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Prefixation

§ 257. Prefixation was a productive way of building new words in OE. Genetically, some OE prefixes go back to IE prototypes, e.g. OE a negative prefix (the element -n- is found in negative prefixes in many IE languages, cf. Fr ne, R не, ни). Many more prefixes sprang in PG and OE from prepositions and adverbs, e.g. mis-, be-, ofer-. Some of these prepositions and adverbs continued to be used as independent words as well.

§ 258. Prefixes were widely used with verbs but were far less pro­ductive with other parts of speech. We can cite long lists of verbs derived from a single root with the help of different prefixes:

The most frequent, and probably the most productive, OE prefixes were: ā-, be-, for-, fore-, ʒe-, ofer-, un-. Of these only un- was common with nouns and adjectives, the rest were mainly verb prefixes.

§ 259. The prefix modified the lexical meaning of the word, usually without changing its reference to a part of speech: ʒe-boren — unʒeboren (adjectivised participle; NE born — unborn); sip— for-sip n 'journey', 'death'; dǣd — un-dǣd n NE deed 'crime'; iepelice — un-iepelice adv 'easily', with difficulty', spēdiʒ — unspēdiʒ adj 'rich', 'poor'.

Some prefixes, both verbal and nominal, gave a more special sense to the word and changed its meaning very considerably: e.g. ʒytan — on-ʒytan (NE get), 'perceive', weorðan — for-weorðan v, forwyrð n 'be­come', 'perish', 'destruction', būʒan — bebūʒan (NE bow), 'surround'. A distinct semantic group was constituted by negative prefixes un-, mis-, wan-, or- (the two latter were nominal prefixes only), e.g.: hāl — unhāi or wan-hāl 'healthy', 'unhealthy', wisdom — unwisdōm (NE wisdom), 'folly'; lician — mislician (NE like), 'displease', limpan or ʒelimpan

— mislimpan 'happen' — 'go wrong', sorʒ n — orsorʒ adj (NE sorrow), 'unconcerned, careless'.

Some prefixes had a very weak or general meaning bordering on grammatical, e.g.: ʒe-, the commonest verb prefix, conveyed the meaning of result or completion and was therefore often used as a marker of the Past Participle — sittan — ʒe-sett, stelan — ʒestolen (NE sit, steal). (For the use of ʒe- with Participle II and as a marker of aspect see § 193 and § 197). ʒe- and ā- changed the aspective meaning of the verb and turned it from durative into perfective or terminative without affecting its lexical meaning as in feran — ʒeferan 'go —reach', drincan — ʒedrincan 'drink — drink off', winnan — ʒewinnan 'fight — win', sendan

— āsendan 'send — send off'. With some verbs the meaning of the prefix was so weak and vague that there was practically no difference between the verb with the prefix and without it, e.g.: ābidan — bidan 'await', swerian — āswerian 'swear'. With other verbs the same prefix could bring about a shift of meaning, e.g.: sittan — ʒe-sittan 'sit — oc­cupy' (see more examples in § 193).

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