 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Separable verb" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Aseparable verb is averb that is composed of a lexical core and a separable particle. In some sentence positions, the core verb and the particle appear in one word, whilst in others the core verb and the particle are separated. The particle is traditionally referred to as a "separableprefix".German,Dutch,Yiddish,[1]Afrikaans andHungarian are notable for having many separable verbs.
The German verbankommen is a separable verb, and is used here as the first illustration:
Sie
she
kommt
comes
sofort
immediately
an.
at
Siekommt sofortan.
she comes immediately at
'She is arriving immediately.'
Sie
she
kam
came
sofort
immediately
an.
at
Siekam sofortan.
she came immediately at
'She arrived immediately.'
Sie
she
wird
will
sofort
immediately
ankommen.
at.come
Sie wird sofortankommen.
she will immediately at.come
'She will arrive immediately.'
Sie
she
ist
is
sofort
immediately
angekommen.
at.come
Sie ist sofortangekommen.
she is immediately at.come
'She arrived immediately.'
The first two examples, sentences a and b, contain the "simple" tenses. In matrix declarative clauses that lack auxiliary verbs, the verb and its particlean- (both in bold) are separated, the verb appearing in V2 position and the particle appearing in clause-final position. The second two examples, sentences c and d, contain the so-called "complex tenses"; they show that when an auxiliary verb appears, the separable verb is not separated, but rather the stem verb and particle appear together as a single word.
The following two examples are from Dutch:
Ik
I
kom
come
morgen
tomorrow
aan.
at
Ikkom morgenaan.
I come tomorrow at
'I am arriving tomorrow.'
Hij
he
is
is
aangekomen.
at.come
Hij isaangekomen.
he is at.come
'He has arrived.'
The Dutch verbaankomen is separable, as illustrated in the first sentence with the simple present tense, whereas when an auxiliary verb appears (hereis) as in the second sentence with present perfect tense/aspect, the lexical verb and its particleaan- appear together as a single word.
The following examples are from Hungarian:
Leteszem
up.I.hang
a
the
telefont.
phone
Leteszem a telefont.
up.I.hang the phone
'I hang up the phone.'
Nem
not
teszem
I.hang
le
up
a
the
telefont.
phone
Nemteszemle a telefont.
not I.hang up the phone
'I do not hang up the phone.'
The verbletesz (le- prefix) is separated in the negative sentence. Affixes in Hungarian are also separated from the verb in imperative and prohibitive moods. Moreover, word order influences the strength of prohibition, as the following examples show:
Ne
not
tedd
hang
le
up
a
the
telefont.
phone
Neteddle a telefont.
not hang up the phone
'Don't hang up the phone.'
Le
up
ne
not
tedd
hang
a
the
telefont.
phone
Le netedd a telefont.
up not hang the phone
'Don't you hang up the phone!' (stronger prohibition)
English has manyphrasal or compound verb forms that are somewhat analogous to separable verbs. However, in English the particle is always a separate word (e.g.give up), without the possibility of grammatically conditioned alternations between the two. An adverbial particle can be separated from the verb by intervening words (e.g.up in the phrasal verbscrew up appears after the direct object,things, in the sentenceHe is always screwing things up). Although the verbs themselves never alternate between prefix and separate word, the alternation is occasionally seen across derived words (e.g.outstanding ↔stand out) (prefixout- ↔ particleout).
Separable verbs challenge the understanding of meaningcompositionality because when they are separated, the two parts do not form aconstituent. Hence theories of syntax that assume that form–meaning correspondences should be understood in terms of syntactic constituents are faced with a difficulty, because it is not apparent what sort of syntactic unit the verb and its particle build. One prominent means of addressing this difficulty is via movement. Given that languages like German and Dutch are actuallysubject–object–verb (SOV) languages (as opposed to SVO), when separation occurs, the lexical verb must have moved out of the clause-final position to a derived position further to the left, e.g. in German
The verbkommt is seen as originating in a position where it appeared with its particlean-, but it then moves leftward to the V2 position.
When a prefix can be used both separably and inseparably, there are cases where the same verb can have different meanings depending on whether its prefix is separable or inseparable (an equivalent example in English would betake over andovertake) (prefixover- ↔ particleover).
In German, among other languages, some verbs can exist as separable and inseparable forms with different meanings. For the verbumfahren (particleum-) one even gets opposite meanings:
The infinitive forms of these two verbsumfahren are only identical in written form. When spoken, the inseparable form is stressed asumfahren, whereas the separable is stressed asumfahren.
The same happens in Dutch, which is related to German and English. Sometimes the meanings are quite different, even if they have correspondences in the cognate English verbs:
Examples:
The infinitive of these two verbsondergaan (particleonder-) are only identical in written form. When spoken, the separable form is stressed asondergaan, whereas the inseparable is stressed asondergaan.