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September 3

German prefixes

According to Prefix#German,

[f]or derivative substantives and adjectives, only two prefixes are still in use as of 1970: un-, which expresses negation (as in Ungesund from Gesund), and ur-, which means "original, primitive" in substantives, and has an emphatic function in adjectives. ge- expresses union or togetherness.

Now, first of all, I actually see three prefixes here (un-, ur-, ge-), and for nouns they would have to be capitalized! Secondly, as a German native speaker, I would definitely say the information provided here is simply wrong, as we have many more prefixes in use for both, nouns as well as adjectives: e. g. Auf-fahrt, auf-dringlich, Zu-fahrt, zu-dringlich, Ab-scheu, ab-scheulich, An-reise, an-strengend, Bei-werk, bei-läufig, Ver-rat, ver-traut, Be-darf, be-kannt, Hin-fahrt, hin-reichend, Ein-fahrt, ein-sichtig etc. etc. So, I really cannot figure out what the author of this passage was trying to convey ... Hoping for your instructive feedback, --Neufund (talk) 20:23, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: As a stopgap measure I have now commented out the passage in question.--Neufund (talk) 20:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's referring to prefixes that you add to a noun or adjective to get another noun or adjective. As far as I can see, you don't add Zu- to Fahrt to get Zufahrt -- rather, Fahrt comes from the verb fahren, while Zufahrt comes from the verb zufahren. So in that case, the prefix zu- is actually used to derive a verb from another verb, and not to derive a noun from an other noun... AnonMoos (talk) 00:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for commenting, AnonMoos! However, just for instance, what do you say about the word Abscheu, which – if you ask me – is rendered formally by adding the intensifier Ab- to Scheu. And I'm sure one would find lots of similar examples also for all the other prefixes listed above ... Greetings--Neufund (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really not an expert on most specific German word-etymologies. I was just pointing out that in general "a prefix found on a noun" can be very different from "a prefix which derives a noun from another noun"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:06, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly what the original sentence meant was that for nouns and adjectives, only un- and ur- are productive in contemporary German. Of course there are many other prefixes, but these are found only in established words. By contrast, un- and ~~ge-~~ ur- can be added to any given adjective to form a new word. So you can have kromulent → unkromulent, urkromulent, but not *aufkromulent, *beikromulent, etc. The sentence about ge- seems misplaced, though. --103.109.44.97 (talk) 09:21, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for clarfying that! In this case, I'd definitely suggest to at least somehow include the probably quite crucial term "productive", mentioned by my predecessor, within that section. Opinions?--Neufund (talk) 15:06, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One should note, however, that the emphatic use of ur- is mostly restricted to colloquial German. And, now that I think about it, überkromulent and unterkromulent also seem possible, so the original statement might not be true after all. --103.109.44.97 (talk) 16:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, but I'm afraid I have to contradict, at least with regard to your claim that "un- and ge- can be added to any given adjective to form a new word": ge-klein, -groß, -dick and so on do not work at all!--Neufund (talk) 17:44, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That is why I was saying that the sentence about ge- seems out of place. As you rightly point out, ge- is definitely not a productive prefix. Un- on the other hand is: unklein, ungroß, and undick might not sound very natural, but they are certainly possible formations. --117.211.166.104 (talk) 06:09, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I now only see that there was a typo in what I wrote before. What I meant was "un- and ur- can be added to any given adjective to form a new word", not "un- and ge- can be added to any given adjective to form a new word". Sorry for the confusion! --117.211.166.104 (talk) 12:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Then thanks a lot for your clarification. But what exactly shall we do with that awkward section now in order to avoid any further confusion?--Neufund (talk) 20:09, 8 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that un- and ur- are the main synchronically-productive prefixes for deriving nouns from other nouns (if you think that fact worth mentioning). AnonMoos (talk) 16:19, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@AnonMoos: Thanks for posting! Could you possibly scare up a corresponding reference for that claim? If so, you might as well add that within the article in question. In any case, the said section needs to be fixed, if you ask me.--Neufund (talk) 20:54, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]