Re: Circumfixes and syllabic consonants

Who? wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> I'd like to hear your opinions about the use of circumfixes.
> I'm planning to have quite a lot of them in a new conlang
> project, but it seems to me they are more the exception than
> the rule in natlangs. Anybody has stats about which natlangs
> use each kind of affix? (I mean, suffixes, prefixes, infixes,
> and circumfixes). Are circumfixes just a merge of prefix + suffix
> or something else?
Suffixes are by far the most common, with prefixes a distant
but respectable second.  Infixes and circumfixes are only
sporadically attested.  In answer to your second question,
most of the alleged circumfixes that I'm familiar with
have turned out on closer inspection to be a combination
of a prefix and a suffix (however, I know next to nothing
about the most famous examples of circumfixes, namely
those found in various Siberian languages like Chukchi).

Matt.