Description:

The modifier 'ik' is the irregular tight-binding form of the modifier 'ikky', attached, which means no or not and is the main particle used to express the negative forms of verbs. Ik is used to modify other modifiers and has the sense of 'not', or the prefix 'un-' in English. Although Common lexicographers consider ik and ikky to be forms of the same word, they were separately created by Davidson in the earliest days of the language and thus the relationship is by convention. For that reason and for ease of lookup of the irregular form, ik has its own entry.

Ik is the Common tight binding modifier of negation, in the 'polarity set' with 'lano' ('definitely, surely').

It is very common for Common speakers to use 'ik' as a separate word to express things English speakers would use a deribational affix like 'dis-' or 'un-' for.

Example:

Ja ik citit pikki tene ikky slek a citit skitrem.
The-ERG un- happy cat hit-NP-PERF not eat the-ABS happy mouse.

'The unhappy cat has not eaten the happy mouse.'

Here the single word 'unhappy' in English is rendered with the two word phrase 'ik citit' in Common. The contrasting use of ikky in the loose binding form to negate the verb slek is also noted.

Derivation:

There is also a derivational affix form of 'ik' to apply to terms. When used in this way, rather than sit as a separate word as a tight binding modifier, it attaches to the term as a prefix of the form 'ik-'', meaning that the prefix is always unstressed. It does much like the tight binding modifier version does - it inverts the meaning of the overall term, much like the prefixe 'un-' would in English. It can apply equally to both nouns and verbs.

Mathematics:

In math, 'ik' is used as the particle to denote a negative number.