ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the variegated features of interfixation and also the principal theories intended to explain it. Various authors have argued, following Allen, that interfixes are morphemes flanked by other morphemes. ‘Interfix’ encompasses a wide variety of significances and characteristics. Two of the most important characteristics of interfixes are, on the one hand, that they always occur in an intermorphemic position in a word, that is, before, after or between roots, and, on the other, that they have mostly been considered devoid of meaning. In addition, although interfixation can affect nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs, the combination of root plus interfix per se does not constitute a word. The term interfix encompasses a broad set of affixes that have different relationships with the root and the adjacent morphemes, although they all share the intermorphemic position in the word, to which they owe their name.
