Why prefixes?

Abstract

MAR,IANNE MITHITN I I I I Abstract A \,?dety of explanatiorrs have been offered for the obserr,'ed cross-lingrdstic preponderauce of sufrxes ovet prefixes. Many are couched in terrns of syncbronic advantages, such as the cog-nitive simplicity of cross-category harmony betrveen synta".(and morphologr, and pre{ereuces for processing the leical mea,Iring irr sterns belbre the $amrnatic&l material in afiixes. Brlt hypotheses about ftlnctional a.dvantages caunot constitrrte explanations in thenr,seh'es 11-itLout accounts of the mechanisrns by whicl the advantages are translated into glammati(.al stNc-ture. Here it is shown that the numerous exce.ptions to s[ch hypotheses can be explniued when the individual histories of the affixes are couside-r€d, inchxling both their soruces and the steps by which they develop. It has long been recognized that suf;frxes outnumber prefixes cross-linguisti-cally. As eaxly as 1921 Edward Sapir remarked, "Of the three types of affxing the use of prefixes, suftr