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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear E.Ribeiro,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I wonder whether prefixes can be considered as
'linking morphemes' in the sense of your examples:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><<(1) Karajá (Karajá family, Macro-Jê stock)<BR><BR>(a) <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">N d-e</SPAN> 'N's wing'<BR>(b) <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">t-e</SPAN> '(its) wing'<BR><BR>(2) Parkatêjê (Jê
family, Macro-Jê stock)<BR><BR>(a) <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">N
j-arkwa</SPAN> 'N's mouth'<BR>(b) <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">h-arkwa</SPAN> '(its/his/her) mouth'<BR><BR>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 <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">hako</SPAN> ~ <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">-rako
</SPAN>'mouth', a cognate of Parkatêjê <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">h-arkwa</SPAN> ~ <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">j-arkwa</SPAN> above.>></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If it is the case, then obligatory proclitic
pronouns such as Fr. <EM>je, tu, il</EM> and preverbal adpositions such as
<EM>re-prendre, dé-faire</EM> etc. (vs. <EM>prendre, faire </EM>etc.)should be
counted among your linking morphemes. But maybe this is too large an
extension of the 'linking' you have in mind...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>prof.Paolo Ramat<BR>Università di Pavia<BR>Dipartimento di Linguistica
Teorica e Applicata<BR>tel. ##39 0382 984 484<BR>fax ##39 0382 984 487<BR></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=kariri@gmail.com href="mailto:kariri@gmail.com">Eduardo Ribeiro</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=histling-l@mailman.rice.edu
href="mailto:histling-l@mailman.rice.edu">histling-l@mailman.rice.edu</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, October 23, 2007 2:50
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Histling-l] sandhi phenomena
and "linking morphemes"</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Dear colleagues,<BR><BR>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. <BR><BR>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).<BR><BR>Proto-Tupí-Guaraní *r- ~ *s-<BR>Panará (Jê family)
j- ~ s-<BR>Hixkaryána (Karib) j- ~ 0-<BR>etc.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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). <BR><BR>(1) Karajá (Karajá family, Macro-Jê stock)<BR><BR>(a)
<SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">N d-e</SPAN> 'N's wing'<BR>(b) <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">t-e</SPAN> '(its) wing'<BR><BR>(2) Parkatêjê (Jê
family, Macro-Jê stock)<BR><BR>(a) <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">N
j-arkwa</SPAN> 'N's mouth'<BR>(b) <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">h-arkwa</SPAN> '(its/his/her) mouth'<BR><BR>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 <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">hako</SPAN> ~ <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">-rako </SPAN>'mouth', a cognate of Parkatêjê <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">h-arkwa</SPAN> ~ <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">j-arkwa</SPAN> above; Ribeiro & van der Voort
2005).<BR><BR>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" <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">*</SPAN>j-</SPAN> is, after all, a cognate of the
third-person marker *<SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">i-</SPAN> (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] <BR><BR>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:
<BR><BR>>> Insertion of new phonological material (for instance, cases
similar to r-insertion in English, etc.).<BR><BR>>> Modification of
existing phonological material (such as lenitition/fortition, etc.).
<BR><BR>Any examples will be very much appreciated. I'll post a summary
if there is enough interest.<BR><BR>Thank you very much, and my apologies for
such a long message.<BR><BR>Eduardo<BR><BR><BR><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">References:</SPAN><BR><FONT size=2><BR>Greenberg,
Joseph. 1987. <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Language in the
Americas</SPAN>. Stanford: Stanford University Press.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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. </FONT><BR>
<P>
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