Circumfixation

Abstract

AbstractCircumfixation is a morphological operation as a result of which an affix appears to surround or circumscribe the stem. There are three possible arrangements of the affixal element and the stem in which the stem is circumscribed by the affix: a single affix can appear simultaneously on both sides of the stem, which is what I call amonomorphic circumfix, two independent affixes can be placed each on a different side of the stem, or else an affix could be alternating between a suffix and a prefix, by which it would in a sense also circumscribe the stem, it just would not do so simultaneously. The last‐mentioned option results inmobile affixes, which are covered in more detail in ‘Metathesis’ in this volume. This entry goes over various possible attestations of these three patterns and argues the only possible type of circumfixes are bimorphic circumfixes. It further claims that even the bimorphic circumfixes are (most likely) bimorphemic. Theoretical and processing reasons are presented that favour this restriction.