‘Positive’ and ‘negative’ affixes.

THE MOE co-ordinator e-mailed me as follows: “A colleague of mine came upon an online article about words or phrases that only have a negative connotation, e.g. disgruntled, dishevelled and out of whack”, and asked whether I would be interested in writing an article on the subject. Even before the hint, I had for a long time pondered over the very same topic and wondered whether it would be of any interest. Heck! No matter. Hence the following spiel.

For a start, I should like to put word-building into perspective. A word may be built up – here I insert a full-stop to separate the elements forming the word – in the following ways: (1) combining existing words to form a new word, e.g. cease.fire, god.send, show.down; (2) linking together combining forms or word-stems (psycho.logy, from Greek psyche “breath, soul, mind” + logos “word, reason, discourse”); (3) affixing a prefix, or prefixes, to an existing word (in.come) or to a word-stem or combining form (pre.dict, from Latin prae but pre- in combination “before” + dicere, dictum “to say”); and (4) affixing a suffix, or suffixes, to an existing word (like.ly) or to a word-stem or combining form (cordi.al, from Latin cor, cordi- “heart” + -al”).

Table 1 is a list of some affixes which have a negative or privative connotation, with examples of words formed therewith; and Table 2 lists the affixes with the opposite connotation.

Words and their opposites

There are many ways in which words – be they nouns, adjectives, or verbs – with positive and negative significations may arise. These include: (1) using different words, e.g. full/empty, functional/defunct, presence/absence, accept/reject, active/passive, awake/asleep; (2) affixing a prefix to an existing word, e.g. do/undo, construe/misconstrue, embark/disembark; (3) affixing different suffixes to an existing word, e.g. worthy/worthless; (4) attaching different prefixes to the same word-stem or combining form, e.g. accord/discord, encourage/discourage, inflate/deflate; and (5) attaching different suffixes to the same word-stem, e.g. happy/hapless.

Oddities

Even with the different ways of forming words of opposite significations, which include irregular patterns in the formation of opposites, further oddities may arise, as indicated in Tables 1 and 2.

The two examples, viz. disgruntled and dishevelled, which open this topic, are not unique. Some elaboration is called for. The opposite of disgruntled would notionally be gruntled, the past participle of gruntle, which is deemed the frequentative of grunt (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1974) – but both gruntle and gruntled apparently do not appear as valid words. However, Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2004 admits the word gruntled (as a back-formation from disgruntled) used in a humorous context to mean “pleased, satisfied”.

As in the case of disgruntled, the word dishevelled, when shorn of its prefix, leaves the fragment hevelled or even shevelled, neither of which is a valid word. The complete word is derived from French deschevele, the past participle of descheveler, and ultimately from des (Latin dis-) plus chevel “hair”, meaning “having the hair uncovered”.

Let us now pick out some examples from the tables for clarification, to wit: (1) disparage, disparate (ref. #1.4 of Table 1). The word disparage “to dishonour by comparison with what is inferior, to match in marriage with an inferior, to talk slightingly of” comes from Old French desparager, made up of des- (Latin dis-) with negative connotation, plus parage “high birth or rank” (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1974). Compare with the word disparate, derived from Latin dis- plus parare, paratum “to put, to make ready”. The notional opposite, parate, the result of deleting the prefix dis-, does not exist in English. (2) infidel/fidel*, inebriated/ebriated, inflammable/flammable, impassioned/passioned, inflammable/flammable (ref. #1.6). The word infidel is derived from the prefix in- plus fidelis “faithful”. Docking the negative prefix in- from infidel results in the seeming opposite, fidel, which is not a valid word in English. As for the pairing of inebriated and ebriated, either word is not the opposite of the other. Here the prefix in- is not a negating prefix but an intensifying prefix – so to be ebriated means to be drunk or intoxicated, and to be inebriated to be more so. The same intensive prefix in- or its variant im- is used in inflammable/flammable and impassioned/passioned. (3) ignominy/nominy* (ref. #1.7). The word ignominy is made up of the negative prefix in- plus (g)nomen, nominis “name”. The notional opposite nominy is a no-no. (4) nonchalant/chalant* (ref. #1.8). The notional opposite chalant does not exist in English. (5) uncouth/couth*, unruly/ruly* (ref. #1.9). Couth is almost an unnatural word, being a back-formation from uncouth. Ruly is hardly encountered, being an archaic word derived from rule and meaning “disciplined, orderly”. (6) ruthless/ruthful* (ref. #1.10). Ruthless contains the root word ruth, but the opposite ruthful is apparently unknown. (7) awful/awless*, awesome/aweless* (ref. #2.3 and #2.6 of Table 2). Both awful and awesome contain the root word awe, but their opposite, awless or aweless, is not encountered. (8) burly/burl-less*, pricey/priceless cf. valuable/valueless (ref. #2.7). Burly is a word on its own, and the terminal -y is not a suffix. There is, therefore, no call for an opposite like burl-less, as in the model for worthy/worthless. Price and value may be synonymous; they form their respective opposites in pricey/priceless and valuable/valueless; but priceless (“so precious that its value cannot be determined”) has a meaning decidedly different from that of valueless (“without value, worthless”).

I hope my fellow-learners discern the patterns – and ramifications – in forming words of opposite significations. No doubt they will have a heyday – incidentally, this word is not formed from hey plus day – in uncovering even more exceptions and unusual features in the formation of opposites. Enjoy – but not “disjoy” – yourselves in the undertaking.

• Survey: Britons love tea more than coffee
• New York City relies on automation technologies to face challenges of urbanisation
• Oil palm firms team up with Sabah to protect Malua Forest Reserve
• Powering the Big Apple
• Build robust cities
• Fun with words
• Rail marvel in New York
• Fun with synonyms
• Carnegie Hall gets green facelift
• Win The Good Food Cook Book!

Latest Jobs from Star-Jobs