Word-building patterns for the prefix -un
WORD-BUILDING PATTERNS
The term word-building or derivational pattern is used to denote a meaningful combination of stems and affixes that occur regularly enough to indicate the part of speech, the lexico-semantic category and semantic peculiarities common to most words with this particular arrangement of morphemes. Every type of word-building (affixation, composition, conversion, compositional derivation, shortening, etc.) as well as every part of speech has a characteristic set of patterns. The grouping of patterns is possible according to 1) the type of stem, 2) the affix or 3) semantics.
The grouping of patterns, their description and study may be based on the same principle of explanatory transformations.
Let us turn again to affixation and see how the dictionary defines words with the prefix un-:
unaccented a—without an accent or stress unbolt v — to remove the bolt of, to unlock unconcern n — lack of concern undo v — to reverse the effect of doing, unfailing a — not failing, constant.
These few examples show that the negative prefix un- may be used in the following patterns (Table 1):
| No. | Pattern | Meaning | Examples |
| I. | un- + an adjective stem | with the meaning 'not', 'without', 'the opposite of' | uncertain, unfair, unbelievable, unconscious |
| un- + Part. I stem | unbecoming | ||
| un- + Part. II stem | unbalanced, unknown, unborn | ||
| II. | un- + a verbal stem | to reverse the action as the effect of... | unbend, unbind, unpack, unwrap |
| III. | un- + a verbal stem | to release from | unhook, unpack, unlock, unearth |
| IV. | un- + a noun stem (rare) | absence of the assigned quality | unpeople 'people lacking the semblance of humanity', unperson 'a public figure who has lost his influence'. |
These cases of semantic overlapping show that the meaning or rather the variety of meanings of each derivational affix can be established only when we collect many cases of its use and then observe its functioning within the structure of the word-building patterns deduced from the examples collected. It would be also wrong to say that there exists a definite meaning associated with this or that pattern, as they are often polysemantic, and the affixes homonymous. This may be also seen from the following examples. A very productive pattern is out-+ V=Vt. The meaning is 'to do something faster, better, longer than somebody or something'. E. g. outdo, out-grow, out-live, outnumber, outplay. The number of possible combinations is practically unlimited. The spelling, whether hyphenated, solid or separate is in many cases optional. When formed not on verbs but on names of persons it means 'to surpass this person in something that is known as his special property'. The classical example is "to out-Herod Herod" (Shakespeare) 'to outdo smb. in cruelty'.
On the other hand, the same formal pattern out-+ V may occur with the locative out- and produce nouns, such as outbreak or outburst. The second element here is actually a deverbal noun of action.
The above examples do not exhaust the possibilities of patterns with out- as their first element. Out- may be used with verbal stems and their derivatives (outstanding), with substantives (outfield), with adjectives (outbound) and adverbs (outright).
The more productive an affix is the more probable the existence alongside the usual pattern of some semantic variation. Thus, -ee is freely added to verbal stems to form nouns meaning 'One who is V-ed', as addressee, divorcee, employee, evacuee, examinee, often paralleling agent nouns in -er, as employer, examiner. Sometimes, however, it is added to intransitive verbs; in these cases the pattern V+ -ee means 'One who V-s' or 'One who has V-ed', as in escapee, retiree. In the case of bargee 'a man in charge of a barge' the stem is a noun.
It may also happen that due to the homonymy of affixes words that look like antonyms are in fact synonyms. The adjectives inflammable and flammable are not antonyms as might be supposed from their morphological appearance (c.f. informal : : formal, inhospitable : : hospitable) but synonyms, because inflammable is 'easily set on fire'. They are also interchangeable in non-technical texts. Inflammable may be used figuratively as 'easily excited'. Flammable is preferred in technology.
The fact is that there are two prefixes in-. One is a negative prefix and the other may indicate an inward motion, an intensive action or as in the case of inflame, inflammable and inflammation have a causative function.
To sum up: the word-building pattern is a structural and semantic formula more or less regularly reproduced, it reveals the morphological motivation of the word, the grammatical part-of-speech meaning and in most cases helps to refer the word to some lexico-grammatical class, the components of the lexical meaning are mostly supplied by the stem.