Selecting the best of the worst: the grammar of Hebrew blends

Abstract

Blends, also called portmanteau words, are formed by fusing two words into one new word, where internal portions of the base words are often subtracted (one segmental string from the right part of the first word and another from the left part of the second word). For example, the English blendnixonomicshas been formed by combiningnixonandeconomicsand subtracting the stringneco. (For clarity of exposition, blends will be usually represented asnixo<n⋅eco>nomics, where the subtracted material is enclosed in angled brackets and the boundary between the base elements is indicated by ⋅).