English affixal negation translated into Spanish 59
Negative affixes in both English and Spanish convey the negation of a prop-
erty, entity or action designated by the base. This negation can convey a number
of meanings: (i) a property opposite to that stated by the base; (ii) the privation
of such an action, entity or property; (iii) the reversal of a previous action or
situation; (iv) the removal of any of the above mentioned features (Bauer and
Huddleston 2002: 1687–88 and 1711; Real Academia Española de la Lengua 2009:
716–18). Grammatically, these affixes are relevant as productive elements in word
formation processes.
Not all the affixes in either English or Spanish can be attached indiscriminately
to any word, however (Bauer 1983). For example, English –less is class-changing,
as it produces adjectives from nouns (use-less, N → Adj), so that the newly-formed
word is characterised as lacking the entity designated by the base noun. In the
case of prefixes, the word class is maintained, while the meaning is changed. For
example, English un- can be attached to different word categories, namely adjec-
tives, adverbs, verbs, and less frequently to nouns. This never implies a change
in class but imposes the opposite meaning, as in un-consciously Adv → Adv, or
un-certainty N → N. English in- (and variants) behaves in the same way; the prefix
respects the word class of the base, which is usually an adjective or a noun as in
im-possible Adj → Adj or in-dependence N → N. Spanish in-, assumed equivalent
of English in- and a close counterpart of English un-, usually generates antonyms
for positive adjectives (in-creíble, un-believable Adj → Adj), so that the word class
is kept while the meaning is changed. Likewise, English dis- and Spanish des- com-
bine with nouns (dis-credit, des-crédito), adjectives (dis-loyal, des-leal) and verbs
(dis-connect, des-conectar) to refer to the opposite entity, characteristic or action
encoded by the base.
The basic criteria used to establish affixal status in each of the languages,
namely formal analysability, semantic and phonetic transparency, productivity,
recurrence and the existence of a generally accepted inventory of negative affixes,
together represent yet another shared property.
Differences are confined to the make-up of the English and Spanish inven-
tories and to the importance granted to these as conveyors of negative meanings
in each of the languages. The present analysis is limited to a well-defined set of
English negative affixal resources that will act as input for our cross-linguistic
searches, and their standard equivalents in Spanish as evidenced by reference
grammars. The problem addressed is defined from the perspective of Spanish as
a target language. However, in order to corroborate our working hypothesis, the
starting point of our enquiry must necessarily be the source language.
A review of the reference literature related to English (Quirk et al. 1985,
Biber et al. 1999, Bauer & Huddleston 2002, Carter & McCarthy 2006) reveals
agreement on the constituents of the inventory, though not on the importance