 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Tmesis" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Tmesis[a] is either the dividing of a word into two parts, with another word inserted between those parts, thus forming acompound word, or, in a broader sense, a set phrase, such as aphrasal verb, with one or more words interpolated within, thus creating a separate phrase.[1][2][3]
Tmesis ofprefixed verbs (whereby the prefix is separated from the simple verb) was thought to be an original feature of theAncient Greek language, common inHomer (and later poetry), but not used inAttic prose.[citation needed] Suchseparable verbs are also part of the normal grammatical usage of some modern languages, such asDutch andGerman.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(October 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Tmesis inAncient Greek is something of a misnomer, since there is not necessarily a splitting of the prefix from the verb; rather the consensus now seems to be that the separate prefix or pre-verb reflects a stage in the language where the prefix had not yet joined onto the verb. There are many examples in Homer's epics, theIliad and theOdyssey, both of which preserve archaic features. One common and oft-cited example isκατὰ δάκρυα λείβων (kata dakrua leibōn; "shedding tears"), in which thepre-verb/prefixκατά-kata- "down" has not yet joined the verbal participleλείβωνleibōn "shedding". In later Greek, these would combine to form the compound verbκαταλείβωνkataleibōn "shedding (in a downwards direction)".
Tmesis is found as a poetic or rhetorical device in classicalLatin poetry, such asOvid'sMetamorphoses[citation needed]. Words such ascircumdare ("to surround") are split apart with other words of the sentence in between, e.g.circum virum dant: "they surround the man" (circumdant (circum- prefix + dant)). This device is used in this way to create a visual image of surrounding the man by means of the words on the line. In the work of the poetEnnius, the literal splitting of the wordcerebrum creates a vivid image:saxo cere comminuit brum "he shattered his brain with a rock."[4]
Tmesis can be found in some early Old Irish texts, such asAudacht Morainn (The Testament of Morann). Old Irish verbs are found at the beginning of clauses (in a VSO word order) and often possess prepositional pre-verbal particles, e.g.ad-midethar (ad- prefix) "evaluates, estimates". Tmesis occurs when the pre-verbal particle is separated from the verbal stem and the verbal stem is placed in clause final position while the pre-verbal particle/prefix remains at the beginning of the clause. This results in an abnormal word order, e.g.ad- cruth caín -cichither "[the] fair form will be seen" (wheread-chichither is the future third-person singular passive ofad-cí "sees").[5]
Examples of tmesis have been found inskaldic poetry. In addition to the use ofkennings,skalds used tmesis to obscure the meaning of the poem.[6] One use of tmesis was to divide the elements of personal names.[6]
Colloquial examples includeun-bloody-believable,abso-bloody-lutely,[7] and several variants. Numerous English words are joined with the vulgar element-fucking-, such asunfuckingbelievable[8] orfanfuckingtastic;[9] the tmesis often does not occur between a prefix and the root, but inside the root itself, as seen above inabsobloodylutely andfanfuckingtastic.
English employs a large number ofphrasal verbs, consisting of a core verb and a particle; placing a word between them is sometimes called tmesis.[citation needed] For example:
When the object of the verb is 'it', tmesis is the norm, withturn it off andhand it in being nearly obligatory; *hand in it is only possible with contrastive intonation.
Such tmesis can also occur with an intransitive phrasal verb, typically with anadjunct. For example: