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In:Morphology by Serial Optimization
Edited by Gereon Müller
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 289] 2025
► pp. 225–269

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Encoding affix predictability in Harmonic Serialism in Morphology derives affix ordering in Urarina

Published online: 27 November 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/la.289.07mcc
Abstract
Urarina exhibits intriguing affix orders, where number affixes precede and follow person and negation affixes. In this article, I show that affix predictability reflects the order of number and person affixes in Urarina. This result is based on a corpus study that determines the predictability of Urarina person, number and negation affixes. It shows that less predictable affixes are positioned closer to the stem than more predictable affixes. However, the position of negation with respect to person and number does not pattern the same way. From this study, I concur that affix predictability reflects and directly determines affix ordering but only to a certain degree. I implement this result into Harmonic Serialism in Morphology using gradient symbolic representations to encode affix predictability. The theory derives all person, number and negation affix orders in Urarina by allowing affix predictability to interact with category-specific alignment constraints in cyclic morphological structure building.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Urarina
    • 2.1Affix order in Urarina
  • 3.Affix predictability in Urarina
    • 3.1Methodology
    • 3.2Results
  • 4.Urarina affix order in Harmonic Serialism
    • 4.1Affix predictability derives person and number affix order
    • 4.2Cyclicity derives the position of negation
  • 5.Alternative approaches to affix ordering in Urarina
    • 5.1Phonologically conditioned affix order
    • 5.2Position class morphology
    • 5.3Standard parallel optimality theory in morphology
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
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