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Re: The cost of time

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 13, 2002, 20:50
On 13 Feb 02, at 17:21, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> On the other hand, the Dutch prefix "be-" is much more difficult to > pin down. Until now, I have been unable to give it a precise meaning, > for the simple reason that when you have pairs of verbs, one with the > prefix and one without, they are translated in French by either one > and the same verb, or by two unrelated verbs :)) . How can you give a > meaning to such a prefix then :)) .
In German it sometimes makes intransitive verbs transitive. For example, "Auf eine Frage antworten" --> "Eine Frage beantworten" (to answer a question). In the first sentence, "antworten" is intransitive and the question is part of a prepositional phrase; in the second, the question is the direct object of the verb. But it can have other meanings, too ;) Cheers, Philip -- Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>