ISSN 2411-9598 (Print) ISSN 2411-4103 (Online) European Journal of Language and Literature Studies May-August 2015 Volume 1 Issue 2 9 The Meanings of Prefix “Over” Božana Tomić tomicbozana@gmail.com Jelena Šajinović Novaković Slobomir P University,ass Faculty of Philology Banja Luka,senior ass jelena.sajinovic@gmail.com Abstract The rules of word formation undergo changes from day to day. Prefixes become productive or lose their productivity. The aim of this paper is to examine the various meanings of prefix over- in English. Although it has its specific distinct meaning which is 'excessive' or too much, it can also imply other meanings. The prefix over- is used to form many different words, so it is very productive in constantly forming new words. Some of the words with over- represent recent coinages and some are very old dating back to the 16th century. Keywords: prefix over-,meaning,English,word formation. Introduction According to Plag (2002: 123),prefixes in English can be classified semantically into four groups. In the first group are the prefixes that quantify over their base and have the following meanings: ‘one’(uni-,unilateral),'two’(bi-/di-,bilateral,ditransitive),‘many’(multi-/poly-,multi-purpose,polyclinic),‘half’(semi-,semi- detached),‘all’(omni-,omnipotent),‘small’(micro-,microwave),‘large’(macro-,macroeconomics),'to excess'(hyper-/over- ,hyperactive,overestimate),‘not sufficiently‘ (undernourish). In the second group are numerous locative prefixes such as: ‘circum‘around’(circumscribe),counter‘against’(counterbalance),endo‘internal(endocentric),epi,‘on,over’(epiglottis), inter‘between’(intergalactic),intra‘inside’(intravenous),para-‘along with’(paramedic),retro’back’(retrospection),trans- ‘across’(transcontinental). In the third group there are temporal prefixes expressing notions like ‘before’ (ante-,pre and fore-,as in antechamber, premedical, forefather),‘after’(post-,poststructuralism),or ‘new’ (neo-,neoclassical). A fourth group consists of prefixes expressing negation (a(n)-,de-,dis-,in-,non-,un. Numerous prefixes do not fit into any of the aforementioned groups, however, and express diverse notions, such as ‘wrong,evil’(mal-,malfunction),‘badly,wrongly’(mis-,misinterpret),‘false,deceptive’(pseudo-,pseudo-intellectuals), ‘together, jointly’(co-,coeducation),‘in place of’(vice-,vice-captain) etc. The large majority of prefixes do not change the syntactic category of their base words. Moreover,they can be attached to more than one kind of syntactic category (verb,adjective,or noun) and do not influence the stress placement of their bases.