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 â¨aâ©, 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: <blockquote>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. </blockquote>
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 '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
things related to a given person, place, period
: Churchilliana, Americana, Victoriana
-ase
an enzyme
:lactase, polymerase
-cation
kinds of vacation
:staycation, girlcation
-copter
having a spinning rotor allowing for flight
:gyrocopter
-core
aesthetic, hardcore punk derivatives, hardcore techno derivatives
:speedcore, grindcore, cottagecore, bardcore
-dar
the skill of detecting qualities or things
: gaydar, humordar, Jewdar
-erati
groups of people with common interests
:digerati, glitterati
-flation
economic inflation in a particular field
:tipflation, stagflation, shrinkflation
-gasm
an intensely pleasurable experience
:foodgasm, cargasm, shoegasm, nerdgasm
-gate
a scandal
:gamergate, troopergate; see List of "-gate" scandals
-(m)(a)geddon
major disasters (usually facetious)
:carmageddon, snowgeddon, Irmageddon
-(a)holic, -(a)holism
addict(ed)
:shopaholic, workaholic, sexaholic; see
-kini
type of bathing suit
:burkini, monokini, tankini, mankini
-(i/e/a/âÂÂ
)licious
a high degree of some property (usually jocular)
:bootylicious, babelicious, yummalicious, sacrilicious, crunchalicious
-(o)nomics
an economic policy or philosophy
:Reaganomics, freakonomics
-ola
used to form commercial products; later, for forms of bribery
:Victrola, moviola, shinola; payola, plugola
-oma
a kind of tumor, swelling, or cancer
:melanoma, adenoma, papilloma
-ome, -omics
a map of a biological system; and other uses in biology
: connectome, proteome; biome, rhizome, vacuome
-on
an elementary particle or quasiparticle
:proton, neutron, meson, phonon, etc.; see List of particles
-preneur
an entrepreneur in some domain
: intrapreneur, ecopreneur, mompreneur
-pocalypse
a catastrophic event
:snowpocalypse, robopocalypse, beepocalypse
-tard
people who are foolish or stupid; pejorative
:fucktard, libtard
-(a)thon, -a-thon
things that last a long time or require remarkable endurance
:walkathon, telethon, hackathon
-tron
a kind of vacuum tube; a subatomic particle; a device
: magnetron; positron; cyclotron
-(n)(i)verse
the collection of all things in a category, or a fictional universe
: blogoverse, Twitterverse, Whoniverse
-wich
sandwich
:fishwich, hamwich, snackwich
-zilla
monstrous, scary, or large things; can function as an augmentative and pejorative
:bridezilla, Mozilla
Prefixes
alt-
outside the mainstream
:alt-rock, alt-right
crypto-
related to cryptocurrency
:cryptoasset, cryptobro, cryptocoin, cryptojack, cryptoverse
cyber-
issues or policies related to computers
:cyberspace, cybercrime
eco-
related to the environment, to ecology, or to sustainability
:eco-terrorism, eco-nationalism, eco-investing
econo-
related to economics; economical, inexpensive
:econometrics (not *economometrics), econophysics; econobox
franken-
related to âÂÂhuman efforts to interfere with natureâÂÂ
: frankenfood, frankenplant, frankenscience
glut-
related to glutamic acid, one of the amino acids
:glutamine, glutamate
heli-
types of helicopters; things related to helicopters
: helibus; helipad, heliport, helidrome, heliborne
hyper-
things related to hypertext
: hyperlink, hypermedia
petro-
things related to petroleum
:petrodollar, petrochemical, petrocurrency
syn-
synthetic; related to (musical) synthesizers
: syngas, synfuel, syncrude, Synclavier
Italian
Suffix
-opoli
a scandal
:Bancopoli, Calciopoli
Portuguese (Brazil)
Suffix
-ão
a scandal
: Petrolão, ,
Bibliography
- Bernard Fradin, "Combining forms, blends, and related phenomena", in papers from a workshop in Vienna, 1996, p. 11-59 full text
- Otto Jespersen,
- 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. 6509âÂÂ6515, December 8âÂÂ13, 2020. full text
- Arnold Zwicky,
Notes