Re: CONLANG Digest - 1 Nov 2000

On Mon, Nov 06, 2000 at 06:37:43PM -0500, Nik Taylor wrote:
> Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> > Of course, there are exceptions (I used to know a few of them but
> > they escape me right now.
>
> Unfaithful, which also has the Germanic -ful
> Unedited
> Unrecorded
> Untelevised
> Unframed (at least, I think frame is non-Germanic)
> Unformed
> Uncaged
> Unliberated
> Unintelligent
> Unelaborated
> Uncomplicated
>
> In addition, using un- instead of in- sounds less odd than vice versa,
> in other words, "unpossible" wouldn't sound too odd, but "inbelievable"
> would sound very odd.  Also, if I had to coin a word, I'd be more likely
> to use "un-" than "in-", I'd say "unlinguistic" or "uncomputerized"
> rather than ??"illinguistic" or *"incomputerized"
And then there's non-; I tend to use non- if the word I'm trying to negate
doesn't already have a negated form, or if I want to emphasize the negation,
or just to be plain silly. Also, in cases where the word already starts with
in- or un-, or in cases like <inflammable> which only LOOK like negatives
but aren't.

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo