Prefixation in English and Catalan - Departament de Filologia ...

3 RESEARCH METHODS
Dictionaries have allowed me to carry out the study of “all” en-prefixation Vs in the two
languages under analysis, thus providing me with enough data to show that complex
words derived by en-prefixation in English and Catalan are not exceptions to the RHR.
Concerning the Catalan data, the Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana
(GDLC) (1998) and the Diccionari de la llengua catalana (DLC) (1995) have been the
main tools, whereas the Diccionari general de la llengua catalana (DGLC) (1932) has
been used for clarification and further reference when necessary. As for the English
data, the Cambridge International Dictionary of English (CIDE) (1995) has been used
in conjunction with the Collins Cobuild English Dictionary (CCED) (1995). Whereas
the GDLC contains the etymology of the words, none of the previous English
dictionaries does. For the purpose of finding out the origin and historical development
of the English words, the Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) (2001) and the Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary (MWOD) have been consulted. Abundant examples from
the spoken language, exactitude, clarity and refinement in definitions are the basic
characteristics of the aforementioned dictionaries, apart from being considered standard
reference books of each language, recently revised including the latest incorporations.
Of the putative verbalizing prefixes in Catalan (cf. Cabré & Rigau (1986),
Cabré (1988, 1994)), i.e. a- ([a+[genoll]N+ar]V ‘toA-knee’), en- (em-)
([en+[caixar]N+ar]V ‘toEN-box’, [em+[butxaca]N+ar]V ‘toEN-pocket’), re-
(re+[fred]A+ar]V ‘toRE-cool’), des- (es-) ([des+[coratgeN]+ar]V ‘toDES-courage’,
[es+[teranyina]N+ar]V ‘toES-cobweb’), en- has been chosen to be the most productive
one. The same reasoning applies to English. Among the alleged category-changing
prefixes (cf. e.g. Marchand (1969), Siegel (1979), Williams (1981a), Selkirk (1982)),
namely a- ([a+[sleep]V]A, [a+[kin]N]A), be- ([be+[friend]N]V, [be+[calm]A]V), de-
([de+[bug]N]V), en- (em-) ([en+[cage]N]V, [em[bitter]A]V), the latter has also been
selected to be the most productive one.
The prefix EN- has some phonologically conditioned variants in each
language. The alveolar nasal [n], the “default” variant, will change to bilabial [əm] in
contact with a bilabial consonant (e.g. embitter, empetitir ‘toEN-small’), labiodental
[əɱ] when it is adjacent to a labiodental consonant (enfeeble, enfarinar ‘toEN-flour’),
palatal [əɲ] when adjacent to a palatal consonant (enjoy, engegantir ‘toEN-giant’)
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