152 CHAPTER 4. PARTICLES
The reading is a rare reading used mainly as a classical honorific
prefix. It can be considered a very formal version of the reading.The reading is also rarely used, and is used exclusively for im-
perial terms.This prefix is essential in various honorific and humble constructions, as
we saw in the sections on humble and honorific verb constructions. It
should be noted that some words, when used in daily speech, always get
this prefix. A by no means exhaustive list of such words includes:
(green) tea
money
warm/hot water (but not boiling water, which is called
)
cold water
belly, stomach
chopsticks
feast (used in
, said when one is done eating)
food, dinner4.1.2 Negating prefixes
There are also various common prefixes that negate, void or otherwise cre-
ate a counter-concept word when used:
,
,
and
.
We know
from the verbal imperfect base, the. This prefix
indicates a ”not yet” or ”has yet to be realised” aspect, which explains what
it’s doing in a word like , but there are many other words in which
we find this prefix:
future ”not yet arrived”
incomplete ”not yet finished”
unmarried ”not yet married”
pending ”not yet arranged”
prior ”not yet begun”