Classification and comparative analysis of English negative affixes — страница 4

taking a medicine: High blood pressure is a contraindication for this drug. destabilize: to make less firm or steady, especially politically: a deliberate attempt to destabilize the economy of a rival country disclaim: to state that one does not have or accept; to deny: He disclaimed all responsibility for the accident. illiterate: who has nor learnt to read or write: (fig.) an illiterate note. immodest: showing or tending to express a high opinion of oneself and oneself’s abilities, perhaps higher than is really deserved; not modest: immodest behaviour. inaction: lack of action or activity; quality or state of doing nothing irrational: not using reason; against reasonable behaviour: After taking the drug she became quite irrational. miscount: to count wrongly: The teacher

miscounted the number of boys. nonresident: a person not living in a certain place: Are nonresidents entitled to vote? unannounced: having given no sign of being present; appear unexpectedly: He burst into doctor’s room quite unannounced and started shouting at her. countless: very many; too many to be counted: countless reasons against it. [6] Since we have even more examples of words with the negative affixes, it is more possible to apply the definitions of the affixes to the definitions of the words with these affixes. It is becoming clear then that the meanings of the affixes given in the dictionary are quite general. It was stated above, that affix has no independent meaning, so only when attached to words, affixes acquire a more specific meaning in each case. The reason

for it is that affix is not an independent unit; therefore its meaning taken separately can be stated only generally. To make the analysis more complete we should consult at least one other dictionary. So if it is Oxford Advanced Lerner’s Dictionary of Current English, the result will be the following. a-: (in nouns, adjectives and adverbs) not; without: amoral (=not moral): atheists anti-: 1 apposed to; against: anti-tank weapons 2 the opposite of: an anti-hero contra-: (in nouns, verbs and adjectives) against; opposite : contraflow de-: (in verbs and related nouns, adjectives and adverbs): the opposite of: decentralization dis-: (in adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs): not; the opposite of: dishonest il-suffix=in im-=in in-: (also il- im- ir-)(in adjectives, adverbs and

nouns): not; the opposite of: infinite ir-=in mal-: (in nouns, verbs and adjectives): bad or badly; not correct or correctly: malpractice mis-: (in verbs and nouns) bad or wrong; badly or wrongly non-: (in nouns, adjectives and adverbs): not: nonsense un-: 1(in adjectives, adverbs and nouns): not; the opposite of: unable 2 (in verbs that describe the opposite of a process): unlock less-: (in adjectives): 1without: treeless 2 not doing; not affected by: tireless [7] Such affixes like mys- and nega-, which are present in the list of negative affixes, are not present in both Longman and Oxford dictionaries, as well as words with them, so we can make a suggestion that they are not productive nowadays, that is no words are built with it. But there are found some words beginning with

dys-, like dysfunctional (=not working in a satisfactory or successful way), or dyslexia (=a slight disorder of the brain that causes difficulty in reading and spelling, for example, but does not affect intelligence). Therefore, it should be included in the list of negative affixes to make it more complete. It is obvious, that the prefix dys- really exists and has approximately the same meaning as the prefix dis-. Analyzing the meanings given by both dictionaries we can make a conclusion that they just slightly differ in meanings in different dictionaries (for example, contra- in Longman Dictionary means “opposite”, while Oxford Dictionary gives a wider definition – “against; opposite”, and like), and according to the examples the meanings given there reflect the

additional meaning, which they bring to the derivative word. All the negative affixes posses the meaning of either opposition or lack of something that also carries the idea of negation. The Oxford dictionary marks the word class of the word the affix belongs to, what is not always done in Longman dictionary. It is very useful for our further classificatrional analysis. But it is known that some words can acquire several negative affixes and new words can seem semantically similar to language learners. It is a rude mistake to misuse the affixes. So on this stage of analysis appears a question, why some words are attached with a certain negative affix and others are attached with others. And it is also very important to find out how not to mix up some affixes with very similar