Epenthesis and Prothesis in Tetun Terik: Phonological Exaptation and the Loss of Vowel-Initial Verbs

Abstract: The lexicon of the Timoric language Tetun Terik exhibits a notable typological oddity in that a vanishingly small number of verbs (<1%) are vowel-initial, despite there being no such paucity of vowel-initial adjectives or nouns. Etymological investigation reveals that these 'lost' *#V verbs have prothesised an /h/ of unclear origin. At the same time, Tetun Terik attests two vowel hiatus repair strategies: an epenthetic [h] at certain morphological prefix boundaries, alongside the default and more areally consistent [ʔ]. This paper presents a diachronic account of these three interconnected puzzles, namely the #V gap, prothetic /h/, and epenthetic [h], as the outcome of morphophonological reanalysis and phonological exaptation. In particular, it proposes that epenthetic [h] was innovated on the basis of fossilized and reinforced causative morphology, whereas prothetic /h/ on etymologically #V verbs arose due to analogical backformation and frequency-based categorial asymmetries in vowel hiatus contexts.