The return of the prefix? New verb-particle combinations in blogs

The paper explores how verb-particle combinations have changed with the increased use of online real-time short communication forms. Following up on earlier research (Diemer 2008b & 2009), the study discusses examples of new prefix verbs from a web-based corpus of blogs, providing evidence that the long-term decline of this verb form in English has been reversed in computer-mediated communication, which facilitates the creation and increasingly flexible use of previously non-standard prefix verbs like inbe, oncome and atstand. Proposed reasons for this change are the influence of other languages on English, analogy with existing prefix verbs, special-purpose use, playful use of language, facilitation of syntax and demands of brevity.