wordfinally

Wordfinally is a term used in linguistics to describe phenomena that occur at the final position of a word within a larger unit, such as a phrase or sentence. It denotes features or processes conditioned by word-final position and is distinguished from word-initial and word-medial phenomena. The term is not a fixed linguistic category; its interpretation varies by language and research tradition.

Origin and usage: The word appears to have emerged in the early 2020s in typological and morphophonological discussions as a convenient label for word-final phenomena. It is encountered in annotation guidelines, cross-language surveys, and some descriptive grammars as a provisional descriptor rather than a broadly standardized category.

Examples of wordfinal phenomena may include: final-syllable stress or tonal patterns that apply only to the last syllable of a word; final affixes or clitics attached to the word; morphophonological alternations that occur exclusively at word end; and discourse or pragmatic markers appended as a word-final element. The exact nature of these phenomena can vary across languages and researcher frameworks.

Relation to other concepts: Wordfinally is typically contrasted with word-initial and word-medial phenomena and with broader phrase-final or sentence-final phenomena. Analysts may treat word-final attachments as internal to the word or as clitics that attach to the word in the final position.

See also: word-initial, word-medial, phrase-final, sentence-final, clitic, morphophonology. References in the literature vary by tradition, with wordfinally most often appearing as a provisional labeling in descriptive and typological work.