LINGUIST List 4.907

Wed 03 Nov 1993

Disc: Infixes

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

  • Geoffrey Russom, Re: 4.901 Infixes
  • Laurie Bauer, Infixes
  • , Re: 4.901 Infixes
  • "david joseph kathman", Re: 4.901 Infixes
  • , Infixation

    Message 1: Re: 4.901 Infixes

    Date: Sun, 31 Oct 93 09:51:37 ESRe: 4.901 Infixes
    From: Geoffrey Russom <EL403015BROWNVM.brown.edu>
    Subject: Re: 4.901 Infixes


    The form un-effing-believable might simply reflect assignment of word status to "un" in a particular dialect. It would be analogous to "too effing right" and oust the form with pre-stress expletive infixation (unbe-effing- lieveable), which occurs freely in simplexes OR at constituent boundaries but doesn't like to appear within a subconstituent of a composite form with a strong internal boundary elsewhere. It's sort of like poetic enjambment: you can end the line at any sort of syntactic boundary when there's no STRONGER syntactic break in the next line down, but you don't end the line say between an adjective and an associated noun that ends a sentence within the following line -- not if you're Mr. Pope, anyway.

    I wonder whether anyone has observed a feature of expletive infixation as it appears in my dialect: the quite perceptible tensing of a normally unstressed vowel immediately preceding the infixed item. Thus I get "absolutely" as [aebslutli], where = schwa, but [aebso-EffING-lutli], with tense [o]. This may have something to do with the fact that I don't reduce word-final underlying /o/ in my dialect. Sorry if this has been mentioned -- I've missed some postings on the infix thread.

    -- Rick Russom

    Message 2: Infixes

     Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 11:57:19 +Infixes
    From: Laurie Bauer <Laurie.Bauervuw.ac.nz>
    Subject: Infixes


    I have textual examples of both unbe-fucking-lievable and un-fucking-believable, and I also have IN-fucking-communicado (caps in original) and Macmillan (see below) lists in-goddamn-consistent. If only unbelievable were at stake, we could make the presumption that the schwa in the first syllable had been elided. That explanation doesn't work in the other examples. So we appear to have at least two strategies for the infixation. There is other evidence of more than one dialect of this infixation. If infixation is an appropriate term, of course. Affixes are not typically word-forms, and I would agree with Macmillan that the parallels between infixation and interposing in damn bloody rude and half past fucking four are very close. I append a brief bibliography of works which have not (yet) been referred to. Macmillan's article is a must for anyone interested in this area. Brief bibliography on expletive infixation in English. Aronoff, Mark. 1976. Word Formation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Pp. 69-70. Bauer, Laurie 1983. English Word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 89-91. Bauer, Laurie 1988. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. P. 127. Bauer, Laurie 1993. Un-bloody-likely words. In L. Bauer & C. Franzen (eds), Of Pavlova, Poetry and Paradigms. Essays in Honour of Harry Orsman. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Bopp, Tina 1971. On fucking (well). A study of some quasi-performative expressions. In A.M. Zwicky et al (eds), Studies Out of Left Field: defamatory essays presented to James D. McCawley. Edmonton: Linguistic Research. Macmillan, James B. 1980. Infixing and interposing in English, American Speech 55, 163-83. Siegel, Dorothy 1979. Topics in English Morphology. New York and London: Garland. Pp. 179-81.

    Laurie.BAUERvuw.ac.nz Department of Linguistics, Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand Ph: +64 4 472 1000 x 8800 Fax: +64 4 471 2070

    Message 3: Re: 4.901 Infixes

    Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 11:05:26 Re: 4.901 Infixes
    From: <V187EF4Yubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>
    Subject: Re: 4.901 Infixes


    On the subject of where in a word an infix such as "fuckin" or "bloody" should go, I've been silently speaking the words. I've realized that (at least for me) the initial sylable is lengthened, i.e.- un:believable, fan:tastic, etc. The infix goes into this 'space' in the pronunciation. The other issue seems to be natural breaks in the words, i.e.- un+believable, kanga+roo, etc. -Pat Crowe, SUNY at Buffalo

    Message 4: Re: 4.901 Infixes

    Date: Mon, 1 Nov 93 15:05:41 CSTRe: 4.901 Infixes
    From: "david joseph kathman" <djk1midway.uchicago.edu>
    Subject: Re: 4.901 Infixes


    Just for the record: two of the three people I asked today immediately said they prefer "unbe-fucking-lievable" over "un-fucking-believable", so it is said. All of us (myself included) agree that "un-fucking-believable" is also possible, but we would be more likely to say "unbe-fucking-lievable". Might I suggest that there are two different rules here, one saying the infix goes before the stress and the other saying that it goes after the first syllable? These will give the same results in many cases (e.g fan-fucking-tastic), but will diverge in this instance. Also, I wonder if there is any geographical or age distribution to this split.

    Dave Kathman djk1midway.uchicago.edu

    Message 5: Infixation

     Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1993 15:23 -05Infixation
    From: <mike.maxwellSIL.ORG>
    Subject: Infixation


    John Koontz writes: >I believe that the matter goes even further in Caddoan languages, where >there are many stems with a discontinuous X__Y form (not sure what goes in >the middle) in which X and Y are not morphemes on any semantic basis, but >only due to this separability.

    There are words in English which have similar properties--in this case, they are not separable by other affixes, but the Y morpheme (which you might want to call the stem) shows the same irregular allomorphs across words. The prefixes are also common across the set of words, and finally they all share a common stress pattern. I refer to words like permit, commit, remit (which all have nominals in -mission); perceive, conceive, receive, deceive (which all have nominals in -ception); refer, prefer, defer, confer (which all have nominals in -ference); etc. The nominals aren't always transparantly related semantically to the verbs, but they are presumably related. This was noted in SPE (and undoubtedly long before that). Aronoff talked about the fact that morphemes don't always have a constant meaning, making explicit reference to these words, if I recall correctly.