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One of my favorite cases of reanalysis gone amok is: [(xocalia + a'tl) => chocola-tl => chocolate => choco-] + [(al-kuhl => alcohol) + (-ique => -ic) => -holic
by XaspR8d 8y ago
One of my favorite cases of reanalysis gone amok is:
[(xocalia + a'tl) => chocola-tl => chocolate => choco-] + [(al-kuhl => alcohol) + (-ique => -ic) => -holic] => chocoholic
which, having contributions from Nahuatl, Arabic, and Latin results in a word with morphemes originating in 3 distinct language families.
On the topic of article rebracketing, I also love "an eke-name" (an extra name) becoming "a nickname".
- bonzini 8y agoIn Italian we have the Latin word "luscinia" (nightingale) that became "usignolo". -olo is just a suffix that means small, the interesting part is that at some point people started confusing the initial L for the article l'.
- NihilumExNil 8y ago> an eke-name I'm not buying this. "eke" as "also" may give the sense "by-name", alright. What irks me is the lack of explanation of the rebracketing, which would appear like a mistake. But "nick of time" and the like would make a reanalysis as "short name" plausible, so not a mistake but a funny play of words.