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A 'privative', named from Latin ''^[1], "to deprive", 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.

Contents

Privative prefixes

Privative suffixes

References

See also

Privative prefixes

In English there are three primary privative prefixes, all cognate from PIE:

★ '' from West Germanic; e.g. '''un'''precedented, '''un'''believable

★ '' from Latin; e.g. '''in'''capable, '''in'''articulate''.

★ '', called alpha privative, from Ancient Greek '', ''; 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-'', ''an-''. In North Germanic languages, the -''n''- has disappeared and Old Norse has ''ú-'' (e.g. ú-dáins-akr), Danish and Norwegian have ''u-'', whereas Swedish uses ''o'', and Icelandic uses the etymologically related ''ó''.

Privative suffixes

Some languages have privative suffixes; ''-less'' is an example in English, and ''-t(a)lan'' or ''-t(e)len'' is an example in Hungarian (a non-IE language).

References

1. ''privare'', at William Whitaker's Words.

See also

★ Privative a

★ copulative a

★