English Blends in Constraint-based Analysis

This study aims to investigate the regularity in English blends that are formed from the combination of the two base words, often accompanied by truncation. In spite of the traditional perspective in favor of irregularity in blending categories, the word formation within blending processes can be systematically classified into four types: a full BW₁ plus a final splinter of BW₂, an initial splinter of BW₁ plus a final splinter of BW₂, an initial splinter BW₁ plus a full BW₂, and an initial splinter BW₁ plus an initial splinter BW₂. These patterns represent the regular combination of two base words which compose the splinters in blends, and those phenomena could be explained effectively by correspondence- and alignment-related constraints such as Max-BW and Align(BW₁, BW₂), which are materialized in the form of detailed constraints for each type, relating to prosodic structures or segmental elements. The constraints and the ranks for each blend type, involving the segment-specific constraints like Seg-OL and ~Ident[place], would provide the variation of the morphological and phonological constituency operated in blend formation with a generalization of regular restrictions under the structural framework. (Mokwon University)