-itch (noun) bitch. wel-diddly-elcome (interjection)
b-izn-ottle (noun) bottle. welcome.
bizzerk (adjective) crazy; angry.
A play on the word berserk,
found in the expression go -Wait for it- items
berserk.
c-iz-oast (noun) coast. de-wait for it-nied (participle)
d-iz-apper (adjective) dapper. denied.
d-iz-ollar (noun) dollar. porn-wait for it-ography (noun)
dizzert (noun) dessert. pornography.
dr-iz-eam (noun) dream.
eff-iz-ect (noun) effect.
G-iz-oogle (noun) Google.
h-iz-ouse (noun) house.
Phonaesthemes 329
Phonaesthemes
-a- emphasising an action, as -oo- associated with foolish-

in clap, flap. ness or deprecative meaning
-ack denoting a sound with related to contempt, disgust,
abrupt decay, as in brack, failure, as in boob, fool.
crack. p- expressive of disapproval
-ash denoting violent impact, or disgust, as in pish, pooh.
violence, breaking, as in crash, -p suggestive of a blow, as in
swash. clip, drip.
bl- associated with depreca- sl- denoting falling or sliding
tive meaning, as in bloody, movement, as in sleight, slide;
blooming. having a pejorative value, as in
cr- denoting harsh sounds, as slug, slut.
in crack; denoting twisted sn- related to nose, mouth, as
movement or position, as in in sneeze, sniff.
crankle; to run zigzag, criss- sw- denoting something
cross. flourishing or swinging, as in
du- having pejorative value, swell, swoon.
as in dunce, dullard. tw- denoting small sounds or
f- expressive of scorn, disap- twisting movements, as in
proval, or disgust, as in fart, tweet, twist.
fuck. -u- denoting dullness or indis-
fl- denoting movement, flying, tinctness, as in blunt, dusk.
flowing, as in flag, fly; associ- -ump denoting heaviness,
ated with liquid motion, as in or heavy, awkward move-
flow, fluid. ments, as in clump, dump; de-
gl- related to vision, light, as noting displeasure, as in
in glare, gloss. frump, mump.
gr- denoting deep-toned, -urry denoting haste, confu-
menacing noises, as in grum- sion, as in hurry, scurry.
ble, grunt. -ush denoting something oozy
-ick denoting quick sounds, as or moist, as in crush, dush.
in click, tick.
m- denoting movements of
mouth or indistinct talk, as in
mump, murmur.
Subject index
abbreviation, 35, 1114, 16, 17, alphabetism, 3, 13, 17, 24, 45, 58,
19, 21, 28, 31, 33, 38, 41, 42, 60, 64, 67, 68, 72, 82, 8486,
49, 52, 57, 61, 64110, 115, 116, 93100, 102106, 108, 109, 185,
134, 138, 185, 212, 213, 215, 212, 226, 262, 265
251255, 259, 262 alphanumeric combinations, 13, 86
graphic, 13, 72, 85, 87 alternation (of vowel/consonant
acronym, 14, 711, 13, 14, 2022, sound), 45, 46, 53, 141, 149
24, 26, 27, 2931, 3742, 44, 45, 152, 157160, 163, 164, 166
49, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60, 6468, 168, 253, 263
72, 8293, 95106, 108110, ambiguity, 14, 25, 67, 72, 74, 78,
115, 116, 119, 131, 142, 173, 83, 88, 99, 101, 104, 106, 107,
179, 181, 201, 210216, 225 110, 137, 155, 211
229, 245, 248, 249, 251, 255, analogy (vs. rule), 1, 46, 12, 15,
259, 262265 16, 1822, 29, 30, 35, 37, 39, 40,
elliptic, 13, 26, 37, 87, 88, 91, 4345, 4856, 60, 71, 79, 80, 83,
93, 94, 98, 99, 103, 107, 108, 106, 108, 109, 131, 138, 154,
228, 263 167, 169, 171, 172, 174, 182,
extended, 85, 89, 93, 94, 108, 184, 185, 198, 213, 228, 235,
116 237, 251254, 256, 260, 261,
inverted letter, 89, 95 268
non-elliptic, 13, 26, 87, 91, 93, availability (vs. profitability), 48, 49,
94, 107, 108, 110 53, 54, 56, 251, 261
recursive, 89, 95, 108
with vowel addition, 88, 89, 94 baby talk, see child language
acrostic, 13, 61, 84, 88, 90, 91, 93, back-formation, 1, 8, 12, 15, 16, 20,
95, 98, 102104, 108110, 211, 38, 43, 44, 49, 52, 55, 56, 60,
264 61, 70, 71, 169185, 214, 244
semantically-irrelevant, 13, 90, 246, 248, 254, 255, 262, 267,
91, 94, 95 268
semantically-relevant (punning), compound-word, 174, 177179,
13, 90, 91, 9395, 108, 109 183
Affix Condition (AC), 145, 147, 266 simple-word, 174, 175178, 183
affixation, 41, 46, 47, 65, 79, 143, backronym, 86, 91, 214
173, 187 basehood, uncertain, 31, 59
Subject index 331
base (word), 46, 1316, 21, 2325, exocentric, 6, 125

27, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38, 4042, 48, intercalative/inclusive, 5, 24, 42,
49, 51, 52, 5562, 66, 6872, 57, 121, 122, 129, 130, 133,
7581, 84, 87, 92, 96, 98105, 189
107, 108, 110, 116, 117, 121, linear, 5
130133, 136, 141, 142, 144, non-overlapping, 115, 121, 123,
145, 147, 150, 151, 154, 157, 126
159175, 177180, 182, 185 overlap/overlapping, 6, 24, 42,
191, 193198, 207, 211, 219 62, 115, 121123, 125, 126,
222, 235, 245, 246, 250, 252 129, 130, 133135, 137, 139,
254, 258, 259, 261 253, 265
complex, 61, 71, 76, 80, 102, partial, 6, 62, 113, 119121,
108, 169, 185, 187, 197 124, 126, 129, 133, 137, 265
discontinuity, 16, 24, 56, 75, 78, subordinate, 25
130, 133, 169, 193, 198, 254 total, 62, 113, 118120, 125,
expansion/extension, 195, 197 126, 235, 265
meaningfulness, 15, 22, 141, blending, 37, 1012, 14, 19, 20,
144, 150, 157, 160, 161, 166, 23, 28, 33, 34, 39, 43, 49, 55,
253 57, 71, 77, 111113, 115117,
beginning-end pattern, prototypical, 121, 127, 131, 135, 138, 142,
133 235237, 248, 249, 252, 258,
binarity, 24, 47, 114, 133, 135, 146, 265, 269
154, 162, 167, 253 fragment, 33, 57, 123, 133
binary relation, see binarity rule, 5, 42, 112, 128, 133
biuniqueness, 6, 22, 24, 58, 93, 106, semi-complete, 33, 57, 114
251 blocking, 104, 108, 110, 261, 264
blend (portmanteau word), 111, semantic, 6, 139, 264
13, 14, 16, 17, 1925, 2729, brevity, 109, 185, 252, 255
3342, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 5558,
60, 62, 66, 68, 71, 72, 76, 77, child-centred (or directed) speech,
85, 86, 93, 102, 104, 111140, 17, 46, 142, 159161, 214, 217,
160, 162, 164, 181, 185, 187, 238, 240, 267
189, 192, 201, 210216, 232, child/nursery language, 15, 23, 37,
233, 235237, 251253, 255, 40, 46, 47, 74, 142, 148, 149,
260262, 264266 156, 161, 217, 243, 261, 263
attributive, 123126, 128, 134, chromaesthesia, 199
139 clipped (abbreviated/shortened)
coordinate, 25, 60, 71, 123125, compound, 8, 14, 60, 68, 71, 76,
127, 128, 130, 134, 139, 253 77, 82, 99, 113, 114, 116, 119,
endocentric, 6, 124, 125 124, 147, 148, 219, 262
332 Subject index
clipped name, 8, 28, 67, 68, 78, 82, 4951, 53, 5660, 6466, 68, 70,
96, 103 71, 76, 77, 82, 87, 92, 97100,
clipping, 1, 4, 811, 13, 15, 19, 21 106, 107, 113117, 119, 123
25, 2729, 31, 33, 35, 3739, 126, 128131, 134, 138, 143
4144, 49, 52, 55, 57, 58, 6062, 148, 150, 153, 154, 159, 160,
6483, 85, 93, 95110, 115, 120, 162, 163, 166, 168, 174, 175,
142, 171, 173, 174, 179, 180, 177184, 187189, 207, 213,
183, 185, 210225, 229, 233, 219, 220, 239, 249, 253, 254,
248, 251, 254, 258260, 262 259, 260, 262, 267
265 appositional/copulative, 115,
back- (hind clipping), 25, 31, 44, 116, 134, 155
58, 7274, 76, 79, 82, 102, clipped, see clipped compound
106, 107, 109, 174, 219, 220, coordinate, 25, 41, 125, 128, 134
263 endocentric, 23, 59, 124, 128,
edge- (ambiclipping), 72, 75, 79, 168, 182, 249, 253
82, 105, 219 exocentric, 14, 41, 59, 99, 130,
fore-, 44, 58, 72, 74, 75, 77, 79, 154
80, 82, 219 neoclassical, 35
mid-, 72, 75, 76, 82, 85 rhyming, 15, 145, 147, 154, 155,
random, 76, 82, 85, 98, 99 159, 163, 166, 168, 253, 254
suffixed, 27, 28, 42, 52, 53, 68, reduplicative, see reduplicative
74, 78, 79, 81, 82, 96, 102, compound
103, 107, 108, 217, 221, 222 concatenation, 40, 51, 52, 85, 112,
cohesiveness/cohesion, in-group, 41, 113, 129, 137, 138, 162, 198,
224, 230 249, 252, 253
colloquialization, 64 conciseness, 185, 213, 254
colloquial (language/style) 9, 27, 65, conformity with source words, 132
179, 186, 188, 210, 216, 224, connotative meaning, 16, 17, 37, 41,
231, 238, 239, 244, 245, 247 49, 61, 69, 71, 100, 134, 136,
combining form, 4, 1012, 14, 33 142, 145, 153, 170, 193, 201,
36, 102, 117, 138, 177, 178, 189, 211, 212, 251, 266, 267
258, 260 constraint, 32, 50, 51, 57, 101, 131,
abbreviated, 35, 117 132, 145, 151, 159, 161, 162,
neoclassical, 34, 35, 117, 177 196, 258, 261, 266
secreted, 4, 3436, 117, 260 contamination, 14, 55, 116118
compositionality, 13, 154, 157, 159, contextual suitability, principles of,
168, 197, 200, 201, 207, 253, 3, 17, 210, 212215, 255, 256
261 conversion (zero-derivation), 15, 16,
compound(ing), 4, 5, 8, 1416, 20, 37, 60, 61, 171, 173, 174, 179,
2325, 29, 31, 3337, 40, 41, 43, 180, 246, 254
Subject index 333
co-predication, 128, 134, 137 200202, 206, 207, 250, 251,

see also blend, coordinate 255257
creativity (vs. productivity), 2, 4, 7, operation/phenomenon, 15, 9
912, 17, 19, 22, 35, 48, 50, 52, 22, 2532, 35, 38, 39, 43, 48,
54, 108, 201, 210, 211, 214, 216, 50, 53, 5563, 95, 112, 127,
233, 237, 251, 260 159, 162, 164, 167, 179, 181,
192, 197, 206, 207, 210, 212,
delexicalisation, 53 216, 249251, 254256, 258
derivation, 4, 1416, 20, 29, 33, 35,
36, 40, 41, 43, 45, 52, 53, 56, familiarity, 17, 41, 64, 66, 69, 78
80, 97, 104, 110, 144, 146, 161, 81, 96, 99, 160, 212, 221223,
164, 169172, 179, 184186, 235, 245, 263
188, 192, 194, 198, 207, 220, markers, 53, 79
245, 254 see also informality
without affixation, 41 figure vs. ground, 6, 22, 25, 58, 251
diagrammaticity, see iconicity folk etymology, 55, 69, 86
diminutive (suffix), 39, 40, 42, 79, fortition, 27
159, 161, 164, 170, 205, 260, frequency, 9, 22, 25, 26, 34, 45, 48,
263 49, 54, 73, 114, 134136, 143,
169, 200, 249, 255, 263
Ease of Articulation Hypothesis, 27 full syntacticization, 44
Ease Theory, 259 fusion, 4, 6, 23, 40, 43, 44, 49, 51,
echo-word, 14, 15, 23, 28, 29, 38, 5557, 85, 138, 253
59, 141, 240, 242
economy, see Principle of (Linguis- Generative Morphology/Grammar,
tic) Economy 3, 12, 1922, 250
ellipsis, 71 grammatical morphology (morpho-
euphony, 6, 27, 51, 84, 88, 101, 138, logical grammar), 15, 9, 20, 23,
197, 253, 259 25, 26, 2830, 3234, 3642, 47,
expressive (vs. plain) morphology, 48, 55, 56, 95, 99, 117, 127, 128,
1, 3, 9, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 28 159, 169, 170, 179, 192, 250,
32, 36, 55, 61, 141, 143, 170, 252, 253, 255, 259
186, 192, 194, 200, 202, 206, grammaticalisation (grammaticisa-
207, 211, 251 tion), 12, 19, 4548, 141, 251
extra-grammatical
morphology, 14, 7, 913, 15, haplology, 121
16, 19, 25, 26, 2863, 111, headedness, uncertain, 25, 59, 99,
131, 142, 143, 146, 148, 159, 129, 161, 252
160, 169, 170, 186, 192, 194, head (of a word), 14, 2325, 31, 41,
59, 60, 71, 77, 99, 100, 123130,
334 Subject index
132, 134, 139, 150, 154, 155, expletive (fuckin-), 16, 21, 23,
159, 161, 177, 250, 252, 259, 3032, 38, 56, 59, 186192,
266 194, 195, 197, 203, 246, 254,
homogeneity, 143, 162, 196, 209, 255, 258, 262
253, 254 hip-hop (iz-), 186, 190, 191, 214,
homonymy, 110, 252, 264 254
homophony, 13, 24, 74, 86, 8892, Homeric (ma-), 186, 189191,
95, 106, 108110, 119, 124, 129, 193, 195, 254
133, 135, 137, 139, 166, 252, inflection, 16, 23, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47,
253 105, 141, 144, 172, 183, 185
humorous effect, see pragmatic 187, 192, 211, 220, 254, 267
effect, humorous/playful informality, 3, 17, 31, 49, 61, 64,
hypocoristic, 1, 8, 13, 23, 28, 38, 40, 90, 91, 110, 145, 210212, 215,
46, 55, 57, 58, 67, 68, 74, 78, 217, 220, 223, 225, 227, 228,
79, 101, 104, 149, 161, 164, 224, 232, 235, 240, 245, 248, 255,
263, 267 258, 262
see also familiarity
iconicity, 6, 15, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, initialism, 1, 8, 11, 13, 14, 24, 30,
46, 47, 55, 62, 78, 135, 139, 141, 31, 4042, 44, 45, 53, 55, 5760,
151, 156, 164, 165, 173, 174, 6468, 72, 73, 8287, 9194, 96,
183, 203, 213, 221, 236, 251, 98, 99, 101107, 109, 110, 115,
259, 267 131, 151, 155, 161, 211216,
identity at the juncture, 6, 134, 136, 225227, 229231, 248, 249,
137, 140, 253 251, 255, 264, 265
see also similarity (of source elliptic, 91, 92, 103, 107
words) non-elliptic, 91, 92, 107, 110
ideophone, see reduplicative, ono- initial pattern, prototypical, 102
matopoeic innovation, 4, 5, 43, 48, 52, 134,
imperfect control, 31, 192 260, 261 (cf. language change)
indexicality, 6, 17, 22, 23, 61, 142, input(s), 1, 5, 7, 13, 16, 21, 22, 29
228 31, 34, 4042, 50, 52, 5658, 61,
infix, 1, 8, 10, 16, 21, 56, 59, 120, 62, 65, 67, 74, 78, 9599, 101,
157, 166, 169, 186198, 207, 104, 106, 107, 119, 127, 136,
214, 216, 246, 247, 254, 258, 161, 165, 173, 174, 179182,
268 187, 188, 193, 248, 250, 252,
infixation, 8, 12, 16, 55, 169, 170, 262
179, 185198, 214, 215, 244, alternative, 21, 58, 72, 99
246, 247, 249, 254, 255 categories, alternative, 21, 30,
diddly-, 186, 190, 191, 195, 197, 31, 41, 59, 101, 130, 181,
254 188, 192, 193, 252, 254
Subject index 335
multi-word/polysyllabic, 102 markedness, 16, 2227, 62, 84, 88,

institutionalisation, 43, 49, 261 108, 210, 213, 246, 248, 251,
interspeaker variation, 31, 160, 180 254 (cf. naturalness)
invariability of/unchanged meaning, maximisation, 93, 110, 252
4042, 49, 61, 66, 69, 95, 99, meaning agreement, see semantic
100, 161, 193, 211, 252 (cf. coherence
meaning change) meaning change (new meaning), 15,
irreversibility, 181 20, 3638, 41, 49, 58, 66, 69, 99,
134, 143, 146, 161, 162, 174,
jargon, 2, 17, 154, 211, 212, 215 183, 192, 193, 197, 252
217, 228, 255 (non-)additional, 15, 38, 61, 63,
jocularity, 17, 30, 35, 53, 55, 61, 79, 173, 179, 181, 254
89, 121, 197, 211, 213216, subtractive, 15, 63, 173, 181,
221224, 228, 231, 236, 246, 254
247, 255, 268 meaning prominence, 6, 139
see also pragmatic effect, hu- memorisation, easy, 43, 88, 90, 91,
morous/playful/jocular 94, 109, 142, 147, 155, 213, 214,
252, 255
kinesthesia, 199 metaphor, 15, 78, 108, 127, 141,
154, 155, 164, 167, 204
language acquisition, 23, 28, 47, 55, minimal word, notion of, 40, 96
238, 256, 261 minor phenomenon/formation, 169
language change, 12, 19, 4248, 52, 209, 212, 254
199, 261, 262 modulation (mitigation) of illocu-
language play/game, 31, 36, 38, tionary force, 220
192, 260, 262 monoreferentiality, 58, 109, 213
lenition, 27 morpheme, 20, 23, 3436, 43, 44,
lexicalisation, 12, 19, 37, 4345, 49, 52, 59, 60, 62, 71, 98, 99, 117,
53, 59, 83, 92, 96, 100, 103, 109, 119, 128, 129, 134, 143, 145,
118, 120, 134, 142, 162, 179, 149, 151, 160, 167, 169, 170,
186, 211, 214, 217, 219, 225, 173, 174, 180, 181, 184, 186
232, 233, 235, 238, 244, 251, 188, 194, 198, 200202, 206
261 208, 250, 253, 254, 260
linearity, 93, 110, 128, 198, 252 potential, 35
morphological grammar, see gram-
malapropism, 55 matical morphology
marginal morphology, 3, 4, 1012, morphopragmatics, (theory of), 17,
28, 29, 3236, 42, 43, 55, 117, 28, 36
169, 250, 259, 260 morphotactic irregularity, 56, 97,
98, 129, 159, 160, 251253
336 Subject index
musicality, 17, 30, 214, 215, 217, opacity/opaqueness (vs. transpar-

243, 247, 248, 255 ency), 6, 11, 20, 24, 33, 75, 98,
111, 125, 129, 148, 160, 161,
Natural Morphology (NM), (theory 198, 210, 219, 267, 268
of), 3, 1012, 19, 2226, 47, Optimality Theory, model of, 50
112, 135, 173, 174, 193, 251, output(s), 1, 5, 7, 13, 14, 16, 2022,
254 29, 31, 34, 37, 38, 4042, 5053,
natural(ness), 3, 10, 15, 22, 2527, 5559, 61, 62, 6567, 70, 78, 87,
51, 58, 62, 94, 108, 133, 138, 95, 97, 98, 100, 102, 103, 106
210, 219, 251 109, 127, 129, 136138, 141,
Natural Phonology (NP), (theory of), 160, 163, 165, 166, 179182,
12, 19, 2628, 138 184, 193, 219, 250254, 259,
neologism, 2, 5, 8, 43, 49, 56, 64, 261, 262
118, 199, 211 alternative, 21, 31, 37, 57, 58,
new word, 5, 14, 16, 23, 3539, 44, 66, 67, 78, 98, 106, 107, 129,
45, 48, 49, 51, 53, 54, 61, 65, 136138, 160, 166, 251, 252
66, 71, 96, 107, 111, 117, 142, overlap(ping), 6, 7, 33, 51, 55, 57,
161, 162, 170, 183, 184, 186, 62, 112115, 119, 121123, 125,
187, 192, 193, 197, 214, 217, 126, 129, 130, 133140, 235,
236, 251, 253, 258262 251253, 265
see also neologism see also blend, over-
nonce word/formation, see occa- lap/overlapping
sionalism
non-morphematic paramorphology, 38 (cf. premor-
analysis, 98, 129, 160, 161, 180, phology)
181, 194, 207, 252 perceptibility, 26
process, 20, 62 see also euphony
non-serious(ness), 61, 142, 153, phonaestheme, 3, 8, 12, 16, 20, 52,
161, 205, 221, 242 55, 62, 169, 170, 198209, 214,
novelty, 2, 165, 214, 215, 217, 228, 244, 248, 249, 254, 255, 267
231, 236, 237, 247, 249, 255 final, 204206
initial, 202205, 207
occasionalism (nonce word), 5, 8, 9, middle, 205, 206
35, 43, 49, 118, 143, 211, 215, phonaesthesia, 141, 169, 170, 199,
217 (cf. neologism) 206
onomatopoeia, 15, 25, 47, 59, 141, poetic effect, see pragmatic effect
142, 144, 155161, 163167, possible (potential) word, 21, 5052
169, 198, 199, 202, 203, 214, pragmatic effect, 30, 145, 192, 201,
215, 240, 253 207, 211, 212, 251, 255
Subject index 337
aesthetic/artistic/poetic, 30, 32, 147, 149, 150, 172, 186, 199,

46, 141, 169, 251 209, 249, 251, 255, 258, 260,
expressive, 30, 46, 61, 141, 169, 261, 267
251 profitability (vs. availability), 22, 48,
humorous/playful/jocular, 17, 30, 49, 53, 54, 261
32, 61, 118, 121, 135, 141, prominence, 214, 215, 224, 228,
197, 213, 221, 223, 224, 236, 237, 243, 248, 255
237, 242, 245, 246, 249, 251, promiscuity of input
255 category, see input categories, al-
pretentious, 30 ternative
pragmatic meaning, 9, 69, 142, 161, basehood, see basehood, uncer-
193 tain
predictability, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, pronounceability, 3, 6, 26, 27, 51,
16, 22, 29, 33, 3739, 41, 4850, 84, 88, 89, 93, 103, 109, 110,
53, 54, 5658, 62, 71, 78, 84, 138, 197, 252, 253, 264
9698, 101, 105108, 111, 129, prosodic
135138, 153, 165167, 179 morphology, 96, 187, 192, 194,
181, 183, 184, 195197, 208, 251, 260
246, 251, 252, 254 pattern (template), 41, 103, 107
of meaning, 21 prototypicality, 2, 4, 5, 7, 1214, 19,
preference (universal), 3, 57, 12, 22, 2426, 32, 36, 42, 55, 63, 84,
17, 19, 22, 2429, 34, 47, 51, 54, 85, 87, 9395, 97, 99, 102, 107
55, 58, 63, 66, 96, 105, 108, 112, 109, 114, 116, 118, 128, 129,
114, 123, 133, 138, 152, 154, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 162,
161, 162, 166, 190, 193, 194, 197, 214, 240, 251, 252, 254,
219, 252 256, 259, 263266
prefixation, 16, 23, 169, 185
premorphology, 23, 28, 38, 55, 214, reanalysis, 45, 52, 254, 261
238 recoverability (recognisability), 6,
Principle of Least Effort, 27, 109, 13, 27, 33, 62, 71, 93, 99, 107,
213, 269 109, 113, 123, 133, 136, 138,
Principle of (Linguistic) Economy, 139, 180, 198, 213, 219, 235,
17, 30, 32, 64, 109, 142, 212 252, 253, 266
215, 227, 228, 236, 249, 252, recursiveness, 209, 254
255 redundancy, 100, 142, 164, 213, 253
Principle of Naming, 17, 32, 213, reduplication, 4, 8, 11, 12, 15, 20,
215, 227, 228, 236, 255 23, 26, 4447, 55, 59, 141149,
productivity (vs. creativity), 4, 9, 14, 153, 158, 164, 166, 179, 186,
16, 1922, 30, 31, 3436, 38, 39, 187, 190, 191, 195198, 217,
4854, 96, 97, 117, 127, 141,
338 Subject index
248, 249, 253, 255, 259, 266, 117, 127135, 138, 141, 143,
267 147, 150, 153, 155, 159, 160,
partial, 46, 141, 143145, 149 162169, 171, 180185, 192
155, 158, 162, 186, 189, 191, 196, 198, 207209, 211, 214,
195198, 259 233, 245, 246, 249256, 261
total (full), 15, 23, 25, 26, 47, irregular, 5, 39, 256
141, 143145, 148, 149, 158, phonological, 96, 101, 128, 162
162, 259 prosodic, 28, 66, 160
see also reduplicative repetition, syntactic, 144, 146, 266
reduplicative (reduplicated word), 1, rhythm, 28, 119, 133, 139, 151, 167,
3, 811, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 23, 214, 253
25, 2931, 37, 39, 44, 45, 4749, Righthand Head Rule, 59, 129, 259
53, 58, 59, 61, 77, 83, 141169, rule (vs. analogy), 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10,
185, 199, 203, 204, 210212, 1316, 1822, 26, 2833, 3640,
214216, 238243, 249, 251, 42, 46, 4861, 6567, 83, 84,
253, 263, 267, 269 95101, 103105, 108, 110, 112,
ablaut/apophonic, 15, 23, 44, 114, 127133, 137, 138, 144,
142, 147151, 158, 162164, 146, 147, 159161, 167, 169,
166, 253 170, 172, 179181, 183, 185,
compound, 77, 143, 155 186, 192195, 201, 208, 210,
copy (exact), 15, 144, 147, 148, 238, 249254, 256, 258261
158, 163, 240, 253 infixing, 21, 186, 194
onomatopoeic (ideophone), 15, word-formation (WFR), 16, 20,
25, 37, 59, 141, 142, 144, 21, 4850, 52, 53, 59, 61, 65,
155159, 161, 163167, 199, 9597, 99, 104, 108, 130,
214, 215, 240, 253 160, 161, 167, 169, 170, 172,
rhyming, 15, 31, 44, 58, 77, 142, 179181, 193, 201, 249, 251,
147, 151155, 157, 158, 162, 254
163, 166, 214, 239, 240, 253,
263 salience/saliency, 6, 24, 27, 58, 62,
shm-/schm-, 8, 15, 30, 36, 46, 73, 74, 78, 93, 103107, 109,
141, 153, 215, 255 114, 139, 198, 219, 235, 252,
register, informal, 217, 220, 229, 253, 263
246 scientific/technical vocabulary, 17,
see also informality 31, 64, 91, 112, 213, 217, 230
regularity, 15, 10, 12, 1416, 18, see also jargon
20, 22, 28, 29, 31, 3342, 45, secretion, 4, 34, 259
4951, 53, 54, 5658, 6062, 66, see also combining form, se-
80, 83, 84, 96, 97, 99, 101105, creted
107, 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, secret language, 38, 212, 230
Subject index 339
semantic splinter, 2, 20, 24, 3336, 53, 62,

coherence, 21, 34, 48, 49, 182 113, 118120, 122, 126, 129,
184, 209, 254 133, 137, 189, 233, 258
indeterminacy, 142, 164 status as word (word status), 104,
semiotic principle/parameter, 6, 22, 107, 164, 211, 220
112 subtraction, irregular, 57, 60, 63,
shortening, 2, 1114, 17, 25, 27, 46, 99, 130, 252
52, 62, 6467, 70, 7274, 79, 85, suffixation, 16, 23, 52, 79, 162, 169,
88, 9799, 101, 102, 107, 114 173, 181, 184, 185, 221, 267,
117, 121, 122, 126, 135, 142, 268
147, 161, 171, 173, 174, 176, surface analogies, childrens, 55,
179, 180, 183, 252, 253, 262, 261
264 syllable words, 60, 89
see also abbreviation synaesthesia, 46, 199
signans, 6, 2224, 128, 135 syntactic category, unchanged, 100,
signatum, 6, 2224, 135 174, 193, 259
similarity (of source words), 6, 114, syntactic interposing, 188
115, 121, 134, 136, 137, 139, syntagmatic shortening, 14, 115,
140, 214, 237, 253, 266 116
Single Phone Condition (SPC), 145,
147, 266 tmesis, 188
slang, 2, 9, 13, 17, 30, 55, 56, 64, transparency (vs. opacity), 6, 11, 13,
69, 7277, 7981, 86, 87, 89, 91, 17, 20, 22, 2427, 29, 33, 55, 58,
93, 98, 100, 107, 109, 110, 142, 62, 7578, 87, 88, 93, 98, 113
143, 149, 151154, 179, 186, 115, 121, 123, 125, 127129,
188, 212, 214, 216, 217, 221, 133, 136, 138, 147, 160, 168,
224, 230, 239, 242, 244, 247, 180, 193, 210, 219, 234, 248,
259, 264 250, 251, 253, 254, 265
slips of the tongue/brain, 55, 118 morphosemantic, 13, 22, 25, 55,
social/professional closeness, 41, 65, 88, 133, 136, 138, 147, 251
212, 215, 220, 223, 227230, morphotactic, 6, 13, 22, 24, 26,
235, 240, 245, 255, 268 27, 33, 55, 62, 88, 93, 193,
sophisticated coinage, 15, 33, 36 251
sound/phono-symbolism, 141, 169, reduction, 26, 55, 62
170, 198, 199, 202, 206, 267 truncation, 13, 14, 23, 29, 39, 41,
spelling 42, 58, 60, 66, 68, 72, 78, 79,
adjustment/change, 62, 70, 74, 113, 115117, 125, 142, 143,
75, 78, 80, 81, 98, 103, 107, 149, 161, 187, 192, 234, 251
121, 263 253, 263, 267, 268
distinctive, 103, 106
340 Subject index
name, 13, 23, 29, 39, 41, 42, 58, word-based morphology, 20, 24, 42
66, 78, 149, 263, 267 word-creation, 1, 20, 21, 29, 259
see also clipping, back- word-formation, 15, 7, 10, 16, 19
22, 25, 30, 32, 38, 39, 41, 43,
unification/univerbation, 44 45, 4754, 59, 61, 62, 65, 66,
Unitary Base Hypothesis, 21, 37, 59, 9597, 99, 104, 105, 108, 111,
101, 258, 261 112, 117, 130, 141, 143146,
Unitary Output Hypothesis, 21, 57, 160, 161, 167, 169173, 179
261 181, 192, 193, 200, 201, 206
208, 211, 237, 249251, 254
well-formedness, 3, 4, 6, 27, 108 256, 265
110, 138, 150, 167, 184, 197, word-manufacture, 56, 67
208, 237, 252254, 256
criteria of, 3, 6, 27, 108110, zero-derivation, see conversion
138, 167, 184, 197, 208, 237,
252254, 256

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Extra-grammatical Morphology in English

Topics in English Linguistics

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Printed on acid-free paper

The purpose of this book is to fill a gap in word-formation studies, specifi-

conferences. Naturally, all remaining errors are solely my own responsibil-

Pistoia, November 2012

2. The theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . 19

3.2.1. Irregularities in abbreviations . . . . . . . 97

6. Minor phenomena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

6.3.2. Delimitation: Infixation vs. other processes . . . 187

7. Extra-grammatical formations in use . . . . . . . . 210

Within a positive perspective, investigations of extragrammatical mor-

Extra-grammatical morphology is a term introduced by Dressler and Mer-

remark and the distinction between extra-grammatical and grammatical

according to which one type of word-formation mechanism is preferred over

Many scholars try to provide motivations guiding these formations, or in-

Although the analysis of blends, acronyms and similar mechanisms carried

Previous studies (see the Key references in section 1.2 below);

1.1.1. Lexical status of items

Met your Mother. Although ephemeral items and occasionalisms may be

1.2. Key references

ing (Garland Cannon), and clippings and acronyms (Charles W. Kreidler).

Reduplication has been studied in connection with infixation by Yu

1.3. Organisation of the work

morphology, and offers basic parameters to accommodate blends, abbrevia-

guishing between ablaut/apophonic, rhyming, and copy reduplicatives. Echo-

2007). I claim that back-derivation is extra-grammatical because it is the

nology (e.g. MP Member of Parliament, dem democrat, DNA, PC),

A treatment of extra-grammatical morphology requires consideration of the

them from rule-governed word-formation processes. Although there are

2.1. Extra-grammatical formations in Generative Morphology

Within Generative Grammar, blends, acronyms, and similar abbreviations

Furthermore, extra-grammatical processes do not comply with Aronoffs

as far as English is concerned, they are so common that it is misleading to

2.2. Extra-grammatical formations in Naturalness Theory

2.2.1. Natural Morphology

Within the theory of Natural Morphology (NM), the subtheory of universal

reduplication is common in extra-grammatical morphology, but rarely used

2.2.2. Natural Phonology

Tendencies and prototypical patterns in extra-grammatical formations can

speakers pronounceability as well as increasing intelligibility for the hearer:

2.3. Extra-grammatical morphology

As mentioned in the Introduction, extra-grammatical morphology includes

Thornton 2000, especially Dresslers contribution therein); 4) as a su-

2.3.1. Extra-grammatical vs. expressive morphology

In the relevant literature, extra-grammatical morphology is generally associ-

as shown by argle-bargle, silly-billy, and tip-top, respectively from a verb

highly specific labels which cannot allow variation in form. Furthermore,

2.3.2. Extra-grammatical vs. marginal morphology

The distinction between extra-grammatical and marginal morphology is

nations of violations of basic properties of morphological grammar

1) allomorphic variants of (Latin or Greek) model words (e.g. astro-

3) abbreviated combining forms (e.g. eco- ecology, as in eco-art,

Commenting on some (even less regular) splinters that reappear in sev-

words: for instance, a sugarholic is a person addicted to sugar, but has

2.3.3. Extra-grammatical vs. grammatical morphology

Following Zwicky and Pullums (1987) bipartition between plain and

analogical formations such as those produced in child language lie outside

hand, back-formation such as editor to edit is extra-grammatical, be-

2.3.4. Grammaticality and regularity of extra-grammatical morphology

Connotative meaning, however, may change in acronymic words, as when