Blending creativity and productivity: on the issue of delimiting the boundaries of blends as a type of word formation

Abstract

The formation of blends is predictable to a large extent. Moreover, it may give rise to productive constructions where part of a word that was once blended is used to form further blends such e.g. ‑cation (from vacation) in workcation, spa-cation, staycation, etc. However, not all blends demonstrate such potential and factors that can influence the productivity of blend splinters are worth investigating. This paper argues that blending, as a word formation process, can be driven by either factors enhancing predictability of the outcome or factors enhancing playful character of the formation, or both. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis is used to investigate the relationship between well-formedness of the blends and their productivity potential.