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CHAPTER 7
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology in Mono is manifested on nouns, verbs, prepositions, and a handful
of particles. Nominal morphology involves a plural prefix on animate nouns. Verbal
morphology includes (1) prefixes marking the infinitive, condition, and repetition; (2)
reduplication marking negation and some tense, aspect, and mood categories; and (3)
tonal morphemes which mark tense, aspect, and mood. Prepositional morphology
includes prefixes which mark precisions in location. I examine the morphological
behavior of nouns in Section 7.1.1, verbs in Section 7.1.2, prepositions in 7.1.3, and other
particles in Section 7.1.4. In addition, I discuss noun compounding and derivational
processes in Section 7.1.1.
Some phonological processes in Mono (such as vowel hiatus and glide formation)
become evident only when we look across morpheme or word boundaries. Other
processes which are known to apply within a morpheme are also applicable across
morpheme or word boundaries. In Section 7.2, I discuss phonological processes
exhibiting these types of behavior.
Morphological typology has been a topic of discussion in linguistics since at least
the early part of the nineteenth century. Recently Comrie (1989: 46ff) offered a revision
of the traditional typology, in which he categorizes languages along two continua—the
index of synthesis and the index of fusion.
According to Comrie, the index of synthesis classifies languages according to the
number of morphemes a word can contain. Languages in which a word typically contains
only one morpheme are termed isolating, whereas languages in which a word typically
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