Encoding Prefixation in S outhern M in (2023)

Abstract: This study adopts an inter-disciplinary approach to explore how the prefixation is encoded and contributes to the word formation in Zhangzhou Southern Min, an under-described Sinitic dialect spoken in the South Fujian of mainland China. It addresses five specific aspects, comprising semantic function, morpho-syntactic characteristics, prosodic effect, pragmatic significance, along with their occurrence constraints. The exploration directly fills in the research gap in the study of Zhangzhou, and substantially advance our knowledge of the encoding of prefixation in Southern Chinese dialects. It contributes vital linguistic data to the typology of prefixation as an important phenomenon in world’s natural languages, while enlightening the theoretical discussion on how Sinitic languages should be better defined from the morpho-syntactic perspective.

## introduction affixation broadly refers to a morphological process whereby lexical or grammatical information is added to an existing lexical base and a new lexeme, or a new form of the same lexeme is derived @xcite @xcite . natural languages vary in what morphological processes are available in their grammar, how frequently the processes are used, and what types of information are encoded. for example, english expresses the plurality of nouns using suffixation (e.g., table/tables, friend/friends) @xcite . zapotec, a language spoken in oaxaca, mexican, expresses the plurality through prefixing ka-morpheme to nominal bases @xcite . yoruba, a language of south-western nigeria, uses a separate word to encode the plurality, such as the word okunrin means 'the man' and its corresponding plural form is awon 'the men' @xcite . as seen, morphology is not equally prominent in spoken languages, as the same information can be encoded differently. languages are thus classified into different types, such as analytic and synthetic, depending on the complexity of morphology and the method they employ to construct words (e.g., @xcite @xcite . sinitic languages, along with yoruba and vietnamese, are often cited to be isolating because of their exhibiting an extreme degree of analyticity with little affixation @xcite . however, this convention has been challenged because both inflectional and derivational affixes are continuingly discovered in the synchronic speech of those so-called isolating languages @xcite @xcite . for example, in zhangzhou southern min, a sinitic dialect spoken in southern fujian province of southeast china, the prefix ʔɐ33 can be attached to kinship terms (ʔɐ33-kɔŋ35 'grandfather') or the first name of personal names (ʔɐ33-kun22 'address a girl whose last syllable of first name is kun 22) to express closeness and affection. the infix ʔɐ51 can be inserted into disyllabic bases and serve as a modifying marker (kjɵ35-ʔɐ51-tʰɐw22 'bridge-ʔɐ51-head: a place name'), or a coordinative marker (ɗĩ35-ʔɐ51-tse41 'year-ʔɐ51-festival: traditional festivals'). the suffix ʔɐ51 can serve as ## semantics of prefixation semantically, the prefixes in this dialect can be classified into either mono-semantic or polysemantic, depending on the range of lexical information that they can covey. the monosemantic prefixes refer to those prefixes whose derived words can only cover one semantic domain. for example, as illustrated in (1), the prefix ħwɐn35 exclusively indicates the foreign origin of the related object. for example, the lexical base tsi22 literarily means 'potato', while the derived word ħwɐn33-tsi22 particularly refers 'sweet potato'. because sweet potatoes historically are imported from other countries, rather than being produced domestically. the prefix ħwɐn33 indicates the foreign origin of sweet potatoes. likewise, when attached to numbers, the prefix te33 exclusively indicates an ordinal order of the base. for example, the lexical base zi33 means 'two', while the derived word te32-zi33 with the prefix particularly refers to 'the second'. the mono-semantic property can also be seen from the prefixes kɛ63.pɐk41and pjɐw51 which can be attached to the same kinship terms but reveal different semantic readings. the prefix kɛ63.pɐk41, which literarily means 'next belly', is exclusively created in southern min to indicate an internal relation to one's family or clan. such as the derived word kɛ63.pɐk65-ħjɐ 35, in which the base ħjɐ 35 means 'elder brother', is used to address the son of one's father's brother who is elder than the addresser. on the contrary, the prefix pjɐw51, meaning 'surface', expresses an external relation to a family or a clan. for example, the derived word pjɐw35-ħjɐ 35 exclusively refers to the elder son of one's father's sister or mother's sibling. on the contrary, the poly-semantic prefixes refer to those prefixes whose attachment can cover two or more semantic domains. this property is illustrated in (2). the prefix ʔɐ35 can be attached to lexical bases of different types to transfer different semantics. such as it can be attached to kinship terms to address one's family members who are senior in terms of age or generation with a sense of respect and closeness. for example, the derived word ʔɐ33-ħjɐ 35 is colloquially used to address one's elder brother. it can be attached to person names of those family members who are at the same generation to deliver a feeling of closeness and affection. for example, given a person's first name contains tsʰju33 morpheme that means 'tree', it is a common way to address him as ʔɐ33-tsʰju33 that transfers a sense of closeness and affection. likewise, the prefix ɗɐw33 can be attached to kinship terms to address family members who are senior than the addresser with respect to age and/or generation with a sense of respect and closeness (ɗɐw32-pɛ33 'ɗɐw32-father: to introduce one's father'). it can also be attached to person names of those people at the same generation to convey a feeling of closeness and affection (ɗjɔk32 ʔi35.@xmath0; si'). apart from these, this prefix can also be attached to an entity to express a sense of a long history 'old'. such as, the term tsʰju33 itself means 'tree', while the derived word ɗɐw32-tsʰju33 refers to 'an old tree'. before number (ordering) ɗɐw35-zi33 'ɗɐw35-two: second eldest sibling' ɗɐw35-sɐ 35'ɗɐw35-three: third eldest sibling' before family name (closeness and respect) ʔɔŋ33 tsu35.@xmath1.@xmath2, the prefixation is productive to modify the lexical meanings of existing bases and create new lexemes across several semantic domains. the process substantially enriches the inventory of local vocabulary that native speakers can choose and use in their conversations, while expanding the lexicon in their mental grammar. ## morpho-syntax of prefixation morpho-syntactically, the prefixing process seldom changes the part of speech of related item in zhangzhou southern min. in most cases, the derived words are categorically the same as their corresponding bases being attached. for example, the bases that can be attached by the abovementioned prefixes (ħwɐn35, te33, kɛ63.pɐk41, pjɐw51, te33, ʔɐ35, ɗɐw33, ɗɐw51) in ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) are all nominal, so are their derived lexemes. therefore, the prefixation process presents a categorical-preserving characteristics. apart from this, most of lexical bases that can undergo prefixation are dominantly nominal. only few non-nominal bases can be prefixed to derive words of a different part of speech. this can be seen in (3), for example, the prefix kʰɵ51, a cognate of mandarin ke214可, can transfer verbal or nominal bases to lexemes of an adjective category to deliver a semantics of 'do-able', equivalent to the english suffix '-able'. such as in the word kʰɵ35-ʔɐj41, the base ʔɐj41 is a verb meaning 'to like, love', while the derived word refers to 'likable'. in the word kʰɵ35-kʰɐw51, the base kʰɐw51 is a noun meaning 'mouth', with this prefix, the derived word is used to describe something which is delicious. the prefixes ħɵ51 and ɓɐj51, which separately mean 'good' and 'bad', are commonly attached to verbal bases to derive new lexemes of an adjective category that expresses the positive or negative characteristics of related verbal actions. for example, the derived word ħɵ35-tsjɐ221, with the verbal base tsjɐ22 'to eat', is used to describe something that tastes good. similarly, the derived word ɓɐj35-tsjɐ221 describes something that tastes bad. as seen, the attachment of these prefixes not only changes the semantics but also the word class. however, not so many cases involve such a categorical change, instead, in most cases, the grammatical category of nominal lexical bases is maintained over the prefixation in this dialect. ## prosody of prefixation the prefixing process in zhangzhou southern min does not cause any phonological alternation on their subsequent lexical bases, but all prefixes themselves are seen changing their tonal profiles to be entirely different from their corresponding forms in citation. such a tonal alternation can be consider resulting from the operating effect of a right-dominant tone sandhi system in zhangzhou @xcite @xcite . all tones at the nonright-most position, referred to as sandhi position, alter their realizations phonologically and phonetically, while tones at the rightmost position maintain their realization categorically similar to their citation forms, but may subject to certain variation at the phonetic level because of their sensitivity to occurring environments @xcite @xcite . so that, all prefixes are supposed to change their tonal profiles if they are attached to lexical bases to fulfil their semantics and/or morpho-syntactic functions. what needs a further mention is that no special tone sandhi pattern is evoked over the prefixing process. but rather, all prefixes follow the general sandhi tendency to change their tonal forms. for example, tone 1 is realised as a rising [35] contour in citation but is altered to be a mid-level [33] contour in the sandhi context. tone 3 changes its contour shape to a rising [35] from a high falling contour in citation. all tones within general morpho-syntactic phrases xp in which x may be adjective, verbal, nominal among others, are expected to change in this way @xcite . as seen, the tonal pitch of all prefixes has been changed phonetically and phonologically. such as the prefix ɗɐw51 has a high-falling [51] contour in citation, but when attached to lexical bases, the pitch is changed to a rising [35] contour (ɗɐw35sɐ 35 'the third (of the siblings)'). similarly, the prefix ħwɐn35 has a rising contour @xcite in citation but the pitch is changed to a mid-level [33] when attached to lexical bases to denote their foreign origin (ħwɐn33-kjɔ 35 'foreign chilli'). the tone sandhi pattern in the prefixing context is different from that occurs in other affixational environment in which tones are changed to either a rising or high-level contour, depending on their contour shape in citation @xcite . ## pragmatics of prefixation certain prefixes are pragmatically significant to reveal certain relation within the social-cultural setting of southern min. this can be demonstrated by the usage of prefixes pjɐw51, kɛ63.pɐk41 and ʔŋ51. they can be attached to the same kinship terms but reveal different social relationships. as illustrated in (4), the prefix pjɐw51 indicates an external relation to a family or a clan; the derived words are particularly used to address the descendant of (grand-) father's sisters or (grand-) mother's siblings. such as the term pjɐw35-ħjɐ 35, in which the base ħjɐ 35 refers to the elder brother, is specifically used to address the son of father's sister or mother's sibling who is elder than the addresser. the prefix kɛ63.pɐk41 indicates an internal relation to one's family or clan; the derived terms are limited to address the descendant of (grand-) father's brothers. such as the term kɛ63.pɐk65-ħjɐ 35 specifically refers to the son of father's brother who is elder than the addresser. similarly, the prefix ʔŋ51 expresses the core blood relationship on the paternal side. such as the term ʔŋ35-ħjɐ 35 refers to one's blood-related elder brother who has the same parents. the pragmatic function can also be illustrated by the usage of the prefixes twɐ33 and se41 before kinship terms. the prefix twɐ33, lexically meaning 'big', is often used to indicate the elder (not necessarily needs to be the eldest) member of a group, especially within a family or a clan. on the contrary, the prefix se41, lexically meaning 'small', indicates the younger member. however, in southern min, housewives are discovered using exactly the same kinship words as their children to address their husband's siblings. for example, as illustrated in (4), the word twɐ32-kɔ35, in which the base kɔ35 means 'aunty on the parental side', can be used to refer to either father's elder sister or husband's elder sister. on the contrary, the words se63-kɔ35 and se63-tsik41, which literarily mean 'younger aunty (father's younger sister)' and 'younger uncle (father's younger brother)', respectively, are exclusively used by housewives to address their husband's younger siblings. the reason for existing such a special addressing is because, in the old society of southern min, married women are given a lower status within a family and a clan. thus, they step down their seniority and address their husband's siblings in the same way as their children do. such an addressing has been customized over time and is still adopted by the married women in the modern society. therefore, as seen, the application of certain prefixation is pragmatically related by the local social culture and custom. ## occurrence constraint the prefixation is productive in this dialect to expand its lexicon; however, several different constraints can be seen governing what prefixes can be used; what lexical bases can be attached, and/or what new lexemes can be generated. ## discussion as discussed in this paper, the prefixing process has been developed as an important device in the word formation in zhangzhou southern min. semantically, the prefixation is constructive to create new lexemes and substantially enlarge the local vocabulary. some prefixes are polysemantic to derive words that can cover different semantic domains, like the prefixes ɗɐw51, ɗɐw33, and ʔɐ35, while some prefixes are shown to be monosemantic whose derived items can only cover one single semantic domain, such as ħwɐn35 and te33. morpho-syntactically, the prefixing process, in general, presents a categorical-preserving property, because both the lexical bases and their derived words are largely nominal, the process of which does not evoke a new word class. but some prefixes in few cases, like kʰɵ51, ħɵ51, and ɓɐj41 can change the category of the bases from a nonadjective category to adjective. phonologically, the tonal forms of all prefixes are changed categorically over the process, because of the forcing factor of the right-dominant tone sandhi system in this southern min variety. pragmatically, the usage of certain prefixes, like pjɐw51, kɛ63.pɐk41, ʔŋ51, twɐ33 and se41, can reveal some particular social culture and custom of southern min. as seen, the prefixing can substantially affect the semantic, morpho-syntactic, and prosodic structures of this dialect. however, the encoding also subjects to several constraints from semantics, morpho-syntactics, phonology and pragmatics, reflecting a close interface between different linguistic levels in this dialect. this study is the first to discuss the prefixation in zhangzhou, which directly fills in the research gap of this under-described southern min variety. the exploration substantially stretches and advances our knowledge of how prefixation is encoded and contributes to the word formation in southern chinese dialect, shedding an important light on the generalization of areal characteristics of prefixation within the sino-tibetan language family. the innovative description also contributes vital empirical data to the typology of prefixation in world's natural languages. the discussion also challenges the conventional assumption of regarding sinitic languages as being isolating without significant affixation, while enlightening the theoretical discussion on how sinitic languages should be better defined from the morpho-syntactic perspective, given their existing rich prefixing system in the synchronic speech.