Prefiks

Prefiks, or prefix in English, is a morpheme that attaches to the beginning of a word or stem. It is a type of affix that modifies meaning or grammatical function rather than simply altering the base form. In many languages, prefixes are bound morphemes that cannot stand alone.

Etymology: The term derives from Latin praefixus, meaning placed before. Prefixes are among the oldest and most productive word-formation tools in many language families.

Functions and types: Derivational prefixes create new words or shift parts of speech, such as un- in unhappy or re- in rewrite. Inflectional prefixes encode grammatical information like tense, number, or person in languages that use them extensively; English relies more on word order and suffixes, while some Semitic languages use prefixes on verbs to mark person or tense. Prefixes can also express negation, location, or intensity.

Placement and phonology: A prefix attaches at the left edge of the word and can trigger phonological adjustments in the base or the prefix through assimilation.

Cross-linguistic notes: Prefix systems vary widely. English uses a set of common prefixes such as un-, re-, pre-, and in-. Indonesian and Malay use prefixes in a large part of their verb and noun morphology, with examples like me-, di-, and ke- as productive affixes. Semitic languages frequently employ prefixes on verbs to indicate person and tense, illustrating the diversity of prefix functions across languages.

Computing usage: In computing and mathematics, prefix concepts appear in prefix notation (such as Polish notation) and in string processing, where a prefix refers to the initial segment of a text or data item. Prefix trees (tries) rely on the idea of shared prefixes to organize data efficiently.