Blends as (nick-)names – Identification, motivation, description

The paper addresses blends as nicknames within a comprehensive framework of analysis which chiefly integrates (i) insights from Štekauer’s (2005 and previous work) Onomasiological Theory of context-free meaning predictability of novel word-formations as naming units, with (ii) observations on the discriminatory, classificatory and expressive functions of blends as descriptive (nick-)names whose meaning results from cognitive blending and conceptual interaction, and can therefore be accounted for within the framework of Ruiz de Mendoza’s (1998 and following) Combined Input Hypothesis. The data suggests that meaning predictability in blends as (nick-)names, (most often names with identificatory, descriptive and expressive functions) varies with their processing complexity. Comparing blends as nicknames provides evidence for considering the process of meaning (re-)creation as a trade-off between factors affecting morphotactic non-compositionality (e.g. recategorization, underlying exocentric compound) and semantic non-constituency (e.g. the presence of eponymous adjectives, meaning selection/restriction or expansion/emergence via reduplication of identical qualities, selection/matching of non-prototypical or idiosyncratic features, value judgements against the background of culturally-significant values and stereotypes).