34 caused problems for the researcher in recognising and determining the verbs
included in this category.
2. Prefix en-
All verbs containing the prefix en- in The Jakarta Post editorials occurred 15 times. In other words, one verb containing prefix en- occurred in almost every
two editorials. From the tally, each verb had a different frequency. The verbs occurring the most often were enact and endanger, which occurred four times
each. Some other verbs enforce, engulf, and envision only occurred once each in the month the editorials were published. There were seven different bases
constructing the verbs found. As seen from the table below, there were various parts of speech constructing the verbs.
no verb
base word class morphological process
freq
1 enact
act vn -
4 2
endanger danger n -
4 3
enforce force vn
- 1
4 engulf
gulf n -
1 5
enshrine shrine v
- 2
6 ensure
sure adj -
2 7
envision vision n
- 1
Table 4.2 Verbs containing prefix en-
The prefix en- is a kind of verbaliser, which means it always changes the word class of its base into verb. However, the bases occurring in the editorials
come from various lexical categories; some are nouns courage, danger, gulf; there is one adjective sure; and one verb as well shrine. Katamba 1993 said
that the prefix en- attached to adjectives has a causative meaning similar to ‘make’, while the en- which derives noun can be paraphrased as ‘put in or onto’.
35 For example, to ensure
means to ‘make sure’ and to encourage is to ‘put in courage’. However, the meaning of the prefix when it is attached to a verb, e.g.
enact or enforce, is not mentioned by Katamba. The researcher
’s analysis is that the bases of the verbs enact and enforce are not verbs but nouns. Therefore, how
to paraphrase the verbs are to ‘put in act’ and ‘put in force.’ However, there are several verbs looking like products of the prefixation
which cannot be decomposed or do not have English bases. These words are usually borrowed from a foreign language and already modified by the prefix in
the donor language. These already prefixed words then are borrowed to English. The example is the word encounter. This verb looks like a product of a prefix en-
plus a base counter because the word counter exists in English and has various parts of speech. Checking on Online Etymology Dictionary, the researcher
revealed that encounter is a borrowing word from Old French encontrer. There was not another morphological process found within the affixation.
The bases are visible enough because every verb found can be decomposed into the form prefix en- plus the base of each verb. The changing of the word class was
merely caused by the nature of the prefix, which always changes the bases it modifies into verbs.
3. Prefix re-
