An Analysis of the Types of Derivational Prefixes in Sarhaddi Balochi Dialect based on the Optimality Theory

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Tahereh Ezatabadi Poor ¹

Abbas Ali Ahangar ²

Seyyed Farid Khalifehloo, ³

Aliyeh Kord-e Zafaranlu Kambuziya ⁴

¹ Ph.D in Linguistics, English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.

² Professor of Linguistics, English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.

³ Associate Professor of linguistics, English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.

⁴ Associate Professor of linguistics, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22067/jlkd.2026.97419.1366

Abstract

This study describes and analyzes the phonological constraints governing derivational prefixes in Sarhaddi Balochi dialect, utilizing the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004). The data, comprising 98 derived words with diverse syllable structures of base including CV, VC, CVC, CVCC, CVCV, CVCVC, CVCCVC, CVCVCV, CCVC, CCVCC, VCVC, were collected via interviewing with 15 native low-literacy and illiterate speakers (10 men and 5 women), aged 60 to 75 living in the villages of Khash county and from library resources. The findings indicate that this dialect benefits from a dynamic word-formation system in which specific derivational prefixes are used for constructing different grammatical categories such as derived nouns with the prefix /ham-/, derived verbs with 3 prefixes /dar-/, /sar-/ and /ber-/, derived adjectives with 5 prefixes /biə-/, /na-/, /nɑ-/, /bɑ-/, and /ham-/, and derived adverbs with 2 prefixes /ham-/ and /biǝ-/. Data analysis in optimality tableaux show that derivational prefixes can be explained within the framework of the constraints of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004), such as “syllabic and metrical” constraints like “Onset”, “*Complex Onset and Coda”, and “Alignment Right (Morpheme-Syllable), and “structural conformity” constraints including “Maximality and Depedancy of Input-Output”, “Linearity” and “*Integrity”.

Keywords

Optimality Theory

Derivational Prefix

Constraint

Tableau

Sarhaddi Balochi

Subjects

• Word construction

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Authors retain the copyright. This is an open access article distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (CC BY 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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