re- [Danish]

[Paul J Hopper]

I've often wondered if the "ghost" meaning of Danish genganger is a calque
on the French revenant. Just curious.

Paul


On Mon, 25 Aug 2003, Hans G[ISO-8859-1] ötzsche wrote:

> Richard is ­ by and large ­ right in his account of the Danish prefix gen-
> Œre¹, both concerning meaning, use and word formation, and concerning the
> fact that there are productive restrictions. But his example of a
> restriction: genganger (noun) and *gengå Œrego¹, Œgo again¹ (verb) may not
> be the happiest one. To put it briefly, gen- is a reduced form (ie version;
> not historically) of Danish igen Œagain¹ the English cognate of which is,
> obviously, again (of Germanic origin; the history is rather complicated, cf
> against). The reason why the verb *gengå Œrego¹ is not licensed in Danish
> may be the fact that the meaning of genganger as Œa person who attends a
> course repeatedly¹ is a derived, metaphorical meaning of recent origin. The
> original, historical meaning of the word is to refer to a person who has the
> unpleasant habit of gå igen Œgo again¹, ie Œcoming back after having died¹
> and maybe frightening people as a ghost. The word genganger Œghost¹ has been
> formed from gå igen by use of the general Danish rules for forming nouns by
> applying the rules to a verb + an adverb (functioning as a verb particle).
> The historical path of the word may have been forgotten by contemporary
> young people in Denmark but its original meaning as a subconscious relic may
> confuse the straightforward analysis of the noun vs the verb.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Hans Götzsche
>
>
> > From: Richard Valovics <ricsi at MAIL1.STOFANET.DK>
> > Reply-To: Richard Valovics <ricsi at MAIL1.STOFANET.DK>
> > Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 15:09:59 +0200
> > To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> > Subject: Re: re-
> >
> > The Danish gen- prefix is very similar to the English re-, both in
> > meaning and in combinatorial behaviour. It is productive, yet
> > restricted. It's not quite clear (to me) what the rules governing its
> > use are. It can be combined with transitive verbs (genopbygge =
> > rebuild) and also with intransitive ones (genopstå = resurrect, lit.
> > reupstand), but not with all (*gengå = rego). Yet, nouns derived
> > from intransitive verbs that do not combine with gen- can combine
> > with it: genganger = regoer, e.g. a person who attends a course
> > repeatedly.
> > As default, gen- is interpreted as denoting a single repetition, but it
> > can readily combine with adverbs denoting several repetitions.
> >
> > Speaking about Hungarian, Hungarian too has suffixes that are
> > often labelled as iterative. However, they do not usually express an
> > action being repeated, rather an action that is split up in several
> > (identical) subactions. E.g. eszik means to eat, eszeget does not
> > mean to eat several times, it rather envisages a person that takes
> > a bite of food repeatedly with some time elapsing between the
> > bites. Often such iterative verbs convey the idea that the action is
> > not fulfilled, e.g. the food is not consumed fully.
> >
> > Richard Valovics
> >
> >> Frans is correct about the title of Haj Ross' paper. I don’t believe Haj
> >> ever published this paper, though he often gave it as a presentation.
> >> Semanticists (Kenny, Mourelatos, etc) love examples like "We rang the
> >> doorbell three times" (gave it three rings/rang it on three occasions).
> >> Since any semelfactive can take adverbs, it still seems that re- is
> >> understood as a  single repetition unless this meaning is overridden by an
> >> adverb.
> >>
> >> Typologically there is something more happening here. It does seem that
> >> Haj’s "worded up" forms like re- (mis-, etc.) prefer transitive verbs,
> >> though we must be careful not to be guided solely by intuitions. Just a
> >> few minutes ago I heard someone say on the phone "No, we’re not
> >> re-subscribing this year." The object of "Robin wants to hire a Belgian"
> >> is ambiguous between referential and nonreferential readings, but the
> >> object of "Robin wants to re-hire a Belgian" is only referential. In
> >> "Leslie wrote a poem" the object is effected (=less transitive), but in
> >> "Leslie re-wrote a poem" it is affected (=more transitive). And perfective
> >> aspect, which tends to go along with transitivity, is often associated
> >> with verbal prefixes (there are Indo-European, and, I think, Hungarian and
> >> Georgian examples).
> >>
> >> - Paul Hopper
> >>
> >>
> >>>> At 14:36 18.08.2003 -0700, Dan I. Slobin wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> English re- is exceptionally productive, but I don't know if anyone has
> >>>> figured out the constraints.
> >>>
> >>> Haj Ross has, a while ago.   I can't remember the reference, but I
> >>> believe the title was "Wording Up". And there is a vast (formal)
> >>> semantics literature on 'again', 're-', and such, though typically
> >>> limiting itself to the L1 of formal semanticists (German).
> >>>
> >>> Incidentally, to add to the terminological embarrass de richesse, I'm
> >>> using PROLONGATIVE as a cover term for (forms or constructions for) the
> >>> continuation of a process or state beyond their normal temporal
> >>> extension, or also their prolongation through reiteration, with the
> >>> participants remaining the same throughout.  So far as I know,
> >>> PROLONGATIVE is a term coined for an aspectual form of Navajo by Young &
> >>> Morgan (The Navajo Language: A Grammar and Colloquial Dictionary.
> >>> Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,1980: 325-326).  However,
> >>> the semantics of that particular form for unintentional action or
> >>> suppressed initiator control ('doing something excessively or
> >>> incorrectly and being unable to stop') seems to me and others to better
> >>> captured by the term ERRATIVE, commonly used elsewhere in Athapaskan.
> >>>
> >>> Obviously, there ought to be an ISA -- if, who knows?, there isn't one
> >>> already.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Frans Plank
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Paul J. Hopper
> >> Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities
> >> Department of English
> >> College of Humanities and Social Sciences
> >> Carnegie Mellon University
> >> Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA
> >> Tel. 412-683-1109
> >> Fax 412-268-7989
> >>
> >
> >
> > Richard Valovics
> > Department of Scandinavian Studies
> > University of Aarhus
>
>