English Grammar Questions
Q8: Using opposite meaning prefixes
Back to GRAMMAR QUESTIONS:
|
|
|
|
Back to GRAMMAR QUESTIONS: |
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| From H
B - Holland " ... what it the rule concerning prefixes that turn words in their opposites? When do I use (un-) unpleasant, (in-) incapable, (im-) impossible, (a-) atheist, and (non-) nonbeliever?" Although the above question appears to be simple, it requires answers to specific parts in it, as follows: 1. "What it the rule concerning prefixes that turn words in their opposites?" The meaning of the words is studied by a grammar branch named "Semantics". Unfortunately, semantic topics are way too complex to present in one, beginner-level grammar book; therefore, they were exemplified/discussed only marginally and incidentally in "Logically Structured English Grammar". However, LSEG has subchapters dedicated to the most common methods used to form each morphologic sentence element. One common method of forming new/custom-built sentence elements is named "Affixation": using prefixes and suffixes added to a "root-word". This Affixation process was done long time ago for most words, but it still continues today using general-meaning prefixes and suffixes. In that last instance, the result is custom-equivalent sentence elements. English was formed as a mixture of many languages: the original Beaker-culture basis/fundament, plus Latin, Greek, German, Scandinavian, French, Hebrew, Spanish, Italian, Russian, etc. That particular aspect has generated a bit of chaos in structuring English sentence elements based on strict grammatical rules. For example, some morphologic sentence elements (adjectives, nouns, adverbs) take particular and specific sets of prefixes/suffixes. LSEG presents (partially) the most frequent sets of prefixes/suffixes used to form some morphologic sentence elements. In addition, LSEG presents few sets of common, general-meaning prefixes used to form new, custom-built sentence elements. 2. "When do I use (un-) unpleasant, (in-) incapable, (im-) impossible, (a-) atheist, and (non-) nonbeliever?" First of all, words are grouped into: A. well known words--and we rely on dictionaries to use them appropriately; B. custom words/(equivalent sentence elements)--and we need to exercise great caution when forming/using them. The set of words submitted for analysis are all adjectives, therefore they take adjective-specific sets of prefixes. Particular to adjectives is, few prefixes and suffixes are indeed used to form opposite/negative meanings. For example, the opposite/negative meaning prefix: a. (un-) is of German origin, and it is used a lot (uncommon, unknown, untold); b. (in-) is of Latin origin, also quite frequent (inadequate, inadmissible, inadvisable); c. (im-) is of Latin origin (immaterial, immature, immobile, impatient); d. (a-) is of Latin origin when it is used with its opposite/negative meaning (amoral, aphonic, apolitical), and of German origin in all other instances (aflame, ablaze, aglow, ahead, alike) e. (non-) is of Latin origin. From the list of prefixes submitted, (non-) is the only general-meaning prefix that may be used (safely) to form custom adjectives. Note that in most instances (non-) is tied to the root-word using a hyphen/dash (non-conformist, non-aromatic, non-Catholic) particularly because it is a general-meaning prefix. In LSEG you could find few more (recommended) general-meaning prefixes: anti-; ex-; extra-; retro-; super-; ultra-; etc. Using one known prefixed word/adjective for another is a tough choice (amoral / immoral), and please be aware that each version/form may have elusive, particular or additional meanings. Forming new adjectives using general meaning prefixes is a practice we would like to see discouraged. However, if you do that, please mark your new adjectives appropriately, using a hyphen/dash (of course, without colors, italics, or bold type): ex-military, contra-nature, non-human, etc. Please be aware that the addition of prefixes/suffixes may come sometimes with orthographic changes to the root-words required by phonetic-agreement. | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
LINKS
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
