sandhi phenomena and "linking morphemes"

Eduardo Ribeiro kariri at gmail.com
Tue Oct 23 01:50:43 UTC 2007


Dear colleagues,

I'm interested in obtaining information on "linking morphemes" (that is,
elements that "join together" two constituents in a compound or phrase).
I'm particularly interested in possible cases where "linking morphemes" may
have emerged through the morphologization of once-predictable phonological
alternations.  In lowland South American linguistics, "linking morphemes"
(traditionally called "relational prefixes") are a hotly debated topic.
While some linguists deny their existence as segmentable morphemes, some
find them to be important pieces of evidence for a purported genetic
relationship between three major South American families--Tupí, Karib, and
Macro-Jê.

The similiarities between the "linking morphemes" in all three families are
pointed out by Aryon Rodrigues (see data sample below, from Rodrigues
2000:102).  In languages of the three families under consideration here
(which are typically SOV), the "linking morpheme" occurs whenever a (noun,
verb, and postpositional) root of the relevant morphological class is
preceded by its absolutive argument (a possessor, for nouns; an object, for
transitive verbs and postpositions; etc.). Roots belonging to this class
will have at least two different stem-forms: one, with the "linking
morpheme", the other, with a default, third-person marker (although, in some
languages, a few stems can also occur "bare", prefixless).

Proto-Tupí-Guaraní *r- ~ *s-
Panará (Jê family) j- ~ s-
Hixkaryána (Karib) j- ~ 0-
etc.

My opinion falls somewhere between both extremes: although there are cases
in which "linking morphemes" are obviously inherited, they cannot be
necessarily seen as an example of "shared aberrancy" when comparing
different families, since their distribution seems to point to an origin
that may ultimately have been phonologically motivated.  That is, given the
right (phonological and syntactic) environments, "relational prefixes" could
have developed independently in different families.

My own Macro-Jê comparative studies strongly suggest that the alternations
involving the so-called relational prefixes (see examples below) can indeed
be traced back to Proto-Macro-Jê.  For instance, the linking prefix in the
Parkatêjê example, j-, is clearly a cognate with the Karajá linking prefix
d-, whereas the Parkatêjê third-person marker h- is clearly a cognate with
the Karajá third-person marker t- (as fully corroborated by the ongoing
lexical comparison).

(1) Karajá (Karajá family, Macro-Jê stock)

(a) N d-e 'N's wing'
(b) t-e '(its) wing'

(2) Parkatêjê (Jê family, Macro-Jê stock)

(a) N j-arkwa 'N's mouth'
(b) h-arkwa '(its/his/her) mouth'

Not surprisingly, similar alternations are also found in the Jabutí family,
whose inclusion in the Macro-Jê stock was only made possible (in solid
grounds) by recent documentation efforts (cf. Djeoromitxí hako ~ -rako 'mouth',
a cognate of Parkatêjê h-arkwa ~ j-arkwa above; Ribeiro & van der Voort
2005).

Recent advances in the comparative studies of the other families, however,
seem to suggest independent origins for the "relational prefixes" in those
languages.  For Karib, a possibility is that the "linking morpheme" *j- is,
after all, a cognate of the third-person marker *i- (a result of glide
formation in constructions such as "John his-house").  A similar origin
cannot be discarded for (Pre-)Proto-Macro-Jê either.  [Maybe the fact that a
geographically distant (and genetically unrelated) language family, Algic,
presents a similar phenomenon--the "intercalated -t-" discussed by Greenberg
(1987:47) in support of his "Amerind"--makes the "shared aberrancy" status
of "linking prefixes" even more questionable.]

In all the language families discussed here, linking morphemes occur in
environments which may favor sandhi phenomena of some sort (for instance,
all the stems are vowel-initial and tend to form a stress unit with the
preceding co-constituent).  In addition, the alternations generally involve
a "hard" consonant and its "softer" counterpart; etc.  Therefore, I would
very much appreciate any examples that may contribute to a better
understanding of the genesis of linking morphemes (not only in the
aforementioned languages), including the following possible scenarios:

>> Insertion of new phonological material (for instance, cases similar to
r-insertion in English, etc.).

>> Modification of existing phonological material (such as
lenitition/fortition, etc.).

Any examples will be very much appreciated.  I'll post a summary if there is
enough interest.

Thank you very much, and my apologies for such a long message.

Eduardo


References:

Greenberg, Joseph. 1987. Language in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.

Ribeiro, Eduardo & Hein van der Voort. 2005. The inclusion of the Jabuti
language family in the Macro-Jê stock. Paper presented at the "Simpósio
Internacional sobre Lingüística Histórica na América do Sul", Belém: UFPA &
Museu Goeldi.

Rodrigues, Aryon. 2000. 'Gê-Pano-Carib' x Jê-Tupí-Karib': sobre relaciones
lingüísticas prehistóricas en Sudamérica. In Miranda, Luis (editor), Actas:
I Congresso de Lenguas Indígenas de Sudamérica, tomo I. Lima: Universidad
Ricardo Palma.
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