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Re: Not applicatives, but...?

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Friday, March 21, 2008, 19:04
On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Douglas Koller <laokou@...> wrote:
> From: Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> > > > (And also "versprechen", which can either be "mis-speak" > > or "promise".) > > My dictionary says that in the meaning of the former, the verb is reflexive. Is this so? > > sich versprechen = make a slip of the tongue > versprechen = promise
Yes, that's right. And even for a reflexive "promise" meaning, there'll typically be an indirect object argument that won't be there for the "mis-speak" meaning, e.g. "Sie hat sich mir versprochen" = "She promised herself to me" vs. "Sie hat sich versprochen" = "She mis-spoke".
> Making it a little easier to distinguish than just by context.
True. The nominalised forms are also different: "das Versprechen" = the promise, "der Versprecher" = the act of mis-speaking. (Technically, the homophonous form "das Versprechen" can also be the nominalised infinitive, meaning "the act of mis-speaking/promising", but that form won't be as frequent IMO as the two I listed.) Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>