In/Im/Un/A prefixes for opposites... in Language Forum

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In/Im/Un/A prefixes for opposites...

Author	Comment
jasonconga	In/Im/Un/A prefixes for opposites...	Lead	[-]
Posts: 52 Jan 14 04 11:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None I wanted to make a list of words like this: possible impossible tolerant intolerant happy unhappy and so on to give germans a chance to understand this gross inanity! thanks...any suggestions or is the "handout" already made somewhere on the net?
declineandfall	Re: In/Im/Un/A prefixes for opposites...	#1	[-]
Posts: 216 Jan 16 04 7:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Don't know of a handout, but the world definitely needs one, if only to lob at students who ask nasty prefix questions. (I find that actually doing anything on prefixes in class thins out next week's numbers no end.) If it helps, I find Appendix I, "Word-formation" of Quirk and Greenbaum's "A University Grammar of English" contains a few things that successfully shut people up: Spellings: *Quote:* "In-" is realized as "il-" before /l/, eg: illogical, "im-" before bilabials, eg: improper, and "ir-" before /r/, eg: irrelevant "Non" and "Un": *Quote:* "Non-" can be normally be regarded as corresponding to clause negation: non-smoker = one who does not smoke. It frequently contrasts with "un-" in expresssing binary (non-gradable) contrast, rather than the opposite end of a scale: eg:"non-scientific" vs "unscientific". ... which I think is non-erroneously, if unlimpidly, expressed. I think this needs examples like: *Quote:* "Two percent of Turks are non-Muslim." "There are no casinos in Turkey, because gambling is un-Muslim." "Non" is neutral: it just says that something isn't the case. "Un" says it's the opposite - and often the moral or emotional opposite. "De-"/"Dis-": I like to use technical examples also using "re-": connect - disconnect - reconnect charge - discharge - recharge code - decode - recode assemble - disassemble - reassemble So "de-/dis-" often says something was there but it ain't any more: discoloured, defragmented, deice, defreeze. Please do the handout, Jason. And I'd like to put it on the Target website (www.t-english.com) when it's ready.
Kiki70		#2	[-]
Posts: 3 Apr 13 10 7:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Hello, I just joined here after seeing this thread when looking for the answers myself - and wanted to share 2 links which helped me a lot: http://www.englishforums....vePrefixes/wvkl/post.htm http://hum.ku.ac.th/learn...ng/BackAtOne/prefix.html I thought these were excellent answers and explanations. K

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