The relationship between the knowledge, use and age group of blend words by Brazilian Portuguese native speakers

Abstract

Blend is a morphological phenomenon that encompasses the overlap between two bases as matel (mato + matel). It is also considered quite contextual due to its ephemerality in the language. Based on argument of Silva (2019) that the blend arises from the speaker's everyday experience, we ask ourselves: Are knowledge and use of blend words associated with age group? Our hypothesis is that only use is associated with age group. Knowledge is associated with the ability of semantic decomposition of blend words. Thus, we aimed to investigate which age group knows the use of blends more frequently. For this, we created an electronic form that was answered by people from four age groups: (I) up to 25 years old; (II) between 26 and 35 years old; (III) between 36 and 45 years old; and (IV) over 45 years. Finally, we obtained 405 responses and we observed that, in our sample, the blends were more often known and assumedly used by people in the age group I, followed by the ones of the age group II.