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| Election Notice. | |
Word Formation in German:
German can create new words with a variety of tools, including suffixes, separable prefixes, inseparable prefixes, and various ways of deriving nouns from strong verbs, nouns from verbs with separable or inseparable prefixes, or adjectives and adverbs from such verbs.
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| Nature Preserve. | |
Like English, German also offers the possibility of combining of words, especially nouns. The resulting noun chains in English typically feature spaces or hyphens between the different elements, while German ones normally appear as one word. The German penchant for creating complex compound nouns has long been the source of much amusement. Mark Twain devotes part of his essay on The Awful German Language to these "curiosities," and many people are familiar with ones like "der Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (the Danube Steamship Navigation Company Captain).
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The basic German compound word, like its English relation, consists of two vocabulary items, although longer chains are possible. Take the example: "die Sprachschule." The second element, "Schule", is called the "primary word" (das Grundwort), and it designates the larger set (schools) of which the compound noun is a part. It also establishes the gender and the plural form of the compound noun. The first item "Sprach", is called the "determiner", or "determinative element" (das Bestimmungswort). It designates the subset of the category that the primary word defines. Thus a "Sprachschule" is a school that teaches languages.
- [no connecting element]: "der Arbeitgeber (employer); "der Arbeitnehmer (employee); "der Autofahrer" (driver); "das Gasthaus" (inn); "die Handfläche" (palm of the hand); "der Hausbesitzer" (home-owner); "die Jugendsünde" (youthful folly); "das Trinkgeld" (tip).
- ["-e-"]: "der Pferdestall" (horse stable); "das Schweinefleisch (pork).
- ["-n" or "-en"]: "das Bauernbrot (farmhouse bread); "das Freudenhaus" (brothel); "die Gedankenfreiheit" (freedom of thought); "der Kettenraucher" (chain-smoker); "der Tintenkleks" (inkblot).
- ["-ens"]: "die Herzensgüte" (goodness of heart); "das Friedensabkommen" (peace agreement).
- ["-er"]: "der Bilderrahmen" (picture frame).
- ["-s-" or "-es-"]: "das Arbeitstier" (eager beaver; workaholic); "der Freundeskreis" (circle of friends); "geistesgestört" (deranged); "der Glückspilz" (lucky fellow); der Gottesdienst" (church service); "die Jahreszeit" (season [of the year]); "der Liebeskummer" (love problems); "die Staatspolizei" (state police); "der Verbesserungsvorschlag" (suggestion for improvement); "das Verhütungsmittel" (contraceptive).
Between these two items there may also be a connecting element (die Fuge) that can have various forms:
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| pork |
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| mobile phone accessories |
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Which of our four seasons do you most look forward to? |
- "Berlin-Kenner" (someone who knows Berlin); "der Balkon-Raucher" (a man who goes out onto the balcony to smoke); "der Jeans-Bügler" (a man who irons his jeans).
While these compounds are normally written as a single word, hyphenated forms occasionally appear in new coinages:
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All the best with a cold
• With throat-, head-, and joint-pains
• With sniffles
• Alleviates throat-tickle
• With an extra portion of vitamin C
Two capsules 3 times a day at the first sign of a cold |
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Part- and whole-body massages
Neck-, shoulder-, and back-massages |
Hyphens are also used when a series of compounds share a "primary word".
Thus in the advertisement on the right, for cold medicine, "Halsschmerzen," "Kopfschmerzen," and
"Gliederschmerzen" are compressed to "Hals-, Kopf- und Gliederschmerzen".
On the left, the primary word is first "massages," then "body-massages," with the
determiners "part" and "full";
in the next line, the primary word is again
"massages," while the determiners are "neck," "shoulder," and "back"
- "die Monster Laufzeit" (monsterous contract period):
- "die Baugenehmigung" (building permit); "das Esszimmer" (dining room); "das Lehrbuch" (textbook); "das Lesebuch" (storybook; reader); "das Löschwasser" (quench water [water for fire-fighting]); "die Mitfahrgelegenheit" (ride; lift); "der Rollstuhl" (wheelchair); "der Spielplatz" (playground); "die Sprechblase" (speech balloon; speech bubble [in a comic strip]); "der Schreibtisch" (desk); "die Verschlimmbesserung" (an intended improvement that makes things worse).
Sometimes, perhaps due to the influence of English, some constellations are even written as separate words:
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| Mobile internet without a monsterous contract period. |
The previous examples of compound nouns are derived from other nouns. But the "determinative element" can also be a verb, which is represented by the stem:
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| Feed-in of water for fire-fighting. | |
- "der Feinschmecker" (gourmet); "der Fernfahrer" (long-distance trucker); "die Hochkultur" (high culture); "der/die Schnellfahrer/in" (speeder); "die Schwarzmalerei" (doom-saying); "der Schwarzmarkt" (black market); "die Sprechstunde" (office hour); "der Wichtigtuer" (pompous ass).
The "determinative element" can also be an adjective or adverb. One could make the case that some of these "determiners" falls into the category of separable prefix, at least when the "primary word," though a noun, derives from a verb. The effect is the same either way.
- "achtgeben" (to be careful; to pay attention); "gutmachen" (to make amends for); "preisgeben" (to relinquish; to disclose); "stattfinden" (to take place); "teilnehmen" (to participate); "wahrnehmen" (to discern; to experience; to avail oneself of).
The "primary word" can also be a verb. The "determiner" then becomes a separable prefix:
- "arbeitsbereit" (ready to work); "arbeitsscheu" (afraid of hard work); "baufällig" (dilapidated); "hellgelb" (light yellow); "hustenreizlindernd" (throat-tickle-alleviating);"kostenpflichtig" (liable for the costs); "lebensgefährlich" (life-threatening; mortally dangerous); "linkshändig" (left-handed); "nasskalt" (cold and wet); "pechschwarz" (pitch-black); "reisefertig" (ready to leave [on a trip]); "schneeweiß" (snow-white); "todsicher" (dead certain); "umweltfreundlich" (eco-friendly); "wildfremd" (totally unknown).
The "primary word" can also be an adjective or adverb, so that the compound itself becomes that part of speech:
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| unauthorized parked vehicles will be towed at the owner's expense | |
- "die Hauptachse" (main axle); "die Hauptabteilung" (central department); "der/die Hauptaktionär/in" (majority shareholder); "der Hauptakzent" (main emphasis); "der Hauptbahnhof" (main railway station); "die Hauptbeschäftigung" (main occupation); "die Haupteigenschaft" (primary characteristic; major feature); "der Haupteingang" (main entrance); "das Hauptfach" ([academic] major); "die Hauptfigur" (main character); "der Hauptgrund" (chief reason); "die Hauptperson" (central figure; "das Hauptproblem" (main problem; "die Hauptrolle" (primary role); "die Hauptsache" (most important thing); "die Hauptschuld" (primary share of the blame); "der Hauptsitz" (headquarters); "die Hauptstadt" (capital city); "die Hauptstraße" (main street); "die Haupttätigkeit" (main activity); "der Hauptunterschied" (principal difference); "der Hauptvertreter" (principal representative); "der Hauptwohnsitz" (primary residence); "das Hauptwort" (noun); "das Hauptziel" (primary goal).
- "die Bankdienstleistungen" (banking services); "das Eintopfgericht" (stew; boiled dinner); "der/die Fußballspieler/in" (soccer player); "die Feuerwehrzufahrt" (fire department access); "die Geschirrspülmaschine" (dishwasher); "das Jugendschutzgesetz" (law for the protection of youth); "die Lebensversicherungsgesellschaft" (life-insurance company); "der Minderwertigkeitskomplex" (inferiority complex); "der Rathaussaal" (city council chamber); "der/die Rollstuhlfahrer/in" (wheelchair-user); "der Schreibtischcomputer" (desktop computer); "das Semesterticketbüro" (Semester Ticket Office [A semester ticket is a public transportation pass available to students during the term]); "der Windschutzscheibenwischer" (windshield wiper).
Some "determiners" appear so frequently that they have become a standard prefix. A word like "das Haupt," for example, an older term for head (and largely replaced in modern usage by "der Kopf"), appears in a great many well-established compounds, as well as in more spontaneous coinages. It means "central," "chief," "main," "primary," or "principal". Just a few examples:
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| Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the principal representative of German Idealism, lived from 1828-1831 in the house next-door (Am Kupfergraben 4a), which was destroyed in World War II. | |
Most of the previous examples consist of one determiner affixed to one primary word, but more elaborate noun chains are possible:
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| Wheelchair Entrance |
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Semester Ticket Office of
AStA (Allgemeiner Studentenausschuss [Students' Association]) of the
Free University of Berlin.
Entrance to the left past the driveway. |
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| Fire Department Access | |
Mark Twain is not the only person to find whimsical possibilities in complex compounds. There is a long tradition of constructing nouns like "die Hottentottenpotentatentantenattentäterin" (the Hottentot potentate's aunt's [female] assassin) or other humorous combinations:
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| The all-round-feel-good cough-drop |
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We wash washmachine water [ad by the Berlin Waterworks]. |
A more recent phenomenon is the "Weichei"-definition. A "Weichei" is a wimp or wussie, the opposite of a "real man." Some of the many definitions, which combine noun-compounds with the masculine suffix "-er":
| der Ampelgelb-Bremser = a man who brakes for a yellow light |
| der Abschiedsheuler = a man who weeps when saying good-bye |
| der Apfelschäler = a man who peels an apple (before eating it) |
| der Balkonraucher = a man who goes out on the balcony to smoke |
| der Beipackzettel-Leser = a man who reads warning labels on drug prescriptions |
| der Cabrio-geschlossen-Fahrer = a man who drives a convertible with the top up |
| der Chef-Witz-Lacher = a man who laughs at the boss's jokes |
| der Eincremer = a man who uses skin lotion |
| der Festnetztelefonierer = a man who telephones using a land-line |
| der Frauenversteher = a man who understands women |
| der Geheimzahl-Aufschreiber = a man who writes down a PIN |
| der Handschuhträger = a glove-wearer |
| der Kassenzettel-Nachprüfer = a man who checks the cash-register receipt |
| der Klamotten-am-Vorabend-Ausleger = a man who lays out his clothes the night before |
| der Landungsklatscher = a man who applauds when the plane lands |
| der Mittelspurfahrer = a man who drives in the middle lane |
| der Quotenopfer = a (self-proclaimed) victim of quotas |
| der Rechts-Links-Wangen-Bussi-Geber = a right-left-cheek peck-giver |
| der Schattenparker = a man who parks in the shade |
| der Sitzpinkler = a man who sits to pee |
| der Sockenfalter = a man who folds his socks |
| der Tastaturabdecker = a man who covers the keyborad |
| der Unterhosenbügler = a man who irons his underpants |
| der Vorwärtseinparker = a man who drive forwards into a parallel parking space |
| der Warmduscher = a man who takes warm showers |
| der Weinschorle-Trinker = a man who drinks wine-spritzers |
- In Hans-Ulrich Treichel's novel Tristanakkord (Suhrkamp, 2000), the hero is, in a small way, about to assist a famous musician in composing a work. In contemplating the fame that he will achieve, he refers to it as "eine Trittbrettunsterblichkeit" (p. 212). This coinage is made up of six separate elements: "Der Tritt" (step) and "das Brett" (board) combine to fashion "das Trittbrett" (running board, the footboard that runs along the side of certain trucks and antique automobiles). German usage has given this word a metaphorical connotation: "hanging on" or "freeloading," especially in the term of "Trittbrettfahrer" (literally: running board rider). To "Trittbrett" the author adds "Unsterblichkeit" (immortality). That term is derived from "sterben" (to die); by adding the suffix "-lich" to the stem "sterb-", we get the adjective "sterblich" (mortal). To that comes the suffix "-keit", forming the noun "Sterblichkeit" (mortality). The prefix "un-", just as in English, produces the opposite meaning (immortality). Finally, the author combines "Trittbrett" and "Unsterblichkeit" to create a spontaneous coinage that will appear in no dictionary but is comprehensible to all: "Trittbrettunsterblichkeit" is an immortality that is achieved parasitically. The English translation necessarily lacks both the compactness - and the humor - of the German original.
More important are the complex meanings that can be compressed within compounds, constructions that are very hard to translate. Here is an example of one such possibility:
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| Trittbrett (running-board) | |
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