Hello everyone,
and welcome to the second part of our look at
The Function of Prefixes
In part one (click here if you haven’t read it yet), we learned that unlike the bill of rights, vodka, Buddhism and soccer, prefix verbs are not a German invention. Leave a comment if you just felt triggered XD.
The concept of adding a syllable to the beginning of a verb already existed in Indo-European and just like the idea of ending, adding a prefix became one of the core features of the language family.
That’s why most European languages don’t merely have prefix verbs – they’re actually rife with them. Yes, including English.
And while there’s a wide variety of prefixes and meanings, they all share a common theme :
They add a notion of end point or direction to a verb.
What we’ll do today – and in part three, because I’m totes gonna makes this a trilogy now – we’ll look at prefix verbs across languages, see how they work, how they evolved and if we can find this grand theme in them.
And what I said last time still holds. The goal of this is not to learn lots of German prefix verbs or get a secret hack to guessing their meanings. The goal is to get a deeper understanding of them so they’re less scary and less confusing.
And today, we’ll focus on what might be the weirdest kinds of prefix verbs… the German separable prefix verbs.
So are you ready for some mind-blowing insights?
Then let’s jump right in.
German Separable Prefix Verbs
Those are probably the ones that German learners think of when they hear prefix verb. And they’re actually kind of unusual, if we compare them to prefix verbs in other languages.
The first unusual thing is that the separable prefixes are actually words that can stand on their own.
One big group are the “basic” prepositions like aus, ein or um but there are also lots of adverbs like weg, hin, zusammen or the various r-versions like raus or rein.
What they all have in common is some sense of direction or end point and so they lend themselves perfectly to be used in the prefix-spot that the Indo-Europeans kind of established.
Some of the resulting words are really straightforward and literal – like wegnehmen (take away) or rausgehen (go outside), for example.
Others, like abnehmen (to lose weight), anmachen (to turn on) or aufgeben (to give up) are a bit more abstract. And some of them, like aufhören (to stop)… well… don’t make any sense.
But that’s to be expected. Many of them have been around for more than a thousand years so there was plenty of time for meanings to evolve.
So far, so good. English actually also occasionally uses prepositions as verb prefixes as we can see with verbs like to overcome or to bypass.
But German does something really weird. It splits the prefix off again and moves it far away to the end of a sentence. Many German learners find that really strange when they find out about this and it takes a lot of time to get used to it.
But the weird thing is, at least people who speak English fairly well already ARE used to it. They just don’t realize it.
You see, if we forget about the whole notion of a separable prefix that gets moved to the end and just look at the sentences as they are, we’ll find a really striking resemblance with a very common English structure… phrasal verbs.
- The sun comes out.
- Die Sonne kommt raus.
- Ich schreibe das auf.
- I write that down.
- Ich mache das Licht an.
- I turn the light on.
The structures are exactly the same, actually. We have a verb and a little word at the end that adds an abstract notion of direction or end point.
The difference lies in how the languages “perceive” these structures.
English calls them phrasal verbs and keeps the order of elements – so the verb comes first and then, either directly or with an object squeezed in between, comes the little modifier.
- I want to turn [the light]on [the light].
German on the other hand feels a stronger connection between verb and modfier, puts the modifier first, writes them together and calls them prefix verbs.
- Ich will das Licht anmachen.
And the crazy part is that it makes a lot of sense for German to do that.
Because it’s actually pretty consistent with a fundamental feature of German: the fact that German is a head-final language.
Those of you, who have read my articles on word order or on the position of nicht might already know this.
Head final means that the defining part of a phrase comes at the end with all the modifiers and specifiers coming BEFORE it.
One example where this plays a role are nouns. And there, German and English actually work the same while French for example takes the other approach and puts the head first.
- das magische Einhorn
- the magical unicorn
- la licorn magique
Geez, French… licorn?!?! Are you for real? It’s a horse with ONE HORN. That’s what makes it, that’s what the name is. I mean… licorn… come on!
Anyway, nouns – or noun phrases we should say – are not the only part of language where this notion of head applies. The other one is verbs, or actions.
- to go to the beach
The head is the verb to go and it’s specified by to the beach. And as we can see, this time, English uses a head first approach.
The same thing in German looks like this
- zum Strand gehen
German uses head-final also for its verbs. And that brings us right back to phrasal verbs and prefix verbs.
- to turn on
- anmachen
One of you suggested in the comments last time, that it might actually be helpful for English speakers to think of them as joinable phrasal verbs instead of separable prefix verbs. And that makes a lot of sense, because as we’ve seen they’re kind of the same thing – just treated with a different paradigm; the head-final approach in German, because German is a big big fan of that. And the head-first approach in English.
That’s why German doesn’t really have phrasal verbs while English doesn’t have separable prefixes.
But we’ve also seen that head-final is no foreign concept to English. And what both languages have in common are verbs like the English overcome or the German übertreiben (to exaggerate) where the formerly independent word actually got stuck at the beginning and became a proper prefix.
We can think of these as the next step. It’s a bit like relationships, actually. From getting to know each other and maybe casual dating, to commited relationship to finally moving in together and marriage. And children, if there are any related nouns.
And in fact, English offers a really really great example where we can see all three steps side by side… the combination of to run and over.
- The unicorn ran over a bridge.
- I almost ran the unicorn over.
- The unicorn army overran the squirrels.
First, we have a classic combination of a verb with a prepositional phrase as a direction.
The next step is the phrasal verb to run so/sth over, with its own clearly defined meaning. And while the meaning makes a lot of sense once you know it, it’s is NOT really obvious and kind of hard to guess if you don’t have any context. Much like German separable prefix verbs; though those are worse, I have to admit.
And then, step three is the non-separable prefix verb to overrun. Again, the core ideas of the parts are still there, but the resulting meaning is more than the sum of the parts.
All right.
Now, there’s actually another possible step in this evolution of prefix verbs, that we can also see in many relationships.
No, I don’t mean divorce. Prefix verbs usually don’t do that.
I mean self-abandonment.
Gee, it’s kind of depressing to look at it that way, but that’s not what happened to those weird prefixes like verstehen or bestellen, it’s actually the stage of all the prefix verbs that European languages got from Latin.
And that’s what we’ll talk about in the third an final part of this mini series.
As usual, if you have any questions or thoughts about any of what we’ve talked about today, just leave me a comment.
I hope you liked it and see you next time :).
Ok, this may sound a bit Heideggerian, but maybe there is method to the madness in “aufhoeren”: notice that in order to hear something OVER the sound of your own footsteps, you probably need to STOP… If you think about it, it’s almost impossible to walk without making any noise at all, especially in the ancient wooded landscape where German evolved…?
Thank you for what you do, Emanuel!
Great visual :). Makes perfect sense!!
I think most native English speakers don’t even know what phrasal verbs are. We don’t have any need to know about this topic, which I only learned about 10 years ago from some website trying to teach English to non-native speakers. We all use phrasal verbs correctly without any need to think about it, and we are not taught anything about phrasal verbs, not even that they exist. At least that has been my experience.
Ah, that’s interesting. I would have thought that it’s somewhat known because of this whole “hanging preposition” stuff/myth that English has. It’s not exactly the same grammatically, but it looks the same to the untrained eye so I assumed there was a section in grammar lectures in school about that.
This is great feedback, because I want to use this article for my book and I guess I have to add a quick explanation of what a phrasal verb actually is.
A very well constructed article. Vielen Dank.
Danke, das freut mich zu hören :)
Hello
thank you for the opportunity to learn German with the membership financial aid.
danke schön
I was introduced to this blog recently and found it really interesting to aid in my journey learning German. I thank the contributors and the admin who let me access the content without paying since I am a student and was unable to pay. Thanks a lot :)
I would like to thank all the members who have been sponsoring for others. Vielen Dank !! :)
I just love these articles. Having learned German from living in-country, hearing about the origins of a language I learned through immersion is fascinating. Thanks for great topics !
Glad to hear that you enjoy it, even though you technically already know it :). Thanks for the great feedback und viel Spaß weiterhin hier.
Ps.: Did you learn German JUST through immersion? Or did you take some sort of course?
Hallo Emmanuel, wir freuen uns immer über deine e-Mails und Posts, und lockere Sprache!
Wenn sie zu unserem jeweiligen deutschen Quick Game passen, (wie die Pre-fix Posts) gehen sie auch gleich auf unsere „Learn German-A Game A Day“ FB Page!
Oh danke, das freut mich :)!
Was ist denn das für eine Page? Hast du einen Link? Ich bin neugierig und andere bestimmt auch.
Re: aufhören. You might hear in a bad American movie where the commander wants to tell the troops something he says “Listen up!”. It means stop whatever you’re doing and pay attention.
Is there a connection there? I don’t think we’d say it in British English so perhaps it’s something that entered American English from the large number of German immigrants as a translation from aufhören. But we might say “Look up!”, and especially these days when so many people stare at their phones instead of looking where they’re going. Again it means: “Stop!” “Pay attention to your surroundings”.
Auf being used that way does fit auffallen – “fall up” makes no sense but it’s kind of “falls to attention” or “falls into the open where you can see it”. So aufhören is listen to “the open”, and to do that you have to stop whatever noise making activity you’re engaged in. You can imagine there was a time where people had to be careful about anything that made noise because of predators or other tribes, so a cry of “Hör damit auf!” would be a signal to both stop any activity and to listen out for anything that might harm you.
That’s my wild uneducated speculation for the day.
This makes a lot of sense and I happily choose to believe it. I like to come up with a hook to help remember tricky words and this is a great one. An example from today, I learned that einstellen can also mean to stop. Which was not what I expected those parts to add up to. Then it occurred to me that ‘put a sock in it basically means stop. Catchy, to me anyway, and the mental picture also helps me remember. Just like your example too.
Nice mnemonic :). It’s really crazy how a simple mental image sometimes can change everything. Like… you struggle with a verb and then, once you have the image, it’s completely effortless.
Sock it to me!!
Put a sock in it originated with the old wind-up phonographs with a large. (Uni) horn. If it was playing too loud you put a sock in it to make it play more quietly.
Oh wow, it’s crazy that something so seemingly “niche” turns into a commonly known idiom :).
So, the sock acts as a mute.
Wow, absolutely spot on!! Is that your own analysis? If so, chapeau!!! Well done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZAFwv3QRWw
6 Min. Erklärung kommt ganz am Ende,
Excellent
Danke :)!
Ich denke, dass das Vergleichen unmöglich ist, denn die grammatische Analyse der deutsche Sprache am verschiedenen Grund ist gebaut.
Nicht wirklich. Es sind beides Germanische Sprachen, und sie haben viele Gemeinsamkeiten.
Wenn du dir altes Englisch anguckst, dann sieht das von der Struktur fast aus wie Deutsch. Englisch hat sich einfach stärker entwickelt als Deutsch. Deutsch ist konservativ. Aber Vergleichen kann man auf jeden Fall.
I received the you’ve reached your limit partway through the article. This is the first I read since before the Advent posts. So you have a glitch. No money for membership but would like a free one or two now and again. Been subscribed for emails a very long time. Sad to see them go.
Send him an email, you’re more likely to get a response for this sort of query privately.
Also, I’m registered on my primary email address but my secondary email still gets the posts in emails for subscriptions. Are you spam filtering maybe?
Wait, you get the posts in emails?? That must be that your secondary email is subscribed to the WordPress blog update feature. It’s a carryover from back when I was at WordPress.com and I never actually shut it off.
Are you sure it was halfway through the article? Below the artilce is a box that says “For members” but that shows up all the time. How far into the article did you get?
I dont remember if I already submitted a comment so I am writing this
This indeed helped change my perspective about them. My trouble with them is mostly witith the hören
Hören is definitely one of the worst. How do you get to aufhoren from hören? Maybe one day I’ll find out.
DEmbertons expIanation here in the comments was spot on. But I also have an article abou that with a little quiz:
https://yourdailygerman.com/meaning-aufhoren/
Thanks :)! You mean listening comprehension or “hören” the verb?
Listening comprehension. By the time I hear the perfix, I will have forgotten the verb,especially in longer sentences.
In defense of the French licorne: ask the Italiens! Étymol. et Hist. 1349-50 (Dame à la lycorne, éd. F. Gennrich, 193). Empr., avec agglutination et mauvaise coupure de l’article élidé, à l’ital. alicorno « licorne » (dep. XIVe s., Leggenda di S. Margherita ds BATT.; cf. fr. alicorne en 1674, BOCCONE ds GAY, béarn. alicorn, XVIe s. ds LESPY-RAYM., s.v. licorn, et prov. alicorne, 1506 d’apr. PANSIER), altération, prob. par dissimilation, de unicorno (début XIVe s. d’apr. DEI), du lat. chrét. unicornis « licorne », proprement « qui n’a qu’une corne » en lat. class., calque du gr. . L’a. fr. locorne, forme isolée attestée au XIIIe s. (Gloss. lat.-fr., B.N. 8246, fo 114 vo ds GDF. Compl.) est prob. une altération de l’ital. liocorno (dep. XIVe s., Corona de’ Monaci ds BATT.), lui-même altération de lunicorno (XIIIe s. CHIARO DAVANZATI, ibid.), issu, avec agglutination de l’art., de unicorno. V. FEW t. 14, p. 42; HOPE, p. 42; A. PLANCHE ds Marche Romane, t. 30, 3-4, pp. 242-243. Fréq. abs. littér. : 67. Bbg. HOPE 1971, pp. 42-43. – SKÅRUP (P.), ARVEILLER (R.). Le Mot fr. narval. R. rom. 1975, t. 10, pp. 289-290.
Ah that explains it :).
Being a member of the language gendarmerie I cringed instantly (I instantly cringed !!) when I saw “la licorn”, knowing as I did that all French unicorns are feminine !! La licorne, les licornes.
Helpfully, to keep the species in healthy reproduction, Spanish unicorns are lustily (lustfully) male “el unicornio”. It remains a surprise that German unicorns have survived at all, given their neuter gender. To keep the species alive Spanish and French unicorns presumably meet secretly at night somewhere in the Pyrenees mountains.
Italian unicorns, though male (il grande unicorno (singular), i grandi unicorni (plural) are too busy singing arias in Verdi operas, about their lost females. They are also notoriously neurotic worrying about the right plural articles in Italian, to be wasting time by engaging in nocturnal trysts with elusive French “licornes”.
le grandi opere di Verdi
i grandi unicorni
gli unicorni
In the UK there is a strict policy of “No Sex Please, We’re British” so unicorns are a dying species there.
In fact, none have been seen for quite a while, and Brexit will add the need for a special visa to allow European visitors to search in the UK for examples of this endangered species.
I hear the European Union has special plans allowing neuter unicorns to meet annually in Brussels, with new neutering arrangements for any member countries which still have male or female unicorns, so as to meet the German standard rule for unicorn gender, and to enable all EUnicorns to meet as equals.
Wow, Roger, das ist wirklich interessant. Ich war mein erstes Einhorn als Kind, aber es war missgebildet und hatte zwei Hörner.
Mein Vater sagte, es sei eine Kuh!
Roooooger!!!!
Welcome back! Nice to know you’re recuperating from your surgery and making jokes about unicorns and their reproductive problems!
Wow ! Lieber Roger . Schön dass du bist zurück unter us . Ich wünsche dir gute Erholung.
I haven’t seen any unicorns around here so that just proves how right you are about the UK “No Sex Please” policy.
And now I know to avoid the Pyrenees at night. So useful. Many thanks.
Unicorns roam the Highlands though.
The trick is for a EUnicorn to reproduce before it becomes a EUNUCH-orn! ;)
Hahahaha… or a EUnich-horn, if the EU splits up.
(which I don’t want, EU is awesome)
Hahahah… one of the best comments ever :D. Welcome back after your surgery!! What a start!
Also… EUnicorns!!! Of course!!! It’s soooo obvious. Why have I never thought about that :D
Carlis. Italians
Die Summe hat ein wichtiger Sinn als der seine jeweilige Teilen , im bezüglich der Prefixeverben . Das macht Sinn et sage mir zu. Man könnte das als ein Paradigmenwechsel vorstellen . Es est ein germanisches Erbe ?
Aber für die Verben wie bestellen/verstehen , sieht man lateinischen Einfluss .
Bis bald
Hiya,
Let’s correct some typos:
“adding a prefixes” (a prefix)
mind-blowing needs an hyphen
“separable prefixe are” (prefixes)
“the “basic” preposition like” (prepositions)
“Some of the resulting word are really straight forward” (resulting words and straightforward is just one word)
“this plays a role are noun” (nouns)
What a really bad case of wanting to avoid plurals :)
As for the content, I’m a bit confused with a certain category of verbs. You mention that German doesn’t really have phrasal verbs, since separable prefixes are used instead. So, where would you place verbs like “auf’passen auf”? This one has a separable prefix and a preposition and now I’m confused… or maybe this is what you’ll be talking about in your next article (I’m really tired today – bad week, too much work, too little sleep – so I do apologise for any typos I might have missed and things I might not have understood properly – I’ll have to come back to this article after I’ve had a chance to relax!)
Bis bald!
Haha, yeah… I’m doing “no plural January”. It’s just been too much/many last year (get the pun?)
Seriously, thanks for the corrections, as usual.
And great question!! I was kind of waiting for it and I’m glad you asked it right away.
So, these are indeed quite similar to phrasal verbs in that they’re a fixed combination you need to stick to.
The big difference is that for them, we actually have a proper preposition. They can NEVER stand on their own. Phrasal verbs and prefix verbs can (at least at time).
Lete’s take this example:
to watch out for – aufpassen auf
– Watch out! (pure phrasal)
– Pass auf! (pure prefix)
– Ich passe auf auf. NOPE
– I watch out for. NOPE
Maybe we can think of those fixed prepositions as a stage BEFORE phrasal/prefix. And English shows the transition, kind of.
– That’s something to watch out for.
Here, the preposition “for” has moved to the end and we have “out for” there. We still feel a connection between the object “something” and “for”. Actually, this is pretty weird if you’re not used to it. English is full of pitfalls.
Anyway, I’m not gonna address these structures next time but I’m glad to have this in the comments here :)