ABSTRACT
Apart from the obvious distinction that they are preposed to bases rather than postposed, various other features distinguish prefixes from suffixes. Unlike the latter, they are not necessarily bound morphemes, since a number of prefixes also function independently as prepositions (sobre, contra, ante) or as adverbs (mal, bien). The semantic cohesion between prefix and base is much looser than that between suffix and base – the feeling of derivation is therefore strong and reflected sometimes in the use of hyphens in prefixation but never in suffixation. So the derivations are often ad hoc, ephemeral, and thus the formalised lexicon of the dictionary is not necessarily a reliable guide to the productivity of individual prefixes. Generally, prefixes are rather less ambivalent than suffixes, with a tendency towards monosemy, with the meaning clear and constant, or at most allowing limited polysemy (two senses as opposed to three or more in many suffixes – cf. contrasting meanings of re- in reaparecer and refluir). Unlike suffixes, they do not alter the natural stress of the lexemes to which they are attached (cf. decente → indecente). However, this means that like suffixes, a difference cannot be made between stress-changing and stress-neutral types and so they are not subject to the Class I and Class II rules of derivational morphology. Most important, prefixes, unlike most suffixes, do not normally effect a change of grammatical class on the base, since in most cases the output of the derivation corresponds syntactically to that of the primitive (cf. ligar V → desligar V, sala N → antesala N). So the syntactic categorisation approach used for the non-emotive suffixes is here impracticable, leaving the semantic function of prepositions as primordial. 1
