A prosodic-cyclic theory of circumfix linearization

Abstract This paper proposes a theory of circumfix linearization in Distributed Morphology. The core of the proposal is that circumfixation arises whenever one of two exponents of the same morphosyntactic feature has a prosodic subcategorization frame. This will be exemplified with data from Indonesian ke- -an nominalizations where facts regarding stress placement, the domain of nominalization and other grammatical processes point towards a prosodic-cyclic analysis. The analysis is extended to mode ɩ P-circumfixes in Meskwaki, circuminfixes in Tlahuitoltepec Mixe, and prosodically conditioned circumfixes in German past participles.