Talk:ge- -t

RFD discussion: July 2017–July 2020

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ge- -t

I don't think this should be considered a circumfix. German past participles have an ending, which may be -t, -et, or -en, and they may or may not have a prefix ge-. These choices are not related in any way; all combinations exist: gelegt, gerettet, getrieben, zitiert, errötet, beschrieben. So, it's a prefix and a suffix, not a circumfix. Kolmiel (talk) 13:49, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

ge- only appears if -t, -et or -en is added, there is nothing like geleg (without any ending). In certain cases only an ending and not ge- is added. Thus it should be ge- -t (ge- -et, ge- -en) and for certain cases (some derived terms or compounds like beschreiben (be- + schreiben) and foreign words like zitieren (from Latin)) just -t, -et, -en. In literature one can also read that ge- -t is a circumfix, e.g.:

• 2014, Michael Schäfer and Werner Schäfke, Sprachwissenschaft für Skandinavisten: Eine Einführung, p. 110: "vom Zirkumfix {ge- -t}"
• 2016, Roland Schäfer, Einführung in die grammatische Beschreibung des Deutschen, 2nd edition, p. 324: "das Zirkumfix ge- -t (schwach) bzw. ge- -en (stark)"

84.161.18.105 03:20, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Delete. Suffix plus separate prefix per Kolmiel. There's also a few cases where the prefix or its variants appear without a suffix (e.g. Getreide, glauben, gönnen). Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 12:37, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Keep. —CodeCat 12:45, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Getreide, glauben, gönnen do not contain a NHG prefix ge-. The OHG or MHG terms might have gi- or ge- in it, but that's not visible in the NHG terms anymore.
Better examples might exist in (older?) dialectal/regional German like geseyn instead of sein (or seyn). Some terms similar to this might also exist in 'standard' High German.
Anyway ge- alone doesn't form the past participle (unless it's somewhat strangely analysed like in ge- -t ("with ge- (for strong verbs)") and and ge-#German (the second prefix)). And if ge- -t gets removed, the sense would belong to -t (and -en, but not ge-). In -t it then should be something like "forms the past participle; usually together with ge-, but sometimes just -t". -84.161.34.75 15:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Keep: The fact that there are other ways to mark the past participle is not relevant. The question is whether the elements ge- and -t in, for example, gelegt have distinct meaning on their own, the way un- and -ed do in unnamed. They don't; they only have meaning when taken together as the marker of the past participle. Therefore, they should not be analyzed separately; they have to be considered a circumfix. So also with ge- -et and ge- -en. — Eru·tuon 00:25, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

What are you talking about? All endings have several distinct meanings of their own, one being that they are the ending of the past participle, with or without the prefix. E.g. entlarvt, verschnitten, erduldet etc. which are past participles, marked by the respective ending, without the respective prefix. ps.: New High German begins around 1400, so having an entry for a prefix 'ge-' for words like gesitzen is absolutely in the scope of Wiktionary's de code. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 10:21, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm talking about the meaning in the word in question, gelegt. Does the -t mean one thing and the ge- mean another in that word? — Eru·tuon 16:57, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

No, Peter Gröbner (talk) 17:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

NHG begins around 1350 or around 1500 depending on definition or view. The ISO code gmh ends around 1500 (which would imply de starts around 1500). Regardless of the beginning of de, NHG has a prefix ge-. And not just one forming collectives, but also one in verbs, as in "gesein" or "geseyn" for "sein" (once also "seyn") (infinitive) and "gewesen" (past participle). Those prolonged verbs usually are obsolete now, but there might be exceptions as "gebrauchen" versus "brauchen".
But is e.g. "gefragt" somehow analysed as "ge- + frag (stem) + -t", with -t marking the past participle and ge- being something else?
It's analysed as "ge- + frag (stem) + -t" with ge- ... -t being a circumfix at least by some (two sources were given above), and this might be the more usual analysis. -84.161.24.251 21:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll say it frankly: I'm pissed off by your underhand tactics of pulling the musing that 'something might be X' out of your arse. It might also be a nutty fringe interpretation only upheld by your two sources. But who's helped by me mentioning that? If I wanted random guesses, I'd buy a magic 8-ball, if I wanted people subtly influenced with the mentioning of possibilities, I'd buy Frank Luntz. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Keep. It is not a combination of the prefix ge- and the suffix -t, because there is no intermediate stage: gesagt, *gesag, *sagt. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 13:32, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

• Delete, or rework. Analyzable as prefix + suffix, a view reinforced by the separate presence of the ge- prefix and -t suffix in other words. In addition, the entry currently at ge- -t doesn't provide much utility, and it's unclear how a user would ever arrive at this page via search -- the only apparent avenue would be by clicking through from another entry, which could just as well link to something else instead.

Incidentally, the entry at -t looks woefully inadequate, and apparently wrong to boot -- the def is given as "-ed (used to form adjectives from nouns)", but then the terms in Category:German_words_suffixed_with_-t all seem to be derived from verbs...

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

• I'll throw in my view again: The entry is completely sum-of-parts. The parts being a participle prefix, which occurs without this suffix, and a participle suffix, which occurs without this prefix. And five people voting to keep doesn't make it less sum-of-parts. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 14:15, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to say keep, but the fact that native speakers want to see it deleted must be saying something. Abstain. Per utramque cavernam 19:06, 16 January 2019 (UTC) 

Keep, though the entry could probably use some work. I have seen no argument to delete that is convincing enough to outweigh the point mentioned by TAKASUGI Shinji above. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 07:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I have a potential argument.  :)

Granted, sagt doesn't exist in strict terms as a preterite form. I believe this is due at least in part to a collision between weak-verb present third-person singular suffix -t and present second-person plural suffix -t with preterite suffix -t. For weak verbs, German differentiates the third-person singular present from the third-person singular preterite by adding -e to the preterite. This vowel might be analyzable as preterite -t + third-person -t, with vowel -e on the end either simply to differentiate present from preterite, or as some kind of excrescence in the presence of an otherwise-geminate -tt ending.

If we accept that the core person-less form of the preterite is *sagt, then the progression of forms is clear: present verb root sag, preterite root *sagt as present sag + preterite -t, participle gesagt as preterite root *sagt + participial prefix ge-.

@Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n], it's been a while since I've done much work on German derivations -- is the above analysis echoed by any German-language sources? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:54, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

While factually correct in terms of etymological theory that weak verbs' past tense is stem + *dʰeh₁, I've never read anyone describing it in these terms. That said, I'm neither a linguist nor is High German of great interest to me, so my acquaintance with works on German, and of course teaching materials, is more than superficial. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 18:56, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Kept: no consensus to delete. PUC – 11:44, 2 July 2020 (UTC)