Quote:
Originally Posted by YuriTokoro
Prefixes are confusing, because both “in-“ and “im-“ mean “not”, right?
At the same time, “in” in “increase” does not mean “not”, but “up”.
“Im” in “impossible” may means “not”, but in “import” and “immigrant”, it doesn’t mean “not”, but “in”. (!!!) This is really complicated.
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Oops, I didn't realize the can of worms I was opening here.
So I looked up the prefixes and some of the specific words on Wiktionary.
(An aside: I also recommend
Wiktionary as a potentially useful reference, even though the quality of entries can vary a lot. It's especially nice if you want to trace a word's etymology or look up words in different languages. Tracing the etymologies of words is an activity I'd recommend to anyone interested in building vocabulary; it helps you to see the patterns in the sea of different words, and it can be interesting in its own right.)
"Im-" is apparently just a variant spelling of "in-" which is used before the consonants "m", "b", and "p". That seems to be done to make the word easier to say; if you try saying "
inpossible", "
inport", and "
inmigrant", you might find that the sounds don't flow as easily. It might be a bit like the way the Japanese syllable ん, usually pronounced like "n" and transliterated as "n", is pronounced more like "m" (and often transliterated as "m") before a syllable beginning with "m", "b", or "p".
(For the same reason, "in-" becomes "ir-" before an "r" ("irresistible", "irresponsible") and "il-" before an "l" ("illegal", "illegible").)
You're right that "in-" (and the variants "im-", etc.) can have different meanings depending on the word. There seem to be two major meanings: one is "not", and the other is similar to the English word "in" and other words of similar meaning ("within", "toward").
The "im-" in "impossible" has the meaning of "not".
The "im-" in "import" and "immigrant" has the meaning of "in" or "inward". ("inward" is another example of the use of "in-" to mean "in").
One way to help tell the difference is to ask yourself what the opposite of the word is. If "in-" means "not", the opposite is usually formed by dropping the prefix. So we have "independent"/"dependent", "impossible"/"possible", "irresponsible"/"responsible", "illegal"/"legal".
But if "in-" means "in", the opposite is often formed by using a different prefix: "inward"/"outward", "import"/"export", "immigrant"/"emigrant". Note the other prefix used may vary from word to word, sometimes because the words came from different languages.
I agree, this is all complicated, and the rules aren't foolproof. For example, "increase". The "in-" here seems to derive from the meaning "in" rather than "not", at least in the Latin word from which "increase" originated; it apparently had the meaning of "to grow within". But that seems quite obscure to me. However, "increase" still seems to follow the "opposite" rule I mentioned: the opposite of "increase" is "decrease" rather than "crease", and "increase" certainly doesn't mean "not crease"!
One other example of how it pays to be careful: the word "inflammable". This one is notorious among English speakers, because it sounds like the opposite of "flammable". But both have the same meaning! ("Inflammable" apparently comes from the same root as "inflame".) Getting that one wrong could be quite hazardous...
