Since Vince test ran the blog, I figured I'd test run the first from the class entry. Hopefully it comes close to the expectations:
I am interested in the whole concept of morphemes (Ascent page 66) because they are like the phonemes of meaning. Rather than dealing with acoustics, they seem like the smallest units of meaning, although Altmann defines them as "word 'units'" (66). Probably everyone first thought of prefixes and suffixes because they're so prevalent, and they make sense logically--add something on the beginning or end of a word to modify it a little. Putting something in the middle would seem to change the word by breaking up its core, so the idea of infixes was a little strange at first. The examples used in the chapters are "bloody" and "fuckin." They're both more slang terms used for emphasis, and I couldn't think of any serious infixes (besides modifying a vowel to change the tense, if that counts). Whether because we aren't used to infixes or because they do break up the stem of a word, I think that adding infixes would be more difficult to follow if it happened often. For instance, I remember the first time I heard one and realized it--someone said abso-bloody-lutely--and it was so novel that I missed the rest of the sentence. I had to process what just happened and couldn't believe that my friend had just put one word into another. I've never heard an infix that didn't involve two fully, free-standing words. Altmann writes that languages like Hebrew change stem vowels to modify tenses often, but do any languages use infixes regularly, and what types of words can be used for each part? Because of my experiences, I see them as creative uses of exclamations or profanity, but I think--and hope--they could be used more often because they catch my attention and could create a whole new string of phrases. This may seem too lighthearted for class, but I was wondering what kinds of words can be used as infixes and can be infixed by other words. Obviously the infixed words have to have multiple syllables to give the infix space, but what else goes into the formation of infixes? And who first realized that the rules of English would allow one word to splice into another without changing the general meaning of either? Ribloodydiculous works. What about Ex-totally-citing or In-extra-quisitive? Perhaps if any of these were used enough they would sound better. Then again, what's the difference between puting those infixes into the words and just putting them before, like totally exciting?