- Etymologically epä- is the old form of the present participle of the negative verb ei ‘is not.’
- The dictionary used was V. S. Alanne, Finnish-English Dictionary (Helsinki, 1956).
- Cf. Lauri Hakulinen, The Structure and Development of the Finnish Language (Indiana University Publications: Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. III; Bloomington, Ind., 1961), p. 309.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., pp. 309–310.
- **
- Ibid., p. 135.
- We have made the following changes in the transcription used in R. C. Abraham, Dictionary of Modern Yoruba (London, 1958):
- Abraham Phonetic value Our transcription Ṣ [Š] Š ẹ [ε] ε O [ǝ] ǝ
- Abraham states that “this prefix negatives verbal-nouns which have the prefix i-,” but then goes on to remark that “sometimes there is no affirmative verbal-noun contrasting with the negative” (Abraham, p. 33). It would therefore seem to be preferable to state the rule of derivation in terms of the underlying verbal stems.
- Compare, with the unacceptable aitoši, the acceptable form ailowo ‘poverty,’ from lowo ‘to have money.’
- We assume that the forms given in this list, while not all wholly “neutral,” are at least less “positive” or “negative” than the forms in the two lists above.
- The transcription system used is the Wade Romanization. Tones are marked according to the Yale Romanization rather than by the numerical superscripts used in the Wade system. The Wade tone ‘1’ (high level) is marked lsquo;-’ ‘2’ (rising) is marked ‘ˊ’; ‘3’ (low rising) is marked ‘˘’ and ‘4’ (falling) is marked ‘ˋ’.
- The work referred to is George C. Stent, A Chinese and English Vocabulary in the Pekinese Dialect (Shanghai, 1871).
- It might be added here that, according to my informant, wú occurs frequently in translations of Buddhist terms dating back to the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.
- These two terms appear in an appendix entitled “Modern Literary and Other Combinations” in D. MacGillivray, A Mandarin-Romanized Dictionary of Chinese (3rd ed.; Shanghai, 1911).
- From Courtenay H. Fenn, Fenn's Chinese-English Pocket Dictionary (Rev. American ed.; Cambridge, Mass., 1942).
- Morio Takahashi, Romanized Japanese-English Dictionary (Tokyo, 1952).
- It should be pointed out that Chinese characters in Japanese often have a different reading in isolation (the Japanese reading) from the reading they have in combination with other Chinese characters; thus mu+yamai is read as mubyō. In a sense affixation in such cases is a process that brings about a combination of written characters rather than of morphemes of the spoken language.
- We might add that there is apparently a transformational criterion for distinguishing between forms with which fu- is used as opposed to those that take mu-. Thus fukohei ‘unfairness,’ kohei de aru ‘is fair’; but mugai ‘harmlessness,’ gai ga aru ‘has harm’ (the glosses are not to be taken as much more than a label for the particular construction in question).
- The work referred to is George B. McFarland, Thai-English Dictionary (Stanford Univ., Calif., 1944).
- It might be added here that, according to my Ilokano informant, the situation with respect to negative affixes is the same for Tagalog as for Ilokano.
- It is perhaps also worth noting that another language, namely Turkish, was excluded from this study at the outset on the grounds that it has no productive negative affixes for the derivation of adjectives.
- The data on this language were obtained from Mr. Arthur Sorensen of the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, who has done fieldwork in this area.
- Moreover, short would be expressed in Tukano as ‘not long,’ narrow as ‘not wide.’ This system of forming antonyms is reminiscent of Esperanto; cf. below, p. 81.
- 4
- Personal communication of Dr. Eugene A. Nida of The American Bible Society.
WORD
Volume 20, 1964 - Issue sup1: Monograph No.5