Umfriend and Mmmfriend

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

        Original message from dInIs (April 11, 2005):
> Do we have other examples of emotive, discourse, or hesitation markers being incorporated into words themselves? I can think of the augmentative ker-, ga, - ka- prefixes (e.g., "kerflop) but nothing else comes to mind, and they seem to have their origins as attachments to existing words, not independent elements.
>
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        One example is "e"  in Russian "eto" (= this), known to derive from the interjection "(H)ey" + "to" (= that).  Also, see my article "Interjections As A Source Of Standard Morphological Elements" in _Etymology and Linguistic Principles_, vol. 1: [subtitle] _Pursuit of Linguistic Insight_, by Gerald Leonard Cohen, self-published (very favorably reviewed in _Language_ and _Journal of Indo-European Studies_), 1988. pp.121-134.

        Gerald Cohen