Libfix
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In linguistics, a libfix is a productive bound morpheme affix created by rebracketing and back-formation, often a generalization of a component of a blended or portmanteau word. For example, walkathon was coined in 1932 as a blend of walk and marathon, and soon thereafter the -athon part was reinterpreted as a libfix meaning "event or activity lasting a long time or involving a great deal of something". Words formed with this suffix include talkathon, telethon, hackathon, and so on. Affixes whose morpheme boundaries are etymologically based, and which are used in their original sense, are not libfixes. Libfixes often utilise epenthesis, as in the example of -holism and -holic which are joined with consonant-final segments via the vowel ⟨a⟩, creating work-a-holism or sex-a-holism.
History
Splinters were defined by Berman in 1961 as non-morphemic word fragments. This includes not just libfixes, but also word fragments which become words, like burger (< hamburger), flu (< influenza), and net (< network).
The name libfix was coined by Arnold Zwicky in 2010 as a blend of "liberated" and "affix" specifically for splinters used as productive morphemes.
Criticism
Some of these formations have been considered barbarisms by prescriptive writers on style, though other writers have praised them. Speaking of the -tron suffix, a philologist commented:
I once heard an unkind critic allude disparagingly to these neologisms as dog-Greek. To a lover of the language of Sophocles and Plato these recent coinages may indeed appear to be Greek debased. More appropriately, perhaps, they might be termed lion-Greek or chameleon-Greek. They are Neo-Hellenic in the genuine Renaissance tradition.
Examples
Each example gives the affix, the source word(s) from which it was formed, the meaning, and examples.
This list does not include:
- affixes based on English words like tech or burger used literally, even if they are shortened forms, in this case, for technology and hamburger;
- affixes which are aligned in form and meaning with their etymological source, like -(o)cracy or -orama in cyclorama and diorama from ὅραμα 'spectacle'; motorama is a portmanteau of motor and orama, not a compound of mot- and -orama;
- words which have been separated from phrases, e.g. fu from kung fu.
English
Suffixes
-(i)ana < Virgiliana (Latin, then French)
things related to a given person, place, period Churchilliana, Americana, Victoriana
an enzyme lactase, polymerase
-cation < vacation
kinds of vacation staycation, girlcation
-copter < helicopter
having a spinning rotor allowing for flight gyrocopter
-core < hardcore
aesthetic, hardcore punk derivatives, hardcore techno derivatives speedcore, grindcore, cottagecore, bardcore
-dar < radar
the skill of detecting qualities or things gaydar, humordar, Jewdar
-erati < literati
groups of people with common interests digerati, glitterati
-flation < inflation
economic inflation in a particular field tipflation, stagflation, shrinkflation
-gasm < orgasm
an intensely pleasurable experience foodgasm, cargasm, shoegasm, nerdgasm
-gate < Watergate
a scandal gamergate, troopergate; see List of "-gate" scandals
-(m)(a)geddon < Armageddon
major disasters (usually facetious) carmageddon, snowgeddon, Irmageddon
-(a)holic, -(a)holism < Alcoholism
addict(ed) shopaholic, workaholic, sexaholic; see English terms suffixed with -holic
-kini < bikini
type of bathing suit burkini, monokini, tankini, mankini
-(i/e/a/∅)licious < delicious
a high degree of some property (usually jocular) bootylicious, babelicious, yummalicious, sacrilicious, crunchalicious
-(o)nomics < economics
an economic policy or philosophy Reaganomics, freakonomics
used to form commercial products; later, for forms of bribery Victrola, moviola, shinola; payola, plugola
-oma < carcinoma, sarcoma (-ομα is a suffix for deverbal nouns)
a kind of tumor, swelling, or cancer melanoma, adenoma, papilloma
-ome, -omics < genome, genomics, trichome
a map of a biological system; and other uses in biology connectome, proteome; biome, rhizome, vacuome
-on < electron (see also -tron)
an elementary particle or quasiparticle proton, neutron, meson, phonon, etc.; see List of particles
-preneur < entrepreneur
an entrepreneur in some domain intrapreneur, ecopreneur, mompreneur
-pocalypse < apocalypse
a catastrophic event snowpocalypse, robopocalypse, beepocalypse
-tard < retard, a pejorative term for a mentally disabled or stupid person
people who are foolish or stupid; pejorative fucktard, libtard
-(a)thon, -a-thon < marathon
things that last a long time or require remarkable endurance walkathon, telethon, hackathon
-tron < electron
a kind of vacuum tube; a subatomic particle; a device magnetron; positron; cyclotron
-(n)(i)verse < universe
the collection of all things in a category, or a fictional universe blogoverse, Twitterverse, Whoniverse
-wich < sandwich
sandwich fishwich, hamwich, snackwich
monstrous, scary, or large things; can function as an augmentative and pejorative bridezilla, Mozilla
Prefixes
alt- < alternative (usually written with a hyphen)
outside the mainstream alt-rock, alt-right
crypto- < cryptography
related to cryptocurrency cryptoasset, cryptobro, cryptocoin, cryptojack, cryptoverse
cyber- < cybernetics
issues or policies related to computers cyberspace, cybercrime
eco- < ecology
related to the environment, to ecology, or to sustainability eco-terrorism, eco-nationalism, eco-investing
econo- < economics
related to economics; economical, inexpensive econometrics (not *economometrics), econophysics; econobox
franken- < Frankenstein
related to “human efforts to interfere with nature” frankenfood, frankenplant, frankenscience
glut- < gluten, glutamic acid
related to glutamic acid, one of the amino acids glutamine, glutamate
heli- < helicopter
types of helicopters; things related to helicopters helibus; helipad, heliport, helidrome, heliborne
hyper- < hypertext
things related to hypertext hyperlink, hypermedia
petro- < petroleum, not rock
things related to petroleum petrodollar, petrochemical, petrocurrency
syn- < synthetic, synthesizer
synthetic; related to (musical) synthesizers syngas, synfuel, syncrude, Synclavier
Italian
Suffix
-opoli < Tangentopoli 'Bribesville'
a scandal Bancopoli, Calciopoli
Portuguese (Brazil)
Suffix
-ão < Mensalão 'Monthly payment-gate'
a scandal Petrolão, Metrolão[pt], Trensalão[pt]
Bibliography
- Bernard Fradin, "Combining forms, blends, and related phenomena", in Doleschal, Ursula; Thornton, Anna M., eds. (2000). Extragrammatical and marginal morphology. LINCOM studies in theoretical linguistics. Muenchen: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 978-3-89586-590-9. papers from a workshop in Vienna, 1996, p. 11-59
- Otto Jespersen, . www.gutenberg.org.
- Norde, Muriel; Sippach, Sarah (November 2019). . Word Structure. 12 (3): 353–384. doi:. ISSN .
- Yuval Pinter, Cassandra L. Jacobs, Max Bittker. "NYTWIT: A Dataset of Novel Words in the New York Times", Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Computational Linguistics (Barcelona), p. 6509–6515, December 8–13, 2020.
- Whitman, Neal (2013-09-17). . The Week.
- Arnold Zwicky, . itre.cis.upenn.edu.