The Characteristics of Adjective Stems Attached to the Prefix {en-}

the prefix {en-} will change to ɛm or ɪm. This modification involves allomorph. Based on English phonology, consonant [b] belong to bilabial articulation which is [p, b, and m]. When stem has consonant of [p,b,m] or [l,r] meet with the prefix which has consonant [n] which are belong to alveolar in its final position, the consonant [n] will change into the same categories of the nearest or neighborhood allomorph. This phonological phenomenon is called assimilation rule. Assimilation rule which assimilates one segment to another by ‘copying’ or ‘spreading’ a feature of sequential phoneme, making the two phones more similar. There is assimilation process in the {en-} prefixation. For example, The assimilation rule of consonant [n] to [m] is called nasal assimilation because [n] is included as nasal consonant. The example of the assimilation in the study is enbitter  embitter . The process can be seen in: Underlying forms ɛn+bɪtə Nasal assimilation M Surface forms ɛmbɪtə There are other examples of assimilation rule in the {en} prefixation. For example, enlarge ɛnˈlɑːdʒ, endear ɛnˈdɪə, ennoble ɛnˈnəʊ b ə l, and enrich ɪ nr ɪ t ʃ . These example actually undergo assimilation process though it does not shows the changes of the consonant [n] because consonants [l], [d], [n], and [r] already belong to alveolar. There are constraints why {en-} prefixation stems cannot be attached to suffix {-en}. For example, we find enlarge ɛnˈlɑːdʒ, endear ɛnˈdɪə, ennoble ɛnˈnəʊ b ə l and embitter ɛmbɪtə but we cannot find largen, dearen, noblen, and bitteren. It is because the stem dear ˈdɪə, noble ˈ n əʊ b ə l, bitter bɪtə have sonorant in the final letter which is vowel ɪə, ə and lateral l and voiced affricates dʒ in the stem large ˈlɑːdʒ. So the stem that can be attached to prefix {en-} have vowel, bilabial consonants [m, n, p, b], alveolar consonants [t, d, l, r], velar [g] and voiceless fricatives [f,s] in the initial letter and sonorant vowel, nasal, liquid in final letter. There is a constraint on the {en-} prefixation of adjective stems. There are adjective stems that cannot be attached to the prefix {en-} such as white, hard, black, bright, etc because the stems have the consonant with the glide w, h in initial letter such as white, wide, and weak and liquid [l,r] in the second letter such as black and bright eventhough there is bilabial consonant in the initial letter. The other phonological analysis on the stem words of the prefix {en-} is about the stress shift. In Victoria Fromkin’s opinion, one or more of the syllables in each content word words other than ‘little words’ such as to, the, a, of, and so on are stressed. A stress shift is a phonological process when the stress pattern change or has different position after the word is added by the inflectional or derivational prefixes or suffixes. In the English phonetic transcription, stress pattern is symbolized with an apostrophe ‘ before the stressed syllable of the word. Based on the analysis of the data of the prefix {en-}, this study finds a stress shift between the stem words and the complex words added by the prefix {en-}. This phenomenon can be examined by analyzing the phonetic transcription of the stem words and complex words. For example when we have the word bitter 