Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

On Sunday, May 9, 2004, at 04:10 AM, Trebor Jung wrote:

> David P. wrote:
>
> "How about English?
>
> "long > elongate (no *elong or *longate)"
No. Do we have *ewidate, *ehighate, *ebroadate etc?

The truth is the supposed derivation of 'elongate' from 'long' is just
folk etymology. The two words, in fact, are not _directly_ related.
English 'long' is derived from Old English 'lang', cognate with modern
German 'lang' and Old Norse 'langr'. The verb 'elongate' is derived
separately & much later as a learned borrowing from Latin 'e:longa:re'.

The Latin word, it is true, is derived from the adjective 'longus' which
is almost certainly cognate with the Germanic *lang- , but that no way
makes English 'elongate' derived from English 'long'.

The Latin, as some have pointed out, has two separate affixes. There is a
prefix 'e:' or 'ex' = "out" and the verbal suffix -a:re; i.e. 'e:longa:re'
  = (to) lengthen out.

> What about, e.g., 'embolden'?
This would be valid if and oly if it could be shown either that the prefix
en-/em- never occurred without a suffixed -en, or that the suffix -en
never occurred without a prefixed 'en-/em-'. In fact neither is true.

Examples of prefixed en-/em- are:
enable
enact
enamo(u)r
encase
encash
endear
etc. etc.

embalm
embank
embark
embed
empanel
empower
etc. etc.

Examples of suffixed -en are:
christen
deaden
hasten
lengthen
moisten
soften
widen
etc.

Nope - em-bold-en merely shows the affixing of an independent prefix and
of a equally independent suffix, just as in, e.g. enlarger, entitlement,
embarkation, embodying.

> And 'exemplify', what would this form be
> considered as? It is formed from the root 'example', modified by ablaut
> _and_ the ending '-ify'.
Er, no. Ablaut has not ever been a dynamic feature in English (unlike
umaut in Old english). The only ablaut in English is inherited from
protoGermanic, e.g.
sing, sang, sung
write, wrote, written etc

Possibly you mean ablaut, but the Latinate suffix -(i)fy _never_ causes
ablaut. Once again it is folk etymology that derives 'exemplify' from
'example'. Also in the context of a thread on _circumfixes_ it is really
irrelevant as neither word has a prefix!  The Latin word that both
'examplify' and 'example' are independently derived from is 'exempl-um'
(NOT ex + *emplum), gen: exempl-i (neuter) = 'example'

exempli-fy <-- Latin: exempli-fic-a:re
exempli- bound morpheme allomorph of exempl(um)
-fic- bound morpheme meaning 'cause, make', ultimately connected with
'facere' (to do, to make)
-a:re inifinite suffix

example <-- Old French 'example' <-- Vulgar Latin 'exemplu'
sample <-- Middle English 'essample' <-- Old French 'example' <-- Vulgar
Latin 'exemplu'
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On Sunday, May 9, 2004, at 03:34 AM, Scott Barron wrote:

[snip]
> I like the elongate example.
Maybe - but it ain't an example of a circumflex.
> How about in some English dialects that
> use structures like: "I'm a-goin"?  I believe in this case a- -ing is a
> circumfix to mark present progressive.
Nope.
> I can't think of anything that
> the a- would be short for
It's a reduced form of the Old English preposition 'an' _or_ 'on'
(according to dialect) = in, at, on. It occurs in words such as: abroad,
afire, afloat, asleep.

The forms a-going, a-begging, a-hunting etc are merely the prefix added to
the gerund in a contruction similar to Welsh "rydw i'n mynd" (am I in
going = I'm a-going) & Gaelic "tha mi a'dol" (am I at going = I'm a-going)
.

As I have shown, the prefix a- certainly occurs without a suffix -ing, and
the suffix -ing most certainly occurs without the prefix a-. Once again,
forms like a-going, a-coming etc show the affixing of an independent
prefix and of a equally independent suffix.

Sorry, folks - but circumfixes simply do not occur in English. If you want
real examples of circumfixes then, as Mark has pointed out, you should
look for them in the Austronesian languages.

Ray
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