Himalayan Linguistics

Many different kinds of nominal categorial prefixes are employed in the Bodo, Dimasa, Kokborok and Tiwa languages, such as classifier prefixes, class prefixes, genus prefixes, person possessive prefixes, body part prefixes, nominalizing prefixes, adjectivizer prefixes, etc. Usually, these prefixes have lexical meanings as they are exact or obsolete forms of corresponding existing lexemes. The exact forms are used as free words whereas the obsolete forms are used exclusively as bound morphemes. They may refer to respective classes, genera, species, persons, body/plant parts, etc. because they carry the corresponding meaning. Hence, it is very likely that these prefixes originally belonged to a noun category which have been incorporated to the co-occurring bases; whereas, the other types of categorial prefixes like nominalizer and adjectivizer belong to derivational category.