Infixation 中綴 - 點鬼知點解唔得

Infixation is when an infix is inserted in the middle of a morpheme to change its meaning or usage. In English, we have not many more than a couple infixes such as in A-freaking-mazing and edu-ma-cation.

Infixation is much more productive in Cantonese.

Let's look at the who what when where why today:

WHO 邊鬼個 - 邊鬼個泊架車係度呀？"Who the heck parked the car here?"
WHAT 乜鬼野 -  哩舊乜鬼野黎架？"What the heck is this thing?"
WHERE 邊鬼度 -  我個銀包擺左係邊鬼度？"Where the heck is my wallet?"
HOW 點鬼做/知/算 - 我點鬼知你個銀包擺左係邊？"How the heck do I know where your wallet is?"

However, the same infix for "when" and "why" are ungrammatical:

WHEN *幾鬼時放工呀?

WHY *點鬼解你冇返架?

The reason why these are unacceptable are unclear. Initially I thought perhaps it's because of phonological similarities (/g/) in the adjacent syllables making them too cumbersome to say: 

幾鬼時 gei gwai si

點鬼解 dim gwai gai 

But the syllables in question appear together in other contexts:

套戲幾鬼恐怖呀！

你唔好鬼解釋啦！

So I have no good explanation for why *幾鬼時 and *點鬼解 are ungrammatical. I guess it's one of those irregularities of language. 

Note: The infix 鬼 can be substituted with more offensive expletives to add more emphasis.

Next time we will talk about infix -鬼- in adjactives such as 麻鬼煩.

Let me know if you have an explanation for why we can't say *幾鬼時 and *點鬼解！

Edit: According to reader DM, the explanation is likely the phonological similarity of the /g/ sounds, as infixation of the expletive infix "L" in 幾L時 and 點L解 are grammatical. Thanks for the contribution!