Disfix
In linguistic morphology, a disfix is a subtractive morpheme, a morpheme manifest through the subtraction of segments from a root or stem. Although other forms of disfixation exist, the element subtracted is usually the final segment of the stem.
Productive disfixation is extremely rare among the languages of the world but is important in the Muskogean languages of the southeastern United States. Similar subtractive morphs in languages such as French are marginal.
Terminology
The terms "disfix" and "disfixation" were proposed by Hardy and Timothy Montler in a 1988 paper on the morphology of the Alabama language. The process had been previously described by Leonard Bloomfield who called it a minus feature, and Zellig Harris who called it a "minus morpheme". Other terms for the same or similar processes are subtraction, truncation, deletion, and minus formation.
Examples
Muskogean
In Muskogean, disfixes mark pluractionality (repeated action, plural subjects or objects, or greater duration of a verb). In the Alabama language, there are two principal forms of this morpheme:
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