Lexis 3916

Lexis
Journal in English Lexicology

14 | 2019
Blending in English
A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the nature of blends’

splinters
Alejandro Barrena Jurado
Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/lexis/3916
DOI: 10.4000/lexis.3916
ISSN: 1951-6215
Publisher
Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3
Electronic reference
Alejandro Barrena Jurado, « A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the nature of blends’ splinters », Lexis [Online],
14 | 2019, Online since 16 December 2019, connection on 20 April 2020. URL : http://
journals.openedition.org/lexis/3916 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/lexis.3916
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A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the nature of blends’ splinters 1
A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the

nature of blends’ splinters
Alejandro Barrena Jurado
I would like to thank Carmen Portero Muñoz, senior Lecturer at the University of Cordoba, for
instilling in me a great love of morphology through her lectures. Her supervision and advice, but
most of all, her passion and dedication, were fundamental for me to write this paper.
Introduction
1 The use of blending as a morphological word-formation process does not cease to
increase through the years. Some reasons behind this reality are probably blends’
creative effects, which may be used to capture people’s attention, or the degree of
recognizability of the bases, which makes it very easy for language users to recover
them. What is clear is the fact that, today, it is rare to read an article in a newspaper or
scroll down your Twitter feed without coming across at least one of these creations.
2 From a linguistic perspective, however, the process of blending is way more interesting
than the acknowledgment of the speakers’ wittiness when they coin these words. In
fact, the creation of blended words gives rise to what morphologists call ‘splinters’, that
is, elements that are used recurrently in the formation of new words, such as ‘-oholic’
in shopoholic. The nature of splinters remains quite dubious. On the one hand, new
blends containing them could be seen as coinages that take the same source word as an
element of the lexeme. Following this approach, new words ending in ‘-oholic’ would be
seen as blends which take alcoholic as their second source word. On the other hand,
they might be treated as words that are formed by attaching a suffix to a base.
Following this interpretation, we would be considering ‘splinters’ as affixes, that is,
morphemic elements that acquire some meaning. In this way, new words containing ‘-
oholic’ would not necessarily take the word ‘alcoholic’ itself as their second source
word. Although this discussion remains open and it is difficult to support strongly one
of these views, new approaches to grammar and morphology make it easier to account
for the formation of these blends. One of these theories is Construction Morphology,
Lexis, 14 | 2019
which holds the belief that words, just like any other elements in the language, are
constructions, that is, pairings of form and meaning.
3 In any case, not every splinter is used with the same frequency. Some elements might
be used in a limited number of blends, whereas some others could be used in hundreds
of new words. Such is the case of ‘-gasm’, a sequence coming from the word orgasm,
which seems to be the basis of a very large number of words. A deep study of the new
words, as well as their semantics, might shed some light on the nature of this splinter.
Furthermore, the use of constructional schemas appears to be quite appropriate when
it comes to specifying the differences in use of this splinter.
1. Aims of the study

4 The aim of this paper is to study the nature of blends’ splinters, elements that have
been often referred to as ‘final combining forms’, whose status remains unclear. This
work presents a case study in order to corroborate the fact that they are productive
units, which are used recurrently to create new words, even though the new lexemes
including them might have a very short lifespan. Among the different theories that
have been developed, the possibility of the new words having been created by analogy
and the idea that they are coined by suffixation stand out. Assuming the second option
was the real situation, splinters would actually need to acquire a morphemic status and
a suffix-like behaviour. Nevertheless, some other theories, such as construction
morphology, favour the role of schemas as adequate tools for accounting for the
phenomenon described above.
5 The specific objective of this work is to study words containing the element ‘-gasm’ to
check tendencies in their formation. Although productivity is quite difficult to
calculate, this study attempts to prove that the sequence ‘-gasm’ possesses a high
degree of productivity and is used recurrently in the formation of new words. Through
the analysis of the bases to which the splinter is attached and the study of the
relationship existing between the component parts of the blends, I intend to discover
which mechanism is at work, while attempting to accommodate the operation within
the theoretical framework of Construction Morphology.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Blending as a conceptual mechanism
6 The theory of conceptual blending, also known as conceptual integration, was

originally developed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner [1998] on the basis of some
fundamental concepts in the realm of cognitive linguistics, namely frames, domains
and mental spaces. Before delving into the study of conceptual blending, it is therefore
necessary to define these preliminary concepts which will be used throughout this
work.
7 As Geerarts & Cuyckens [2007] point out, the notion of frame has not solely been used
in linguistics, but also in some other fields, such as psychology and artificial
intelligence. However, it has played a major role in cognitive linguistics, with Charles J.
Fillmore being one of its most influential figures and exponents. Radden & Dirven
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[2007: 9-10] claim that “[the] coherent ‘package of knowledge’ that surrounds a
category and is activated when we use or hear a word is known as a conceptual frame
[…] all our coherent bits of knowledge are structured in conceptual frames”. Thus,
frames could be characterized as the pieces of information evoked by words. They are
essential to foster communication and involve our perception of the world.
8 Regarding the notion of conceptual domain, Radden & Dirven [2007: 11] state:
[it] is the general field to which a category or frame belongs in a given situation. For
example, a knife belongs to the domain of ‘eating’ when used for cutting bread on
the breakfast table, but to the domain of ‘fighting’ when used as a weapon. Whereas
frames are specific knowledge structures surrounding categories, conceptual
domains are very general areas of conceptualization. Some typical domains are
those of ‘space’, ‘time’, ‘emotion’, ‘sports’, ‘travelling’, etc. Conceptual domains
crosscut with frames and thus allow us to link frames to one another.
9 Mental spaces are defined by Fauconnier & Turner [2002: 102] as follows:
Small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk, for purposes of local
understanding and action. They are very partial assemblies containing elements,
structured by frames and cognitive models… [They] operate in working memory
but are built up partly by activating structures available from long-term memory.
10 They are described by Radden & Dirven [2007: 30-31] as “short-lived packages of
knowledge evoked on-line in communication”. The scholars use this explanation as a
starting point to introduce conceptual blending, which is described as “the integration
of two or more spaces into a “blended space” [which] inherits partial structure from its
input spaces and has emergent meaning of its own”. The consideration that the
blended space has its own emergent meaning is supported by Ungerer & Schmid
[1996: 259], who claim that the new blended space’s set up “differs from those of the
two input spaces”.
11 Taylor [2012] follows the same definition and illustrates conceptual blending with the
example of someone imagining how a rug in a shop would fit their living room in their
house. By doing so, the customer is creating a blended space (the image of the rug in
their living room) through the fusion of elements from two different input spaces (the
rug in the shop, its original location, as the first mental space; and the living room,
without the rug, as the second space). Another very important aspect of conceptual
blending highlighted by Taylor is the fact that it is not a compositional operation, but
rather a selectional one. Taylor [2012: 265] points out that “the process is not
compositional, with one (mental) space being added to, or superimposed on, the other.
Integration involves selective activation of elements from the different spaces,
whereby discrepancies are overlooked and differences in time and space are
compressed”.
12 In addition, the possibilities of conceptual blending are numerous, as the creation of a
blended space is not only restricted to two input spaces. Fauconnier & Turner [2002: 8]
argue that the process “can operate over any number of mental spaces as inputs.
Blending can also apply repeatedly: The product of blending can become the input to a
new operation of blending”. The previous statement underlines the recursive nature of
the phenomenon subject to study.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
2.2. Lexical blending
13 Within the study of conceptual blending, many different elements and processes can be
found. One of them is lexical blending, frequently referred to as ‘morphological
blending’. In fact, Ungerer & Schmid [1996: 268] argue that morphological blends are
the best exponent to study conceptual blending.
14 The importance in use of these words has been a subject of debate throughout the
years, with some authors claiming that lexical blending was not a common strategy in
language at all, and therefore not a major morphological process. Nevertheless, some
researchers disagree, including Cannon [2000], among others. Crystal [1995: 130] claims
that “blending seems to have increased in popularity in the 1980s, being increasingly
used in commercial and advertising contexts”, although he casts some doubt on the
success of the words coined by this process, explaining that most of them might have a
very short lifespan prior to their disappearance. Taylor [2012: 266] notes that these
lexemes are “often employed to name new products, new institutions, and new
practices and concepts”. What is clear is that the use of this process is becoming ever
more common and anybody is likely to find new blends when reading online news or
participating in social media.
15 Lexical blends are defined by Arndt-Lappe & Plag [2013: 541] as “two-constituent
compounds in which at least one constituent has lost some phonological material, and
in which the left, or initial, part of Word 1 and the right, or final, part of Word 2
survives”. The structural pattern described by these scholars should not, however, be
taken as a defining rule of morphological blends, as many instances of words formed by
this process can be found which do not take the first and second elements from the
first and second source words, respectively. One example is Whatsnap, a term coined by
fusing the first elements of both WhatsApp and Snapchat. The previous case could be
seen as an instance of clipped compounding, since both bases are equally clipped and
semantically equivalent, i.e. one is not subordinated to the other. However, I will
restrict clipped compounding to cases in which an already existing compound word is
shortened.
16 Beliaeva [2014: 30] proposes a similar definition of lexical blends, which encapsulates
what previous scholars state about the process, but is not as problematic as regards
their structure. She defines a blend as:
a lexical item formed by merging together two (or more) source forms, so that 1)
only part of their orthographical and/ or phonological material is preserved, and 2)
they have not been formed by concatenation of morphs.
17 In terms of conceptual blending, Kemmer [2006: 71] provides a very insightful
definition, characterizing blends as “words that are cognitively linked to pre-existing
words which are co-activated when the blend is used”. This definition is highly
concerned with the cognitive nature underlying this word-formation mechanism, and
it is quite appropriate in order to understand lexical blending as a sub-type of a major,
overarching category, that of conceptual blending. An important characteristic of
blends is their iconic nature. As Fandrych [2008: 111] demonstrates, “the name
‘blending’ is metaphorical, as blends ‘mix’ random parts of existing lexemes (‘splinters’)
– structurally and semantically – and there is the additional semantic component
BLENDING/MIXTURE… their forms reflect their referents”.
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18 Although many aspects of blends are still to be studied, they might be one of the most
important grammatical resources of the language, since, according to Taylor [2012: 266]
they “can even give rise to what appear to be new morphological resources”. One
example is the emergence of new affixes that might become productive, as will be
discussed in the subsequent section of this work.
19 The classification of blends has been diverse through the literature, and different
taxonomies have been proposed. Pound [1914], for instance, distinguishes different
categories depending on the origin or the cause of coinage of the words, whereas some
other scholars categorize lexical blends in relation to their structure (see Algeo [1977];
Bauer [1983]; Beliaeva [2014]).
20 Some research studies (see Algeo [1997]; Gries [2004b]; Kemmer [2006]) take into
consideration the presence or absence of phonemic or graphemic overlap, that is, the
presence in the blended words of phonemic elements or graphemes that are shared by
both the two source words. Algeo [1997: 56-57] makes another distinction,
differentiating syntagmatic blends, “the combination of two forms that occur
sequentially in the speech chain”, such as Chicagorilla (Chicago + gorilla) from associative
blends, where the source words are “linked in the word-maker’s mind and thence in his
language”, as in words like shill (shiver + shill). A similar distinction is made by Bauer
[2006: 502-503], who classifies blends into syntagmatic or paradigmatic according to
their origin. Paradigmatic origin blends are those where the source words “are in a
paradigmatic relationship with each other”, as in smog ( smoke + fog), while in
syntagmatic origin blends their source words are characterized by being “in a
syntagmatic relationship to each other”, as it happens in motel (motor + hotel). Beliaeva
[2014] classifies blends in purely structural terms, depending on the parts of each
source word (initial, final) are kept in the blended word. Choroleeva [2015: 902] also
distinguishes endocentric from exocentric blends, following a terminology that has
long since been applied to classify compound words in English. According to her, in
endocentric blends “the first component modifies the second one, the latter
functioning as a semantic head. In this case, the two elements of the derived lexeme are
in attributive relations”, whereas in exocentric blends “the derived form consists of
components which are semantically on a par because both function as semantic heads”.
Choroleeva’s distinction is thus equivalent to Bauer’s [2006].
21 Similarity and recognizability are two fundamental characteristics in the formation of
English lexical blends. The operation of conceptual integration can be easily identified
in these types of coinages, since they are combinations of parts of the two source
words, which might be clipped or overlapped but are not radically transformed. The
source words are thus easily recoverable. In relation to this issue, Lehrer [1996: 366]
claims that the degree of similarity between the blend and the source words has an
impact in the levels of recognizability of the blend and in its understanding. He states
that “the more material from the target word that is present, the easier the blend is to
identify […] if one part of a blend is identified, its semantics will be relevant to
identifying the other part”. In addition, Gries [2004b] explains that when coining
blends, both source words are fused in such a way so as to remain recognizable and to
be quite similar to the blend itself, as regards not only letters or graphemes, but also
phonemes, length and prosodic aspects like stress pattern.
22 One of the internal aspects of blends which has received most attention has been the
location of their switch-point, that is, the place in the blend where the transition from
Lexis, 14 | 2019
the first to the second source words is found. However, no definite conclusions have
been found and the generalizations proposed cannot be used to account for all the
existing blends. The ideal situation in the case of blending is the existence of phonemic
or graphemic overlap, so that the transition is quite natural. In these cases, identifying
a specific location as the blend’s switch-point is an arduous task, as the material to be
considered for that aim is shared by the two input words. Kelly [1998] notices that
whole syllables tend to be preserved and the switch-point normally occurs within
syllabic boundaries. Nevertheless, this is not always the case. Many scholars have used
corpora to reach conclusions, but they have not reached an agreement. Even though
their frequency varies, switch-points can be virtually found in any place within the
syllabic constituents of the words constituting the blend.
23 Another interesting feature of blends which has been extensively studied is their stress.
There are two main perspectives on this issue. The first one, proposed by Cannon
[1986: 746] establishes a relationship between the stress of the blend and the length of
the source words, with the longer word dictating the primary stress of the blend. The
second approach to blend stress highlights the importance of the second source word,
arguing that it is always its stress pattern which is kept in the blend (see Gries [2004a];
Arndt-Lappe and Plag [2013]).
2.3. Splinters
2.3.1. The evolution of the term
24 This section presents an overview of the notion of ‘splinter’, as well as a revision of the
evolution of the concept through the literature. The term has been traditionally
associated with the morphological process of lexical blending, as a label to identify
what Bauer, Lieber & Plag [2013: 19] refer to as “a portion of a word that is non-
morphemic to begin with but has been split off and used recurrently on new bases”.
25 The term ‘splinter’ was originally used by Berman in 1961 to refer to these elements of
a dubious nature. Berman [1961: 279] introduced the label in his definition of blending
as “a process of coining new words under which a blend is formed by adding the
splinter of the last initial word to the stem or to the shortened substitute of the stem of
the first initial word (words)”. It is important to note that Berman uses the phrase
‘initial word’ to refer to what has been named ‘source word’ in this work. It is
interesting to consider the fact that his definition does not view blends as fusions of
elements from two words, but rather as the addition of a portion of a word to the stem
of another lexeme. In his description of the process, Berman somehow equates the
nature of ‘splinters’ to that of suffixes. Nevertheless, the scholar’s depiction of
‘splinters’ remains quite vague.
26 Adam’s [1993: 142] treatment of the term is a little more informative. He makes it clear
that these elements are neither morphemes nor ‘compound-elements’, stating that
“usually splinters are irregular in form, that is, they are parts of morphs, though in
some cases there is no formal irregularity, but a special relationship of meaning
between the splinter and some ‘regular’ word in which it occurs”.
27 Soudanek [1998] expands on the notion of splinter, distinguishing two different types:
initial and final splinters. Fandrych [2008: 112] explains this difference on the grounds
of the location of the element in the blend, by claiming that:
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Initial splinters may be the first or the second element, while final splinters can
only become the second element of blends. Overlaps, for example, motel, often
result from the merging of initial and final splinters. Splinters can even give rise to
new morphological units through reanalysis.
28 Fandrych’s explanation includes some very interesting remarks that are relevant to
any discussion of English blends. On the one hand, the scholar acknowledges the
existence of initial splinters that could also be used recursively to create new blends,
and the possibility that they can be the second element of the blended word, as in
Whatsnap, a lexeme coined by fusing two initial splinters (coming from Whatsapp and
Snapchat). On the other hand, the potential of these elements is emphasized, as
Fandrych explains that the use of these elements could result in novel morphological
units.
29 López-Rúa [2002: 37] carries out an exhaustive study on blends providing one of the
most detailed definitions of splinters up to date. She defines them as:
those graphic and phonemic sequences (not only in blends but also in peripheral
initialisms) which are neither inflectional nor derivational morphemes, nor
combining forms (electro-, -scope), and whose length generally allows their
identification as belonging to a previous word. Consequently, splinters tend to be
syllables or units larger than syllables in their sources, as Ox– and –bridge in
Oxbridge (‘OXford and CamBRIDGE), or Digi– and –alt in Digiralt (‘DIGItal radar
ALTimeter’). When they are shorter than syllables, their constituents are the
syllable onset (i.e. the prevocalic consonant or consonants); the onset and the
nucleus (prevocalic consonants + vowel); or the rhyme (vowel + postvocalic
consonants or coda).
30 In her definition, she stresses the idea that these sequences do not possess a
morphemic status. It is also interesting to note that she distinguishes splinters from
combining forms, a term that has often been used interchangeably with the previous,
as mentioned by Correia Saavedra [2014: 56].
31 Bauer, Lieber & Plag’s [2013: 459] definition of splinters as “originally (mostly) non-
morphemic portions of a word that have been split off and used in the formation of
new words with a specific new meaning” does not add much to the literature, but
summarizes briefly the main aspects of these sequences that have been previously
discussed.
32 Beliaeva [2014: 32] clarifies some terminological issues by stating that:
this term is used in at least two different senses. According to one interpretation,
any “shorter substitutes” of words (Adams 1973: 142) should be called splinters. The
other approach is to use this term only for those word parts that have started to be
used productively in more than one blend, e.g. –(a)holic,–(a)nomics (Bauer
2006: 503).
33 Choroleeva’s [2015] work sheds new light on the topic, as she discusses the different
approaches to the nature of splinters and the formation of English blends: one of them
considers blends to be formed by suffixation, providing the elements subject to study
with a morphemic status, whereas the other views blends as being created on the basis
of analogical operations. In her work, Choroleeva [2015: 903] explains that:
Some linguists believe that elements of the type are morpheme-like and may in the
course of time become free morphemes like burger if their productivity increases.
This means that the words containing such suffixoidal elements should not be
treated as telescopic. According to other authors, however, blend words bring
about blend words, not new morphemes.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
2.3.2. Morphemization
34 As I stated before, one of the approaches to the nature of splinters is their

consideration as suffixoids, that is, elements that function as morphemes and possess a
morphemic status, such as ‘-gate’, attached to bases to form the words nipplegate or
Monicagate. In that regard, splinters function in a similar way to suffixes, for they can
be attached regularly to bases to coin new words.
35 Nevertheless, Lehrer [1998] makes it clear that not every blend creates a new
morpheme, that is, not every final splinter in a blend becomes, or is likely to become,
an institutionalized suffix. In fact, this situation is rare if compared to the huge number
of blends that are created every day. According to Lehrer [1998: 4]:
the creation of a blend does not necessarily result in a new combining form. It
depends on whether the SPLINTER, that is, the truncated word, becomes
productive, and since productivity is a matter of degree, there is a scale from highly
productive morphemes like -holic to splinters that have been used only once
(apparently).
36 Some years later, Lehrer [2007: 121] expands on the topic and explains that “when a
splinter becomes so common that people start using it frequently, it may lose its
connection with the source word and can be considered as morpheme in its own right”.
37 Lalic-Krstin [2014: 257-258] argues that lexical blending can lead to “morpho-semantic
re-analysis and consequently (re)morphemization, which can then facilitate the
production of whole series of what Bauer [1983: 96] calls ‘analogical formations’”. In
her study, Lalic-Krstin [2014: 258] explains that “through recurrent blending a splinter
can gain morphemic status. This happens as a result of morpho-semantic re-analysis
during which a lexeme is reinterpreted and a phonological string that previously had
no morpheme status is perceived as a constituent”.
2.3.3. Requisites for splinters to become morphemes
38 The idea that splinters may acquire morphemic status is only supported by some
research studies, in favour of the approach that considers splinters to be suffixoids, as
opposed to viewing blends as the output of analogical processes. For this reason, the
precise moment when a splinter can be treated as a morpheme remains unclear. The
most obvious indicator of their status is the splinter’s productivity. Nonetheless, as
Lehrer [1998: 5] affirms, “whether and when a splinter becomes productive appears to
depend on nonlinguistic, mostly chance factors”, which complicates things when it
comes to analyzing these forms.
39 In fact, Lalic-Lrstin [2014: 258] follows some previous scholars and concludes that:
there is some disagreement as to what are the prerequisites for a splinter like this
to become a legitimate morpheme. Warren 1990 believes a new morpheme emerges
as soon as it participates in the formation of a new blend, whereas Lehrer 1998 finds
it necessary for the splinter to gain some frequency in blend formation in order to
become a fully fledged morpheme.
40 Some scholars have attempted to quantify the necessary number of lexemes including a
splinter to consider it a suffixoid. Among them, Fischer [1998: 65] claims that there
might be at least three neologisms. Nevertheless, a consensus has not been reached,
Lexis, 14 | 2019
either for the number of neologisms or for the fact that frequency is an adequate
measure tool to provide splinters with such a status.
41 One of the latest efforts to account for the morphemization of splinters has been made
by Correia Saavedra [2014], who has developed an automated method based on a script
capable of processing huge amounts of data and to signal which splinters are good
morpheme candidates. Nevertheless, the method stills needs to be revisited and
updated to allow for an unsupervized analysis of splinters and their classification as
morphemes.
2.4. Blends within a theory
42 As Kemmer [2006: 7-8] observes, “despite the interest they attract due to their creative
nature and their typological unusualness, lexical blends have been little more than a
footnote in the study of morphology in modern linguistics”. She interestingly notes
that “the amount of similar structure (in blends) can vary a great deal, so it is
impossible to state a general formal rule that will license some blends and exclude
others”. This peculiarity of blends, whose nature can only be described by positing
tendencies, does not find a place in traditional rule-based approaches to grammar. In
fact, Kemmer [2006: 9] argues that “it seems as though, instead of rules, speakers are
operating with a facility for global pattern-matching that allows similarities on many
different dimensions to count, as long as there are enough of them (with “enough” not
being precisely quantifiable)”. This vision may be linked to the fields of paradigmatic
morphology and construction grammar. Taylor [2012: 263] favours this interpretation
of blends, by stating that:
blending turns out to be a potent source of new expressions and new constructions
and thus offers itself as a serious alternative to the rule-based mechanisms of
generative theory
[…]
Previously encountered expressions, and the schematic constructions that they
instantiate, can be the source of new linguistic expressions. Speakers can introduce
variations to performed expressions, they can extend accepted usage patterns, and
they can blend existing resources to create hybrid expressions which inherit some
aspect of their inputs.
2.4.1. Paradigmatic morphology
43 Most morphological processes have traditionally been described from a syntagmatic

perspective, based on the notion of concatenation (or the attachment of elements to
bases) or from a paradigmatic point of view, considering groups of lexemes to be
related to one another [Bauer, Lieber & Plag 2013].
44 Bauer, Lieber & Plag [2013] argue that every word is part of a paradigmatic
morphological relation with other words sharing the same base or suffix. They use the
label “morphological category” to categorize words containing the same affix and
“morphological family” to include words which share the same base. Many
experiments, mainly lexical decision tasks, have been carried out by researchers to
prove the psycholinguistic reality of the previous concepts, as detailed by Schreuder &
Baayen [1997] and Plag & Baayen [2009].
Lexis, 14 | 2019
45 In any case, paradigmatic morphology is not restricted to the previous cases. It is also
concerned with the study of words that are orthographically, phonetically or
semantically related.
46 The concept of analogy has often been used by scholars, like Becker [1993] or Ardnt-
Lappe [2014] to illustrate cases where a new lexical unit is coined through comparison
with other words, as in the creation of deverbal adjectives ending in ‘-able’. Other
authors, like Burzio [1998], Steriade [2000] or Raffelsiefen [2004] use the terms
‘multiple correspondence’, ‘paradigmatic uniformity’ or ‘stem selection’, respectively,
to make reference to complex words with phonological properties influenced by groups
of related words. Bauer [2001: 76] describes that the principle of analogy in derivation
dictates that any new derivative is created provided there is “a suitable pattern for it to
be formed on”.
47 The process of blending, whose main characteristics have been described above, is hard
to describe from a syntagmatic point of view, and thus paradigmatic approaches seem
to be able to provide a more plausible explanation of it. Kemmer [2006] is one of the
first scholars to work on blending using this approach and explaining that rule-based
morphology is not adequate for a correct study of these formations. In Kemmer
[2006: 9], the scholar constructs her theory on the basis of the concept of schema,
which she defines as “a cognitive representation consisting of perceived similarities
across many instances of usage. Schemas are essentially routinized, or cognitively
entrenched, patterns of experience”. The researcher provides a detailed explanation of
schemas, signalling their most interesting features and their cognitive basis, and
linking their emergence to productivity. Kemmer [2006: 10] indicates that:
Schemas, being simply what two or more forms or meanings have in common, are
not restricted by the kinds of sequencing required by rules, nor are they restricted
to information of particular types or levels. Schemas allow for competing factors in
licensing expressions, and for multiple possible sanctioning structures, thus giving
rise to variation and to possible non-unique analyses for linguistic expressions.
And, importantly, schemas are sensitive to frequency: frequency measures
repetition of instances, which leads to conventionalization (cognitive
entrenchment and degree of dispersal in a group of speakers) which itself affects
the possibilities licensed by the system: instances of use, over time, shape the very
system that gives rise to them.
48 In addition, recent grammatical models belonging to Construction Grammar have
paved the way for the study of blends as constructions.
2.4.2. Construction Grammar
49 Constructionist approaches take the notion of construction as their basic elements. As

explained by Goldberg [2006], they understand constructions as autonomous abstract
entities which are perceived to be psychologically real by language users. These
approaches also hold the idea that constructions exist independently of the lexical
items that fill them. According to these approaches, any type of lexicogrammatical
unit, such as a morpheme, a word, or an idiom, is considered to be a construction, that
is, a pairing of form and meaning.
50 Construction grammar emerges as a reaction against Chomsky’s generative grammar,
and deviates from it by positing a number of considerations. One of the main views of
this trend is that the totality of our knowledge about language is structured in
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interrelated constructions. Construction grammarians oppose to Chomsky’s belief that

grammar and lexicon are two separate modules. Goldberg [1995: 7] argues that “lexical
constructions and syntactic constructions differ in internal complexity […] but both
lexical and syntactic constructions […] pair form and meaning”. Construction
grammars also consider semantics and pragmatics to be part of a continuum, without
clear-cut boundaries.
51 Nevertheless, Goldberg [1995: 7] highlights the generative nature of construction
grammar “in the sense that it tries to account for the infinite number of expressions
that are allowed by the grammar while attempting to account for the fact that an
infinite number of expressions are ruled out or disallowed”.
Goldberg [1998: 205] defines constructions as follows: “C is a CONSTRUCTION iff def n C
is a form-function pair, such that some aspect of the form or some aspect of the
function is not strictly predictable from C’s component parts”. Later on, in Goldberg
[2002: 813], she defines a construction as “a pairing of form with meaning/use such
that some aspect of the meaning/use is not strictly predictable from the component
parts or from other constructions already established as existing in the language”.
2.4.3. Construction Morphology
52 Construction Morphology is an approach to morphology within the overarching theory

of Construction Grammar. It was developed by Dutch linguist Geert Booij. Construction
Grammar is not solely a theory of syntax and the notion of construction is also relevant
to the study of morphology. Words, being essentially pairings of form and meaning, are
an instance of constructions. In fact, Goldberg [2006: 18] specifies that “the network of
constructions captures our grammatical knowledge of languages in toto, i.e. it’s
constructions all the way down”.
53 Construction morphology is a usage-based approach. As explained by Booij [2015: 425],
“language users first acquire words, and only once they have acquired a sufficiently
large set of words of a certain type can they conclude to abstract morphological
patterns”. This is an important idea, as it implies that this approach to morphology
rejects the rule-list fallacy, or what Booij [2010: 4] identifies as “the unwarranted
assumption that linguistic constructs are either generated by rule or listed, and that
being listed excludes a linguistic construct from being linked to a rule at the same
time”. Booij actually defends the idea that abstractions allowing speakers to coin new
complex words are based on actual instances of words that are memorized.
54 Within morphological constructions, we can find both inflectional and derivational
cases. Some examples of inflectional constructions are the plural construction (which
has unpredictable form and meaning, as well as idiosyncratic properties) or the past
tense construction. An instance of a derivational construction is that which enables us
to create adjectives ending in ‘-able’, as in ‘drinkable’. We can say that word formation
processes correspond to linguistic generalizations. The generalization allowing us to
interpret and create new cases is a construction.
Regarding lexical blending, there are formal generalizations in the minds of speakers.
55 Morphological constructions are represented by means of constructional schemas in
this approach to grammar. Some examples, taken from Booij [2015], are the following:
(1) <[x]Vi er]Nj ↔ [Agent of SEMi]j>

(2) <[x]Ni less]Aj ↔ [Property of being without SEMi]j>
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56 In his work, Booij [2015: 425] explains that:

In these schemas, the double arrow indicates the correlation between form and
meaning. By means of co-indexation the systematic relationship between form and
meaning is specified. The index i in these examples serves to indicate that the
meaning of the base word (SEM) recurs in that of the corresponding complex word.
The index j indicates that the meaning of the construction as a whole correlates
with the form as a whole. The angled brackets demarcate a constructional schema.
57 It is important to distinguish constructions from constructs. While the former refers to
abstract schemas, the latter makes reference to instantiations, which are, according to
Booij [2015: 431] “individual words that inherit the information specified in the
schema, thus making parts of the information contained in the lexical entries for these
words redundant”. Abstract schemas and their instantiations are both regarded as
constructions, but they exhibit different degrees of abstraction.
58 Booij [2015: 431] also introduces the notion of subschemas which make it possible to
“express generalizations about subsets of complex words”. In the case of compounds,
for instance, there are constructions with different degrees of complexity. The
endocentric compound construction, for example, has several subschemas, such as the
NN compound construction or the Top-N compound construction, a subschema
underlying instantiations like ‘top-achievement’, ‘top-experience’.
59 An important issue as regards morphological constructions is productivity. Hilpert
[2014: 81] argues that “the productivity of a schematic morphological construction
describes the degree of cognitive ease with which speakers can produce or process new
complex words on the basis of that construction”. Productivity is a gradient notion, and
it is quite difficult to measure. With the aid of corpora, we can estimate the degree of
productivity of a construction through type frequency and token frequency. Type
frequency refers to the number of instantiations of a schematic morphological
construction. In the case of blends containing the same splinter or affixoid element,
type frequency would refer to the number of words containing that specific element.
Token frequency, on the other hand, refers to the number of times that the same word
is found within a corpus, that is, the number of different examples found for a single
word. In the study of token frequency, hapax legomena stand as a clear indicator of
high productivity, these being cases where there is only one token of a type, the lowest
possible frequency [Plag 2003: 54]. Not all hapaxes are neologisms, but the existence of
many may be a clue of the cognitive ease needed to create new words on the basis of a
constructional schema. The more instantiations found, the higher the productivity of
the schema.
3. Methodology
60 The first step in the development of this work has been the creation of a corpus
containing words including the sequence ‘-gasm’. In order to do so, three different
online corpora have been used: the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE, available at
https://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA,
available at https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/) and the English Web Corpus (EnTenTen2015,
accessible through the corpus management system SketchEngine: https://
www.sketchengine.eu/). The main reason for choosing these corpora has been their
size: EnTenTen2015 contains over 18 billion words, GloWbE includes more than 1.9
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billion, and COCA is composed of 560 million words, making them three of the largest
online collections of words. The longevity of each of the corpora has been another
important factor, for the three of them have been updated and new words have been
added to them on a regular basis. In addition, another determining factor for choosing
the three previous tools has been their heterogeneous nature, as they comprise words
coming from a wide variety of sources. The GloWbE corpus, for instance, includes texts
from twenty different countries. Furthermore, all of them are made up of different
types of texts, from transcribed spoken pieces of language to academic texts.
Nevertheless, some other opportunistic sources have been used. The decision to do so
was based on the nature of the process of blending itself: due to the creative effects
that can be reached by using it, blends are generated with a very high frequency. The
majority of blends, however, do not become very popular and they are not often
included in the texts that form part of online language corpora, but rather they are
commonly found in social media. For that reason, some blends ending in ‘-gasm’ have
been taken from Twitter, blogs and newspapers’ websites and even online discussion
threads consulted randomly. Some examples of blends coming from these sources are
Gagasm ( Gaga + (or)gasm, meaning ‘a state of excitement or pleasure produced by
listening to music by Lady Gaga) or Swirllgasm (Swirll + (or)gasm, meaning ‘a state of
extreme pleasure as a result of eating Swirll yoghurt).
61 The same procedure was followed to extract words containing the element ‘-gasm’ from
GloWbE and COCA. I introduced the sequence “*gasm” under the List label, in order to
obtain all the words where any type of material preceded ‘-gasm’. I changed the search
options to allow the corpora to display up to 500 results, in case there were more words
than expected containing the suffixoid element. Additionally, the search options were
set to obtain all words with a minimum frequency of one token. Given the nature of the
process of blending itself, it is often difficult to find many instances of a single word. In
fact, the existence of hapax legomena (only one token for word in a corpus) is an
indicator of the productivity of the process, which is a very useful point of departure
for this work. As regards the EnTenTen2015 corpus, I accessed it through SketchEngine
and searched for the words using the Word List tool. I changed the default filter options
to only list words containing ‘gasm’ by introducing the command “.*gasm”, and I
changed the minimum frequency of appearance to one token, for the reasons explained
above. Once they had been retrieved, the words were revised in order to avoid any
confusion, since the corpus tools occasionally provided variations of the same word,
mainly linked to their spellings, with many lexemes written as the hyphenated variants
of others. Such is the case of geek-gasm, which was listed as a different word from
geekgasm. In these cases, the different variants were subsumed under a single lexeme,
and the number of tokens of each were put together. Moreover, some words were
discarded, since they lacked a context in the corpora or the context was a sequence of
seemingly random words that showed signs of having been automatically coined by
advertisement tools. Some other words containing neoclassical elements, like ‘mega’ or
‘micro’, were also excluded, as they remain closer to affixation in nature than to lexical
blending, although others, such as cyborgasm, were kept, due to their dubious nature (it
could have taken “cybernetic” as its source word, as opposed to the neoclassical
element ‘cyber’ on its own). After following the aforementioned steps, 131 words
ending in ‘-gasm’ were obtained from EnTenTen2015. GloWbE delivered 61 words,
whereas COCA provided me with 13. On many occasions, the same word was listed in
the three corpora, so the total amount of different words containing ‘-gasm’, taking
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into account the combined results of the three corpora, is 173. Six more words were
taken from the other sources, which added to the rest made up a corpus of 179
neologisms. In order to measure their productivity, the words extracted from the
online corpora were listed in a table, to quantify the number of tokens for each and
reach any conclusions.
62 Subsequently, the source words of all the blends subject to study were identified and a
structural analysis was carried out with the intention of determining the type of bases
to which ‘-gasm’ is attached, as well as the possible variations of the sequence ‘-gasm’.
The number of syllables of the first source words and the resulting new blends were
computed. As regards the semantic analysis of the output words, several factors were
taken into account. The first stage in their classification was to contextualize the
words. For that aim, an instance of each of the words used in a wider context was
recovered using the corpus tools that enabled the compilation of the corpus. When no
context could be recovered (in cases where the word appeared in isolation, or was a
part of an advertisement, among other reasons), I used other resources, such as Urban
Dictionary (https://www.urbandictionary.com), an online dictionary where users can
upload new words, to obtain definitions or sentences including the words I was
interested in. Additionally, a definition for each of the words was searched. The source
of each definition is listed with the examples. When no definition could be retrieved
from the web, I provided my own definition of the word ending in ‘-gasm’ based on the
context.
63 Taking into account the source words of the blends and the context in which they
appeared, I proceeded to analyze them in terms of their semantics, according to the
relationships existing between the first and the second component of the novel
coinages. The relationships between the source words of the blends were studied
according to different factors, such as the notion of causality, the syntactic behaviour
of the source words and the semantic roles fulfilled by the said source words. All the
words that exhibited a similar behaviour were grouped under the same label and a
constructional approach based on the existence of schemas and subschemas was used
to account for these formations. The use of schemas to explain the creation of the
blends was based on Booij’s [2010] work.
4. Analysis and results

4.1. Productivity of the process
64 In relation to the specific objective of this study, an approximation to the degree of

productivity of the element ‘-gasm’ has been calculated. As we described in the revision
of the literature, the productivity of a given process can be measured by taking into
account type frequency and token frequency. Table 1 in Appendix 1 shows the relevant
frequencies and the distribution of the words in the three corpora used: EnTenTen2015,
GloWbE and COCA.
65 The combined type frequency of words ending in ‘-gasm’ is 173. As regards the token
frequency of each type, it varies depending on the corpus used. However, one of the
most significant aspects of Table 1 is the huge gap in token frequency between the
word orgasm and the rest of the source words. We can conclude, therefore, that the rest
of words take the lexeme orgasm as their point of departure. It is unclear from the data,
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however, if all the words have been directly modelled upon orgasm or whether some of
them have been coined by analogy with other words ending in ‘-gasm’ different from
orgasm. The present case study suggests the idea that new lexemes are in fact created
taking other blends ending in ‘-gasm’ as their input. The notion of schemas and
subschemas might also be potentially used to account for these creations. For the aims
of this study, the words whose token frequency is quite low are very interesting,
especially those whose frequency is of one word only. These are hapax legomena. If we
consider each of the three corpora separately, we find that there are 55 hapax
legomena in the EnTenTen2015, 34 in GloWbE, and 11 in COCA. If we only take into
account the words which are simultaneously instances of hapax legomena in the three
corpora (or in one of them, if the new lexeme is not included in the others), we find 88
cases. As we discussed above, hapax legomena are an indicator of high productivity.
The existence of such a big number of hapax legomena for words ending in ‘-gasm’ is
therefore an indicator that this splinter is quite productive, as it is attached very
regularly to new bases to coin new words. This finding supports several approaches to
the nature of splinters. On the one hand, it fits the idea that these elements are subject
to morphemization. The sequence ‘-gasm’ might be interpreted as an emergent
derivational morpheme, as its occurrence with a wide variety of bases has been proven
to be possible. On the other hand, the data also supports the appropriateness of using a
constructional approach to account for the nature of these elements. The existence of
many hapax legomena may indicate that a schema based on actual words containing ‘-
gasm’ has been developed in the mind of speakers.
66 The previous results might serve as a possible indicator of the autonomy of the splinter
‘-gasm’, which could be used to create new blends without directly taking orgasm as
their second source word.
4.2. Structural properties of the blended words

4.2.1. Variations of ‘-gasm’
67 This section is concerned with the analysis of the structural properties of the words in
my corpus, which have been created on the basis of orgasm. The first thing that has
drawn my attention in their study has been the fact that there are some variations of
the splinter used to coin new words. Although the main realization of this sequence is ‘-
gasm’, this splinter changes to ‘-ogasm’ on some occasions. A few words are formed by
attaching the whole form orgasm, instead of the back-clipped sequence ‘-gasm’, and
others contain the sequence ‘-agasm’.
68 The words taking orgasm to create new words seem to have been directly coined on the
basis of the original word, in its full form. The majority of them are cases where we find
both graphemic and phonetic overlap, that is, some material is shared by both the first
source word involved in the blend and the term orgasm. Such is the case of carnivorgasm
(carnivore + orgasm), explorgasm (explorer + orgasm), floorgasm (floor + orgasm), gorgasm
(gore + orgasm), horrorgasm (horror + orgasm), horgasm (horticulture + orgasm), morgasm
(more + orgasm), prorgasm (programmer + orgasm), schizorgasm (schizophrenia + orgasm),
and snoorgasm (snooze + orgasm). However, we also find some cases of blends including
the whole word ‘orgasm’ where there is no overlap. These words are cyborgasm
(possibly cybernetic + orgasm), femaleorgasm (female + orgasm) and Obamaorgasm (Obama +
orgasm). The reason why these words take the whole form of the second source word is
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unclear, especially in the case of the two last words, for which the alternative versions
femgasm and Obamagasm can be found, respectively. One possible explanation is that the
speaker who has coined these words wants to highlight the fact that the new blends are
directly linked to the word orgasm. All these words, therefore, seem to have been
created as novel blends, taking orgasm as their second source word, as opposed to being
formed by the addition of a splinter.
69 The group of words containing ‘-agasm’ instead of ‘-gasm’ do not serve as an indicator
of the existence of ‘-agasm’ as a variant of ‘-gasm’, for the grapheme ‘a’ is part of each
of the source words. They simply reflect the situation in which ‘-gasm’ is attached to
clipped versions of source words ending in ‘-a’ before the new blends are formed. Seven
words conform this group: Berbagasm (Berbatov + -gasm), cameragasm (camera + -gasm),
exploragasm (exploration + -gasm), extravagasm (extravagant + -gasm), ideagasm (idea + -
gasm), Obamagasm (Obama + -gasm), and operagasm (opera + -gasm).
70 However, ‘-ogasm’ seems to behave like a real variant of ‘-gasm’ in some words, like
luxogasm (luxury + -ogasm) or delish-o-gasm (delish + -o-gasm). Given the context in which
‘-ogasm’ is attached in these cases, one possible explanation for this variant is the need
for vocalic support, as the splinter ‘-gasm’ is attached to a (sporadically) clipped base
consisting of several final consonants. The addition of the vowel ‘o’ before the splinter
could be due to the attempt to avoid the creation of a very long consonantic cluster.
Another possibility is the use of this linking element by analogy with many neoclassical
compounds.
4.2.2. Blend length
71 As regards the length of the words ending in ‘-gasm’, two things have been taken into
account, namely the length of the bases to which the splinter is attached (the first
source word of all the new blends) and the length of the novel blends themselves.
72 In relation to the length of the first source words, ‘-gasm’ is combined with bases of one
syllable in 54.50% of the cases (97 out of 178 words), as in artgasm (the first source word
being ‘art’). It is attached to 50 bases of two syllables, as in papergasm (accounting for a
28.09% of the cases), 23 bases of three syllables, as in Obamagasm (12.92% of the total), 7
bases of four syllables, as in literarygasm (3.93%) and one base of five syllables (0.56%),
electrogasm, whose first source word is ‘electricity’.
73 Concerning the length of the new blends, we find 106 new lexemes with two syllables,
like eargasm, accounting for a 59.55% of the corpus, 51 three-syllable blends, such as
drawergasm (28.65%), and 19 words with four syllables, like cameragasm (10.67% of the
cases). In addition to these preferred patterns, we also find 2 blends with five syllables,
literarygasm and Obamaorgasm (accounting for 1.12% of the cases).
74 The previous distribution is not surprising at all, for, as I mentioned in the revision of
the literature, one of the most important aspects of lexical blending is the degree of
similarity between the blend and its source words, as well as the recognizability of the
source words that constitute a blend. These results, consequently, go in accordance
with previous research by Lehrer [1996] and Gries [2004b]. As mentioned above, the
most frequent pattern for words ending in ‘–gasm’ is that where the sequence is added
to a monosyllabic case to create a disyllabic word. This makes perfect sense, and it is, in
fact, a rather ideal situation, since these output blends preserve their first source words
in their totality, making them highly recognizable. Furthermore, by using monosyllabic
Lexis, 14 | 2019
words as the first element in the blends, speakers mirror the length of the original
word orgasm, and reproduce the syllabic pattern in their new creations.
4.3. Semantic properties of the blended words
75 The analysis of the relationship existing between the two elements in each blend (the
first source word and the sequence ‘-gasm’, coming from orgasm) has enabled me to
distinguish different categories whose characteristics I will present below. Although
some of the words in the corpus do not fit into any of these groups, given their lack of a
sufficient context so as to determine the relation between the words in a precise way,
the majority of the blends can be classified using these categories, namely cause-and-
effect blends, experiencer blends, coordination blends, predication blends and
adjectival blends. All these groups are described in this section, and detailed examples
of each group are provided.
4.3.1. Cause and effect blends
76 I have labelled this group of words as ‘cause and effect blends’ because the relationship
between the two source words in each blend is based on this notion. All the lexemes
contained in this group follow the same pattern: the first source word is used as the
cause which provokes an effect in a person (an orgasm, a feeling of pleasure or
excitement). On the basis of the study conducted in this work, most words ending in ‘-
gasm’ seem to belong to this category, since cause and effect appears to be the most
common relation between their constituents. 125 words out of 178 in the corpus exhibit
this property, accounting for 70.22% of the total. The first source word of these blends
is always a noun. We only find 4 cases which do not conform to this generalization,
namely chillgasm (whose first source is a verb), cutegasm (adjective), gamingasm (verb)
and scoregasm (verb). The nature of the nouns involved in the formation of the blends,
however, is varied, including common nouns, such as food in foodgasm, proper nouns,
such as Bieber in Bievergasm or abstract nouns, like fear in feargasm.
77 Additionally, another characteristic of this group of blends is the fact that their first
source tends to be used metonymically, that is, standing for something else, as will be
explained below. This property can be seen in words like heartgasm, where ‘heart’ does
not stand for a body organ, but rather for ‘love’, or bookgasm, where ‘book’ does not
stand for an actual copy of a book, but for the activity of reading a book instead.
78 An exhaustive semantic analysis of the words in this category has showed that two
more specific groups can be distinguished, based on the specificity in meaning of the
sequence ‘-gasm’. Although this constituent expresses an effect in all of the blends, we
may find a slight variation in the meaning that the original second source word orgasm
takes in the resulting blends. Thus, one group of words seem to replicate the original
meaning of orgasm. In these words, the second element, which designates the effect, is
used with the meaning ‘physical or bodily pleasure’. In a second group of blends the
meaning of ‘-gasm’ appears to deviate from the original meaning In these words, the
second element of the blend means ‘a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’.
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4.3.1.1. ‘-gasm’ meaning ‘physical or bodily pleasure’
79 As has been mentioned above, the words in these groups follow the cause-and-effect
pattern, where ‘-gasm’ is the effect and stands for the original meaning of orgasm, that
is, physical or bodily pleasure (related to, or provoked by the first element of the
blend).
80 The theory of Construction Morphology, proposed by Geert Booij, seems to provide the
necessary tools to explain the formation of these words based on the idea of schemas.
In fact, the creation of this group of blends may be explained by means of the following
schema:
<[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A sensation of physical or bodily pleasure produced by SEMi]j>
81 It is important to note that the first word in this schema is also semantically variable,
as in some cases it consists of concrete entity (footgasm) while in others, it is an activity
(yogasm).
82 The majority of words in the previous group seem to be metonymic. More precisely, it
is in the first source word where metonymy appears to be at work. The most common
metonymy in these cases is that of a participant for the action or the activity in which
that participant is involved. This can be seen in cases like footgasm, where foot has the
semantic role of patient or locative, participating in the action ‘massage on foot’.
Metonymy can also be considered to be at work in cases like yogasm, although it is not
as evident as in footgasm, since the first source word of the former refers directly to an
activity, that is, the degree of contiguity between the concepts is higher.
83 The word foodgasm, included in the previous list, illustrates another group of words
that share a semantic property. Foodgasm makes reference to the feeling of pleasure one
gets when eating something. An example of the word in use is the following: “One of
the diners at an adjacent table had a noisy foodgasm over this dessert, so we tried it on
our second visit” (www.magoguide.net). (EnTenTen15).
84 Using the theoretical framework of Construction Morphology, the subschema resulting
from the word foodgasm can be described as follows:
<[[x]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A sensation of physical or bodily pleasure produced by eating or
drinking SEMi]j>
4.3.1.2. ‘-gasm’ meaning ‘feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’
85 In a different group of words in the corpus, the sequence ‘-gasm’ does not reproduce
the original meaning of orgasm, but a slight variation. This element is used with the
meaning of ‘a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’, produced by the first element of
the blend.
86 Following the framework of Construction Morphology, the following schema can be
used to account for these coinages:
<[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of excitement or enthusiasm produced by SEMi]j>
87 In addition, these words have something in common with the blends in the previous
group: metonymy is also at work in the first element of many of these words. In many
cases, therefore, the feeling of excitement is not caused by the entity denoted by the
first word, but by the activity in which that entity participates instead. In TVgasm, for
instance, the feeling of excitement is not caused by a television as an object, but rather
by the activity of watching something one loves on television.
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88 As in the group of blends where ‘-gasm’ means ‘physical or bodily pleasure’, in this
second group, where ‘-gasm’ stands for a ‘feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’, we find
a case which is semantically more specific and has probably paved the way for
subsequent creations.
89 Eargasm makes reference to a feeling of maximal enthusiasm or excitement
experienced when listening to music. The word audiogasm can also be considered as the
origin of other creations, as it stands for the feeling of excitement experienced when
listening to an audio track one particularly loves.
90 Using the principles of Construction Morphology, the new subschema can be accounted
for as follows:
<[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of excitement or enthusiasm produced by listening to
music by / the sound of SEMi]j>
91 This second order schema presents a higher degree of specificity at the semantic level.
All the words created on the basis of this subschema maintain the meaning of the
general schema, while expanding on it and specifying that the feeling of enthusiasm is
produced by the activity of listening to a specific type of music, the sound of an
instrument or a song by a singer.
4.3.2. Experiencer blends
92 The reason why I have labelled this group of blends as ‘experiencer blends’ is that the
relationship between their source words is such that the first source word has the
semantic role of experiencer, that is, an entity that is aware of or is affected by the
action or state denoted by a predicate, the second source word. It is important to draw
a distinction between an agent and an experiencer at this point, since the agent is the
participant that instigates an action. For this reason, the first elements of these blends
should not be confused with elements fulfilling the role of agent, for they are entities
that are affected by the feeling of pleasure described by the second element, but do not
have control of it. As expected, the first source words of all the words that constitute
this group are nouns (some of them proper names). These blends can be paraphrased as
“(an) X has/experiences an orgasm/pleasure”.
93 The cases of experiencer blends in our corpus account for 11.80% of the data, with 21
words characterized by this feature out of the 178 subject to study. Although they form
a small group if compared with ‘cause and effect’ blends, they are part of the second
biggest group that has been identified.
94 Following the theory of Construction Morphology, a general schema for the creation of
words that follow this pattern could be represented as follows:
<[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by SEMi]j>
95 Lower-level schemas also seem to operate in the case of experiencer blends, as we find
two clearly distinguished groups: one of them consisting of blends with initial proper
nouns, and another one with common nouns. These subschemas, which differ in the
semantics of the first element constituting the blend, are represented below.
<[[X]PNi gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by SEMi]j>
96 In this case, PN stands for the semantic specificity of the nouns that are used to create
the new words, that is, proper nouns.
<[[X]CNi gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by SEMi]j>
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97 In the second case, CN stands for common noun, as the first source word of the
formations coined through this schema are semantically different from the ones which
originate from the previous subschema.
4.3.3. Coordination blends
98 This group has been named ‘coordination blends’ because the source words of the
blends stand in a relationship of coordination. This group is restricted to only 7 words
out of the 178 in the corpus, accounting for a 3.93% of the total. Despite its small size, it
is an interesting pattern, as it consists of words which describe the situation in which a
feeling of pleasure or excitement and an additional sensation are experienced together
by a person.
99 Following the principles of Construction Morphology, the schema explaining the
creation of words of this nature is expressed below.
<[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced together with
(a feeling of) SEMi]j>
4.3.4. Adjectival blends
100 Although this group is not as clear-cut as the three previous categories, we find some
words that have been formed by blending an adjective as their first source word and
the word orgasm. In these cases, the word orgasm seems to maintain its full original
meaning, or at least it is acknowledged as the direct second source word for the blend,
and the first source words behave as premodifiers, attributing some qualities to the
feeling of pleasure experienced by a person. In fact, these blends seem to behave like
phrases and can be written as such. For that reason, all these words seem to have a
semantic head, corresponding to the second source word. Six cases of words following
this pattern can be found in the corpus, accounting for a 3.37% of the total.
101 A general schema explaining the formation of the blends could be the following:
<[[X]Ai gasm]Nj ↔ [An orgasm of the nature described by SEMi]j>
4.3.5. Predication blends
102 Only one word has been found in the corpus to support the existence of this group. For
that reason, it is unclear whether more words have been formed following this pattern
or if some others will be coined in the future. However, the case found in the data is
quite interesting, as the first source word is used as a predicate of orgasm. The word
that exhibits this characteristic is artgasm. We could simplify the analysis in the
absence of a surrounding context by saying that this word is an instance of a ‘cause and
effect’ blend, where ‘art’ stands for ‘the activity of admiring a work of art’. However,
the context where the word appears favours a different interpretation.
(3) Artgasm. “The paper presents the Artgasm project that stimulates its
participants into orgasm. The orgasm was physically induced to volunteer
participants through a specialized, medical crafted “orgasmotron” and
mediated to the audience through real time video, projected onto a large
screen outside the performance space. With the help of qualified medical
personnel, the project manipulates its male audience/participants to
experience the maximum corporal pleasure, i.e. orgasm. In this manner, the
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Artgasm project literally presents orgasms as both an ultimate form of art

and aesthetic experience” (www.teatrutv.ubbcluj.ro). (EnTenTen15).
103 As can be observed, the meaning of the word when used in this context is ‘the
consideration of an orgasm as being a work of art’. Furthermore, the blend could be
paraphrased as ‘An orgasm is art’, where we can see very clearly that ‘art’ is a subject
predicate, attributing qualities to orgasm.
104 Some other words in the corpus have been left out. The reason for this has been the
difficulty at establishing the relationship between their source words. On many
occasions, this difficulty is due to the lack of an appropriate context.
4.4. Final overview
105 This section aims at summarizing the schemas described in this study, which seem to
be used by speakers in the creation of new words. All of them result in the formation of
blended words ending in ‘-gasm’.
106 Some blends show a relationship of cause and effect between their source words. The
words that behave in this way are instantiations of the following schemas:
(1) <[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A sensation of physical or bodily pleasure produced by
SEMi]j>
(2) <[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of excitement or enthusiasm produced by SEMi]j>
107 The main difference between the schemas in (1) and (2) is the precise meaning of the
resulting feeling triggered by the cause. While this is a feeling of physical of bodily
pleasure in the first case, it is actually a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm in the
second. An example of a word created by means of the schema in (1) is toygasm. The
word neologasm, on the other hand, is an instantiation of the schema in (2).
108 In addition, lower-level schemas have been identified for both cases. They are
represented as follows:
(1.1.) <[[x]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A sensation of physical or bodily pleasure produced by
eating or drinking SEMi]j>
(2.1.) <[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of excitement or enthusiasm produced by
listening to music by / the sound of SEMi]j>
109 Each of the subschemas presented above differ from their general schemas in the
degree of semantic specificity of the causing entity. In (1.1.), the cause resulting in a
pleasurable effect is the activity of eating or drinking something, as can be seen in
beefgasm, while in (2.1.), the cause is differently specified, and is restricted to cases
where the feeling of excitement is produced by the activity of listening to a specific
type of music or sound, as in guitargasm.
110 In other blends, like clowngasm, the first participant fulfils the semantic role of an
experiencer, that is, the first participant experiences the feeling of pleasure. The
constructional schema accounting for these words is the following:
(3) <[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by SEMi]j>
111 Two subschemas can be found within the group of experiencer blends, whose main
difference is the nature of the first source word. As represented below, the first source
word is a proper noun in (3.1.), as in Horgasm, while it is a common noun in (3.2.), as in
geekgasm.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
(3.1.) <[[X]PNi gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by

SEMi]j>
(3.2.) <[[X]CNi gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by
SEMi]j>
112 Another schema for the creation of words in ‘-gasm’ is the one represented in (4). This
schema is responsible for the formation of coordination blends like crygasm, that is,
blended words whose source words stand in a relationship of coordination.
(4) <[[X]Ni gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced together
with (a feeling of) SEMi]j>
113 The schema represented in (5) is different from the rest in that the first source word is
an adjective. The use of this schema results in adjectival blends in which the first
element premodifies the feeling denoted by the second element. One instance of these
blends is fakegasm.
(5) <[[X]Ai gasm]Nj ↔ [An orgasm of the nature described by SEMi]j>
5. Conclusion
114 The present study has proved that the splinter ‘-gasm’ is very productive. It is included
in a huge list of words and many of these words are cases of hapax legomena in the
corpus used, that is, words that appear with the minimum possible frequency in a
corpus. This is an indicator that novel words containing ‘-gasm’ are created regularly
by speakers, who seem to use the sequence quite naturally expecting other language
users to recognize and understand their coinages.
115 The semantic analysis of the relationships between the blends’ source words has
allowed for the classification of blends in different categories. In this way, I have
distinguished blends that are based on a relationship of causality from the rest. Within
this group, two situations are found: in some of them, the splinter seems to maintain
the meaning of the original word it comes from. In others, however, the meaning of the
splinter presents slight variations from the original one. Another group of blends is
characterized by a first source word with the semantic role of experiencer, an entity
that is affected by a feeling of pleasure or excitement, denoted by the sequence ‘-gasm’.
In addition, some blends seem to have been formed by means of coordination. In these
words, we cannot identify a semantic head, as both source words seem to be equally
important. Furthermore, these words denote a feeling of pleasure or excitement
accompanied by another feeling. Blends formed by an adjective followed by ‘-gasm’
seem to form another category, as their semantic behaviour is constant, with the
adjectives in all the words acting as premodifiers of the meaning of ‘-gasm’ (pleasure or
excitement). Some other words could be considered to form other minor groups or be a
part of the previously described ones, but the corpus does not contain sufficient data to
set up new groups.
116 As opposed to purely concatenative approaches to morphology, Construction
Morphology has proved to be an appropriate tool to account for these formations. The
use of schemas and subschemas appears to be very useful to explain the formation of
the blends in the corpus, as well as the differences between them.
117 Future research should attempt to find more differentiated groups of blends according
to the nature of their source words. Moreover, they should study other cases of blend
Lexis, 14 | 2019
splinters to check whether the same patterns that have been described in this work can
be identified in blends containing other sequences.
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APPENDIXES
Appendix 1
Table 1: Frequency of the words ending in –gasm in the corpora
FREQUENCY
Word En TenTen15 GlowBe COCA
orgasm 39,845 5,966 1,744
Afrigasm 4 6
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Allahgasm 1
Amerigasm 1
Artgasm 8
Asianporngasm 1
Assgasm 5
Astrogasm 1
Audiogasm 7
Aurgasm 419
Bassgasm 10
Bedgasm 1
Beefgasm 1
Beergasm 1
Berbagasm 3
Berlinergasm 5
Biebergasm 1 1
Blissgasm 1
Blogasm 7
Bookgasm 10 5
Bootygasm 1
Braingasm 4
Breathgasm 2
Cakegasm 2
Cameragasm 1
Cargasm 1 2
Carnivorgasm 1
Chartgasm 1
Chillgasm 1
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Chocgasm 2
Chocogasm 4
Choirgasm 1
Christgasm 1
Clowngasm 2
Colbertgasm 1
Coregasm 4 1
Crabgasm 1
Crygasm 3
Cutegasm 1
Cyborgasm 6
Dancegasm 1
Deathgasm 94
Debtgasm 1
Deli-gasm 1
Delish-o-gasm 1
Designgasm 2
Drawergasm 1
Dreamgasm 1
Eargasm 122 17
Electrogasm 1
Exploragasm 1
Explorgasm 2
Extravagasm 2
Eyegasm 17 1
Factgasm 3
Failgasm 1
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Fangasm 65 3 1
Fashiongasm 1
Feargasm 1
Femaleorgasm 18
Femgasm 6
Femmegasm 3
Flavourgasm 1
Floorgasm 2
Foodgasm 114 14
Footgasm 1
Forevergasm 1
Fruitgasm 1 2
Gamegasm 1
Gamingasm 1
Gastronogasm 1
Geekgasm 37 4 1
Goalgasm 2 1
Googasm 2
Goregasm 7 2
Gorgasm 11
Guitargasm 1
Heartgasm 4
Hentaigasm 2
Herogasm 8
Horrorgasm 2
Horgasm 2
Hortgasm 2
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Ideagasm 1
Infogasm 2
Internetgasm 1
Joygasm 12 4
Ladygasm 86
Lashgasm 5
Leathergasm 1
Lesbigasm 1
Lightning-gasm 1
Literarygasm 1
Luxogasm 1
Macgasm 61 9
Mapgasm 1
Mangasm 60
Meatgasm 6
Metalgasm 1
Mindgasm 6 1
Moneygasm 1
Mooregasm 6
Moregasm 43 4
Morgasm 23 1
Mouthgasm 12 3
Mustangasm 1
Neologasm 2
Nerdgasm 139 30 1
Newsgasm 5
Nipplegasm 1
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Noisegasm 11
Obamagasm 17 2
Obamaorgasm 1
Operagasm 8
Orbgasm 1
Orchidgasm 1
Oreogasm 2
Orgygasm 1
Oxtailgasm 1
Papergasm 3
Photogasm 2
Pinkgasm 1
Plankgasm 1
Plantgasm 1
Polishgasm 1
Popgasm 4
Porkgasm 1
Porngasm 17
Prayergasm 3
Prorgasm 2
Pyrogasm 1
Queergasm 1
Ragegasm 2
Releasegasm 1
Rockgasm 1
Scenerygasm 1
Schizorgasm 1
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Scoregasm 3
Sexgasm 1
Shoegasm 1
Showgasm 7
Skygasm 1
Snoorgasm 1
Snoregasm 1
Soapgasm 1
Soulgasm 18
Soundgasm 1156
Sportsgasm 1
Squeegasm 6 2
Storygasm 7
Studygasm 1
Stylegasm 1
Suregasm 1
Tabloidgasm 1
Tastegasm 1
Thoughtgasm 1
Tintingasm 2
Torygam 7
Tourgasm 11 2 1
Toygasm 1
Trigasm 1
TVgasm 2 1
Twittergasm 1
Vampiregasm 1
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Vetogasm 2
Vowelgasm 1
Wargasm 32 2 4
Whoregasm 4
Winegasm 1
Wordgasm 1
Yawgasm 1
Yawngasm 7
Yogasm 1
Appendix 2
Table 2: Cause and effect blends where ‘-gasm’ means ‘physical or bodily pleasure’
Word Definition Example
“Asianporngasm - extremely hot resource

An orgasm reached by watching Asian with a lot of beautiful and sexual Asian
Asianporngasm
porn. chicks” (www.nakedsexblogs.net). Taken
from EnTenTen15.
“Hayley enjoyed her anal adventure

especially since she was able to experience
A feeling of physical pleasure reached
Assgasm multiple assgasms”
through the stimulation of the anus.
(www.mobilecarriers.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“We spoke to one mum who, without

A feeling of physical pleasure realising what it was, had a birthgasm
Birthgasm experienced while giving birth to a while giving birth to her second child, and
child. never told anyone about it.”
(www.netmums.com).
“My god. That chillgasm was so worth the

“An orgasm as a result of being really,
Chillgasm money we spent on all that Indo”
really relaxed” (UrbanDictionary).
(UrbanDictionary)
“An orgasm achieved while ““coregasm,” named thusly because

Coregasm performing a core exercise during a abdominal exercises tend to spark the
work-out” (UrbanDictionary). sensation.” (www.healthland.time.com).
“When a fail feels good” “I had a failgasm yesterday”

Failgasm
(UrbanDictionary) (UrbanDictionary).
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“When a sudden event like the

sighting of a cop on the highway
causes electric-like jolts of fear to “Why are you hyper-ventilating?” "iPhone
Feargasm shoot throughout your body. feargasm! I can’t find it anywhere!”
Reminiscent of an orgasm but not as (UrbanDictionary)
fun, especially if followed by speeding
ticket.” (UrbanDictionary)
“One of the diners at an adjacent table had

a noisy foodgasm over this dessert, so we
The feeling of pleasure one gets when
Foodgasm tried it on our second visit”
eating something.
(www.magoguide.net). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
An orgasmic feeling obtained when “Megan footgasms when I rub her feet nice
Footgasm
getting a very good foot massage. and hard” (UrbanDictionary).
An orgasm reached by watching “Raw Hentaigasm - Stream Hentai”

Hentaigasm hentai, that is, animated, cartoonish (www.mirvramke.by). Taken from
porn. EnTenTen15.
When a good full-bodied laugh can

certainly help you experience the “You can even get a laughgasm from
relief, release and feeling of laughing so hard”
Laughgasm
refreshment you might have from an (www.neologisms.rice.edu). Taken from
orgasm” EnTenTen15.
(www.mirthmaven.wordpress.com).
“We tried all kinds of fair fried things and

A feeling of pleasure obtained by we had a mouthgasm when we had fried
Mouthgasm
eating something one loves. oreos.” (www.addymeira.net). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“Some women can orgasm just through

stimulation of breasts and nipples. No,
An orgasm resulting from the
Nipplegasm nipplegasms aren’t a myth!”
stimulation of the nipples.
(www.girlsandbabes.in). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“Haired bosses will have an orgygasm”

An orgasm resulting from taking part
Orgygasm (www.slashdot.org). Taken from
in an orgy.
EnTenTen15.
An orgasm experimented while “Porngasm is waiting for you to enjoy free

Porngasm
watching porn. adult video chat” (www.chaturbate.com).
“Do you want sexgasms, playgasms,

orgasms and laughgasms? Then this is the
An orgasm reached when talking about perfect raucous, information-packed, fun,
Sexgasm
or dealing with sex. play shop for you”
(www.pamelamadsen.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
An orgasm experienced when using “Toygasm! “The Insider’s Guide to Sex Toys
Toygasm
sex toys for stimulation. and Techniques” (COCA).
“An almost sexually blissful feeling

experienced via practicing yoga that is “When that 90 minutes of hot horror was
Yogasm so physically and spiritually fulfilling over, I had the biggest yogasm ever!!!”
that it is akin to an orgasm” (UrbanDictionary)
(UrbanDictionary)
Appendix 3
Table 3: Cause and effect blends modelled on ‘foodgasm’
“The Wagyu beef just melts in my mouth whilst the

Pleasure obtained by eating
Beefgasm grain fed beef is so tender and juicy. #Beefgasm”
beef.
(www.annna.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“I also love beer and will be hosting the Beergasm on

Pleasure obtained by drinking Thursday afternoon!”
Beergasm
beer. (www.porcfest2015.sched.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“A mind blowing double

“I nearly had a cakegasm at the table”
Cakegasm orgasm induced by cakes.”
(www.goodreads.com).
(UrbanDictionary)
“it was nice to know that I could create such a

pleasurable working environment by just bringing
Chocgasm, A feeling of pleasure derived in a five dollar cake... and the chocgasms that
Chocogasm from eating chocolate. followed were only a bonus”
(www.straightwhiteguy.mu.nu). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
Pleasure obtained by eating a “Walk in, get a table pretty easily, and be prepared
Crabgasm
crustaceous. to have a crabgasm” (www.ohjoy.blogs.com).
“Deligasm can be eating great pastrami, corned beef

Deligasm sandwiches at a good Jewish, kosher or other
kosher-style deli restaurant.” (UrbanDictionary)
Delish-o- Pleasure obtained by eating

gasm something delicious.
“Used to liken the pleasure of

eating flavorful food to the
“That steak was so juicy and tender that I think I
euphoria experienced during
Flavourgasm just had a flavorgasm in my mouth”
sexual release”
(www.neologisms.rice.edu).
Taken from EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Pleasure derived from eating a “Judy just had a Fruitgasm from that piece of
Fruitgasm
piece of fruit. watermelon!” (UrbanDictionary)
“We were there for the cheeseburger meatgasm...

Meatgasm Seriously, you’ve never seen such joy”
meat.
(www.evilbastard.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“Lisa is also a contributor to Funny Times

newspaper where her parody of Oreo cookies was
Pleasure obtained by eating recently featured alongside humor greats Dave
Oreogasm
Oreo biscuits. Barry and Garrison Keillor--an experience she
found so stimulating, she had an Oreogasm”
(www.myfunnybooks.biz). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“It’s the oxtail soup. Oxtailgasm”

Pleasure derived from eating
Oxtailgasm (www.kualalumpur-travel.info). Taken from
something containing oxtail.
EnTenTen15.
“Just because I have this recipe listed under

Porkgasm Porkgasm in my recipe file doesn’t mean it’s a
pork.
fetish” (www.bbqaddicts.com). Taken from GloWbE.
“Sorry to bombard you with sloppy foods. I know

the last post was pretty much a soupgasm. You may
Pleasure obtained by drinking
Soupgasm be worried this blog is going to become reduced to a
soup.
soup blog” (www.ckrecipes.com). Taken from
GloWbE.
“A state of ecstasy achieved

during the consumption of
Swirll frozen yogurt similar to “I would be up for Swirll; I haven’t had a Swirllgasm
Swirllgasm
that achieved during in a couple of weeks” (www.neologisms.rice.edu).
intercourse”
“The other tastegasm of 2011 came at Metamorfosi

with Chef Roy Caceres’ glazed eel paired with
Tastegasm ground spelt and a punchy carpione onion and
something tasteful or delicious.
vinegar sorbet” (www.parlafood.com). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“We were well into a winegasm when the second

Pleasure obtained by drinking
Winegasm course arrived” (www.magoguide.net). Taken from
wine.
EnTenTen15.
Appendix 4
Table 4: Cause and effect blends where ‘-gasm’ means ‘a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’
Lexis, 14 | 2019
A feeling of enthusiasm
“Afrigasms feel as good as they do because they confirm
experienced when dealing
Afrigasm the way media . . . taught us to view the continent”
with or watching images from
(www.vijana.fm). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Africa.
“Having intense joy or passion “Listening to Toby Keith’s song “Courtesy of the Red,
Amerigasm upon extreme patriotism for White, & Blue (The Angry American)” gave me an
the U.S” (UrbanDictionary). Amerigasm” (UrbanDictionary)
“Astrogasm is about being and having an explosion of

A feeling of excitement related
Astrogasm excitement about the stars, cosmos, and life”
to the stars and the universe.
(www.astrogasm.com). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“Bedgasm (n): a feeling of

“It was a three hour drive in the middle of the night, I
euphoria experienced when
could barely stay awake. When I got home, I climbed
Bedgasm climbing into bed”
under the covers and had a ten-minute bedgasm”
(www.architecturendesign.net).
(UrbanDictionary)
The feeling of euphoria or

“Again it’s all hearsay as we can’t change the past but
excitement derived from
I’m pretty sure my timeline would all have a Berbagasm
Berbagasm watching football player
if he was to help bring home the title for us.”
Dimitar Berbatov play a good
(www.thefaithfulmufc.com). Taken from GloWbE.
match.
“I don’t know the right word for it, so I’m coining “

Berlinergasms”. I was on the tram recently and
A feeling of euphoria of a
overheard an English guy turning to his two friends
Berlinergasm Berliner due to their place of
and saying loudly “I fucking love living in Berlin. I just
residency.
love it. It’s just so fucking great”” (www.uberlin.co.uk).
Taken from GloWbE.
“The feeling you get when you “Dude, last night I wrote a new blog post about that
check your blog stats and you crazy new action movie. This morning when I checked
Blogasm
see way more visitors than you my stats and saw I had over 2,000 visits, I had a serious
expected” (UrbanDictionary). blogasm!” (UrbanDictionary).
Feeling of enthusiasm
“Bookgasm – reading material to get excited about”
Bookgasm experienced when reading a
(www.netfacet.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
book.
Feeling of enthusiasm “If you really want to have a cameragasm have him take
Cameragasm experienced when using a you up to the pro floor and take a look at the Hassys”
camera to take pictures. (www.shutterstock.com). Taken from GloWbE.
“I know the car isn’t “beautiful” by Ferrari standards,

Feeling of excitement or
but it still satisfies every cargasm and luxogasm need
Cargasm enthusiasm when seeing or
any of us may ever have” (www.hotelroomsdirect.uk).
owning a car.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Feeling of enthusiasm “Prepare for chart-gasm and graph-overload. And

Chartgasm experienced when finding or prepare to probably say, ‘Grr’” (www.fazed.net). Taken
using charts. from EnTenTen15.
“Most likely the expression on their faces as they pore

over their “proofs” is the same as a Christian fundy in
Excitement derived from the
Christgasm the throes of a Christgasm”
religious belief in Jesus Christ.
(www.blogs.discovermagazine.com). Taken from
GloWbE.
“The reaction one feels when

being exposed to something
overly cute. this may be an “When Holly saw the baby trying to dance, she had a
Cutegasm
emotional, physical or even cutegasm” (UrbanDictionary).
sexual response”
(UrbanDictionary).
“A strong feeling of
excitement brought on by
anything dark or of death, “That necrophile creep had a deathgasm in the morgue
Deathgasm
such as music and art felt by looking at all those bodies” (UrbanDictionary).
death enthusiasts”
(UrbanDictionary).
A feeling of enthusiasm “And what architecture-porn would be complete

Designgasm derived from architecture and without a designgasm” (www.nolandgrab.org). Taken
the activity of designing. from EnTenTen15.
“They were tricky (my first drawers), but once they

A feeling of excitement or
were finished they slid like butter, and latched so
enthusiasm experienced when
Drawergasm sweetly (Laura Goldhamer called opening and closing
opening and closing drawers
them a “drawergasm”)” (www.freeteaparty.org). Taken
that slide perfectly.
from EnTenTen15.
A feeling of maximal
“I nearly had an eargasm while listening to his
enthusiasm or excitement
Eargasm performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano
experienced when listening to
Concerto” (UrbanDictionary).
music.
“New York’s Times Square has always been an eyegasm
enthusiasm when seeing
Eyegasm of advertising” (www.ringofstars.ru). Taken from
something overwhelmingly
EnTenTen15.
beautiful.
“Welcome to the first edition of Calais Migrant

Factgasm, in which I quite metaphorically round up
A feeling of excitement when
Factgasm every piece of internet about the Calais migrants and
discovering new facts.
incarcerate it in the detention centre of my blog”
(www.davidcharles.info). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“Brix’s ultimate test for a product is the “fashiongasm”.

That is, if something fills her with an explosive, must-
A feeling of excitement have sense of need then she knows she’s onto a hit. FYI,
experienced when watching Brix’s recent fashiongasms have come from NEWGEN
Fashiongasm
fashion items, such as clothes shoe designer Sophia Webster and the leather tote bags
or shoes. of Sophie Hulme”
(www.fashioneditoratlarge.blogspot.com). Taken from
GloWbE.
“Ballroom addict 1: Say, did you watch that PBS

A feeling of excitement America’s Ballroom Challenge?
Floorgasm experienced when dancing on
a dancefloor. Obsessed Ballroom Addict: OMG did you SEE Ben and
Shalene? Floorgasm!” (UrbanDictionary)
A feeling of excitement of
“When playing Command and Conquer 3 it sounded
enthusiasm given by the visual
Gamegasm and looked so good I had a gamegasm”
components, aesthetics, or
(UrbanDictionary).
contents of a game.
A feeling of excitement given

“Easily the most deluxe gaming product I’ve ever seen!
Gamingasm by the activity of playing a
#gamingasm” (Twitter).
game
“Bench! Ball! Goal! Arjen Robben watched the ball from

A feeling of excitement the bench for 54 minutes. He was subbed on. And
Goalgasm obtained when one’s favourite celebrated his personal goal-gasm with his first touch of
team scores a goal. the ball after 37 seconds” (www.espnfc.us). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
“Tech media starting to catch on that nothing Google

can make will spell the end for Microsoft. Some writers
A feeling of enthusiasm by the
Googasm fake a Googasm and manage to fool an inexperienced
success of Google.
few readers, but those of us in the know can spot the
act” (www.theregister.co.uk). Taken from GloWbE.
“The word Goregasm was invented to describe the

A feeling of enthusiasm feelings an Al Gore lover gets when doing anything Al
Goregasm experienced when doing Gore related, an event referred to as a Goregy when
anything related to Al Gore. occurring collectively” (www.realcty.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
Name of a band, presumably

denoting a feeling of
Gorgasm excitement derived from gore-
related, that is, sanguine-
related things.
Probably a feeling of
excitement when facing
Horrorgasm
horror-related things or
activities.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Taking ‘horticulture’ as its

“This is truly one of the most elegant plants in the
first source word, this word
genus arum, and to catch them in perfect flower was a
stands for the feeling of
Hortgasm true “hortgasm” moment”
enthusiasm of excitement
(www.juniperlevelbotanicgarden.org). Taken from
experienced when seeing
EnTenTen15.
beautiful plants and flowers.
A feeling of excitement
“Holy cow that is such a good idea!!! I think I just had
Ideagasm produced by having a
an ideagasm” (UrbanDictionary).
wonderful idea.
“Why does it feel so good just to answer and delete
Internetgasm produced by surfing the
emails? #internetgasm” (Twitter).
Internet.
Name of a product for beauty

aimed at getting perfect
eyelashes. Presumably
Lashgasm
standing for a feeling of
enthusiasm produced by
having perfect eyelashes.
The feeling one gets when “I’m intoxicated by the smell of real leather and
Leathergasm admiring a beautiful leather fascinated by the rawness of handmade leather goods.
work. #leathergasm” (Twitter).
Excitement or enthusiasm
Lightning-
resulting from a good use of
gasm
lightning techniques in a film.
“I know the car isn’t “beautiful” by Ferrari standards,

but it still satisfies every cargasm and luxogasm need
Luxogasm produced by seeing or owning
any of us may ever have” (www.hotelroomsdirect.uk).
luxury items.

Macgasm using or owning a Mac product
designed by Apple.
“This is post number six in the ongoing #mapgasm

A feeling of enthusiasm series of posts on maps found on the interwebs that I
Mapgasm
produced by looking at maps. like. Yes, it’s another map. Yes, it’s another Tube map”
(www.vicchi.org). Taken from EnTenTen15.
A feeling of excitement “The Super Bowl is an enormous money-gasm, but it is

Moneygasm produced by receiving a so far more for the TV people than the NFL”
quantity of money. (www.sportschump.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“On the next row over was the exclusive Mustang Club.
More Mustangs than you could ever want or dream
Mustangasm produced by admiring a
about were all lined up for your personal Mustangasm”
Mustang car.
(www.barry-stein.net). Taken from GloWbE.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“Volunteers submit over 1000 new definitions to

Excitement from coining or
Neologasm Urbandictionary every day. It ain’t fo the money; it’s all
finding a neologism.
about the neologasms” (UrbanDictionary).
“Put simply, if there was even a remote possibility of us

being turned into a colony the Daily Mail would have a
Newsgasm experienced when having or
newsgasm and put it all over pages 1-27”
displaying news.
(www.tboverse.us). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Name of an electronic music

Noisegasm duo. Probably the feeling one
gets when hearing loud noises.
“If your so happy paying subsidies, then your gonna
enthusiasm related to ex-
Obamagasm, have an ObamaGasm when you get your bill for the
President Barack Obama or
Obamaorgasm Socialist Medical Program (National Health Care)”
any policies issued by his
(www.fullertonsfuture.org). Taken from EnTenTen15.
government.
In the context provided, a “Newsweek promised to demystify the viral orbgasm in

feeling of excitement people an article published Sunday called “Why Donald Trump
experience when talking about Touched a Glowing Orb in Saudi Arabia”. The article
Orbgasm
Donald Trump touching a cooly explains that the image depicts Trump at the
glowing orb in a visit to Saudi opening of the Global Center for Combatting Extremist
Arabia. Ideology in Riyadh” (www.theslot.jezebel.com).
“The challenge: have fun in Singapore ... the mist

A feeling of excitement house, the cool house, and the VIP Orchid Garden. I
Orchidgasm produced by seeing beautiful think I had an orchidgasm”
Orchid flowers. (www.greenteafrappuccino.loseweightquickly.space).
experienced when looking at “Ultimate want. I just had a papergasm here”
Papergasm
stationary material or items (Pinterest).
made of paper.
Feeling of excitement related

Pinkgasm
to the use of the colour pink.
“Another plankgasm! Yay! It seems I am now just

Feeling of excitement
getting on with the planks. If you are looking for more
experienced when being
Plankgasm challenging plank variations, check this out”
capable of doing plank
(www.thepeakconditionproject.com). Taken from
abdominal exercises.
GloWbE.
“You can read some about this at Plantgasm, if you’re

A feeling of enthusiasm when interested. Passiflora caerulea and maybe other
Plantgasm admiring beautiful plants or Passiflora spp. (passion flower)”
flowers. (www.plantsarethestrangestpeople.blogspot.com).
Taken from GloWbE.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“if Michael Bay put out a movie called “Sh*t Blows Up”
and made two hours of a seat-shaking, AC/DC blaring,
A feeling of enthusiasm or
mushroom-clouded pyrogasm of splodey bits, in super-
Pyrogasm excitement experienced when
mega 4D (enveloping you in a smog smelling of burnt
admiring pyrotechnics.
rubber and man sweat) it would be the biggest selling
movie of all time” (www.tor.com). Taken from GloWbE.
“Lubuntu , Mythbuntu , Edubuntu , Kubuntu , and

A feeling of enthusiasm Ubuntu Studio , have all been updated, absorbing and
produced by the commercial expanding upon various features present in Ubuntu
Releasegasm release of a new product (in 11.04. Absolute 13.2.2, a light-weight version of
the example provided, the Slackware, rounds out the releasegasm of the last 24
product being a software). hours” (www.matias.root.zone). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
The feeling of excitement one

gets when admiring the “Can you say scenerygasm: The Princess and the Frog”
Scenerygasm
beautiful scenery of a film or a (www.derynsharp.tk). Taken from EnTenTen15.
work of art.
“Palace can thank Hugh O’Higgins for a 90 th minute 45

A feeling of excitement yard piledriver to seal victory while Scoregasms will be
obtained when a footballer of grateful to Ladzio player Ronald Carroll who found
Scoregasm
one’s favourite team scores a himself taking an early bath after picking up two
goal. yellow cards, both for dissent towards the referee”
(www.collegetribune.ie). Taken from EnTenTen15.

“When I saw those pink Mary Janes, I had the most
Shoegasm seeing a pair of beautiful
amazing shoegasm of my life” (UrbanDictionary).
shoes.
A feeling of enthusiasm “Have you seen the new episode of Doctor Who? man
Showgasm produced by attending or that show gives me the best showgasm”
watching a wonderful show. (UrbanDictionary).
“Elly had a soundgasm every time she heard a cat
Soundgasm experienced when hearing
meow” (UrbanDictionary)
something.
“I’ve been reserved so far, but I feel a sports-gasm

A feeling of enthusiasm or
coming on that won’t subside until the end of the NFL
Sportsgasm excitement when playing or
season” (www.andrewdupont.net). Taken from
watching sports.
EnTenTen15.
“Join Storygasm, the queer storytelling and roleplaying

Enthusiasm derived from
Storygasm collective, to tell collaborative stories!”
reading or listening to a story.
(www.nineworlds.co.uk).
“Directed by Pierre Koralnik and starring Anna Karina,

the movie might best be described as an 87-minute
Stylegasm produced by the style of a film,
stylegasm” (www.thesamecinemaeverynight.net). Taken
a person or another object.
from EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Tabloidgasm produced by reading an article
in a tabloid.

“I believe I just experienced a thoughtgasm from staring
Thoughtgasm having or coming up with new
at Mrs. Smith’s ass!” (UrbanDictionary).
thoughts and ideas.
“Oh, and yes -Spielberg needs to make that

Enthuasiasm related to the Indianapolis movie! Maybe after he gets this Tintingasm
Tintingasm
Tintin character or film. out of his system he can make another actual movie”
(www.aintitcool.com). Taken from GloWbE.
A feeling of excitement of a
musician when going on tour
Tourgasm
or a fan when going to
concerts.

“Greys Anatomy, Scandal & How to get away with
TVgasm watching material one loves
murder!!! #tvgasm” (Twitter).
on TV.
“People on social media seemed to have a simultaneous

Twittergasm twittergasm when it was over, and it’s easy to see why”
reading a post on Twitter.
(www.chortle.co.uk). Taken from GloWbE.
produced when dealing with
something related to
Vampiregasm
vampires, such as
documentaries or films where
they appear.
“Looks like they’re scared that Cameron may pull

another vetogasm surprise moment, especially with no
Vetogasm produced by imposing a veto
Lib Dem fifth columnist minister in the FO”
on something or someone.
(www.politicalbetting.com). Taken from GloWbE.
A feeling of pleasure or “The Italian accent is a vowelgasm that reflects the

Vowelgasm excitement when listening to spectrum of Italic experience” (www.twmagazine.net).
vowel sounds. Taken from EnTenTen15.
“If Israel attacks Iran, John Bolton will have such a

A feeling of excitement related
Wargasm wargasm that his head might explode”
to war.
(UrbanDictionary).
Presumably a feeling of
excitement or enthusiasm
“Upon Jeans reading those words, she may experience a
Wordgasm when using or reading a word
wordgasm” (UrbanDictionary).
or when reading a text that
somebody has written.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
Appendix 5
Table 5: Cause and effect blends modelled on ‘eargasm’
“His sound is a majestic blend of overblown hyperbole

Feeling of enthusiasm when and meaningless adjectives that actually have nothing to
Bassgasm listening to the sound of a do with music. Each festy season he journeys across the
bass. land inducing immersive cutting-edge bassgasms and
killin’ it” (www.artoutside.org). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Feeling of excitement when

“North Korean Beliebers are going to have a Biebergasm
listening to music by
Biebergasm when they see what we’ve put together”
Canadian singer Justin
(www.ssy.org.uk). EnTenTen15.
Bieber.
“Choirgasm : An Evening of Coral Pleasure”
Choirgasm produced by listening to
(www.oica.upd.edu.ph). Taken from EnTenTen15.
the music of a choir.
“2008 with Gaga in Miss Universe was your gagasm”
Gagasm when listening to music by
(www.gagadaily.com).
American singer Lady Gaga.
when listening to the sound
“Dude i just bought jackson kelly and i think i also need a
of a guitar. Occasionally, it
Guitargasm change of pants because i just had a guitargasm”
can be used to refer to the
(UrbanDictionry).
feeling of pleasure obtained
while playing the guitar.
“The Metalgasm comes about four minutes in, when

Halford goes from death metal growls up through the
Metalgasm when listening to metal
octaves to a scream that would summon Thor himself”
music.
(www.metaltalk.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Feeling of excitement when

listening to an opera piece “-Soprano/tenor *sings high C*. -Audience member:
Operagasm
or attending an opera *operagasms*” (UrbanDictionary).
performance.
Popgasm when listening to pop
music.
“It doesn’t take any real prominence until the song

A feeling of excitement bursts into a full out rockgasm after the arresting tremolo
Rockgasm experienced when listening bass bridge with the unsettling line “One of these days
to rock music. I’m going to cut you up into little pieces!””
(www.sourceaudio.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
A feeling of excitement “We are grateful that there is now a Soulgasm Music
Soulgasm when listening to soul Label” (www.girlpr.motionforum.net). Taken from
music. EnTenTen15.
Appendix 6
Table 6: Experiencer blends ending in ‘-gasm’
“The Carnivorgasm at The Vortex Bar & Grill (Atlanta)

is one pound of grilled sirloin patties topped with
Feeling of pleasure
pulled smoked pork, bacon, sliced ham, turkey,
Carnivorgasm experienced by a carnivore
cheddar cheese and whiskey pimento cheese, covered
(when they eat meat).
in Vortex barbeque” (www.reviewtravel.info). Taken
from EnTenTen15.
A feeling of pleasure “Meanwhile, the clown had another clowngasm”

Clowngasm
experienced by a clown. (www.tenka.seiha.org). Taken from EnTenTen15.
“’Wow man, where’d you find this restaurant?’ ‘I was

Exploragasm, A feeling experienced by
trying to go to Jenny’s house and had an explorgasm!’”
Explorgasm an explorer.
(UrbanDictionary)
“We have the following two little tid bits of

information, which is guaranteed to produce fangasms
Fangasm experienced by a fan of
from even the most casual ‘Star Wars’ fan”
someone or something.
(www.scifipulse.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
Femaleorgasm, A feeling of physical

“FemaleOrgasm Sex Guide” (www.lending.estate).
Femgasm, pleasure experienced by a
Femmegasm female.
“Growing up with the Tintin books by Belgian artist

Hergé, hearing news of it being turned into a movie
enthusiasm experienced by
Geekgasm by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson gave me a
a geek, a huge fan of
geekgasm” (www.sugoistuff.net). Taken from
someone or something.
EnTenTen15.
This is the name of a comic

for adults. It probably
Herogasm stands for the feeling of
pleasure experienced by
the hero.
“Horgasm: This is going to be an in-depth look at the

Feeling of pleasure or highs, the lows, the pressures and orgasmic releases
Horgasm excitement experienced by that make up every damn frickin’ second of Torstein’s
(Torstein) Horgmo. (Horgmo) existence” (www.whitelines.mpora.com).
Taken from GloWbE.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“you also have the power and the ability to ensure

A feeling of pleasure you get the level of sexual satisfaction you want by
Ladygasm
experienced by a lady. using Ladygasm toys” (www.womenmasturbation.org).
A feeling of pleasure
Lesbigasm
experienced by a lesbian.
“The Mangasm Edge is sure to bring you to an

A feeling of pleasure incredible orgasm, massaging both your prostate, and
Mangasm
experienced by a man. your balls with its intense vibrating power”
(www.jerking-off.org). Taken from EnTenTen15.
This word is used to refer

to one of Shannon Moore’s
signature moves while
wrestling. The term stands
Mooregasm
for the feeling of
excitement or pleasure
experienced by (Shannon)
Moore.
A feeling of excitement or “As a HUGE Star Trek fan I am having a huge nerdgasm
enthusiasm experienced by over today’s announcement Star Trek is coming back
Nerdgasm
a nerd, a huge fan of to TV!” (www.statestimes.net). Taken from
something or someone. EnTenTen15.
“As my Bitachon, my trust of Creator, grew, my need

A feeling of excitement for control let go and the fuel of prayergasm has taken
Prayergasm
experienced by a prayer. me on a whirlwind tour of my devotional soul ever
since!” (www.jewrotica.org). EnTenTen15.
“A prorgasm is what particularly keen programmers

A feeling of pleasure or get when they have finally completed a program that
Prorgasm excitement experienced by has been giving them grief for some time”
a programmer. (www.meta.uncyclomedia.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
experienced by a person
Queergasm who identifies himself or
herself sexually as being
queer.
“Walton tells of the Torygasm: Thatcher funeral will

Feeling of excitement cost £10 million and involve 700 military personal. Big
Torygasm
experienced by Tories. Ben will be silenced” (www.cyberunions.org). Taken
from EnTenTen15.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“Dude ,I just had sex with a Latino prostitute and she
experienced by a woman
Whoregasm totally had a Whoregasm all on my lap”
who works in the
(UrbanDictionary)
prostitution business.
Appendix 7
Table 7: Coordination blends ending in ‘-gasm’
“I began using several of my favourite tantric techniques to

A feeling of bliss circulate sexual energy between me and Sydney. Before I
accompanied by a knew it, a little blissgasm shivered up my spine, followed by
Blissgasm
feeling of physical an actual clitoral orgasm... I was so amazed, I had to stop and
pleasure. lean against a wall” (www.guardian.co.uk). Taken from
GloWbE.
A feeling of physical “This was very pleasurable, and triggered a series of deep
pleasure occurring clitoral orgasms, accompanied by a burst of emotion, which I
Crygasm
simultaneously with call a crygasm” (www.sexecology.org). Taken from
the activity of crying. EnTenTen15.
This term is used to

express something is
“Have you seen this thing? This sexy macho bloated Hot
someone’s dream and
Wheels fantasia dreamgasm of a car-like drunken child’s
Dreamgasm simultaneously
funbot crayon sketch?” (www.commondreams.org). Taken
produces a feeling
from EnTenTen15.
excitement in that
person.
A feeling of joy one

experiences
Joygasm accompanied by a
feeling of pleasure or
excitement.
A feeling of rage
experienced by a
“Rick was just having a little ragegasm at being caught lying.
person, occurring
Ragegasm There’s the shame of lying, coupled with the shame of
together with a feeling
dutifully doing so on behalf of the Party” (GloWbE).
of pleasure or
excitement.
Lexis, 14 | 2019
“when these people who take this drug yawn, they have an
orgasm. They -- it’s called -- you know, I’m doing this as a
A yawn which co- public service. I am -- I’m a highly trained broadcast
Yawgasm,
occurs with a feeling of specialist, ladies and gentlemen. This -- do not -- many of
Yawngasm
physical pleasure. you are thinking that I am advocating this kind of thing. I’m
simply warning you. They’re calling this effect the yawgasm”
(COCA).
Appendix 8
Table 8: Adjectival blends ending in ‘-gasm’
“Aurgasm seeks to bring you an eclectic

This blend is formed by the
Aurgasm menagerie of aural pleasures” (www.aurgasm.us).
fusion of ‘aural’ and ‘orgasm’.
(EnTenTen15).
In this case, it is clear that the

word orgasm keeps its original “The Fakegasm: where faking it until you make it
Fakegasm meaning. It is fused with the doesn’t work. Ever fake an orgasm?”
adjective fake to create a new (www.sexologyinternational.com).
word meaning ‘a fake orgasm’.
“Have you seen this thing? This sexy macho

bloated Hot Wheels fantasia dreamgasm of a car-
Faux + orgasm, meaning ‘a false/
Fauxgasm like drunken child’s funbot crayon sketch?”
faux orgasm’.
(www.commondreams.org). Taken from
EnTenTen15.
This expression is used to refer

Forevergasm to an orgasm lasting for a very
long period of time.
In this case, the adjective

“the Surfing Goat Dairy where I had a
gastronomical is used as modifier
gastronogasm over the fresh flavored cheeses.
Gastronogasm or orgasm. The word means ‘a
(*Gastronogasm* I think I made up a new word!)”
feeling of gastronomical
(www.tobyneal.net). Taken from EnTenTen15.
pleasure’.
The source words of this blend

Literarygasm
are literary and orgasm.
ABSTRACTS
The aim of this work is to study the nature of blends’ splinters, elements that have been often
referred to as ‘final combining forms’, whose status remains unclear. Our specific objective is to
analyze blends containing the element ‘-gasm’ to check tendencies in their formation. We intend
to prove that the sequence ‘-gasm’ possesses a high degree of productivity and is used
Lexis, 14 | 2019
recurrently in the formation of new words. Through the analysis of the bases to which the
splinter is attached and the study of the relationship existing between the component parts of
the blends, we aim at discovering which mechanism is at work, while attempting to
accommodate the operation within the theoretical framework of Construction Morphology, an
approach to morphology within the overarching theory of Construction Grammar. This
approach, proposed by Geert Booij, acknowledges the existence of constructions as pairings of
form and meaning at word level, and thus it considers that abstractions allowing speakers to coin
new complex words are based on actual instances of words that are memorized. We have
compiled our own 200-sample corpus of novel English blends coined by native speakers of
English and taken from a variety of sources (online corpora, websites listing neologisms, social
networks, including Twitter, and even online discussion threads). For the data analysis, we
proceed as follows: (i) identify the cases of hapax legomena in the corpus in order to account for
the productivity of the process; (ii) recover the source words of all the blends subject to study
and contextualize the items in our corpus, by providing an instance of each word in a wider
context; (iii) analyze the relationships existing between the first and the second component of
the novel coinages, according to different factors, such as the notion of causality and the
cognitive and experiential relationship of cause and effect, the syntactic behaviour of the source
words and the semantic roles fulfilled by these units; (iv) identify blends exhibiting a similar
behaviour and propose constructional schemas to account for their creation. The results of our
analysis show that the splinter analyzed appears to be highly productive, and that blends ending
in ‘-gasm’ can belong to different groups, the most significant of which are the following:
(a) cause and effect blends, in which the relationship between the source words is based on the
notion of causality. Two different subsets can be identified in this group, depending on the
meaning that ‘-gasm’ acquires in the resulting blend: that of physical pleasure, as in toygasm or
that of a feeling of excitement or enthusiasm, as in neologasm; (b) experiencer blends, such as
clowngasm, where the first participant fulfils the semantic role of an experiencer, that is, the first
participant experiences the feeling of pleasure; (c) coordination blends, that is, blended words
whose source words stand in a relationship of coordination, such as crygasm; (d) adjectival
blends, in which the first element premodifies the feeling denoted by the second element, as in
fakegasm. Based on our results, constructional morphology, and especially constructional
schemas, seem to be a very appropriate tool for explaining the formation of these lexemes.
Le but de cet article est d’étudier la nature des fracto-morphèmes contenus dans les amalgames,
ces éléments généralement connus sous le nom de ‘final combining forms’ en anglais, et dont le
statut demeure encore flou. Notre objectif principal est d’analyser les amalgames contenant
l’élément ‘-gasm’ afin de mettre au jour des tendances quant à leur formation. Nous souhaitons
montrer que la séquence ‘-gasm’ exhibe un haut degré de productivité et est fréquemment
convoquée lors de la formation de nouveaux lexèmes. C’est à travers l’analyse des bases
auxquelles est attaché le fracto-morphème et l’étude des relations existantes entre les parties
constitutives des amalgames que nous souhaitons dégager le procédé à l’oeuvre, dans une
optique théorique de morphologie constructionnelle, sous-branche de la grammaire de
construction. Selon Geert Booij, cette approche postule l’existence de constructions en tant que
couplage forme-sens au niveau du lexème ; par conséquent, cette approche part du principe
selon lequel ce sont les abstractions qui permettent aux locuteurs de créer de nouveaux lexèmes
complexes basés sur des exemples attestés de lexèmes qui ont été mémorisés. Pour construire
notre corpus, nous avons ainsi recueilli un échantillon de 200 nouveaux amalgames inventés par
des locuteurs natifs anglophones dans des contextes variés (corpus en ligne, sites internet
répertoriant des néologismes, réseaux sociaux, dont Twitter, et également fils de discussion en
ligne). Pour l’analyse des données, nous avons procédé de la manière suivante : (i) identification
des cas d’hapax dans le corpus afin de verifier la productivité du procédé d’amalgamation ;
Lexis, 14 | 2019
(ii) mise au jour des termes sources de tous les amalgames étudiés et contextualisation de chaque
amalgame dans le corpus en fournissant un contexte large pour chacun ; (iii) analyse des
relations existantes entre le premier élément et le second élément des amalgames, selon divers
critères tels que la notion de causalité et les relations cognitives et expérientielles de cause à
effet, le comportement syntaxique des termes sources et les rôles sémantiques joués par ces
unités ; (iv) identification des amalgames ayant des propriétés semblables et proposition d’un
modèle constructionnel afin de rendre compte de leur création. Les résultats de notre étude
indiquent que le fracto-morphème ‘-gasm’ exhibe une forte productivité et que les amalgames se
terminant par ce même fracto-morphème appartiennent à divers groupes, dont les plus
représentés sont les suivants : (a) les amalgames de type cause à effet pour lesquels la relation
entre les termes sources est fondée sur la notion de causalité. Deux sous-groupes différents
peuvent être identifiés, selon le sens que ‘-gasm’ revêt dans les amalgames : plaisir physique
(toygasm) ou sentiment d’enthousiasme (neologasm) ; (b) les amalgames expérientiels (clowngasm)
dans lesquels le premier actant joue un rôle sémantique expérientiel, c’est-à-dire qu’il éprouve
un sentiment de plaisir ; (c) les amalgames coordinatifs, c’est-à-dire ceux dans lesquels les termes
sources sont dans une relation de coordination (crygasm) ; (d) les amalgames adjectivaux dans
lesquels le premier élément prémodifie le sentiment évoqué par le second élément (fakegasm).
D’après nos résultats, la morphologie constructionnelle et, plus particulièrement, les modèles
constructionnels se révèlent être très pertinents pour mettre au jour la formation de ces
lexèmes.
INDEX
Keywords: lexical blending, blend splinters, constructional morphology, constructional schemas,
semantics
Mots-clés: amalgamation lexicale, fracto-morphèmes, morphologie constructionelle, modèles
constructionnels, sémantique
AUTHOR
ALEJANDRO BARRENA JURADO
Independent researcher
l32bajua@uco.es
Lexis, 14 | 2019

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Lexis

Journal in English Lexicology

A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the nature of blends’

This text was automatically generated on 20 April 2020.

Lexis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

A study on the ‘wordgasm’: the

1. Aims of the study

6 The theory of conceptual blending, also known as conceptual integration, was

2.2. Lexical blending

34 As I stated before, one of the approaches to the nature of splinters is their

2.3.3. Requisites for splinters to become morphemes

2.4. Blends within a theory

2.4.1. Paradigmatic morphology

43 Most morphological processes have traditionally been described from a syntagmatic

2.4.2. Construction Grammar

49 Constructionist approaches take the notion of construction as their basic elements. As

interrelated constructions. Construction grammarians oppose to Chomsky’s belief that

2.4.3. Construction Morphology

52 Construction Morphology is an approach to morphology within the overarching theory

(1) <[x]Vi er]Nj ↔ [Agent of SEMi]j>

56 In his work, Booij [2015: 425] explains that:

4. Analysis and results

64 In relation to the specific objective of this study, an approximation to the degree of

4.2. Structural properties of the blended words

4.2.2. Blend length

4.3. Semantic properties of the blended words

4.3.1. Cause and effect blends

4.3.1.1. ‘-gasm’ meaning ‘physical or bodily pleasure’

4.3.1.2. ‘-gasm’ meaning ‘feeling of excitement or enthusiasm’

4.3.2. Experiencer blends

4.3.3. Coordination blends

4.3.4. Adjectival blends

4.3.5. Predication blends

Artgasm project literally presents orgasms as both an ultimate form of art

4.4. Final overview

(3.1.) <[[X]PNi gasm]Nj ↔ [A feeling of pleasure or excitement experienced by

BAUER Laurie, 1983, English word-formation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BAUER Laurie, 2001, Morphological Productivity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

BECKER Thomas, 1993, “Back-formation, cross-formation and ‘bracketing paradoxes’”, in BOOIJ

BOOIJ Geert, 2010, Construction Morphology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHOROLEEVA Kornelia, 2015, “Morpho-semantic groups of lexical blends”, Scientific Works Of

LEHRER Adrienne, 1996, “Identifying and interpreting blends: An experimental approach”,

PLAG Ingo, 2003, Word-Formation in English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

RAFFELSIEFEN Renate, 2004, “Absolute ill-formedness and other morphophonological effects”,

Word En TenTen15 GlowBe COCA

orgasm 39,845 5,966 1,744

Word Definition Example

“Asianporngasm - extremely hot resource

“Hayley enjoyed her anal adventure

“We spoke to one mum who, without

“My god. That chillgasm was so worth the

“An orgasm achieved while ““coregasm,” named thusly because

“When a fail feels good” “I had a failgasm yesterday”

“When a sudden event like the

“One of the diners at an adjacent table had

An orgasm reached by watching “Raw Hentaigasm - Stream Hentai”

When a good full-bodied laugh can

“We tried all kinds of fair fried things and

“Some women can orgasm just through