: German compounds

Peter &/or Graham petegray at btinternet.com
Sat Apr 17 16:59:22 UTC 1999


[ moderator re-formatted ]

Please bear with this long introduction if you're interested in the topic.
These quotes from the discussion are needed for what follows.

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

Leo said:>
>It's not, actually.
>_Handschuh_ represents not compounding for lack of a proper word, but rather
>folk etymology.

I (Peter) said:

>>many German explanatory compounds are due to the lack of a standardised
>>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.

Leo said:

>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.

The example makes the point well enough.   Berlin has Schrippe, Stuttgart
Wecken, Bern Weggi, not to mention Laabla and Kipfl in other parts.   If you
wish to refer to "a bread roll" and there is no standard term, a descriptive
term is your best solution.   Commerce is only one example of the many areas
of discourse where wider communication was becoming necessary at that time,
and the large lexical differences between dialects was a significant factor
in the development of explanatory compounds.

>Compounding in German has gone on as long as the language is recorded.

Of course.   You can't use resources a language doesn't have.   You use the
resources a language does have - hence explanatory compounds are a neat
solution to a particularly German medieval problem.

Oh, and you know perfectly well what I mean by calling "Broetchen" a
compound.   Furthermore, the diminutive -chen is not productive in some
areas (in fact most of Germany!) but is thoroughly understood in all since
Luther's Bible.   I refer you to page 157 of Koenig's Atlas zur deutschen
Sprache, where the text says (my translation):  "Even today there are two
forms side by side in the modern written language:  in high prose the forms
in -chen predominate, while -lein is stylistically more a sign of a
popularist tone."

Peter



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