Absobloominlutely: intenzifikační vkládání v angličtině

Abstract

The paper deals with intensifying (expletive) insertion reminiscent of infixation (debatable in English). The inserted intensifiers placed inside the base are (unlike infixes) free morphemes producing what have been called “un-bloody-likely” words which contravene the presumably universally valid uninterruptibility criterion defining the word. The paper, drawing on literature, web search and the analysis of a sample of attested intensified words (Vojtěch 2019), describes the properties of the base and the intensifier (expletive) and the principles governing the placement of the intensifier.