AN ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH NEGATION PREFIXES UN-, DIS-, IM-, IN-, AND IR- USED IN
THE NOVEL ENTITLED BREAKING DAWN BY STEPHENIE MEYER
Asti Septiani
astiseptiani_88@yahoo.co.id
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS DEPARTMENT
STKIP SILIWANGI BANDUNG
ABSTRACT
The objectives of this research entitled An Analysis of English Negation Prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-, and IrUsed in the Novel Entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer were to find out the total amount of the
English Negation Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used by the novel writer andto find out the most and the
least frequently used of English Negation Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used by the novel writer. In this
research, the writer used descriptive qualitative method. The population of this research was all the words
having the English Negation Prefixes used by the novel writer and the sample of this research was all the
words having the English Negation Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- selected using purposive sampling
technique. The instrument of the data analysis was the novel itself. The collected data were identified,
classified, analyzed, and interpreted based on Murcia and Freeman’s theory. The results of this research
showed that there were 193 English Negation Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used by the novel writer.
They included: 96=48.97%English Negation Prefix Un-, 30=15.54% English Negation Prefix Dis-, 17=8.80%
English Negation Prefix Im-, 44=22.79% English Negation Prefix In-, and 6=3.10% English Negation Prefix
Ir-. Based on the results of the data analysis above, the most frequently English Negation Prefix used by the
novel writer was the English Negation Prefix Un- and the least frequently English Negation Prefix used by the
novel writer was the English Negation Prefix Ir-.
Key Words: Analysis English Negation Prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir-
A. BACKGROUND
Human beings need communication in their lives by
using language. Language is an instrument for people
to extend information and to express their
communicative needs. Language is the most effective
media for communication to express a message.
There are many languages in this world, one of them
is English. English is one of the international
languages which accepted as the first foreign
language. English is the most dominant international
language in communication, business, entertainment,
diplomacy and also on the internet. Besides that,
English usually used in many kinds of books and it
makes this language become an important language.
We can state that by mastering English, someone can
improve his knowledge, skill, and performance.
Because of that, English have to be learned. In
learning English, we will find the term linguistics.
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.
Linguistics consists of the branches of science like
phonetics and phonology, morphology, semantics,
syntax, psycholinguistics, etc. Morphology or
structure of word is a science that studies the form
and formation of words and semantics is a science
that studies the meaning. One of the extremely
common morphological phenomena in language is
affixation; the addition of an affix. The affixation in
English is divided into two types; derivational
affixation and inflectional affixation.
Each language has its own basic aspects, such as: the
grammatical structure, morphological structure, and
semantic structure. The basic aspects sometimes
cause many problems in translating process of a
language as the source language into the target
language. One of the problems is in translating the
negation from English as the source language into
Indonesian as the target language.
Negation is a wide topic because it affects words,
phrases, and sentences. In the English grammar,
negation occurs to deny or to reject something.
From the explanation above, the writer is interested
in trying to analyze the words formed by adding
negation prefixes morphologically and semantically.
The writer focused on analyzing English Negation
Prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-, andIr-.
1
Therefore, the writer entitles this paper “An Analysis
of English Negation Prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-,
andIr- Used in the Novel Entitled Breaking Dawn by
Stephenie Meyer.
Morpheme
According to the guideline of morphology, the
branch of linguistics that concern with the internal
structure of words, a morpheme is the very smallest
meaningful linguistic unit in the grammar of a
language. Morpheme is the most important
component of word structure. According to Mc
Manish et al,.(1987:117) in Language Files “A
morpheme is the minimal linguistics unit which has a
meaning or grammatical function.”
Morpheme Based on the Type
Based on the type, morpheme is divided into two
kinds: free morpheme and bound morpheme.
1. Free Morpheme
A free morpheme, which is often called an unbound
morpheme, is a linguistic unit that is able to stand
alone as a word without another morpheme attached
it.O’Grady and Guzman (1997:134) describe that
“Free morpheme is a morpheme that can be a word
by itself.”
2. Bound Morpheme
Bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand
alone as an independent word. Bound morphemes, on
the other hand, are sounds or a combination of
sounds which must be bound to a free morpheme in
order to create a word.
According to O’Grady and Guzman in Contemporary
Linguistics (1997:134), “Bound morpheme is a
morpheme that must be attached to another
element.”
Morpheme Based on the Meaning
Based on the meaning, morpheme is divided into two
kinds: derivational morpheme and inflectional
morpheme.
1. Derivational Morpheme
According to O’Grady and Guzman (1997:144),
“Derivation forms a word with a meaning and/or
category distinct from that of its base through the
addition of an affix”.
For example:
Affix Change Example
Readable, fixable
Suffixes -able V → A
-er
V→N
Teacher, worker
-ity
A→N
Stupidity, certainty
-ly
A→Adv Slowly, carefully
-ness A → N
Happiness, sadness
V→V
Rethink, restart
Prefixes redeV→V
Deactivate
misV→V
Misidentify
B. LITERATURE REVIEW
Analysis
Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic
or substance into smaller parts to gain a better
understanding of it.
Negation
Negation is a grammatical construction that
contradicts (or negates) part or all of a sentence's
meaning. Learning the English Negation is very
important because its structure is used in daily
conversation. Traditionally English language learners
usually distinguish between the positive and negative
sentences with the presence of the word “not” or
“no” on negation sentence. Actually, there many
words that called as negation markers beside the
word “not” or “no”, for example the word “never”.
Besides that, negation markers can occur through
affixation process.
According to Murcia and Freeman (1999:186),
English negation markers are divided into 3 groups as
follows:
Affix Negation
NoNegation
NotNegation
a-
no
not, -n’t
dis-
nothing
never (not+ever)
il-/im-/in-/ir-
nobody
neither
(not+either)
non-
no one
nor (and+not)
un-
nowhere
-less
-free
Summary of Basic Negative Forms in English
Morphology
Morphology is a science that studies the form and
formation of word. According to O’Grady and
Guzman in Contemporary Linguistics (1997:132),
“Morphology is the system of categories and rules
involved in word formation and interpretation”.
English Derivational Morphemes
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brokenhearted. But Jacob realized that Bella and
Edward love each other and he promised that he will
be her best friend forever. Bella and Edward spent
their honeymoon in the Esme Island. But at the
second week of their honeymoon, Bella felt so weak,
so sick, and there was something wrong with her
stomach. She thought that she was pregnant. Edward
was so panic, because historically, the vampire can’t
have the descendant. So, Edward decided to take
Bella back to Forks to control Bella’s condition.
Alice, Edward’s sister who can see the future, and
Carlisle, Edward’s father who was a doctor, make
sure that Bella was pregnant.
The Cullen’s family, except Rosalie, agreed to do
abortion, because this fetus will kill Bella. But Bella
and Rosalie decided to protect Bella’s fetus and Bella
wants to bear it, even it was dangerous for Bella’s
life. Because of that, the Cullen’s family and also
Jacob were agreed with Bella’s decision by always
keep and control Bella’s condition.
Because Bella’s baby was a descendant of a half
vampire, she was not born in the usual way as human
babies born. This baby was forced out by ripping
Bella’s stomach. When a baby found out a way of the
Bella’s abdomen, Bella screamed, weakened, her
eyes closed, and then she stopped breathing. Edward
was surprised, he was panic, he immediately bit Bella
right on her bloodstream and the toxin from
Edward’s body directly spread throughout Bella’s
body which made Bella save and changed Bella
became a vampire.
Bella was fond of Renesme, her little baby. Renesme
had an extraordinary ability. She could transfer her
mind to anyone who touches her cheek or her hand.
One day, when Bella, Jacob, and Renesme were
playing in the field, Irina saw Renesme. She instantly
decided that Renesme was an immortal child who
must be destroyed based on the vampire law. Irina
report this problem to the Volturi, the law master in
the vampire world.
Before the Volturi came to destroy Renesme, the
Cullens gathered their family member around the
world to give them understanding that Renesme was
a biological child, not an immortal child and asked
them to be willing to testify.
When the Volturi came to give the Cullens
punishment, Alice and Jasper came with another
child who had the same fate with Renesme, but the
Volturi were not believe in them. and the decided to
destroy Renesme. Then, Alice, who had the ability in
seeing the future, let Aro, one of Volturi member to
see that if the were fight, the Volturi will be lose
because even the Volturi were made up a dozen of
incredible power, Bella could dispel this effect. So
the Volturi gave up and left the Culllens’ family with
2. Inflectional Morpheme
Inflectional morpheme changes their neither parts of
speech nor meaning, but only refine and give extra
grammatical information about the already existing
meaning of a word.
For example:
Nouns
Plural -s
I have two novels.
Verbs
3rd person sg. non past -s
John reads well.
Progressive -ing
He is working.
Past tense -ed
He worked.
Past participle -en/-ed
He has eaten/studied.
Adjectives
Comparative -er
The smaller one.
Superlative -est
The smallest one.
English Inflectional Morphemes
Affixation
O’Grady and Guzman in Contemporary Linguistics
(1997:138) said, “Affixation is a process of the
addition of an affix, it is an extremely common
morphological process in language.”
Prefix
Based on O’Grady and Guzman in Contemporary
Linguistics (1997:138), “Prefix is an affix that is
attached to the front of its base.”
Suffix
O’Grady and Guzman (1997:138) state that “An affix
that is attached to the end of its base is termed a
suffix.”
Semantics
O’Grady (1997:268) in his book Contemporary
Linguistic expressing that “Semantics is the study of
meaning in human language”.
Verhaar (2004:385) said that “Semantik adalah
cabang
linguistik
yang
mempelajari
arti
ataumakna”. [Semantics is branch of linguistics that
identifies meaning and sense].
Novel
A novel is a long prose narrative that describes
fictional characters and events in the form of a
sequential story. In this research, the writer used the
novel entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.
This novel is printed in the United States of America
by Little Brown and Company in August 2008. This
novel has 754 pages.
Summary of Breaking Dawn:
Breaking Dawn is the fourth and the final novel of
the Twilight Saga series by Stepheni Meyer. As in
the previous novel, Eclipse, Bella, the human girl,
preferred to choose Edward, the Vampire man, than
Jacob, the werewolf as her mate and the will marry
after Bella’s graduation. It made Jacob
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a humiliating defeat. In the end of the story, Bella
and her family were happily ever after.
Total
C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research used descriptive qualitative method.
This method is considered to be relevant to this
research since it involved the collection data for the
purpose of describing collection of data for the
purpose of describing the existing phenomena.
According to Crowl (1996:10), “Qualitative research
methods are used to examine questions that can best
be answered by verbally describing how participants
in a study perceive and interpret various aspects of
their environment”.
The subject of this research was all the text of the
novel entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.
The population of this research was all the words
having the English Negation Prefixes by the novel
writer. The sample of this research was all the words
having the English Negation Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-,
In-, and Ir- selected using purposive sampling
technique.The instrument of the data analysis was the
novel itself entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie
Meyer. The collected data were identified, classified,
analyzed, and interpreted based on Murcia and
Freeman’s theory.
There are five steps of data collecting, which are
conducted during this research. First of all, the writer
reads the whole text of the novel entitled Breaking
Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. She collects sentences, or
clauses, or phrases which contain English Negation
Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used in the novel
entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. The
second step, the writer identifies the data found and
gives information where those data are taken from.
The third step, the writer classifies data based on
certain characteristics and features as they were
needed. Then, the writer analyzes the data
morphologically and semantically. Finally, the writer
interpreted it based on class category and affixation.
1
2
3
4
5
Type of English
Negation Prefixes
UnDisImInIr
Total
Percentage
96
30
17
44
6
48,97%
15,54%
8,80%
22,79%
3,10%
100%
From the table above, we can see that there are 193
words which attached by the English Negation
Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used in the novel
entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. The
words which attached by the English Negation prefix
Un- are 96 data and it has 48,97% from the total
findings. This negation prefix can be attached to the
adjective, verb, and noun. The words which attached
by the English Negation prefix Dis- are 30 data and it
has 15,54% from the total findings and this negation
prefix can be attached to the adjective, verb, and
noun. The words which attached by the English
Negation prefix Im- are 17 data and it has 8,80%
from the total findings and it can be attached to the
adjective and noun. The words which attached by the
English Negation prefix In- are 44 data and it has
22,79% from the total findings and this negation
prefix can be attached to the adjective and noun. And
the words which attached by the English Negation
prefix Ir- are 6 data and it has 3,10% from the total
findings and it is also can be attached to the adjective
and noun. From the explanation above, it can be
concluded thattheEnglish Negation Prefix Un- is the
most frequently used and the English Negation Prefix
Ir- is the least frequently used. Semantically, the
prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Irshow
contradiction meaning between the words before
attaching these prefixes and after attaching these
prefixes, because of that the prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-,
In-, and Ir- are called English negation Prefixes
E. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Conclusions
After the writer conducted the research about An
Analysis of English Negation Prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-,
In-, and Ir- Used in the Novel Entitled Breaking
Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, the writer can conclude
that there are 193 words having the English Negation
Prefixes Un- Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- used in the novel
entitled Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer., the
English Negation PrefixUn- is the most frequently
used and the English Negation PrefixIr- is the least
frequently used. The frequency of using the English
Negation Prefixes, include: English Negation Prefix
Un- 48,97%, English Negation Prefix Dis- 15,54%,
English Negation PrefixIm- 8,80%, English Negation
Prefix In- 22,79%, and English Negation Prefix Irhas 3,10% from the total findings.
Suggestions
Based on the analysis that she had already made
about An Analysis of English Negation Prefixes Un-,
D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section, the writer will explain the data
findings that she got about English negation prefixes
Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- taken from the novel
entitled “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer.
No.
193
Data finding of English Negation prefixes
4
Grady, O’.William, Dobrovolsky, M and Francis
Katamba. 1997. Contemporary Linguistics.
London: Longman
Mc Manish, Carolyn, Stollenwek, D and Zhang hengSheng. 1987. Language Files. Ohio, The Ohio
State University Department of Linguistics
Murcia, Mariane Celce and Diane Lersen Freeman.
1999. The Grammar Book. USA: Heine and
Heine Publisher
Tottie, Gunnel. 1991. Negation in English Speech
and Writing. USA: Academy Press, Inc.
Novels:
Meyer, Stephenie. 2007. Breaking Dawn. New York:
Little, Brown and Company
Dictionaries:
Hornby, A.S. 2000.Oxford Advances Learner’s
Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press,
Inc.
Internet:
…..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis,12-06-2013
5.51 pm
…..http://mylanguages.org/english_negation.php, 1206-2013 5.20 pm
…..http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/esl/gram
mar/negative-prefixes.html, 12-06-2013 5.13 pm
…..http://www.lovevampires.com/smbreakingdawn.h
tml, 12-06-2013 4.46 pm
Dis-, Im-, In-, and Ir- Used in the Novel Entitled
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer and Its
Translation, the writer recommends before making
an analysis about English Negation Prefixes in
specifically and affixes in generally, we have to know
about morphology and the other aspects, which are
related to the affixation. the students and other who
are learning and analyzing the negation in English,
especially negation prefixes Un-, Dis-, Im-, In-, and
Ir-,should study more information about how to
describe and differentiate the words containing those
negation prefixes, furthermore books, novel, articles,
theories and other information about negation,
especially negation prefixes should be more
published and clearly presented.
F. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books:
Chaer,
Abdul.
2003.
LinguistikUmum,
Jakarta:P.TRinekaCipta
Conlin, A. David and George R. Herman. 1967.
Resources for modern Grammar and
Composition 4. United States of America:
American Book Company
Crowl, Thomas K. 1996. Fundamentals of
Educational research. United States of
America: Brown and Benchmak
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