Malay affixes in Semelai
Summary
Description
Information and examples are from Kruspe (2004:64–69, 81–85, 206–208). This is a case of extreme compartmentalization of borrowed and native morphology since all native morphology is non-concatenative, and all borrowed morphology is concatenative. In this sense, all borrowed affixes are related. (For a typology of morphological compartmentalization, see Gardani 2021.)
2 valency-changing prefixes
- br- ‘middle voice’ (passivization of verbs, nominalization ‘have’ of nouns), e.g. br-bɒy ‘be dug up’
- p- ‘causative’ (used alternatively to non-concatenative causative morpheme, with some roots only), e.g. p-jʔjiʔ ‘to make dirty’
4 aspect prefixes, including one circumfix
- tr- ‘happenstance’, ‘happen to x’ (used with roots or causative-derived, or reduplicated roots from verbs), e.g. tr-ca ‘happen to eat’
- par- ~ pr- ‘excessive agent/performer’ (with verbs), e.g. par-ca ‘one who eats incessantly, a glutton’
- m(N)- ‘imperfective’ (derives intransitive verbs from nouns and imperfective verb forms from verbs), e.g. m-nar-deh ‘be denying’
- b-...-an ‘collective’ (collective activity verbs from verbs), e.g. b<pa’loh>an ‘many people hiding together’
1 valency-changing suffix
- -iʔ ‘applicative’ (increases valency, marks iterative aspect), e.g. glɔk-iʔ ‘to laugh unkindly at someone’
1 nominalizing suffix
- -an ‘nominalizer’ (relatively infrequent), e.g. jʔjiʔ-an ‘dirtiness, filth’