Blend word
In linguistics, a blend—sometimes known, perhaps more narrowly, as a blend word, lexical blend, portmanteau (/pɔːrtˈmæntoʊ/ ⓘ port-MAN-toh or /ˌpɔːr(t)mænˈtoʊ/ POR(T)-man-TOH; pl. portmanteaus or portmanteaux[1]), or portmanteau word—is a word formed, usually intentionally, by combining the sounds and meanings of two or more words.[2][3][4] English examples include smog, coined by blending smoke and fog,[3][5] as well as motel, from motor (motorist) and hotel.[6] The component word fragments within blends are called splinters.
This article is about a type of word. For the method of teaching how to read, see synthetic phonics.A blend is similar to a contraction, but contractions are formed, usually non-intentionally, from words whose sounds gradually drift together over time due to them commonly appearing together in sequence, such as do not naturally becoming don't (phonologically, /duː nɒt/ becoming /doʊnt/). A blend also differs from a compound, which fully preserves the stems of the original words. The 1973 Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation explains that "In words such as motel, boatel and Lorry-Tel, hotel is represented by various shorter substitutes – ‑otel, ‑tel, or ‑el – which I shall call splinters. Words containing splinters I shall call blends".[7][n 1] Thus, at least one of the parts of a blend, strictly speaking, is not a complete morpheme, but instead a mere splinter or leftover word fragment. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish, as it includes both words in full. However, if it were called a "stish" or a "starsh", it would be a blend. Furthermore, when blends are formed by shortening established compounds or phrases, they can be considered clipped compounds, such as romcom for romantic comedy.[8]
Portmanteau morph[edit]
In linguistics, a blend is an amalgamation or fusion of independent lexemes, while a portmanteau or portmanteau morph is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes.[66][67][68][69] For example, in the Latin word animalis, the ending -is is a portmanteau morph because it is an unanalysable combination of two morphemes: a morpheme for the singular number and one for the genitive case. In English, two separate morphs are used: of an animal. Other examples include French: à le → au [o] and de le → du [dy].[66]
