Metanalysis (linguistics)

Rebracketing (also known as resegmentation or metanalysis) is a process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one set of morphemes is broken down or bracketed into a different set. For example, ''hamburger'', originally from ''Hamburg''+''er'', has been rebracketed into ''ham''+''burger'', and ''burger'' was later reused as a productive morpheme in coinages such as ''cheeseburger''. It is usually a form of folk etymology, or may seem to be the result of valid morphological processes.

Rebracketing often focuses on highly probable word boundaries: "a noodle" might become "an oodle", since "an oodle" sounds just as grammatically correct as "a noodle", and likewise "an eagle" might become "a neagle", but "the bowl" would not become "th ebowl" and "a kite" would not become "ak ite".

Technically, bracketing is the process of breaking an utterance into its constituent parts. The term is akin to parsing for larger sentences, but it is normally restricted to morphological processes at the sublexical level, i.e. within the particular word or lexeme. For example, the word ''uneventful'' is conventionally bracketed as n+[event+ful, and the bracketing un+event">vent+ful.html" ;"title="n+[event+ful">n+[event+ful, and the bracketing un+eventful] leads to completely different semantics. Rebracketing is the process of seeing the same word as a different morphological decomposition, especially where the new etymology becomes the conventional norm. The name false splitting, also called misdivision, in particular is often reserved for the case where two words mix but still remain two words (as in the "noodle" and "eagle" examples above).

The name juncture loss may be specially deployed to refer to the case of an article and a noun fusing (such as if "the jar" were to become "(the) thejar" or "an apple" were to become "(an) anapple"). Loss of juncture is especially common in the cases of loanwords and loan phrases in which the recipient language's speakers at the time of the word's introduction did not realize an article to be already present (e.g. numerous Arabic-derived words beginning 'al-' ('the'), including "algorithm", "alcohol", "alchemy", etc.). Especially in the case of loan phrases, juncture loss may be recognized as substandard even when widespread; e.g. "the ''hoi polloi''", where Greek ''hoi'' = "the".

As a statistical change within a language within any century, rebracketing is a very weak statistical phenomenon. Even during phonetic template shifts, it is at best only probable that 0.1% of the vocabulary may be rebracketed in any given century.

Rebracketing is part of the process of language change, and often operates together with sound changes that facilitate the new etymology.

Rebracketing is sometimes used for jocular purposes, for example ''psychotherapist'' can be rebracketed jocularly as ''Psycho the rapist'', and ''together in trouble'' can be rebracketed jocularly as ''to get her in trouble''.

Role in forming new words

Before the increased standardization of the English language in the modern period, many new words entered its lexicon in exactly the way just described. A 15th century English cook may once have said something like: "Ah, I found this ewt and this nadder in my napron while baking numble-pie." A few generations later the cook's descendant would have said: "Ah, I found this newt and this adder in my apron while baking (h)umble-pie." Over the course of time these words were misheard and resegmented: ''ewt'' became ''newt'', ''nadder'' became ''adder'', ''napron'' became ''apron'', ''numble-pie'' became ''(h)umble pie''. The force behind these particular resegmentations, and by far the most powerful force behind any such resegmentations in the English language, was the "movable-n" of the indefinite article ''a(n)'', of the possessive pronouns ''my(n)'' and ''thy(n)'', and of the old dative case of the definite article ''the(n)''. The biforms ''no''/''none'', the prepositions ''in'' and ''on'', the conditional conjunction ''an even'', the shortened form ''n'' (and), and the inflectional endings in ''-n'' may also have played a part. Through the process of prothesis, in which the sound at the end of a word is transferred to the beginning of the word following, or conversely apheresis, in which the sound at the beginning of a word is transferred to the end of the word preceding, old words were resegmented and new words formed. So through prothesis ''an ewt'' became ''a newt''. Conversely through aphaeresis ''a nadder'' became ''an adder'', ''a napron'' became ''an apron'', and ''a numble-pie'' became ''an (h)umble-pie''. Many other words in the English language owe their existence to just this type of resegmentation: e.g., ''nickname'', ''ninny'', ''namby-pamby'', ''nidiot''/''nidget'', ''nonce word'', ''nother'', and ''notch'' through prothesis of ''n''; ''auger'', ''umpire'', ''orange'', ''eyas'', ''atomy'', ''emony'', ''ouch'', and ''aitch-bone'', through aphaeresis of ''n''.

Creation of productive affixes

Many productive affixes have been created by rebracketing, such as ''-athon'' from ''Marathon'', ''-holic'' from ''alcoholic'', and so on. These unetymological affixes are libfixes.

Examples

* The origins of the word were in a form of ground meat dish originating from Hamburg, Germany. The bracketing of the original was ''hamburg‧er'', but after its introduction into the United States, it was soon factorized as ''ham‧burger'' (helped by ''ham'' being a form of meat). This led to the creation of the independent suffix ''-burger'': chickenburger, fishburger, etc. In the original etymology, ''burg'' was town and ''burger'' was a resident, or something related to the town; after refactorization it becomes a chunk of meat for a sandwich, although a hamburger does not contain ham.
* The English word is a loanword from French, where it was formed by combining the adverb (meaning "beyond") with the suffix , rendering a bracketing of ''outr‧age'' and a meaning of "beyondness" (from what is acceptable). The rebracketing as a compound of ''out-'' with the noun or verb ''rage'' has led to both a different pronunciation than the one to be expected for such a loanword (compare ) and an additional meaning of "angry reaction" not present in French.
* The English , from Greek ''heliko-'' ("turning") and ''pteron'' ("wing"), has been rebracketed to modern ''heli‧copter'' (as in jetcopter, heliport).
* (from Greek ''kubernān'' and ''-ētēs'') has been split into ''cyber‧netics'' (as in ).
* contains the prefix ''prosth(o)-'', which arose by misdivision of into ''prosth-'' and ''-etic''. The word comes from Greek ''pros'' ("in front of") and ''thē-'', the root of the verb ''tithēmi'' ("I place").
* The dog breed (a cross between a Labrador Retriever and Poodle) has been rebracketed to ''Labra‧doodle'', leading to the ''-doodle'' suffix in other Poodle crossbreeds such as the Goldendoodle and Aussiedoodle.
* The word derives from (itself a junctureless rebracketing of Arabic ''al-kuḥl'') and . Words for other addictions have formed by treating as a suffix: , , etc.
* In Romance languages, repeated rebracketing can change an initial ''l'' to an ''n'' (first removing the ''l'' by analyzing it as the definite article ''l'', and then adding ''n'' by rebracketing from the indefinite article ''un''), or the reverse. Examples include:
** Latin *''libellu'' ("level") becoming ''nivel'' in Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, and ''niveau'' in French.
** Latin ''unicornis'' ("unicorn") became ''licorne'' in French, via ''unicorne'' > ''une icorne'' (a unicorn), and finally, with juncture loss, ''l'icorne'' (the unicorn) > ''licorne''.
* In Swahili, ''kitabu'' ("book") is derived from Arabic ''kitāb'' (). However, the word is split as a native Swahili word (''ki-'' + ''tabu'') and declined accordingly (plural ''vitabu''). This violates the original triliteral root of the original Arabic (''K-T-B'').
* Many words coined in a scientific context as neologisms are formed with suffixes arising from rebracketing existing terms. One example is the suffix ''-ol'' used to name alcohols, such as methanol. Its origin is the rebracketing of ''al‧cohol'' as ''alcoh‧ol''. The word ''alcohol'' derives from the Arabic ''al-kuḥl'', in which ''al'' is the definite article and ''kuḥl'' (i.e., kohl) is based on the Semitic triliteral root '. The suffix ''-ome'', as in ''genome'', is occasionally suggested as being a rebracketing of ''chromo‧some'' as ''chromos‧ome'', but see discussion at Omics asserting a derivation from other, similar coinages.
* In Scottish Gaelic, the definite article is pronounced run together with vowel-initial nouns without audible gap, similar to French. This union has provided a rich source of opportunities for rebracketing. Historically the article's various case-, number-, and gender-specific forms ended in either a vowel, a nasal or an , the latter later becoming an over time. Over time, the last syllable of the article was either eroded completely or weakened and partially lost, but where rebracketing had occurred, what had been the final consonant of the article came to be treated as the initial of the following noun. Example: an inghnean ( < *(s)indā inigenā) gave rise to an alternative form an ighean (the girl) this in turn becoming an nighean. As a second, more extreme example, the Scottish Gaelic words for ''nettle'' include neanntag, eanntag, deanntag, and even feanntag. In addition, many forms of the article cause grammatically conditioned initial consonant mutation of the following noun. The original cause of this mutation in the Celtic languages was an across-the-board change of pronunciation of certain non-geminate consonants where they were either trapped between two vowels, or else between a vowel or certain other consonants. Mutation gave rise to yet more possibilities for reanalysis, the form feanntag mentioned earlier possibly being one such example. Calder 'A Gaelic Grammar' (1923) has a useful list.

Examples of false splitting

In English

As demonstrated in the examples above, the primary reason of juncture loss in English is the confusion between "a" and "an". In Medieval script, words were often written so close together that for some Middle English scholars it was hard to tell where one began and another ended. The results include the following words in English:
* adder: Middle English ''a naddre'' ("a snake") taken for ''an addre''.
* aitchbone: Middle English ''a nachebon'' ("a buttock bone") taken for ''an hach boon''.
* another, formed by combining "an other" into one word, is sometimes colloquially split into "a nother" and a qualifier inserted as in "a whole nother issue".
* apron: Middle English ''a napron'' taken for ''an apron''.
* auger: Middle English ''a nauger'' taken for ''an auger''.
* chord: Middle English ''accord'' (harmony) taken for ''a cord'', later influenced by "chord" (archaic name for a string), which has another etymology.
* decoy: Most commonly thought to stem from Dutch ''de kooi'', in which ''de'' is the definite article and ''kooi'' means cage. An alternative theory is that the Dutch compound noun ''eendenkooi'', earlier spelled ''eendekooi'', meaning "duck decoy", from ''eend'' "duck" + ''kooi'', was reanalyzed and split, in the process of being transferred to English, as ''een dekooi'', in which ''een'' is the Dutch indefinite article.
* eyas: Middle English ''a niyas'' (from French ''niais'' from Late Latin ''nidiscus'' (from Latin ''nidus'' = "nest")) taken for ''an eias''.
* humble pie: Middle English ''a numble'' taken for ''an umble'' (ultimately from Latin ''lumbulus'', this is also an example of homorganicness).
* lone: Middle English ''al one'' (all one) taken for ''a-lone''.
* newt: Middle English ''an eute'' (cognate with ''eft'') taken for ''a neute''.
* nickname: Middle English ''an eke name'' ("an additional name") taken for ''a neke name''.
* the nonce: Middle English, for old English ''þen ānes'' (''the one ccasion').
* nuncle (dialectal form of uncle): Middle English ''mine uncle'' taken for ''my nuncle''.
* omelette: Seventeenth-century English loanword from French, developed there via earlier forms ''amelette'', ''alemette'' and ''alemelle'' from ''la lemelle'' ("the omelette") taken for ''l'alemelle''; ultimately from Latin ''lamella'' ("blade"), perhaps because of the thin shape of the omelette ( SOED).
* ought zero" Middle English ''a nought'' ("a nothing") taken for ''an ought''. Ultimately distinct from Old English ''naught'' ("nothing"), of complex and convergent etymology, from ''na'' ("not") and ''wight'' ("living thing, man"), but cf. ''aught'' ("anything", "worthy", etc.), itself ultimately from ''aye'' ("ever") and ''wight'' ( SOED).
* tother: Middle English (now dialectal) ''that other'' taken for ''the tother''.
* umpire: Middle English ''a noumpere'' taken for ''an oumpere''.

In French

In French similar confusion arose between "le/la" and "l'-" as well as "de" and "d'-".

* French ''démonomancie'' (" demonomancy") taken for ''d'émonomancie'' ("of emonomancy").
* Old French ''lonce'' ("lynx") taken for ''l'once'', thus giving rise to ''once'' (hence ), now more often applied to the snow leopard.
* Old French ''une norenge'' ('an orange') taken for ''une orenge''.
* ''boutique'' from Greek-derived Latin ''apotheca'', a change found in some Romance languages (e.g. Italian ''bottega'', Spanish ''bodega'', Sicilian ''putìa''), a putative proto-Romance ''l'aboteca'' or ''l'abodega'' taken for ''la'' + lexeme.
* ''licorne'' ("unicorn") from rebracketing of ''l'icorne''; ''icorne'' itself comes from rebracketing of Old French ''unicorne'' as ''une icorne''.
* ''lierre'' ("ivy") from Old French ''liere'', a rebracketing of ''l'iere''.

In Dutch

Dutch shares several examples with English, but also has some of its own. Many examples were created by reanalysing an initial ''n-'' as part of a preceding article or case ending.

* adder: As in English.
* arreslee (horse-drawn sleigh): From early modern Dutch ''een (n)arreslede'', from ''nar'' "fool, jester" + ''slede'' "sleigh".
* avegaar "auger": As in English.
* omelet "omelette": As in English.
* spijt "pity, regret": From Middle Dutch ''despijt'', from Old French ''despit'' "spite". Reanalysed as ''de spijt'' "the pity".
* Rijsel "Lille" : from ''ter IJsel'' "at the Isle", reanalyzed as ''te Rijsel'' "at Lille".

In Arabic

In Arabic the confusion is generally with non-Arabic words beginning in "al-" (''al'' is Arabic for "the").
* Alexander the Great has been interpreted in Arabic as ''Iskandar''; by extension:
** Greek ''Alexandreia'' (Alexandria) taken for ''al Exandreia'' (and thus ''Al-Iskandariyah''; this is also an example of metathesis).
** Greek ''Alexandretta'' taken for ''al Exandretta'' (and thus ''Iskenderun''; this too is an example of metathesis).
* Visigothic ''Ulishbona'' (Lisbon) taken for ''ul Ishbona'' (and thus medieval Arabic ''al-Ishbūnah'').

In Greek

* Negroponte (Euboea) from (''sto Nevripon''), rebracketing of (''ston Evripon''), and then a folk etymology connecting it to Italian ''negro'' 'black' and ''ponte'' 'bridge'
* Cattaro (Kotor) from , ''Decatera'' splitting to De Catera (''of Catera'') in Italian, then to Cattaro/Kotor.

Examples of juncture loss

* ''ajar'' from ''on char'' ("on turn").
* ''alligator'' from Spanish ''el lagarto'' ("the lizard").
* ''alone'' from ''all one''.
* ''atone'' from ''at one''.

From Arabic "al"

Perhaps the most common case of juncture loss in English comes from the Arabic ''al-'' (mentioned above), mostly via Spanish, Portuguese, and Medieval Latin:

Spanish

* Arabic ''al-faṣfaṣa'' in Spanish as ''alfalfa'', alfalfa.
* Arabic ''al-kharrūba'' in Spanish as ''algarroba'', carob.
* Arabic ''al-hilāl'' in Spanish as ''alfiler'', pin.
* Arabic ''al-hurj'' in Spanish as ''alforja'', saddlebag.
* Arabic ''al-qāḍī'' in Spanish as ''alcalde'', alcalde.
* Arabic ''al- qāʾid'' in Spanish as ''alcaide'', commander.
* Arabic ''al-qaṣr'' in Spanish as ''alcázar'', alcazar.
* Arabic ''al-qubba'' in Spanish as ''alcoba'', alcove.
* Arabic ''al-ʿuṣāra'' in Spanish as ''alizari'', madder root.
* Arabic ''ar-rub'' in Spanish as ''arroba'', a unit of measure.
* Arabic ''az-zahr'' ("the dice") in Spanish as ''azar'', "randomness", and in French and English as "hazard"
* Arabic ''al-fīl'' ("the elephant") in Spanish as ''alfil'' "chess bishop" and in Italian as ''alfiere'' "chess bishop" ''(whose Russian name (''slon'') also means "elephant").''
* Arabic ''al-bakūra'' in Spanish as ''albacora'', albacore.
* Arabic ''al-ġaṭṭās'' in Spanish as ''alcatraz'', gannet.
* Arabic ''al-qanṭara'' ("the bridge") in Spanish as ''Alcántara''.

Medieval Latin

* Arabic ''al-ʾanbīq'' in Medieval Latin as ''alembicus'', alembic.
* Arabic ''al-dabarān'' in Medieval Latin as ''Aldebaran'', Aldebaran.
* Arabic ''al-ḥinnāʾ'' in Medieval Latin as ''alchanna'', henna.
* Arabic ''al-ʿiḍāda'' in Medieval Latin as ''alidada'', sighting rod.
* Arabic ''al-jabr'' in Medieval Latin as ''algebra'', algebra.
* Arabic ''al-Khwarizmi'' in Medieval Latin as ''algorismus'', algorithm.
* Arabic ''al-kīmiyāʾ'' in Medieval Latin as ''alchymia'', alchemy.
* Arabic ''al-kuḥl'' (powdered antimony) in Medieval Latin as ''alcohol'', which see for the change of meaning.
*Arabic ''al-naṭḥ'' in Medieval Latin as ''Alnath'', Elnath (a star).
* Arabic ''al-qily'' in Medieval Latin as ''alkali'', alkali.
* Arabic ''al-qurʾān'' in Medieval Latin as ''alcorānum'', Koran.

Other

* Arabic ''al-ġūl'' in English as ''Algol''.
* Arabic ''al-majisti'' in French as ''almageste'', almagest.
* Arabic ''al-minbar'' in Medieval Hebrew as ''ʾalmēmār'', bema.
* Arabic ''al-qaly'' in English as ''alkali'', alkaline.
* Arabic ''al-kuħl'' in Old French as alcohol (modern French alcool), and in English as ''alcohol''.

In Greek

Junctural metanalysis played a role in the development of new words in the earliest period of Greek literature: during the oral transmission of the Homeric epics. Many words in the Homeric epics that are etymologically inexplicable through normal linguistic analysis begin to make some sense when junctural metanalysis at some stage in the transmission is assumed: e.g., the formula ''eche nedumos hypnos'' "sweet sleep held (him)" appears to be a resegmentation of ''echen edumos hypnos''. Steve Reece has discovered several dozen similar instances of metanalysis in Homer, thereby shedding new light on their etymologies.

Juncture loss is common in later Greek as well, especially in place names, or in borrowings of Greek names in Italian and Turkish, where particles () are fused with the original name.C. Desimoni, V. Belgrano, eds., "Atlante Idrografico del Medio Evo posseduto dal Prof. Tammar Luxoro, Pubblicata a Fac-Simile ed Annotato", ''Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria'', Genoa, 1867 5''
103
''cf.'' Luxoro Atlas In the Cretan dialect, the ''se-'' prefix was also found in common nouns, such as ''secambo'' or ''tsecambo'' < ''se-'' + ''cambo'' 'a plain'.

Examples:

* Prefix "stan" < στήν 'at', 'to'
** Istanbul or Stamboul and Stimpoli, Crete, from "" , 'in the city' or 'to the city'
** ''İstanköy'', ''Stanco'' for the island of Kos
** ''Standia'' for the island of Dia
* Prefix "s-" < σε 'at'
** Satines for Athines (Athens), ''etc.''
** Samsun (''s'Amison'' from "se" and "Amisos")
** ''Sdille'' for Delos
** ''Susam'' for Samos
** ''Samastro'' for Amasra''.Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt, ''Travels and Researches in Crete'', 1865, chapter XIX
p. 201
/ref>
** ''Stamiro'' (?)
** ''Stalimure'' (?)
* Prefix 'is' < εις 'at', 'to'
** İzmit from Media, with earlier ''İznikmit'' from Nicomedia
**İzmir from Smyrna
** İznik from ''Nicaea'' ()
* Other
** Navarino for earlier AvarinoDetailed history at Pylos#Name

See also

* Apheresis
* Apocope
* Back-formation
* Clipping
* Eggcorn
* Juncture
* Mondegreen
* Scunthorpe problem
* Synalepha
* Synaeresis
* Syncope
* Univerbation

Notes

{{Reflist

References

Etymology:
* Hendrickson, Robert. ''QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins''. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1998.
* Reece, Steve. ''Homer's Winged Words: The Evolution of Early Greek Epic Diction in the Light of Oral Theory''. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009. [This book is concerned primarily with junctural metanalysis in ancient Greek, but it includes a chapter on Middle English, and it catalogues examples in many other languages: Sanskrit, Tocharian, Old Church Slavic, Latin, Frankish, Venetian, Turkish, Italian, French, Spanish, Haitian, German, Dutch, Irish, Gaelic, Welsh, and Arabic.]

Dictionaries:
* DeVinne, Pamela B. ''The Tormont Webster's Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary''. Boston: Tormont Publications, Inc., 1982.
* Pickett, Joseph P. ''The American Heritage dictionary of the English language.—4th ed.'' New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000. lso: * Morris, William. ''The American Heritage dictionary of the English language.—new college ed.'' Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1976. [also: "New College Ed.", ed. William Morris. 1976* Vizetelly, Frank H. ''Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1931.
* Webster, Noah. ''American Dictionary of the English Language''. New Haven: S. Converse, 1828.

Etymology
Linguistic morphology
Historical linguistics
Semantics