Disputatio:Portmanteau
E Vicipaedia
[recensere] Examples
The Latin and Greek examples given in the article at present are, it seems to me, compound words, not portmanteau words. en:Portmanteau says (correctly I think) that portmanteau words are "fused", not just compounded. Some part of each constituent word disappears into the fusion. Lewis Carroll (or Humpty Dumpty), who invented the term, gives several examples invented by himself -- one of which is quoted in the article -- and there are some later ones, notably English smog. I don't say there are no portmanteau words in Latin, but I can't think of any.
[Later edit:] I've now revised the first part of the article (correctly I hope). I've added a translation of the Carroll quote, but if anyone has the Carruthers translation that had better go in instead (I quite enjoyed inventing a Latin version of Carroll's "slithy"!). Although, as I say, I doubt the Latin and Greek examples are truly portmanteau words, I've left them in -- others may disagree with me, after all. AndrewDalby 21:51, 24 Martii 2007 (UTC)
[Later still!] I've tried to state the etymology precisely. Not sure about "middle French" (the precise meaning of this term varies anyway) so I have replaced it with the century, which is unambiguous. This is still a French word, incidentally, though (as in English) the meaning has shifted from "servant" to "suitcase"!
Is there a source for the plural "portmanteaux" in this linguistic sense? I ask because it's obviously a bastard form (in real French the singular is porte-manteaux and the plural is identical). In English, I, and my Random House dictionary, only know "portmanteau word" as a phrase, and in such a phrase the first word would not be pluralised; but I see that en:Wikipedia swears that portmanteau occurs as a stand-alone noun in this sense. Perhaps it's right. AndrewDalby 12:09, 25 Martii 2007 (UTC)
- The ISO 639 timeframe of 'Middle French' (frm) is about 1400-1600. Google Books for portmanteaux words indicates that the plural is so used, though it is perhaps not common. As for the use of 'portmanteau' tantum, the linguists at Language Log are guilty of it more or less frequently. —Mucius Tever 23:38, 25 Martii 2007 (UTC)
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- What about "hodie"? --Ioshus (disp) 12:38, 26 Martii 2007 (UTC)
- Well, I feel even that is a borderline case, since nothing of "die" has disappeared. It's the best yet, certainly, since "ho" is definitely incomplete (so far as I can see).
- In reality the portmanteau word is not a normal linguistic procedure; it derives from word games. We need an article about compound words, in which those other examples would fit. Maybe I'll start one. AndrewDalby 14:57, 27 Martii 2007 (UTC)
- What about "hodie"? --Ioshus (disp) 12:38, 26 Martii 2007 (UTC)
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