Talk:self-

Tea Room discussion

See Special:PermanentLink/24549073#self-. DCDuring TALK 19:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

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Is it really a prefix? Equinox ◑ 20:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I think it definitely is, although it's always hard to separate prefixes from just words used to make compounds. However, this was added to words even in Old English, and also was often used to form new words in imitation of Greek αύτο-; that plus some of the words formed make it feel strongly like a full-on prefix to me. Ƿidsiþ 20:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
• I wouldn't think so. OneLook has no words that begin "selfa", "selfb", or "selfc", but has many that begin "self-a", etc. Two OneLook dictionaries (AHD and Encarta) show it as a prefix. RHU and CompactOED show it a combining form. To me, the prefix would seem better as a redirect to the noun, which needs to contain mention of its common use as a combining form.

But that is just from the minority English monolingual perspective. I'm wouldn't be surprised to find a felt need to retain the fictitious prefix to accommodate the need of another language to have a translation target. But I don't see why a prefix in one language couldn't have a noun as a translation target. DCDuring TALK 21:13, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Among OneLook dictionaries, Compact OED, Pocket Collins, RHU, and MWOnline show it as a combining form; AHD, MacMillan, Encarta, Wordsmyth show it as a prefix (WNW shows no PoS). Some of those that have it provide definitions that simply associate a preposition with "self" (eg, "by itself", "of itself", "from/by means of itself", "to/with/for/toward itself". If we are going to keep such entries as if they were prefixes, we may as well illustrate how English nouns combine semantically using the meanings of some prepositions. DCDuring TALK 10:55, 18 May 2010 (UTC)