Rebracketing
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Rebracketing is a common process in historical linguistics where a word originally derived from one source is broken down or bracketed into a different set of factors. It is a form of folk etymology, where the new factors may appear meaningful, or may seem to be the result of valid morphological processes. Also, the re-bracketing often focuses on highly probable word boundaries. The process is sometimes called refactorization or simply misdivision.
Technically, bracketing is the process of breaking an utterance into its constituent parts. The term is akin to parsing for larger sentences, but 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 [un+[event+ful]], and the bracketing [[un+event]+ful] leads to completely different semantics. Re-bracketing is the process of seeing the same word as a different morphological decomposition, especially where the new etymology becomes the conventional norm.
Re-bracketing is part of the process of language change, and often operates together with sound changes that facilitate the new etymology.
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[edit] Examples
For example, the word hamburger had its origins in a form of ground meat dish popular in Hamburg, Germany (where it is still called Tartar steak; it was apparently popular with the Mongol armies). A possible bracketing for the original may be [[ham+burg]+er], but after it became popular in America, it was soon factorized as [ham+burger] (helped by the fact that ham is a form of meat). This led to the independent suffix -burger: chickenburger, fishburger, etc. Note that 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.[1]
An example from Persian is the word shatranj (chess), which is derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga (2nd c. BCE), and after losing the "u" to syncope, becomes chatrang in Middle Persian (6th c. CE). Today it is sometimes factorized as shat (hundred) + ranj (worry / mood), or "a hundred worries" - which appears quite a plausible etymology.
[edit] Role in forming new words
Rebracketing is a common mechanism for new word formation. For example, the English word adder derives from the Old English næddre, snake, re-bracketed from "a nædder" to "an adder" (c. 14th c.); the word "nedder" for snake is still present in some Northern English dialects. Similarly, "nickname" is a refactorization of "an ekename" (1303, ekename=additional,little name).[2]
Some common name forms are also rebracketings, e.g. Ned or Neddy may have risen from generations of children hearing "mine Ed" as "my Ned" (mīn is the Middle English form of the first person possessive pronoun, and the my form was also emerging around the same time).[citation needed]
As another example, alone has its etymology in all+one (cognate to German allein). It was subsequently rebracketed as a+lone (akin to aflutter, afire), so the second part seemed likely to be a word, "lone".
Similar processes may also add a syllable on occasion, e.g. humble pie, is derived from the umble pie, where umble referred to the inner parts of a deer, and an umble pie was a less palatable meat. Clearly, the etymology "humble pie" seemed to fit. Umble is long gone, but this phrase continues.
[edit] References
- ^ John McWhorter (2003). The Power of Babel: A natural history of language. Harper Perennial.
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
