# Separable Verbs - philological question



## Scholiast

Gruss an alle!

As a matter of historical philology, can anyone please confirm my hunch that separable verbs can be found in the oldest German literature (or even better, in Anglo-Saxon)?

The question arises from a current discussion about the propriety (or otherwise) of using prepositions to end sentences with [like this] in modern English - and I would like to maintain not only that this is in fact contemporary English usage (which is indisputable, and evident from time to time in Shakespeare), but further, that it is justifiable as an extension of a habit inherited from A-S, in other words, from English's Germanic ancestry.

Many thanks,

Σ


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## Schimmelreiter

This is certainly going to be a long thread. Please permit me to make an initial tentative remark.

The phenomenon appears in very different syntactic environments in the two languages: It appears in subordinate clauses in English, which is exactly where it doesn't appear in German.


Main clause:
_I'm *looking at* the picture. - Ich *schaue *das Bild *an*. 
_If the phenomenon existed in English, it would have to be _*I'm *looking* the picture *at*._ Experts will say whether this ever existed in English.

Subordinate clause:
_This is the picture I'm *looking at*. - Das ist das Bild, das ich *anschaue.*_ 
If the phenomenon existed in German, it would have to be _*__Das ist das Bild, das ich *schaue an. *_Experts will say whether this ever existed in German, especially





Scholiast said:


> in the oldest German literature




Congruence only exists in one type of interrogative sentences:

Not in yes-no questions:
_Are you *looking at* the picture? - *Schaust* du das Bild *an*?_

Not in questions about the subject:
_Who's __*looking at* the picture? - Wer *schaut *das Bild *an*?_

But only in questions about the object:
_What are you __*looking at*? - Was *schaut* du *an*​?_


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## Scholiast

Greetings again



> This is certainly going to be a long thread



Thanks, Schimmelreiter, for your "initial tentative remarks".

The whole question is indeed more complicated even than the rest of your examples indicate, both in modern German and in modern English, as (e.g.) _umfahren_ does not mean the same thing as _um_|_fahren_, and you can in English "hang a picture up" or "look a word up", but not "look a chimney up" (examples culled form another internet site I have consulted) - and the English "phrasal verbs" all tend to have subtle idiomatic nuances which defy strict grammatical analysis or regulation.

But that was not really the point of my question: it was really to know if, as a general linguistic habit or phenomenon, the separable prefix is something which existed in Germanic languages at the time when A-S was being formed.

Σ


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## Schimmelreiter

You spoke of





Scholiast said:


> *prepositions* to end sentences with


of which





Scholiast said:


> look a chimney up


would be an example if it worked, which it doesn't. 

By contrast,





Scholiast said:


> up


is an *adverb*​ in both





Scholiast said:


> hang a picture up


and





Scholiast said:


> look a word up


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## berndf

I think your comparison is misleading, SR. _To look at something_ is not a phrasal verb. In phrasal verbs, verbal brackets even exist in main clauses in modern English:
_He *backed him up* a safe distance and then hauled the body of the man's deceased comrade clear so he could access the freezer._ (Don Pendleton, The Executioner - Salvador Strike, p.51)


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## wandle

If I understand *Scholiast's* question, it is about the English habit of finishing a clause or sentence with a preposition, and whether this could be derived from the Germanic usage of separable verbs.

The traditional grammatical rule in English is that a sentence should not be ended with a preposition, so that it would not only be illogical but would break a grammar rule to say: (a) _'Prepositions should not be used to end sentences with'_.

Phrasal verbs seem to be a separate matter. Churchill was supposed to have insisted on the preposition rule by writing on a memo: 
(b) _'This is the sort of language up with which I shall not put'_. Here we have the phrasal verb 'put up' (verb plus adverb) followed by the preposition 'with'.

The humour of this example lies in the fact that normal usage would not separate the phrasal verb 'put up'.  
The colloquial form of the sentence would be: (c) '_This is the sort of language I shall not put up with_'.
The standard correction of this to meet the rule would be: (d) '_This is the sort of language with which I shall not put up_'.
The supposed Churchillian note is a conscious over-correction, treating the adverb 'up' as if it were a preposition.

*Scholiast's* position seems to be that even the standard correction is an over-correction: in other words, that there is nothing wrong with sentence (c). In support of this, he asks whether the Germanic use of separable verbs can be evidenced in Anglo-Saxon or at least in Germanic languages prior to the origin of Anglo-Saxon. 

Am I right in thinking that the separable prefix, once separated, is or can be a preposition?
For example: '_Kommt mir entgegen_' or '_Er ging die Treppe hinauf_'.
This lends plausibility to *Scholiast's* idea.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once again!

I was hoping for a response from berndf (# 5 - for which thanks), as I know from previous correspondence in this and other WR _Fora _that his philological experthood far outstrips mine, especially in matters of (Anglo-)Germanistik - but unfortunately, this does not answer my original query. May we hope for more, please?


wandle said:


> If I understand *Scholiast's* question, it is about the English habit of finishing a clause or sentence with a preposition, and whether this could be derived from the Germanic usage of separable verbs.



Exactly.


> The traditional grammatical rule in English is that a sentence should not be ended with a preposition, so that it would not only be illogical but would break a grammar rule to say: (a) _'Prepositions should not be used to end sentences with'_.


This seems to me to be a primary-school-teachers' rule of thumb, akin to "Thou shalt never begin a sentence with 'because'", (well-)intended to discourage monstrous solecisms, but neither rigidly observed nor observable in practice by mature users of the language, as is well illustrated by Churchill's famous and ironical protest


> _'This is the sort of language up with which I shall not put'_. Here we have the phrasal verb 'put up' (verb plus adverb) followed by the preposition 'with'.





> *Scholiast's* position seems to be that even the standard correction is an over-correction... he asks whether the Germanic use of separable verbs can be evidenced in Anglo-Saxon or at least in Germanic languages prior to the origin of Anglo-Saxon.



That is precisely my question, and I'm sorry if I did not make that wholly clear from the outset, so thanks to wandle for clarifying it.

Over, then, to the _Germanisten_, please!

Schönes Wochenende!

Σ


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## berndf

I am sorry, I am currently travelling and didn't have the time for a more in depth reply. I will come back to you. The purpose of my note was just to tell that in your question you didn't compare like with like: Dangling prepositions and verbal brackets (=separable verbs) are different phenomena and shouldn't be confused.


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## manfy

Scholiast said:


> As a matter of historical philology, can anyone please confirm my hunch that separable verbs can be found in the oldest German literature (or even better, in Anglo-Saxon)?


I'm surely not an expert on this subject, but based on recent discussions about Meister Eckhart (1260-1327) I found some use of seperable verbs in this sermon (in middle high German):_"Dar umbe sluoc sie unser herre ûz dem tempel __und *treip* sie *ûz*." 
__(Darum schlug sie unser Herr aus dem Tempel und *trieb* sie *aus*.)
_​_.
_The Anglo-Saxon Bible is probably more interesting for you (around 900-1050). I browsed through some paragraphs but couldn't find any seperable verbs - but then again, I'm a bit rusty with my Anglo-Saxon...
This might be one (??):_"[...] Soþlice ða synd wið *ðone weg*, ðar ðæt word is gesawen;[...]" _​
Here's some more of it: http://wordhord.org/nasb/
Happy reading!


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## berndf

Moderator note: Thread moved to EHL.


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## Scholiast

Greetings

Many thanks, manfy (# 9): the specific example from Meister Eckhart which you cite (_Dar umbe sluoc sie unser herre ûz dem tempel __und *treip* sie *ûz*_) is promising, though this corresponds exactly not only with modern German ("...und trieb sie aus"), but also with modern English "...and drove them out".

There is clearly a connexion therefore between some of what are nowadays classified as Separable Verbs in German and some phrasal verbs in English, but the question now occurs to me, which came first?

If what were (in OHD or MHD) originally phrasal verbs gradually became what are now separable verbs, a half-way modern parallel phenomenon in English might be found in the formation of participles such as "outgoing" ("The outgoing Prime Minister", i.e. the PM who is about to leave office) or "forthcoming" (and its stylistically revolting sister "upcoming", as in "upcoming events") from the phrasal "go out" or "come forth".

But I would still like to find out more on the A-S front if possible. Where are our true philologists please?

Σ


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## berndf

Scholiast said:


> There is clearly a connexion therefore between some of what are nowadays classified as Separable Verbs in German and some phrasal verbs in English, but the question now occurs to me, which came first?


I think neither. Phrasal verbs surely existed already before German and English split. The main difference between English and German phrasal verbs seems to me that English constructs the infinitive differently, _to come forth_ instead of _to *forthcome_. Otherwise, English and German phrasal verbs behave quite similarly. Another difference is that the verbal brackets reach further in German, they go all the way the end of the sentence while they only bracket objects in English: _Er gab es gestern auf_ vs. _He gave it up yesterday_. But this difference seems rather marginal to me.


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## Scholiast

Greetings again, and thanks to berndf for this latest:


berndf said:


> I think neither. Phrasal verbs surely existed already before German and English split. The main difference between English and German phrasal verbs seems to me that English constructs the infinitive differently, _to come forth_ instead of _to *forthcome_. Otherwise, English and German phrasal verbs behave quite similarly. Another difference is that the verbal brackets reach further in German, they go all the way the end of the sentence while they only bracket objects in English: _Er gab es gestern auf_ vs. _He gave it up yesterday_. But this difference seems rather marginal to me.


The plot thickens. First, isn't _aufgeben _precisely a separable, rather than a phrasal, verb? Or rather, does this example not demonstrate precisely that there is a grey area between the two domains, as in manfy's example (..._und *treip* sie *ûz*_) from Meister Eckhart's quotation from Matthew?

Secondly, it is not entirely true that English phrasal verbs can bracket only objects - they can sometimes bracket adverbs too: "He had been an intermittent smoker for years, but when he turned 50 he gave it completely up" - not, admittedly, an elegant example, but one could easily find others.

Σ


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## fdb

The “separable verbs” in NHG surely continue the pan-Indo-European phenomenon which in Greek grammar is called tmesis, the apparent “cutting” of a verb with preverb into two separate words: a simple verb and an apparently detached preverb. This is very common in the Homeric poems, and also in the oldest stratum of the Avesta.


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## berndf

Honestly, Scholiast, I don't see a fundamental difference between phrasal and separable verbs. The distinction seems to be purely terminological,  probably motivated by the different infinitive forms, separated in English and non-separated in German. Other non-finite forms are non-separated in both languages.

The shift in the infinitive seems to have happened in English as OE had the non-separated infinitive _forðcuman_.


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## Scholiast

Thanks fdb (#14)

Of course! Why did I not think of that? As a classicist, naturally I know _tmesis_ from Homer and elsewhere, but I hadn't made the connexion. Even if this doesn't occur much in Greek prose, and even if it's apparently _metri gratia_ in Homer, it would not appear at all even in Homer (and the tragedians) without a linguistic substratum that enabled or encouraged it when the syntax was being squeezed into metrical shape.

Σ


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## Scholiast

And to berndf thanks too, for...



> The shift in the infinitive seems to have happened in English as OE had the non-separated infinitive _forðcuman_



I.e. _fort_|_kommen_ in NHD. That is exactly the kind of testimony I was looking for. Although _*forthcome_ is no longer _gängig_ in modern English, the legacy participle "forthcoming" preserves the union of prefix and verb-stem, while "come...forth" is the indicative form.

Now I must learn Anglo-Saxon properly myself.

Σ


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## manfy

I can confirm now that separable verbs did also exist in old high German.
Here's an example from "Hildebrandslied" (around 810 to 840):5. _garutun ſe ıro gudhamun • *gurtun* ſih • ıro • ſuert *ana* •_​(5. richteten ihre Kampfgewänder, *gürteten* sich ihre Schwerter *um*,)​

So, we're getting closer to Anglo-Saxon.

-----------------
BTW, my assumption in #9 was wrong, of course (since I was just looking for word patterns):_"[...] Soþlice ða synd wið *ðone weg*, ðar ðæt word is gesawen;[...]" _​.
means something like_"[...] truthful but those [are] towards *that way*, [who] that word is provided;[...]" _​(that's a self-created, rough translation! No guarantees!)

---------------
'_Soþlice_' can mean truly or as a conjunction then/but. The latter makes more sense here.
Aside from '_Soþlice_', the literal German translation is quite straightforward:_"[...] aber die sind mit dem Weg, denen das Wort ist gesät;[...]" _​


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## Yondlivend

As far as prepositions at the end of sentences, here are old examples.  But as berndf says


> Dangling prepositions and verbal brackets (=separable verbs) are different phenomena and shouldn't be confused.


So these may very well be irrelevant.  

_Cwæð hē eft: "Berað mē hūsl tō."_
OE, From Bede's Cædmon.  You can find the example here.  In English "take me to..." The Latin translation: _afferte mihi Eucharistiam_

And a ME example, from a song:
_Sumer is icumen in_ (=Summer is/has come in)

Or:
_Longinge is ylent me on._
The song is entitled "Alisoun," and this line is rendered as "Longing has come upon me" in NE.

Another:
_My lief is faren in londe -
Allas, why is she so?
And I am so sore bonde
I may nat come her to._
Link


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## Scholiast

Greetings again!


Yondlivend said:


> As far as prepositions at the end of sentences, here are old examples.  But as berndf says
> 
> So these may very well be irrelevant.


Thank you very much, Yondivend: these examples are not at all irrelevant - quite the contrary. Even allowing for berndf's _caveat_, this is precisely the kind of detail I was looking for to support my general point that the use of prepositions to end sentences or clauses is not only evident in actual modern usage, but is deeply embedded in the pre-modern history of the language.

And renewed thanks to all other contributors to the thread too.

Σ


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## berndf

Moderator note: Unfortunately, we have to stay focused one one topic per thread. This thread has gauged in on separable/phrasal verbs. Further discussion of preposition stranding has to take place in a new thread. Please feel free to open one.


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