Infix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about infixes in natural languages. For the mathematical notation, see Infix notation.
An infix is an affix inserted inside another morpheme. This is common in Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages. For example, the Tagalog language has borrowed the English word graduate as a verb. In this language, a grammatical form similar to the active voice is formed by adding the infix -um- to the first syllable of a verb, so a speaker saying "I graduated" uses the derived form grumaduate. The Semitic languages have a form of ablaut (changing the vowels within words, as in English sing, sang, sung, song) which is sometimes called infixation, but there is often no identifiable infix common across the vocabulary. However, Arabic uses a common infix, -ت- -t- for Form VIII verbs, usually a reflexive of Form I. It is placed after the first consonant of the root; an epenthetic i- prefix is added since words cannot begin with a consonant cluster. An example is اجتهد ijtahada "he worked hard", from جهد jahada "he strove". (The words "ijtihad" and "jihad" are nouns derived from these two verbs.) In Seri some verbs form the plural stem with infixation of -tóo- after the first vowel of the root; compare the singular stem ic 'plant (verb)' with the plural stem itóoc. Examples: itíc 'did s/he plant it?' and ititóoc 'did they sow it?'.
English has very few infixes, and those it does have are marginal. A few are heard in colloquial speech, and a couple more are found in technical terminology.
- The infix -iz- or -izn- is characteristic of hip-hop slang, for example hizouse for house and shiznit for shit. Infixes occur in some language games. The -ma- infix, whose distribution was documented by linguist Alan C. L. Yu, gives a word an ironic pseudo-sophistication, as in sophistimacated, saxomaphone, and edumacation.
- Chemical nomenclature includes the infixes -pe-, signifying complete hydrogenation (from piperidine), and -et- (from ethyl), signifying the ethyl radical C2H5. Thus from picoline is derived pipecoline, and from lutidine is derived lupetidine; from phenidine and xanthoxylin are derived phenetidine and xanthoxyletin.
Tmesis is sometimes considered a type of infixation. It is found in English profanity, such as infuckingcredible and absobloodylutely. See Expletive infixation.
Note that sequences of prefixes or suffixes do not result in infixes: An infix must be internal to a single morpheme. Thus the word originally, formed by adding the suffix -ly to original, does not turn the suffix -al into an infix. There is simply a sequence of two suffixes, origin-al-ly. In order for -al- to be considered an infix, it would have to be inserted in the non-existent word *originly. The "infixes" in the Bantu languages are generally sequences of prefixes of this type.
