Circumfixes

Another type of affix that occurs in languages is the circumfix. A circumfix consists of two parts – a prefix and a suffix that together create a new lexeme from a base. We don’t consider the prefix and suffix to be separate, because neither by itself creates that type of lexeme, or perhaps anything at all. This kind of affixation is a form of parasynthesis, a phenomenon in which a particular morphological category is signaled by the simultaneous presence of two morphemes.

One example of a circumfix can be found in Dutch, although Booij (2002: 119) says that it’s no longer productive. In Dutch, to form a collective noun from a count noun, the morpheme ge- is affixed before the base and -te after the base

Neither geberg nor bergte alone forms a word – it’s only the presence of both parts that signals the collective meaning. Another example can be found in Tagalog (Malayo-Polynesian), where adding ka before and an after a noun base X makes a noun meaning ‘group of X’:

Again, neither ka noun, nor noun an, has its own meaning in these words