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Re: CONLANG Digest - 28 Feb 2000 to 29 Feb 2000 (#2000-61)

From:Matt Pearson <jmpearson@...>
Date:Thursday, March 2, 2000, 16:19
Kristian skrev:

>Nik Taylor wrote: > >>Muke Tever wrote: >>> Sounds like (what the last linguistics book I read called) an interfix. >> >>Infix, actually. However, that's a general term. I don't know what >>that specific kind of infix would be called. >> >No, I think Muke is correct. An infix is a morpheme inserted >within another morpheme, essentially breaking that other morpheme >in two parts. In Tagalog for example: > > ROOT: bili 'buy' > INFIX: -um- 'perfect agentive trigger' > NEW WORD: bumili 'bought:AT' > >In the above example, there is no Tagalog morpheme *'b' nor a >morpheme *'ili. Only 'bili' and '-um-'. >This is different from the 'a' morpheme in Patrick's poem. Instead, >it joined two seperate morphemes to form one word, as in the word >for 'poem' in Patrick's poem.: > > lass-a-ata > word-+-thing > >My texts call this an interfix - keeping a distinction between >interfix and infix.
I think Kristian and Muke are right here, although "interfix" is not exactly a widespread term. In Bantu and Austronesian circles such things are often called "linking morphemes". Matt.