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Prefixes
In what follows we describe how prefixation is annotated in the database
The general guideline that we followed in determining if a verb is prefixed or not is ‘if it can be taken to be a prefix, then it is a prefix’ where the starting point were existing lists of prefixes in BCS and Slovenian (reference).
To this end, the first step was to determine if a verb that seems to be prefixed has an unprefixed pair, e.g. Slovenian prebrati ‘to finish reading’ has the pair brati ‘to read’, the BCS pročitati ‘to finish reading’ has the pair čitati ‘to read’.
If the seemingly prefixed verb does not have an unprefixed pair, we have checked if a verb with the same root, but a different prefix exists. If it does, the verb was taken to be prefixed and annotated as such. Examples of this kind are, for example, verbs with the root četi:za-četi ‘start’, po-četi ‘to do’, na-četi ‘start’, pri-četi ‘start’, za-četi ‘start’ (even though četi does not exist).
In general, the annotation shows if the verb is prefixed and, if it is, which prefixes are present on the verb (see below).
| Language | Example | Prefixed_verb | Gloss & Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| BCS/Slo | pisati | 0 | ‘to write.ipfv’; the verb has no prefix. |
| Slo/BCS | napisati | 1 | ‘to write.pfv’ |
| Slo/BCS | načeti | 1 | ‘to start.pfv’, četi is not attested |
| BCS/Slo | početi | 1 | ‘to do.pfv’; četi is not attested |
In addition to the columns described below, two more columns are relevant. The column Prefixed_verb shows if a verb has prefix or prefixes (1) or not (0). In the column Simplex_verb we annotate verbs that do not have affixes (link) or prefixes. If a verb has either a prefix or any type of an affix, it is marked with a 0.