: German compounds

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

Peter wrote:

>Bob mentioned the German "Handschuh" as a light-hearted example of
>compounding from language poverty.

It's not, actually.  My Kluge, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen
Sprache_, 21st edition (1975), say the following (my translation of German
original):

	Germanic *_andasko:haz_ 'countershoe' [Kluge glosses as _Gegenschuh_,
	the meaning of which is at least very obscure], also found in the
	Old English given name _Andsce:oh_, has been reinterpreted into
	Old High German _hantscuoh_ [hand-shoe]; the place name
	_Handschuhsheim_ is also related.

Place names in -_heim_ often have a personal name as the first component.
Kluge adds that there was at least one Germanic word word for glove, the form
of which must have been approximately *_wand_-, referring to something knitted
("wound"), with a possible second one *_skinthaz_ 'hide' borrowed into Finnish
to yield modern _kinnas_ (genitive _kintaan_) 'glove'.  If Kluge is right,
_Handschuh_ represents not compounding for lack of a proper word, but rather
folk etymology.
	
>Shifting from Neolithic to modern, many German explanatory compounds are due
>to the lack of a standardised  or central dialect at a time when wider
>communication (e.g. for commercial purposes) was becoming necessary.    You
>could not advertise "semmel" in areas that used some other word for it, but
>"broetchen" (= "little bread") could be understood readily anywhere.

Really?  Do you think German bakers shipped their wares cross-country in the
sixteenth century?  And even if they had, _Broetchen_ wouldn't help, since many
areas didn't (and don't) use -_chen_ as a diminutive.  And really finally,
_Broetchen_ is *not* a compound, since -_chen_ is merely a suffix.

>So some at least of these explanatory compounds derive not from poverty but
>from excess.

Compounding in German has gone on as long as the language is recorded.  Since
the Germanic compounding types are identical to those found in Greek and
Sanskrit, compounding must be seen as an Indo-European process.

But there's no denying that German has exploited it even more than English
(recall that _white wine_ is a compound, not adjective + noun!).  A very large
source is the calquing of Latin compounds: _in-cipere_ < *_in-capere_ 'begin'
was calqued as _an-fangen_.  Though both literally say "catch on", both
actually mean 'begin'.  And sometimes there's more than one stage: Greek
_sym-pathia_ ("feeling with') was calqued to yield Latin _com-passio_ (ditto),
which the 14-century mystics converted to the equivalent of modern _Mit-leid_
-- still "feeling with", but meaning 'sympathy'.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis