Semantic Networks and Domains of Old English Negative Prefixes

Negative prefixation in Old English has been an issue having little interest in the morphological field of the language. It has been briefly treated in OE reference grammars (Sweet 1891, Wright and Wright 1925, Koziol 1937, Jespersen 1942, Quirk and Wrenn 1974, Kastovsky 1992, among others), and the descriptions of the negative prefixes found in the studies are superficial and limited to a listing of their meanings. This paper attempts to provide a unified semantic account of OE 18 negative prefixes (and- ǣ-, æf-, be-, for-/fer-, gēan-, med-, mis-, of-, ofer-, on(an)-, or- sām-, un-, under-, wan-/won, wiþ-, wiþer-) on the basis of the semantic system established by Hamawand (2009). In accordance with the system, I make two theoretical assumptions: firstly, the meanings of a negative prefix gather around a prototypical sense, from which the peripheral ones are derived; secondarily, negative prefixes group into 8 semantic domains (e.g., opposition, distinction) based on their meanings, and each prefix in the same domain has its own specificity, contrasting itself with the other members. The results of this article reveal that the polysemy of each prefix, the relationship between multiple meanings of a prefix, and the semantic relationship between the negative prefixes can be explained in a unified and systematic way.