phonemes in affixes

[Joan Bybee]

Dear typologists,

I am trying to find out who has written about the hypothesis that affixes
tend to have fewer phonemic contrasts than lexical roots or stems. This is
an idea that has floated by me several times, but never with a definite
reference attached. I assume some revered typologist or historical linguist
of yesteryear first discussed the idea, but I don't know who that was. The
OT phonologists have picked it up recently and used it to justify a certain
ordering of constraints. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Joan

Joan Bybee jbybee at unm.edu               phone:  505-277-3827
Department of Linguistics               fax:    505-277-6355
Humanities 526
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196