Infixation in the Americas: A Cross-Linguistic Survey

Abstract

This article gives an overview of American infixes, with a focus on their morphosyntactic properties. A large-scale survey of both North and South American languages reveals several patterns, such as: (i) infixes fall within one of five categories, number, person, tam, voice/valency, and word formation; (ii) infixes usually have non-infixal allomorphs and are generally highly restricted in their distribution; (iii) few languages have more than one infix; (iv) a conspicuous number of infixes contain a glottal consonant. An attempt is made to explain morphosyntactic patterns with respect to the diachronic origin of infixes. It is concluded that the abundance and diversity of American infixes call out for further research on their formal and functional properties. Such studies would promise to inform, for instance, diachronic theories of morphophonology and morphosyntax, accounts of the inflection-derivation continuum, and our understanding of the semantic and grammatical category of number.