Negative Prefixes in English and Macedonian

Abstract

There are many ways in which negation is expressed, and in this paper I will be talking about the use of several negative prefixes: a-, anti-, counter-, de-, dis-, un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, non-, added to words of different lexical categories in English; and ?-, ??mu-, ?e?- ?o?mpa- npomu?- ?e- ?e-, and some others in Macedonian by applying the semantic approach and analyzing the meaning of each negative word. The aim is to show that there are complementary opposites, contrary opposites, opposite and privative affixes, and that, pragmatically speaking, not every negative word has negative meaning. In order to conduct the research and produce results, I have used methodology that deals with the closely related areas: morphology, lexicology, and semantics.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n2p665