privative

A privative, named from Latin , is a particle that negates or inverts the value of the stem of the word. In Indo-European languages, many privatives are prefixes, but they can also be suffixes, or more independent elements.

Privative prefixes

In English there are three primary privative prefixes, all cognate from Proto-Indo-European:

*'' un-'' from West Germanic, from Proto-Germanic; e.g. ''un''precedented, ''un''believable
*'' in-'' from Latin; e.g. ''in''capable, ''in''articulate.
*'' a-'', called alpha privative, from Ancient Greek '' '', '' '', from Proto-Hellenic *ə-; e.g. ''a''pathetic, ''a''biogenesis.

These all stem from a PIE syllabic nasal privative *''n̥-'', the zero ablaut grade of the negation *''ne'', i.e. "n" used as a vowel, as in some English pronunciations of "button". This is the source of the 'n' in 'an-' privative prefixed nouns deriving from the Greek, which had both. For this reason, it appears as ''an-'' before vowel, e.g. ''an'' orexia, ''an'' esthesia.

The same prefix appears in Sanskrit, also as ''a-'' अ-, ''an-'' अन्- ( , -n- infix). In Slavic languages the privative is nie- and u-, e.g. ''nieboga'', ''ubogi''. In North Germanic languages, the -''n''- has disappeared and Old Norse has ''ú-'' (e.g. ú-dáins-akr), which became ''u-'' in Danish and Norwegian, ''o-'' in Swedish, and ''ó-'' in Icelandic.

Privative prefixes are not feature of Indo-European languages only, but also exist in languages belonging to other families, such as (Semitic).

Confusion of privative and non-privative in English

Many words introduced into the English from the Latin start with the prefix ''in-''. While often, it is a privative, it is not always so. Even if it is a privative, the meaning may be unclear to those who are not familiar with the word. The following three examples illustrate that:

# ''in''excusable
#: The - prefix is a privative and the word means the opposite of ''excusable'' that is, "unable to be excused, not excusable".
# ''in''valuable
#: That is also a privative but it does not mean "not valuable, not precious". While today ''valuable'' is a synonym for ''precious'', it originally meant "able to be given a value". The meaning of ''invaluable'' hinges upon this original meaning and thus means "of very great value" or literally "value cannot be estimated (because it is so great)", similar to ''priceless'' but dissimilar to ''worthless''.
# ''in''flammable
#: A naive reader may incorrectly interpret that as "not flammable". However, the word contains not a ''privative'' but a ''locative'' and ''flammable'' (the newer word in English by 300 years), rather than being the opposite of ''inflammable'' means the same thing.

The prefix ''in-'' arises from the Latin for "in, inside, within" and ''inflammable'' derives from the Latin root ''inflammāre'' meaning "able to be set alight, able to kindle a flame". Since at least the 1920s, there have been calls to stop using ''inflammable'' and substitute it exclusively with ''flammable'' to avoid the confusion that occurs even by native English-speakers.

Privative suffixes

Some languages have privative suffixes; ''-less'' is an example in English. Further examples are ''-t(a)lan'' or ''-t(e)len'' in Hungarian or ''-ton/-tön'' in Finnish (non-IE languages).

See also

*Copulative a
*Privative a
* Abessive case

Notes

References

{{Reflist

Linguistic morphology