Re: Circumfixes?

In a message dated 6/6/01 2:56:43 AM, dawier@YAHOO.COM writes:

<< Anybody else use circumfixes or circumpositions in their conlang, or a

dual-morpheme case marking system? >>

    I have one surviving circumfix in my first language which serves as the
opposite of a genetive (there must be a term for this), where instead of "the
father of a child" with the "of" being linked to the "a child" part, you'd
say, in Megdevi, /devIs ?AdevIpuT/, where /devIs/ is "child", /devIp/ is
"father", and the circumfix "?A- -uT" means "an x of" (/?A/ is not an
indefinite article; there is none), and turns that word into a postposition.
It seems, though, that yours aren't circumfixes, just a suffix and a
prefix...  It's only a circumfix if the parts of it can't be added
separately.  But if you can't add the "at" separately...  Hmm...  Can
somebody help?
    I also have another language that uses circumpositions, but they're rare.
 It's an isolating language, and the markers are used to make, say, nouns out
of verbs, adjectives out of nouns, etc.  They're not used often because it's
mainly understood if you just put whatever word into whatever position.

-David

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