At the linguistics conference, there were no / not / non- native speakers of Esperanto. They're all grammatically "valid", but they all mean different things - and pragmatically / idiomatically, only the no version is likely to be used.
25 Does "non-" prefixed to a two word phrase permit another hyphen before the second word? If I want to refer to an entity which is defined as the negation of another entity by attaching "non-" it seems strange to attach the "non-" only to the first word when the second one is really the word naming the entity. For example, non-control freak
"Non-" is defined as "a prefix meaning 'not,' freely used as an English formative, usually with a simple negative force as implying mere negation or absence of something (rather than the opposite or reverse of it, as often expressed by un-).
Except "non" is not an English word, it is a prefix of Latin origin. Which is why American style manuals will always ask you to merge it with the subsequent word, without a hyphen. British rules differ, and the "non-" construction is frequently found in the literature.
What is the correct way to apply the prefix "non-" to negate a (maybe dashed) compound adjective? Suppose that we want to negate a generic compound adjective " adjective1 adjective2 ". In this case: "non- adjective1 adjective2 " looks a bit ambiguous since the scope of the prefix "non-" is at least unclear (in fact seems to affect only adjective1).
To record and summarize the discussion in the comments, while the OED mostly uses the hyphen, many other dictionaries don't, and the ngrams show higher non-hyphenated usage than hyphenated.
I was actually looking for a non-compound adjective, but it appears "non-English" is the only expression that includes all languages with the exception of English, which is what I was looking for. Thanks for the examples as well.
YES non zero Oxford English Dictionary ‘an extremely small but non-zero chance ’ Your question: Is this phrasing peculiar to American speakers or do British speakers use this expression too? I hear and use this In AmE frequently. My sense is to imply a minuscule chance, a slim chance, a small chance etc...
The question remains, at least for me, whether unintuitive is sometimes intended or understood to be stronger than non-intuitive, i.e., counter-intuitive or fully contrary.
