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Article: Directional asymmetries in the morphology and phonology of words, with special reference to Bantu.(Report)
- Article from:
- Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences
- Article date:
- March 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Abstract
This article is concerned with two types of word-level asymmetries and their interaction: left-right asymmetries and stem-word asymmetries. Two left-right asymmetries are examined from a wide range of languages, one morphological (the predominance of suffixation over prefixation), one phonological (the preference for anticipatory over perseverative phonology). Since phonological processes are often triggered by features which originate in roots, a second asymmetry is also addressed: the tendency for suffixes to be more tightly bound to roots than prefixes. Asymmetries between stem-vs. word phonology are examined in Bantu, where suffixes are incorporated ...