Re: Small Derivational Idea
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 18:32 |
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On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 18:40, Paul Kershaw <ptkershaw@...> wrote:
> In English, as the only language I'm fluent enough to comment on :D, it's
> certainly true that the rare examples of infixes follow a phonemic rather
> than morphemic rule, specifically: a word can take an obscenity infixed
> following the first non-stressed syllable, as in "guaran-goddamn-tee,"
> "in-f***ing-credible," and "abso-f***ing-lutely".
I think you mean "before the first stressed syllable"?
That was my impression, too, though Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation) claims that
"un-f***ing-believable" shows that morphemes may play a role here,
too. (That word sounds more plausible to me as
"unbe-f***ing-lievable", i.e. following purely phonological rules
rather than morphological ones, and apparently both forms are
attested, though the non-phonological one is more common according to
Google.)
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>