View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by York St John University Institutional Repository Hall, Christopher J (2000) Prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation. In: Booij, Geert, Lehmann, Christian, Mugdan, Joachim, Kesselheim, Wolfgang and Skopeteas, Stavros, (eds.) Morphology. An international handbook on inflection and word formation. Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (17.1). Berlin, De Gruyter, pp. 535-545 Downloaded from: http://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/2866/ The version presented here may differ from the published version or version of record. If you intend to cite from the work you are advised to consult the publisher's version: Research at York St John (RaY) is an institutional repository. It supports the principles of open access by making the research outputs of the University available in digital form. Copyright of the items stored in RaY reside with the authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full text items free of charge, and may download a copy for private study or non-commercial research. For further reuse terms, see licence terms governing individual outputs. Institutional Repository Policy Statement RaY Research at the University of York St John For more information please contact RaY at [email protected] 54. Prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation 535 Majewicz, Alfred F. & Pogonowski, Jerzy (1984), iel (eds.), “Words Are Physicians for an Ailing “On Categorial Marking in Natural Languages”. Mind”. For Andrzej Bogusławski on the Occasion of Lingua Posnaniensis 26, 56Ϫ68 His 60th Birthday. München: Sagner (Sagners Sla- Ϫ Matthews, P[eter] H. (1972), Inflectional Morphol- vistische Sammlung 17), 279 293 ogy: A Theoretical Study based on Aspects of Latin Mel’cˇuk, Igor A. (1993), Cours de morphologie Verb Conjugation. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge ge´ne´rale (theoretique et descriptive), Vol. I: Intro- Univ. 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(1990), “Where and How to State to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace Some Generalizations in Morphology”. In: Wiener Szymanek, Bogdan (1989), Introduction to Morpho- ϭ slawistischer Almanach 25/26 [ Festschrift L’u- logical Analysis. Warszawa: Pan´stwowe Wydaw- ˇ Ϫ bomir Durovicˇ zum 65. Geburtstag], 299 310 nictwo Naukowe Mel’cˇuk, Igor A. (1991), “Subtraction in Natural Language”. In: Grochowski, Maciej & Weiss, Dan- Igor Mel’cˇuk, Montre´al (Canada) 54. Prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation 1. Terminology bound before, and the other part after, the 2. Formal properties base. The term affix is also commonly used 3. Common functions to refer to “zero” or “empty affixes” (cf. Art. 4. Distribution of affix position 45), which are ignored here. 5. Theoretical issues 6. References Although the terms prefix, suffix and cir- cumfix (and their translation equivalents) are the most widely accepted, a variety of other 1. Terminology terms have been employed historically and/or are found in contemporary work. In Ger- Prefixation, suffixation and circumfixation man, Vorsilbe and Nachsilbe are frequently are the non-intrusive types of affixation, i.e. employed, especially by school grammarians, those which add affixes to the margins of a for prefixes and suffixes, respectively. These lexical base, as opposed to infixation (Art. terms suggest that affixes are always (single) 55) and transfixation (Art. 56). A prefix is an syllables, which is not always the case, even affix which is bound before the base. A suffix in German (cf. 2). Ending (French de´sinence, is an affix which is bound after the base. A German (Flexions)endung, Russian okoncˇa- circumfix is an affix of which one part is nie) is often used as a synonym for inflec- Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 01.03.18 16:04 536 VIII. Formale Prozesse tional suffix, especially for case-marking on One of the most basic characteristics of non- nominal elements and person-marking on intrusive suffixes is that they tend to be short; verbal elements (cf. Pei & Gaynor 1954 on indeed, it seems that they rarely extend be- ending; Dubois et al. 1973 on de´sinence; yond a single syllable. The most widely at- Conrad 1985 on Endung; Rozental’ & Telen- tested phonological shape for prefixes and kova 21976 on okoncˇanie). This usage reflects suffixes (and the elements that make up cir- the Indo-European focus of most earlier lin- cumfixes) appears to be a single syllable with guists (and of many contemporary scholars), a CV sequence, which has been established as who worked with a family of languages in the phonologically unmarked (and only uni- which inflectional functions were commonly versally attested) syllable structure (cf. Ja- marked exclusively by suffixes (cf. 3). kobson 1941): Where these special terms for inflectional suffixes are employed, the term suffix and its (1) (a) Chichewa plural prefix /ma-/, e.g. translation equivalents (Fr. suffixe, Ger. Suf- /bwe´6zi/ ‘friend’, /ma-bwe´6zi/ ‘friends’ fix, Russ. suffiks) are generally used for deri- (b) Kiwai iterative suffix -ti,e.g.arigi vational categories only (although German ‘[to] scratch’, arigi-ti ‘[to] scratch re- also makes the distinction Flexionssuffix ‘in- peatedly’ flectional suffix’ and Derivationssuffix or Beyond this canonical structure, the prefer- Ableitungssuffix ‘derivational suffix’). In this ences seem to change depending on position case, Russ. postfiks and Ger. Postfix are used before or after the root: after CV, the next to cover both inflectional “endings” and deri- most preferred shape for prefixes appears to vational “suffixes”, but Eng. postfix is used be a single consonant, followed again by sim- only rarely (for example, in Mayan glyph ple syllables of the form CVC, VC, and V; studies). In Chinese, two terms are used for bisyllabic prefixes appear to be relatively un- suffix: ho`uzhuı`, meaning ‘something attached common. after’ and cı´wei, meaning ‘word-tail’. Simi- larly, Japanese uses setsubigo or setsubiji, (2) (a) Maasai negative prefix m-,e.g.a-rany meaning ‘join-tail-word’. ‘I sing’, m-a-rany ‘I do not sing’ Prebase is an alternative, but rare, English (b) English privative prefix dis-,e.g.arm, form for prefix (Fr. pre´fixe, Ger. Präfix, dis-arm Russ. prefiks) as is Russian pristavka for pre- (c) Kekchi 1st person possessive prefix fiks. Pre´verbe is used by some French lin- in-,e.g.ci ‘dog’, in-ci ‘my dog’ guists for verbal (usually valence-changing) (d) Huichol locative prefix e-,e.g.ne- prefixes. In Chinese, again, two terms are p-e-i-nanai ‘1.sg.subj-indic-another— used: qia´nzhuı`, meaning ‘something attached place-3.sg.obj-buy(completive) before’ and cı´to´u, meaning ‘word-head’. And, (I bought it in another place)’ again, Japanese uses settogo or settoji, ‘join- head-word’. It is likely, of course, that data on deriva- Ambifix and confix are used as synonyms tional affix shape preferences will yield dif- for circumfix, although for some scholars am- ferent patterns; thus, derivational prefixes of bifix is used to refer to an affix that can ap- bisyllabic structure, such as Latin mono-, pear on either side, rather than both sides, para-, circum-, may be more common than of the root (cf. Malkiel 1978: 145). Similarly, their inflectional counterparts. Such distribu- confix has also been proposed as a term for tional data are, however, currently unavail- nonintrusive affixes consisting of a single able, and so further claims would be impres- phonological unit, i.e. for prefixes and suf- sionistic only. fixes, excluding circumfixes (Mel’cˇuk 1982: Beyond the preferred CV structure, inflec- 84; cf. Mugdan 1990: 51). tional suffixes, unlike prefixes, show a con- tinuing preference for full syllables, including monosyllables CVC, VC, V, and bisyllables 2. Formal properties CVCV, VCV. Much less preferred than in Unless otherwise indicated, the statistical data in prefix position, but still widely attested, is the this and subsequent sections come from the single consonant C. GRAMCATS database at the University of New Mexico, which records information on grammati- (3) (a) German diminutive -lein,e.g.Kind cal (inflectional) morphemes from a genetically- ‘child’, Kind-lein ‘little child’ balanced survey of 94 languages (cf. Bybee et al.