Zero Affix

Glossary of Linguistic Terms

Definition:

A zero affix is the member of a set of inflectional affixes which is represented by the absence of an expected morpheme .

Examples:

Here is a set of affixes in which one member of the set is a zero affix:

Word	Gloss	Personal pronoun prefixes
aa-lipis ga-lipis a-lipis lipis la-lipis	‘I/we washed’ ‘you (sing.) washed’ ‘you (plural) washed’ ‘he/she/it washed’ ‘they washed’	aa- ‘I/we' ga- ‘you (sing.)’ a- ‘you (plural)’ Ø ‘he/she/it’ la- ‘they’