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In linguistic morphology, a transfix is a discontinuous affix which is inserted into a word root, as in root-and-pattern systems of morphology, like those of many Semitic languages.
A discontinuous affix is an affix whose phonetic components are not sequential within a word, and instead, are spread out between or around the phones that comprise the root. The word root is often an abstract series of three consonants, though single consonant, biliteral, and quadriliteral roots do exist. [1] An example of a triconsonantal root would be ḍ–r–b (ض ر ب) in Arabic, which can be inflected to create forms such as ḍaraba 'he beat' and yaḍribu 'he beats'. While triconsonantal roots are widely considered to be the most common state, some linguists posit that biliteral roots may in fact be the default, though at least one scholar is skeptical of the legitimacy of these claims. [1]
Transfixes are placed into these roots in assigned positions, dictated by templates which are tied to the specific meaning of a given inflection or derivation. [2] The transfixes in the examples above are –a–a–a and ya––i–u.
Transfixes are different from prefixes, suffixes, and infixes in that a complete transfix is the entire structure which is placed into a root. A transfix is not a combination of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes, but its own unique structure which is split through a word. Similarly, another difference transfixes hold from other affixes is that the individual components of the transfix are meaningless on their own. If we look again at ḍaraba, the components of the –a–a–a transfix do not encode any meaning individually. Only together do they create the tense meaning.
The following are examples of verb inflection in Maltese, noun derivation in Arabic, and noun pluralization in Hausa, all three of which are Afro-Asiatic languages.
Perfect | Imperfect | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st person | Singular | qatalto | "I killed" | aqtol | "I kill" | |
Plural | qatalna | "We killed" | noqtul | "We kill" | ||
2nd person | Singular | qatalta | "You killed" | taqtul | "You kill" | |
Plural | qataltom | "You killed" | taqtulun | "You kill" | ||
3rd person | Singular | Masc. | qatala | "He killed" | jaqtul | "He kills" |
Fem. | qatalat | "She killed" | taqtul | "She kills" | ||
Plural | qatalu | "They killed" | jaqtulun | "They kill" |
The Maltese example efficiently demonstrates the broad nature of transfixes and how they can be inserted into a root.
Arabic transliteration | Translation |
---|---|
kataba كتب | 'he wrote' |
yaktubu يكتب | 'he is writing' |
kātib كاتب | 'writer' |
maktūb مكتوب | 'written' |
katb كتب | 'writing' (noun) |
maktab مكتب | 'office' |
makātib مكاتب | 'offices' |
kattaba كتب | 'he made (someone) write' |
ʾaktaba أكتب | 'he dictated' |
inkataba انكتب | 'he subscribed' |
iktataba اكتتب | 'he copied' |
takātabū تكاتبوا | 'they corresponded with each other' |
istaktaba استكتب | 'he dictated' |
The Arabic example shows the ways in which a great variety of different nouns and verbs can be derived from a single root through the use of transfixes.
Singular | Plural | ||
---|---|---|---|
zártòò | "saw" | zárààtáá | "saws" |
ɡárkèè | "herd" | ɡárààkáá | "herds" |
sárkʲíí | "emir" | sàrààkáí | "emirs" |
ɡʷúrɡʷùù | "cripple" | ɡʷúrààɡʷúú | "cripples" |
ʔárzìkʲíí | "fortune" | ʔárzúkàà | "fortunes" |
The Hausa example demonstrates the presence of transfixation in non-Semitic languages, though the phenomenon does not seem to be attested outside the Afro-Asiatic family.
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. The main two categories are derivational and inflectional affixes. Derivational affixes, such as un-, -ation, anti-, pre- etc., introduce a semantic change to the word they are attached to. Inflectional affixes introduce a syntactic change, such as singular into plural, or present simple tense into present continuous or past tense by adding -ing, -ed to an English word. All of them are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes.
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this is the distinction, respectively, between free and bound morphemes. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology.
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root catch and the suffix -ing are both morphemes; catch may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with -ing to form the new word catching. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language.
Morphological derivation, in linguistics, is the process of forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix, such as un- or -ness. For example, unhappy and happiness derive from the root word happy.
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem. It contrasts with adfix, a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages. For example, in the agglutinative language of Turkish, the word evlerinizden consists of the morphemes ev-ler-i-n-iz-den. Agglutinative languages are often contrasted with isolating languages, in which words are monomorphemic, and fusional languages, in which words can be complex, but morphemes may correspond to multiple features.
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