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Aprivative, named fromLatinprivare'to deprive',[1] is aparticle that negates or inverts thevalue of thestem of the word. InIndo-European languages, many privatives areprefixes, but they can also besuffixes, or more independent elements.
InEnglish there are three primary privative prefixes, allcognate fromProto-Indo-European:
These all stem from aPIE syllabic nasal privative *n̥-, the zeroablaut 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. Forthis reason, it appears asan- before vowel, e.g.anorexia,anesthesia.
The same prefix appears inSanskrit, also asa- अ-,an- अन्- ( , -n-infix). InSlavic languages the privative isnie- andu-, e.g.nieboga,ubogi. InNorth Germanic languages, the -n- has disappeared andOld Norse hasú- (e.g.ú-dáins-akr), which becameu- inDanish andNorwegian,o- inSwedish, andó- inIcelandic.
Privative prefixes are not feature ofIndo-European languages only, but also exist in languages belonging to other families, such asHebrew:אל־,romanized: al- (Semitic).
Many words introduced into the English from the Latin start with the prefixin-. 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.[2] The following three examples illustrate that:
The prefixin- arises from the Latin for "in, inside, within" andinflammable derives from the Latin rootinflammāre[5] meaning "able to be set alight, able to kindle a flame". Since at least the 1920s, there have been calls to stop usinginflammable and substitute it exclusively withflammable to avoid the confusion that occurs even by native English-speakers.[4]
Some languages have privativesuffixes;-less is an example in English. Further examples are-t(a)lan or-t(e)len inHungarian or-ton/-tön inFinnish (non-IE languages).