On Mon, Nov 4, 2019, 21:59 , <kechpaja@kechpaja.com> wrote:It also isn't that strange for a language to have an affix that can't
attach to words with certain phonological shapes, even if the resulting
word wouldn't violate any phonological rules. For instance, the English
deadjectival verbalizing suffix "-en" that we see in words such as
"redden" and "darken" (it's generally used with color terms, but can
occasionally occur with other adjectives) cannot be added to adjectives
ending in a vowel or sonorant — which is why you don't hear *yellowen or
*greenen.
You do if you're willing to embiggen your vocabulary.
By applying known rules in ways that don't contradict other
rules, as with the word embiggen. But you don't
hear yellowen or greenen because these contradict
the very rule that SapIr just cited. Embiggen violates so
such rule.
-- SuStel http://trimboli.name