Development of the morpheme –mbo in American English

초록

This paper presents the development of the morpheme –mbo in American English. A group of words with the –mbo ending came into English quite recently, e.g., Sambo, bimbo, Jumbo, Dumbo, and Rambo, mostly after the 1900s. Many of them seem to be produced by blending at the beginning, but as the type frequency increased with the converged meaning of ‘big’ and/or ‘stupid,’ the –mbo part began to be considered separable. New words were formed using –mbo, e.g., himbo, and mimbo and it is now used quite productively as an affix added to personal names and common terms denoting people, e.g., Jimbo, Stevo, lesbo, and gaybo. The new usage can be considered a kind of phonesthesia especially in contrast with the diminutive –y suffix for personal names.

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