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Free prefix ordering in Chintang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Balthasar Bickel ,
Goma Banjade ,
Martin Gaenszle ,
Elena Lieven ,
Netra Prasad Paudyal ,
Ichchha Purna Rai ,
Manoj Rai ,
Novel Kishore Rai  and
Sabine Stoll
Balthasar Bickel*
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
Goma Banjade
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Martin Gaenszle
Affiliation:
University of Leipzig
Elena Lieven
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Netra Prasad Paudyal
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Ichchha Purna Rai
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Manoj Rai
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Novel Kishore Rai
Affiliation:
Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu
Sabine Stoll
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
*
Bickel, Institut für Linguistik, Universität Leipzig, Beethovenstrasse 15, 04107 Leipzig, Germany, [bickel@uni-leipzig.de]
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Abstract

This article demonstrates prefix permutability in Chintang (Sino-Tibetan, Nepal) that is not constrained by any semantic or morphosyntactic structure, or by any dialect, sociolect, or idiolect choice—a phenomenon ruled out by standard assumptions about grammatical words. The prefixes are fully fledged parts of grammatical words and are different from clitics on a large number of standard criteria. The analysis of phonological word domains suggests that prefix permutability is a side-effect of prosodic subcategorization: prefixes occur in variable orders because each prefix and each stem element project a phonological word of their own, and each such word can host a prefix, at any position.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 43 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Linguistic Society of America

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