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In its strictest sense, tmesis (/ˈtmiːsɪs, təˈmiː-/; plural tmeses /ˈtmiːsiːs, təˈmiː-/; Ancient Greek: τμῆσις tmēsis – "a cutting" < τέμνω temnō, "I cut") is a word compound that is divided into two parts, with another word infixed between the parts, thus constituting a separate word compound. Example: "un-freaking-believable" (an emphatic way to say "unbelievable"). In a broader sense, tmesis is a recognizable phrase (such as a phrasal verb) or word that is divided into two parts, with one or more words interpolated between the parts, thus creating a separate phrase.[1][2][3]
Tmesis of prefixed verbs (whereby the prefix is separated from the simple verb) was thought to be an original feature of the Ancient Greek language, common in Homer (and later poetry), but not used in Attic prose.[citation needed] Such separable verbs are also part of the normal grammatical usage of some modern languages, such as Dutch and German.
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Tmesis in Ancient Greek is something of a misnomer, since there is not necessarily a splitting of the prefix from the verb; rather the consensus now seems to be that the separate prefix or pre-verb reflects a stage in the language where the prefix had not yet joined onto the verb. There are many examples in Homer's epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both of which preserve archaic features. One common and oft-cited example is κατὰ δάκρυα λείβων (kata dakrua leibōn; "shedding tears"), in which the pre-verb/prefix κατά- kata- "down" has not yet joined the verbal participle λείβων leibōn "shedding". In later Greek, these would combine to form the compound verb καταλείβων kataleibōn "shedding (in a downwards direction)".
Tmesis is found as a poetic or rhetorical device in classical Latin poetry, such as Ovid's Metamorphoses. Words such as circumdare ("to surround") are split apart with other words of the sentence in between, e.g. circum virum dant: "they surround the man" (circumdant (circum- prefix + dant)). This device is used in this way to create a visual image of surrounding the man by means of the words on the line. In the work of the poet Ennius, the literal splitting of the word cerebrum creates a vivid image: saxo cere comminuit brum "he shattered his brain with a rock."[4]
Tmesis can be found in some early Old Irish texts, such as Audacht Morainn (The Testament of Morann). Old Irish verbs are found at the beginning of clauses (in a VSO word order) and often possess prepositional pre-verbal particles, e.g. ad-midethar (ad- prefix) "evaluates, estimates". Tmesis occurs when the pre-verbal particle is separated from the verbal stem and the verbal stem is placed in clause final position while the pre-verbal particle/prefix remains at the beginning of the clause. This results in an abnormal word order, e.g. ad- cruth caín -cichither "[the] fair form will be seen" (where ad-chichither is the future third-person singular passive of ad-cí "sees").[5]
Examples of tmesis have been found in skaldic poetry. In addition to the use of kennings, skalds used tmesis to obscure the meaning of the poem.[6] One use of tmesis was to divide the elements of personal names.[6]
Colloquial examples include un-bloody-believable, abso-bloody-lutely,[7] and several variants. Numerous English words are joined with the vulgar infix -fucking-, such as unfuckingbelievable [8]orfanfuckingtastic.[9] Other examples: scrumdiddlyumptious,[10] edumacation.[11]
English employs a large number of phrasal verbs, consisting of a core verb and a particle. A phrasal verb is written as two words that are analyzed semantically as a unit, but the unit may be separable under certain circumstances. For example, regarding a phrasal verb that has a transitive sense:
Similarly, tmesis can occur regarding a phrasal verb that has an intransitive sense. For example:
The intervention of an adverb or transitive object in the middle of the phrasal verb can be viewed as a form of tmesis even though the semantic unit being separated is written as two words even when not separated.[citation needed]
