RITA MILIŪNAITĖ

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

Research interests: prescriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and internet linguistics.

NEW CONTAMINATED WORD FORMATIONS IN THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

New Blendings in the Lithuanian Language

ABSTRACT

The article examines contaminated formations that have recently become noticeably more frequent in Lithuanian usage, their causes and sources, and their structural and functional features. It draws on recent data from the Database of New Words of the Lithuanian Language, an electronic resource maintained at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. No such studies have previously been conducted in Lithuanian linguistics, owing to the scarcity of data and the view that these are marginal phenomena not worthy of greater attention. The article briefly presents the context of research into English contaminated formations and the issues it addresses. An appendix to the article provides a list of about 80 contaminated formations recorded in contemporary Lithuanian usage.

ANNOTATION

The article analyses the current abundant occurrence of blendings in Lithuanian language, the reasons and sources of occurrence as well as peculiarities of composition and functioning. The research is based on the latest facts from electronic Database of Lithuanian Neologisms prepared by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. The research of this kind has never been conducted in Lithuanian linguistics due to scarcity of data and the attitude that the blendings are marginal phenomena not worth greater attention to be paid. The context of English blendings derivation research and problems caused is briefly presented. The list of 80 blending formations recorded in contemporary Lithuanian language is presented in the annex to the article.

KEYWORDS: word formation, neologism, contaminated formation, standard language, stylistics.

KEYWORDS: word-formation, neologism, blend, standard language, stylistics.

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1. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

The new lexicon of the Lithuanian language is attracting increasing interest from researchers and the public, as rapid and intensive changes have taken place in this field in recent decades. When observing new phenomena in contemporary usage, researchers’ attention is drawn first of all to new borrowings. Their adaptation to the Lithuanian spelling, stress, pronunciation, lexical and grammatical systems is examined, as is their relationship with possible Lithuanian equivalents (some of which are also new formations or words that have acquired new meanings), and language users’ attitudes toward new borrowings and their equivalents. The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language is engaged in ongoing work to standardize new borrowings.

Alongside these new phenomena in the Lithuanian language, neologisms not directly related to borrowings remain largely overlooked. Some of them, already gaining a foothold in usage, will be included in the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian being compiled at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Research on occasional formations—isolated, authorial, situational neologisms—is more challenging. Such formations belong more to the domain of stylistics, as colorful expressive devices. Individually, they appear in separate, broader studies or contexts, for example, in descriptions of an author’s lexicon or the features of functional styles and genres; however, there are hardly any detailed studies devoted exclusively to neologisms. This is understandable, since gathering statistically significant data from diverse sources about rare, marginal phenomena of usage is not easy without digital tools.

When the Institute of the Lithuanian Language began systematically recording and studying the new lexicon of the 21st century, it was observed that a small but interesting group stands out from the overall stream of neologisms: contamination formations, one type of occasional formation (for example, darbostogos, okupendumas, miaujiena, and so on). Although contamination formations function in Lithuanian as rare, isolated words, a larger collection reveals the expressiveness of many of them and certain common patterns in their emergence.

The aim of the article is, drawing on recent data from the electronic Database of Lithuanian Neologisms (hereafter ND), compiled at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, to examine contamination formations that have recently become noticeably more frequent in Lithuanian usage, the reasons and sources for their emergence, and the features of their structure and functioning in usage, as well as to provide a brief overview of the context of foreign-language research on this topic (studies of English contamination formations).

It is also worthwhile to discuss the increased frequency in usage of contamination formations—whether formed within the language itself, translated, or borrowed—in order to update the conception of them established in Lithuanian linguistics, as well as the corpus of examples of neologisms of this type found in scholarly and educational literature.

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2. THE CONCEPT OF CONTAMINATION FORMATIONS

Probably because of the very diversity of the phenomenon—contamination formations—their conception can vary considerably even within the same language. There was little basis for differences of opinion to arise in Lithuanian linguistics, since these formations themselves have hardly been studied.

2.1. Definitions and naming of blend formations

As early as 1880, the German linguist and lexicographer Hermann Paul used the term contamination to designate word blends created unintentionally through a slip of the tongue, that is, speech errors; later, the concept was extended to include similar syntactic formations (cf. Fisher 1998: 34).

Little has been written in Lithuanian about blend formations, given their rarity in the language. In his work Word Formation in the Lithuanian Language, Pranas Skardžius discusses them among derived neologisms and devotes a paragraph to them (Skardžius 1943: 21):

Blend formations are those formed through confusion from two synonymous or otherwise related words. For example, ekertis, ekertė Iž I 695¹ is a blend of eketis (–ė) + ker̃ta, kाकoryt̃ ‘the day before yesterday’ Tvč. from kakarykų + rytas, suvisai ‘completely’ LB 228 from suvisu + visai, žabagarai ‘small brushwood sticks used to make bundles, broken and crumbling branches’ Šdv., Ob. from žabai + žagarai, and so on. It is also possible that the Samogitian vambolė ‘beetle’ has a root vamb- formed from vab- + bamb- (in the word bãmbalas); see Endzelin MLV IV 467.

In Vinco Urbutis’s book Theory of Word Formation, blend formations are first mentioned among occasional formations, but it is emphatically stated that such “speech phenomena” have nothing to do with word formation (Urbutis 2009: 324):

Word formation is concerned only with formations, not with phonetic or other alterations, the replacement of words in a text with others, the effects of contamination, or similar matters.

In the footnote explaining contamination in this quotation, V. Urbutis draws on W. Dressler and views the phenomenon as “the erroneous mixing in speech of two words that are similar in some respect, a phenomenon of a phonetic nature,” and thus as a one-off occurrence that happens by chance in an act of speaking.

Elsewhere in the book, V. Urbutis distinguishes true contamination (that is, the aforementioned “unintended mixing in speech of two words that are alike in some respect [a kind of slip of the tongue]”) from “the deliberate mixing of two words (Eng. blending, blend), joining their fragments into a single word” (Urbutis 2009: 354–355). Regarding the latter case, re-

¹ Source abbreviations are as in the original.

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Drawing on foreign linguistic studies, it is noted that the phenomenon is included in descriptions of the word-formation systems of some languages, but that “the form of the combining fragments is highly irregular, their occurrence can often only be inferred from context or must be learned”; thus, it is not a grammatical (morphological) process, and its outcomes, so-called blends, are morphologically indivisible (unmotivated) words and supposedly an object of lexicological study alone. Only one example of a blend is given: English brunch ‘a meal combining breakfast and lunch’ (from br/eakfast ‘breakfast’ and l/unch ‘lunch’) (Urbutis 2009: 355).

Blends are also discussed in two reference works on Lithuanian linguistics: Kalbotyros terminų žodyne and Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedijoje. In the former, the phenomenon of blending is defined quite broadly—as a mixture (Gaivenis, Keinys 1990: 108):

The emergence of a new word or expression through the blending of parts of two words or expressions:

žabag aras ← žabas and žagaras; English motel ‘motel’ ← motor and hotel.

In Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedijoje (the article is signed V. U., that is, Vincas Urbutis), blending is identified as both a linguistic and a speech phenomenon (LKE 2008: 282):

kontaminãcija – the blending or crossing of two closely related speech or language units, resulting in a new, intermediate unit (a blend).

However, the further explanation that the basis for the emergence of blends is psychological, i.e. “the speaker’s indecision about which of the competing units to choose,” shows that, when lexical blending is concerned, a narrow conception of blends is adopted: the “results of blending are usually perceived as one-off speech errors and only rarely become established in the language.” Somewhat more examples are provided than in the sources mentioned above:

dvelė from dvasia and vėlė; dialectal krezdingà, kregždìngà and Jonas Bretkūnas’s blegzdinga from blėzdingà and krẽgždė; žabag aras from žabas and žagaras; žvìzdras from žìzdras, žieždras and žvìrždas.

Moreover, this encyclopedia not only mentions syntactic blending (as does Kalbotyros terminų žodyne—arising from the blending of parts of expressions), but also gives one example of it: pakelti tostą ‘to raise a toast’ from pakelti taurę ‘to raise a glass’ and (pa)skelbti, pasiūlyti tostą ‘to (pro)claim, propose a toast’.

Thus, while acknowledging that a morphemic analysis of blends is impossible or possible only to a limited extent, since new lexemes are formed by fusing parts of morphemes or one morpheme with part of another, Lithuanian linguistics does not consider blending to be part of word formation in the traditional sense.

This is probably just about all that can be found in Lithuanian linguistics of any real significance about blends.

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In English-language literature, when discussing blends, it is customary to say that they are two meanings packed into one word. It is understandable that language seeks ways to name as concisely as possible a phenomenon that arises as a hybrid of two other phenomena. It is argued that the success and impact of creating blends depend on how much one can recognize fragments of different words in the formation. Nevertheless, even when those fragments have been recognized, the lexical meaning of not every blend can be inferred without context; this, however, is a characteristic of occasional formations.

The image of a “packed object” is not created by chance. English uses two different words to refer to blends: blending (as a word-formation process), as well as blend (as the result of word formation) and portmanteau (most often used to name one type of blend)².

The term blending can be translated as fusion, mixture: a new lexeme is created by combining parts of at least two base words, with at least one of those words being shortened by omitting some phonemes (Gries 2004: 639, e.g.: br[eakfast] ‘breakfast’ + [l]unch ‘lunch’ → brunch ‘a late breakfast’, fool ‘fool’ + [ph]ilosopher ‘philosopher’ → foolosopher ‘foolosopher’³); thus, it need not be formed from complete morphemes and differs in this respect from traditional word-formation processes. The result of word formation is a blend, or a blend. Sometimes blends (as already noted, also in Lithuanian linguistics) refer not only to individual words but also to larger units of language.

The word portmanteau began to be used in English in the phrase portmanteau luggage, ‘a suitcase made of two parts that fit together’⁴; thus portmanteau in Lithuanian is a kind of ‘fitting-together’. The word was first used for unusual formations, especially those that arise accidentally as slips of the tongue, by the renowned British writer who enjoyed experimenting with words and wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll, in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871) (cf. Fisher 1998: 34). For example, his coinage slithy is formed by blending sli[m]y ‘slimy’ and lith[e] ‘lithe’; or: frumious from fuming ‘smouldering, smoking; steaming’ and furious ‘angry’;

² Cf. blend — “a word made from parts of other words by combining their meanings, for example, motel from motor and hotel” (available online: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com); “a word (for example, brunch) made by mixing other words or parts of words”; portmanteau — “a word or morpheme whose form and meaning arose through the merging of two different forms (for example, smog from smoke and fog) (available online: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary).

³ The word kvailosofas was not found in Lithuanian usage (using Google search and the VDU corpus; checked 2014 09 24), but it is one example of how such a word could easily be coined or translated when needed; the formation foolosopher is considered the earliest recorded English blend (late 16th century) (Lehrer 2007: 116).

⁴ Cf. French porte-manteau (porter ‘to carry’, manteau ‘coat’), which in modern French means a stand for hanging clothes, hats, and umbrellas.

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‘fierce’, which, in the words of one of the book’s characters, is also “two meanings packed into one word”.

Since then, in English the term portmanteau (words) has been used for words formed from parts of two or more words (not necessarily morphemes, with some phonemes omitted), based primarily on similar sounds and meanings (they began to appear noticeably in usage as early as the 19th century). Although their description in the linguistic literature varies somewhat (sometimes being broader than this type of speech error), it can be said that such “portmanteaus” are a subset of blends (blends); at times the phrase portmanteau blends is also used to refer to blends.

It should be noted that blends must be distinguished from formations usually created by contracting a phrase into a single word. This type of word formation is not particularly characteristic of Lithuanian, but under the influence of Russian, such formations (both common nouns and proper nouns—the names of companies) became noticeably more numerous in usage during the second half of the 20th century, both as borrowings and as morpheme-by-morpheme translations (for example, kolūkis ← collective farm, following колхоз ← коллективное хозяйство). With few exceptions, similar formations are considered violations of Lithuanian language norms (genrangovas ← general contractor, vetpunktas ← veterinary station, etc.)⁵.

2.2. Issues in the study of blends

Foreign-language literature on blends is incomparably more extensive; studies of English alone are much more detailed and broader in scope—and English has considerably more blends. Word blending, or blending, was still considered a marginal neologism-related phenomenon in English a few decades ago, but recently it has come to be recognised as one of the frequent and productive methods of English word formation, and research on blends has become very popular (see Lehrer 2007: 115). The number of blends in English is determined by the recognisability of the source words and the simplicity of their structure (Gries 2004: 639). As the studies of various authors show, the datasets examined (mostly compiled before digital tools were used) usually comprise no more than 100–600 words. The structure of blends is studied statistically (cf. Fisher 1998: 35–43); their spelling and phonemic features are examined, as are their semantics and the semantic relations between the source words after they have been blended; psycholinguistic experiments on the perception of blends are also conducted (cf. Lehrer 2007: 115–133), and so on.

⁵ See point 2.3.2 of the Word Structure section of the List of Major Language Errors: “Compound clipped words formed from the beginning of one or more words and the last complete word” (available online: http://vlkk.lt/lit/lt/klaidos/zodziu).

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Ši problematika išsamiai atskleidžiama Stefano Th. Grieso straipsnyje (žr. Gries 2004: 639–667 ir ten nurodytą literatūrą). Ji nusakoma taip: 1) kaip sąmaišą atskirti nuo kitų žodžių darybos procesų? 2) pagal kokius kriterijus atskirti vienos rūšies kontaminacinius darinius nuo kitų? 3) kas lemia kontaminacinių darinių struktūrą (kodėl jie sukuriami vienokiu ar kitokiu būdu)?

Most studies address issues relating to the first and second aspects. Various criteria have been proposed for classifying blends, but it is acknowledged that their variation along the same parameters and the existence of various exceptions make it difficult to create a unified grouping. The most commonly proposed distinguishing features are: 1) blends involving phonemic overlap⁶ (these are further subdivided according to where and how morphemes are clipped and overlapped, and whether phonemic overlap is their principal or merely an auxiliary formation method); 2) blends formed by clipping the source words; 3) blends formed by a mixed method combining the first and second methods.

These features are supplemented by other parameters (parts of speech, syllable length, morphological properties of the source words, semantic features of the blend’s denotatum, etc.). At the same time, it is acknowledged that each blend is distinctive and, in addition to general formation tendencies, has individual characteristics (for example, rhythm).

Perhaps the most interesting question concerning blends is the third one. Since, in theory, such a formation can arise by merging several words in various ways and creating a wide range of variants⁷, it is important to determine what governs the specific outcome. One hypothesis—which is by no means always borne out—is that the longer source word dictates the conditions, and that a longer fragment of that source word is retained to make the blend more recognisable. Statistical studies partly confirm this tendency: the second word in a blend is more often longer, and a larger fragment is omitted. The frequency of the source words is relevant to the blending method (trun-

⁶ Cf. English overlap ‘partial coincidence, overlap’ (Bronislovas Piesarskas. Anglonas, 2005); these are cases in which several source words contain the same sequence of phonemes or graphemes, and one of the recurring sequences is omitted when forming blends.

⁷ Several online generators have been created for forming English blends. Testing them shows that, for example, there may theoretically be as many as a dozen or more possible blends of two words in English (one such generator is available online: http://www.portmanteaur.com).). When the two Lithuanian words darbas and atostogos were entered into a generator, it produced 18 possible formations based on the patterns of English blend formation (for example, dastogos, dartostogos), including one actually attested in contemporary Lithuanian usage—darbstogos (a calque of the English worli-day ← work + holiday).

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the more frequent one in usage and denoting the prototypical category usually comes first in the blend). The position of the blend boundary is largely determined by the phonetic properties of the intersecting source words, especially those of the consonants that make them up. It is also argued that blends are created by maintaining a balance between two opposing factors—the recognizability of the source words and the simplicity of the blends’ structure (pronunciation, spelling)—which prevents the creation of a general model of blending that would explain these processes. Therefore, blends tend to be acknowledged as one of the most unpredictable categories of new-word formation.

2.3. The structure of blends

Although blends are formed with regard to the structural and semantic properties of the particular words being combined, general patterns in their structure can be identified. Various sources most often distinguish the following broad (and further subdivided) groups of English blends according to how they are formed⁸:

1) both source words are shortened, for example:

robo_[t] ‘robot’ + [kanga]roo ‘kangaroo’ → roboroo ‘a robot with the form of a kangaroo’⁹;

sk_[irt] ‘skirt’ + [sh]ort_[s] ‘shorts’ → skort ‘skirt-shorts’;

free ‘ship’ + [premium ‘premium’ → freemium ‘a business model in which some goods or services are provided free of charge to attract more users to paid goods or services’;

2) only the beginning of the second source word is shortened:

boy ‘boy’ + [burlesque < Italian burlesco ‘burlesque’ → boylesque, Lithuanian boileska¹⁰ ‘a male version of burlesque (a dance in which a woman provocatively emphasizes her femininity)’;

hack ‘to break into a computer system; to engage passionately in programming’ + [marathon ‘marathon’→ hackathon, Lithuanian hakatonas ‘a software developers’ marathon (a multi-day event) during which, together with graphic designers, participants pursue creative and educational goals’;

⁸ Since English spelling is not phonetic, the formation of blends is a separate problem, related to both the phonetic and graphic properties of source words; however, it is not addressed in this article.

⁹ The meanings of the blends presented in the article and its appendix can be found in the Lithuanian Neologism Database (http://naujazodziai.lkki.lt/); those whose meaning may be entirely unclear without context are briefly described in the article.

¹⁰ An indication is given if such a borrowing is used in Lithuanian.

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3) only the ending of the first base word is shortened:

coff[ee] ‘coffee’ + office ‘office’ → coffice, Lith. kofisas ‘a café where people usually engaged in freelance work gather and spend the day working (using the free internet connection) and sipping coffee’.

Rarer blends consisting of three base words also occur, but the principles of fusion are generally the same, for example:

spor[t] + por[no] + sexual → spornosexual Lith. spornoseksualas ‘a second-generation metrosexual—a man who conspicuously wants to be desired for his well-groomed, athletic body’.

It can be seen that when the phonemes at the end of the first base word’s stem match the phonemes at the beginning of the second base word (the corresponding graphemes are underlined in the examples), the aforementioned overlap of two words is formed. Definitions of the meanings of blends are generally quite broad, which also shows that blending is a convenient way to describe a multifaceted phenomenon concisely. Blends of this kind also become loanwords in Lithuanian, being adapted to the grammatical system of the Lithuanian language.

A classification of blends formed in Lithuanian would be possible only after a thorough study of the structure of a larger set of them.

3. BLENDS IN THE DATABASE OF NEOLOGISMS OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

There are not many studies of Lithuanian neologisms that focus not on individual phenomena but on larger groupings of them and on more general tendencies in word formation and usage, and that draw on the latest computer technologies—without which lexical research today is, in general, difficult to imagine (cf. Mikelionienė 2000: 15–21). Although Lithuanian dictionaries are being digitized increasingly, there is also still a lack of computer tools for studying them. Therefore, the data for this article were taken from the digital Database of Neologisms of the Lithuanian Language (hereafter ND), which is compiled by collecting individual usage examples.

3.1. Nature of the Database

The Database of Lithuanian Neologisms is an incomplete collection of data, begun in late 2011 and published online, which is continuously supplemented and records words that have emerged in Lithuanian since the late 20th century and are in current public use

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new words emerging in use (loanwords and neologisms), word combinations and abbreviations, new meanings of words, as well as information about the use and standardization of neologisms (for more, see the ND website, under About the Database). Neologisms collected to date in the Contemporary Usage Card File (see Miliūnaitė 2009: 100–112) are transferred to the ND; data are also collected from the latest sources of contemporary Lithuanian usage (online and print media, administrative documents, original and translated fiction and other books, advertising, public electronic communication, etc.).

3.2.

Contaminated formations in the Database and aspects of their study

By the end of October 2014, the ND contained more than 2,400 neologism entries and nearly 8,000 examples of their use. Contaminated formations have a separate label in the Database, and searches conducted at that time showed that they accounted for just over 3 percent (about 80 entries) of all neologisms. Thus, such formations are not numerous in the flow of Lithuanian neologisms, and they can only be found by hand accidentally, by reading many texts¹¹. All the neologisms in the ND are attested in contemporary Lithuanian usage (the Database provides detailed bibliographic information about their sources and, where known, their authorship).

Given the still rather small corpus of new contaminated formations, one could not expect their study to provide a comprehensive (let alone statistically representative) picture of this phenomenon in Lithuanian; nevertheless, their causes of emergence, sources, certain formation tendencies, and features of use can already be examined. One of the greatest difficulties in the study is that it is not always possible to determine how a contaminated formation came about (through borrowing, translation, or formation in Lithuanian), so such studies also include a considerable number of hypothetical claims.

4.

CAUSES AND METHODS OF FORMING CONTAMINATED FORMATIONS

Like all neologisms, contaminated formations enter usage for two main reasons: 1) the need to name new realities; 2) the need to give new names to existing realities. Some become widely used (botelis, smogas), sometimes becoming termi-

¹¹ By the way, a special word has been coined in English for the search for neologisms—a blend, lekspionažas (← lexicon ‘lexicon (dictionary)’ + espionage ‘espionage’: 1. hunting for neologisms; 2. monitoring or controlling speakers’ vocabulary) (see Zuckermann 2008: 150).

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…words (katomas, kubitas, spintronika) or are even used as proper nouns (Tanzanija ← Tanganika + Zanzibaras), while others remain ephemeral and situational, needed in a particular speech act to give a distinctive name to some object or phenomenon (skrendras, kedulas), or function for a time in informal usage, spreading, for example, on social media and from there into the mass media (labradudelis, okupendumas, sekspertas).

One of the clearest linguistic principles at work in creating blends is the principle of economy: the search is for the most economical expression to name a new phenomenon possessing the features of several objects (phenomena). Language users themselves recognize this:

I propose that a mobile phone be officially called mobifonu¹², and mobu in colloquial speech. The general rule is that words used frequently in speech should be short. Cars should also have a shorter name; “automobile” is rather long too [...]. [delfi.lt article comment, 2010 04 08]¹³

The recent increase in the use of blends is also explained by the search for new, striking ways of expression amid information overload. One such way is the commercialization of linguistic resources: these formations sound novel and present their creators as active, creative, and modern—as people who display the qualities of an entrepreneur (Lehrer 2007: 116).

The following section surveys the ways in which blends have entered Lithuanian usage. Classifying them is quite difficult, since several intersecting criteria are possible: origin and method of formation.

4.1. Borrowing

The available data show that most blends enter the language as borrowings, especially from English, where they are popular and frequently coined as expressive, concise means of expression. From the perspective of the Lithuanian language system, some borrowed neologisms of this kind are not genuine blends (that is, products of word blending within Lithuanian) if they are perceived as indivisible, unitary words, for example: blògas, flomo, prosumeris¹⁴ and so on. It is understood, however, that this perception is rather subjective and depends considerably on how well native speakers know the donor language. Therefore, the article also includes neologisms that are

¹² Here and elsewhere, examples are highlighted by the author of this article.

¹³ The language of this and other quotations has not been edited.

¹⁴ cf. blògas ← [web ‘internet’ + log ‘diary’ – Lithuanian tinklaraštis; flomo ← flo[ra] ‘flowery’ + [ca]mo[uflage] ‘camouflage’ – ‘a fabric pattern with a camouflage-colored background covered in brightly colored flowers’; prosumeris ← pro[fessional] ‘professional’ + [con]sumer ‘consumer’ – ‘a particularly active consumer who responds quickly to various marketing measures’.

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true blends only in English, for example. However, they undoubtedly also encourage word-blending processes in Lithuanian, especially since, as will become clear, they can be recognized as formed from several borrowed words that function independently in Lithuanian, that is, from fragments of those words.

In usage, some borrowed English blends are sometimes left unadapted (in quotation form), with only their origin or at least their meaning explained:

Chiconomics – (chic – luxury + economics) the desire for luxury persists, but its realization has been strongly affected by the economic crisis. [blog.lrytas.lt, 2010 07 23]

A robotics professor from Singapore has invented a device with touch- and motion-sensitive “lips” that can help couples separated by long distances “kiss” online. The device, shaped like a human head with extremely large lips, “Kissenger,” whose name was created from the English words “kiss” and “messenger” (also a popular online messaging application), was presented in June at a scientific conference in Great Britain, but is still being developed before commercial distribution begins. [tv.delfi.lt 2012 09 09]

We chose the so-called “freemium” business model. The game itself is free, but by paying, players can purchase credits that give them certain advantages. For example, a building takes six hours to construct, but if you need it here and now, its construction can be completed for you by paying additional credits. Credits can also be exchanged for faster resource production, accelerated flight, stronger troops, and other upgrades. [delfi.lt 2012 07 28]

Translating blends into corresponding blends in one’s own language is not always possible because they would be difficult to recognize. For example, although in standard Lithuanian the loanword leginsai is considered nonstandard (tamprės, timpės are recommended), a translated text cannot do without it, since it would be inappropriate to call džeginsus *džimpėmis (‘denim leggings’), and meginsus *vimpėmis (‘men’s leggings’):

[...] having made their way from Milan onto the streets of cities around the world, leggings now also come in new-generation varieties: leginsai: džeginsai (džinsai + leginsai) and meginsai (men’s leginsai). [blog.lrytas.lt 2010 07 23]

Thus, borrowed blends pose difficulties for language regulators because sometimes, even when the source loanwords are codified as nonstandard in the standard language and replaced with Lithuanian equivalents, once they enter Lithuanian as components of borrowed blends, they still become facts of public usage (cf. also: webinaras, but webas is nonstandard; haktyvistas, hakatonas, but hakeris, hakinti are nonstandard).

Borrowed blends from other languages can also be considered blends in Lithuanian if at least one component (and often both) is recognizable as

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fragments of borrowings functioning in Lithuanian (cf.: banksteris ← bankas + gangsteris; haktyvistas ← hakeris + aktyvistas; mechatronika ← mechanika + elektronika; sekspְertas ← seksas + ekspertas; webinaras ← web an. ‘network; internet’ + seminaras; metroseksualas ← metropolitan ‘metropolitan’ + heterosexual ‘heterosexual’). In this case, the moment of recognition and understanding (at least of the allusion) is important in two ways: 1) it reveals the meaning of the blend, since without understanding its constituent parts, the meaning of the neologism itself is often unclear, and that meaning is created precisely on the basis of the meanings of the source words; 2) it encourages the emergence of new analogous formations within Lithuanian itself.

Borrowed blends can be formed from proper nouns—personal names. If these names designate well-known figures (most often married couples or ideologically aligned pairs of politicians), such words in Lithuanian are generally understood as blends, especially in the relevant context, e.g.: Merkozi ← Merkel + Sarkozy; Mobama ← Michelle (the name of Barack Obama’s spouse) + Obama; Pugalkinai (Pugačiova + Galkinas), Putleris ← Putinas + Hitleris.

4.2. Translation

Blends from other languages pose a considerable challenge for translators. Some such formations are translated constituent by constituent (sometimes with the constituents reversed), although formally they may appear to have been coined in Lithuanian, cf.: kaimobilis (Ger. dorfmobil) ← kaimas + automobilis; darbostogos (Eng. worldiday) ← darbas + atostogos ‘a period when one works during a holiday’, lenininklas (Latv. lenineklis ← Lenins + piemineklis) ← Leninas + paminklas. Such formations can unquestionably be regarded as calques only when the fact of translation is attested (when it is known that the text is a translation).

If the expressive resources of Lithuanian allow, translators can choose whether to use a phrase, a regularly formed compound, or a blend. For example, the English blend spooktacle ← spook ‘ghost’ + spectacle ‘sight; show’) in a text about images produced by the northern lights on Halloween night could be translated in two ways: ghostly spectacle or *spooktacle. Cf. also:

A new trend has also taken hold alongside social networks—slacktivism (Eng. slacktivism), the belief that clicking the “Like” button on a petition on the social network Facebook is equivalent to taking a step as a politically active citizen.

[delfi.lt, 2013 10 29]

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4.3. Blending

Distinguished from genuine Lithuanian blends are those whose context of use shows that they were coined in Lithuanian, for example: klaikėdos ← klaikus + Kalėdos; sriubokėliai ← sriuba + burokėliai¹⁵; kedulas ← Kedys (surname) + gedulas; šaukštutė ← šaukštas + šakutė (‘a folding utensil often used by tourists, with a spoon at one end and a fork at the other’; an English equivalent, spork ← spoon ‘spoon’ + fork ‘fork’, also exists, but no direct evidence that it is a calque has been recorded).

In Lithuanian, the blending methods used to form blends are similar to those in English (see section 2.3 of the article). The most popular method is to fuse two words that contain identical or similar phoneme sequences, taking the beginning of the first word and the ending of the second, for example:

miau + [n]aujiena → miaujiena ‘news relating to cats and their care’;

klaik_[us] + [Kalėdos → klaikėdos ‘the period of Christmas gift-buying frenzy’;

elektr_[oninis] + [atvirukas → elektrukas ‘an electronic (purchased and sent online) greeting card’;

mur + [gourmet → murmanas ‘someone who likes glazed curd snacks Murr…’.

Analogy undoubtedly encourages the emergence of blends. However, such analogical formations are not always considered blends (cf. Fisher 1998: 35). Word-formation elements may not coincide with morpheme boundaries, but sometimes a host of new words, naming different objects or phenomena of a particular kind, emerges after one atypically structured word. For example, following the regularly formed word alkoholikas, darboholikas appeared, and over time the number of -holikas formations kept growing: muzikoholikas, seksoholikas, šokoladoholikas (Mikelionienė 2002: 79), as well as energiholikas, kinoholikas (ND).

To determine whether such an analogical formation arose in Lithuanian, was borrowed, or was translated, one must again examine the usage context of each formation. For example, ND records a cluster of neologisms with the second constituent -nomika, naming various manifestations of the economy: abenomika (Abe – the surname of Japan’s prime minister), dykonomika, dooanomika, keistanomika, laisvaonomika, putinomika, reiganomika.

As mentioned, one of the problems in studying blends in English is how to distinguish blending from other word-formation methods. In Lithuanian, owing to the scarcity of data, this problem cannot yet be discussed in greater detail; one case may be commented on, however—the neologism muzikėčia:

¹⁵ A rare case in which a blend corresponding to a phrase is formed with the first component based on the phrase’s second word (burokėlių sriuba → sriubokėliai).

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At the Klaipėda Concert Hall on October 23, commemorating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Kristijonas Donelaitis, a pioneer of Lithuanian belles-lettres, the “Vilniaus arsenala” ensemble will perform composer Antanas Kučinskas’s muzikėčias “About Beasts and People.” [respublika.lt, 2014 10 14]

There are two possible interpretations of its origin. The formation may be traditional (muzika + suffix -ėčia) or a blend, formed by combining the two words muzika + pasakėčia. The latter is much more likely: the context of use indicates a direct link between the formation and pasakėčia.

5. THE USE OF BLENDS IN ACTUAL LANGUAGE USE

In English lexicography, blends characteristic of informal registers are most often labeled in various ways: colloquial, slang, or stylistically marked (see Fisher 1998: 35). They not only allow ideas to be expressed more concisely, but also enliven language and provide new means of expression.

The available ND examples also show that many blends are used in informal settings (in less formal genres of the media, electronic communication, belles-lettres, and advertising), where an author’s individual style can come to the fore. For example, the coinage žeuras (← žiaurus + euras), coined by economist Rūta Vainienė, creates an effect of surprise in the text:

The euro or “žeuras”? [headline]

We are in a uniquely advantageous position—with or without the euro. If we adopted the euro, we would lose the flexibility we have now. If the eurozone were struck by disaster, we could quickly and painlessly switch to another currency or commodity. We would save a great deal of money and spare people’s nerves. It would be unwise to implement Plan A solely out of political ambition when the situation has changed radically to B. The euro would be an appropriate currency if it were a project grounded in economic logic, if it guaranteed long-term stability. Unfortunately, we cannot say that about it now, so we have a good opportunity not to rush. So that, in pursuing the euro, we don’t leap onto “žeuro.” [balsas.lt, 2013 03 27]

With reference to Lithuania’s unpredictable weather in recent years, the situational neologisms vasovas, vaslandis, vasgužė, vašzelis were coined jokingly—the spring and early summer of 2013 had been so chilly that it seemed as if February had not yet ended:

One popular “demotivational” image shows a cat sitting on snow, accompanied by text that aptly captures this spring: “January, February, vasovas, vaslandis, vasgužė, vašzelis…” [delfi.lt, 2013 03 22]

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Although Lithuanian usage is gradually seeing more blending formations, at least for now they should not significantly affect Lithuanian word-formation tendencies, since most are isolated and situational, and thus unlikely to spread widely. One of the weaker links that could accelerate the proliferation of such formations, especially following the English-language example, is the use of unsuitable (too long, cumbersome, inadequate) equivalents for borrowings. For example, the borrowing hospisas is considered inadmissible in standard language, but the cumbersome phrase paliatyviosios slaugos ligoninė is proposed in its place. This may encourage the emergence of similar blends, such as *slaugoninė.

6. CONCLUSIONS

1. Blending formations (blends) constitute a noticeably growing share of neologisms in present-day Lithuanian usage. They have become more common through borrowing or translation from other languages, and are also formed to some extent within Lithuanian itself. Thus, the predominant type of these formations is not isolated speech errors, but neologisms resulting from deliberate linguistic activity. Lithuanian scholarly, informational, and educational literature should therefore devote more attention to these formations and describe their structure and causes of emergence in greater detail, as well as supplement the pool of examples with real data in use.

2. Borrowed blending formations may be treated in either of two ways, depending on whether the base words from which they are formed are recognizable in Lithuanian (i.e., whether they function independently): either as indivisible words that cannot be segmented, and thus as simple borrowings rather than formations, or as foreign-origin blends.

3. The emergence of blends in Lithuanian usage is driven primarily by a tendency to seek more expressive means of expression, as well as a more concise form of expression when the proposed Lithuanian equivalents of borrowings are too long or consist of several words. However, given their small number, these formations should not, at least at present, pose a threat to the Lithuanian word-formation system and may be regarded as an engaging stylistic device. Borrowed blends whose base words are deemed inadmissible may affect standard-language norms, albeit only slightly. Once they enter Lithuanian as parts of blends, they may also encourage the independent use of foreignisms derived from the same root.

4. In time, once more data have been collected (probably by using large corpora of texts from current usage and computational tools), it should be possible to provide a more systematic and thorough classification of Lithuanian blends, creating an opportunity to examine their structure in greater detail and reveal a wider range of aspects of how they function in usage.

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ŠALTINIAI

DLKT – Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstynas. Kaunas: Kauno Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas. Prieiga internete: http://tekstynas.vdu.lt/tekstynas/index.jsp

ND – Lietuvių kalbos naujažodžių duomenynas. Internetinė duomenų bazė. Sudarytoja Rita Miliūnaitė. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas. Prieiga internete: http://naujažodžiai.lki.lt

LITERATŪRA

Fisher Roswitha 1998: Lexical change in present-day English: a corpus based study of the motivation, institutionalization, and productivity of creativ neologisms. – Tübingen: Narr.

Gaivenis Kazimieras, Keinys Stasys 1990: Kalbotyros terminų žodynas. Kaunas: Šviesa.

Gries Stefan Th. 2004: Shouldn’t it be breakfunch? A quantitative analysis of blend structure in English. – Linguistics 42–3, 639–667.

Lehrer Adrienne 2007: Blendalicious. – Lexical creativity, texts and contexts. Studies in functional and structional linguistics, 58. Ed. Judith Munat. John Benjamins B. V., 115–136.

LKE 2008: Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedija. 2-as patikslintas ir papildytas leidimas. Parengė Kazys Morkūnas, redagavo Vytautas Ambrazas. – Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Mikelionienė Jurgita 2000: Naujažodžiai Vytauto Didžiojo universiteto kompiuteriniame tekstyne (paieška, atranka, klasifikavimas). – Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 42, 15–21.

Mikelionienė Jurgita 2002: Analogija lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryboje. Potenciniai ir okazininiai dariniai. – Acta linguistica Lithuanica 46, 73–80.

Miliūnaitė Rita 2009: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos vartosenos variantai. Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas.

Skardžius Pranas 1943: Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba. Vilnius: Lietuvos mokslų akademija, Lietuvių kalbos institutas.

Urbutis Vincas 2009: Žodžių darybos teorija. 2-as leid. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Zuckermann Ghil’ad 2008: „Realistic Prescriptivism“: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, its Campaign of „Good Grammar“ and Lexpionage, and Native Israeli Speakers. – Israel Studies in Language and Society 1 (1), 135–154. Prieiga internete: http://www.zuk-kermann.org/pdf/Realistic_Prescriptivism_Academy.pdf.

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PRIEDAS

Lietuvių kalbos naujažodžių kartotekoje 2011–2014 m. fiksuotų kontaminacinių darinių sąrašas

abenomika

akvatlonas

banksteris

blògas

boileska

boligarchas

botelis

brančas

brandalizmas

brestoranas

darbostogos

dykonomika

dovanomika

džeginsai

elektrukas

energiholikas

es’faltas

femicidas

fleksitaras

flomo

fotelova

frigebudas

hakatonas

haktyvistas

infotronika

interkomis

kaimobilis

katomas

kedulas

keistanomika

kinoholikas

kitleris

klaikėdos

kofisas

komunostalgija

labradudelis

laisvanomika

lenininklas

lopatologas

mechatronika

meginsai

Merkozi

metroseksualas

miaužiena

Mobama

mobifonas

mokomatas

monokinis

murmanas

muzikėčia

netiketas

nomofobas

numanitaras

okupendumas

parkomatas

planšefonas

pliurpal yvas

poploras

postkapitalipsė

pro sumeris

putinomika

putirendumas

Putleris

rašizmas

reanimobilis

reiganomika

robošuo

seksperstas

sekspozicija

seksprog imas

sekstingas

sekstremistas

siaurovizija

skrendaras

spintronika

spornoseksualas

šaukštutė

šortsijonis

tanoreksija

tepyba

užreferendūminti

vebinaras

vikinomika

vikipedija

žeuras

New Blendings in the Lithuanian Language

SUMMARY

The blendings in Lithuanian language appear while borrowing or translating words from other languages as well as some part of them originates from the Lithuanian language itself. The blendings from other languages can be treated in two ways, depending on the recognition of the base words from its fragments and their functioning as independent loanwords: they can be either integral (thus considered simple loanwords and not blendings as for example blogas, flomo, prosumeris); or as blendings of alien origin (for example banksteris, hakatonas, sekspertas).

There are two main reasons for blending occurrence as neologisms in the language: 1) the need to name new realties; 2) the need to give names to existing realties. Some blendings are

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easily adapted (botelis, smogas), sometimes they become terms (katomas, kubitas, spintronika), still others never remain instant, daily or situational and are used in specific conversational acts to give peculiar names to items or phenomenon thus they serve as expressional means in a language.

The techniques of mixing blendings in Lithuanian language are similar as to those in English language. The most popular technique is blending two words containing identical or similar phoneme combinations when the beginning of the first word blends with the end of the second word. Due to its scarcity these blendings cause no threat to word derivation system in Lithuanian language and can be treated as a smart stylistic means.

The research results allow to expand and systemise the issues of blending derivation which has not been analysed in linguistic work up to now as well as complimenting the funds of examples by adding real functioning data. The collected facts provide further basis for the research of derivation and functioning of blendings.

Įteikta 2014 m. spalio 31 d.

RITA MILIŪNAITĖ

Lietuvių kalbos institutas

Petro Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lietuva

[email protected]

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