English Infixes

I know it has been a while since I’ve done a TKT, but I’m avoiding paper-grading at the moment, so I figured now would be a great time to pull another TKT out of the woodwork. Today’s topic is about English infixes. You may remember that TKT #4 was about French pejorative suffixes, but that in order to explain that, I went through a fairly lengthly lesson on morphemes and affixes. Here is what I said specifically about infixes when I defined all the different types of affixes:

      An infix is a bound morpheme that is placed within the stem.

Remember that a morpheme is the smallest unit of language that has meaning or serves a grammatical purpose, and a bound morpheme is one which cannot stand on its own (i.e. -ing or pre-). So an infix is a can’t-stand-alone morpheme that is inserted inside a word to change its meaning or alter its grammatical function. So does English have infixes?

Well, not really. It’s really more accurate to just say no, but we’ll see how that goes after I explain a few things. In English, people do insert morphemes into other morphemes. Examples of this are “infuckingcredible” (incredible + fucking) and “absobloodylutely” (absolutely + bloody). “Fucking” and “bloody” do alter the meaning of the words by adding emphasis and changing their tone from neutral to vulgar (or just slang if you don’t find either of the words “fucking” and “bloody” to be pejorative). So that’s a check mark under the column for “yes, they are infixes.”

The use of these words as infixes even follows a strict morphophonological pattern (Rough definition: morphophonological is when sound/stress/syllable patterns affect word formation). You can’t just insert “fucking” and “bloody” anywhere you please; they must be inserted in a word before the primary stress. So in a word like “incredible” where the main stress is on the syllable “cred,” “fucking” is inserted before “cred” and we get “infuckingcredible.” You wouldn’t say “incredifuckingble” or “incredfuckingible.” Try it aloud a few times (or in your head if you’re at work or surrounded by children) and you’ll hear that “incredifuckingble” and “incredfuckingible” sound dumb. Let’s pick a different word and try it out. How about “obstetrician”? The main stress in “obstetrician” is “tri,” so it would become “obstefuckingtrician” or “obstebloodytrician.” “Obfuckingstetrician,” “obstetrifuckingcian,” “obbloodystetrician,” and “obstetribloodycian” all sound awkward. So “fucking” and “bloody” are inserted before the primary stress. This means that words where the primary stress is the first syllable can’t have “fucking” or “bloody” inserted in them. “Awkward” can’t be “awkfuckingward” and make sense. It has to stay “fucking awkward” or else it’s just fucking awkward. <Wink> So since “fucking” and “bloody” both follow strict morphophonological rules, that counts as a check mark under “yes” yet again.

So why did I say “no” to the question “Does English have infixes?” Well, because one of the criteria for a morpheme to be an affix let alone an infix is that it must be a bound morpheme. “Fucking” and “bloody” are both free morphemes in that they can stand on their own perfectly fine. They may walk like infixes and talk like infixes, but infixes they ain’t. What are they then? Well, clitics, most likely, but that’s a topic for another TKT. Until then, you can go on inserting “fucking” and “bloody” in whatfuckingever words abloodymuses you, and have fun with it! Just know that they aren’t real affixes, but they are hifuckinglarious to use. Happy Thursday!