ARE INFIXES PHONOLOGICALLY PREFIXES OR SUFFIXES? A CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS

Compared to suffixation or prefixation which follow or precedes the base respectively, infixation is an unusual way of affixation in that infixes are positioned inside the base in which the preceding and preceding parts do not make sense on their own.after interruption.Infixes are usually defined in the literature as originally prefixes or suffixes but they appear as infixes due to some phonological reasons.Apart from the origins of infixes, there are also some claims on the location of infixes on the bases that there are some prominent zones (pivots) on the base which attract infixes (Yu, 2007).Following the claims of the previous studies on the prefixal/suffixal origins of infixes and on the pivot points, the present study aims to develop a phonological template account for infixes and to represent the pivots on the bases via the floating constituents on the constituent structure.In line with these objectives, we have three claims: (i) there is no specific template for infixes -infixes have either a prefix or suffix template in phonology depending on their original version (prefix or suffix?) -which is also in line with the economy of representations; (ii) the floating constituents on the base, which were the phonological traces of the affixes that were previously prefixed or suffixed to the base, invite infixes to attach the base; (iii) infixation appears as a result of the match between the templates of the affix and the floating constituents, which means that the phonological properties of both an affix and a base must overlap for infixation.