Post History
Like any language change, it can be a bit confusing to current speakers while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore. Latin was especially fond of v...
Answer
#5: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2022-05-07T15:36:20Z (almost 2 years ago)
Correcting a dangling footnote reference
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accipio"[^2], "addico", "affecto", "aggrego"[^3].
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
Your example word "agree" probably[^3] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin or to European languages. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: English "accept" is via Latin "accipio" (meaning "I take" or "I take to myself", refering to a current one time action), through its frequentative form "accepto" (also meaning "I take", but implying that my attitude will hold also in the future, repeatedly). And "accipio" is from "ad-" + "capio" (the latter meaning very plainly "I take"). Here the prefix is applied to a verb rather to a former noun or former adjective. I'm elaborating this example nevertheless because you first mentioned "accept" in a comment if I noticed correctly.
- [^3]: English "aggregate" is via Latin "aggrego" from Latin "ad gregem", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd". Switching to infinitive forms, Latin "ad gregem ducere" (literally "to lead [animals, etc.] to the herd [so as to make them a part of the herd]" was shortened to a "adgregere" and eventually "aggregere". The herd in question can be pre-existing or created only by this act of "aggregation" or "grouping".
- [^4]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accipio"[^2], "addico", "affecto", "aggrego"[^3].
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^4] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin or to European languages. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: English "accept" is via Latin "accipio" (meaning "I take" or "I take to myself", refering to a current one time action), through its frequentative form "accepto" (also meaning "I take", but implying that my attitude will hold also in the future, repeatedly). And "accipio" is from "ad-" + "capio" (the latter meaning very plainly "I take"). Here the prefix is applied to a verb rather to a former noun or former adjective. I'm elaborating this example nevertheless because you first mentioned "accept" in a comment if I noticed correctly.
- [^3]: English "aggregate" is via Latin "aggrego" from Latin "ad gregem", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd". Switching to infinitive forms, Latin "ad gregem ducere" (literally "to lead [animals, etc.] to the herd [so as to make them a part of the herd]" was shortened to a "adgregere" and eventually "aggregere". The herd in question can be pre-existing or created only by this act of "aggregation" or "grouping".
- [^4]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
#4: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2020-12-08T14:41:25Z (over 3 years ago)
Responding to comments
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin or to European languages. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
[^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accipio"[^2], "addico", "affecto", "aggrego"[^3].
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^3] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin or to European languages. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: English "accept" is via Latin "accipio" (meaning "I take" or "I take to myself", refering to a current one time action), through its frequentative form "accepto" (also meaning "I take", but implying that my attitude will hold also in the future, repeatedly). And "accipio" is from "ad-" + "capio" (the latter meaning very plainly "I take"). Here the prefix is applied to a verb rather to a former noun or former adjective. I'm elaborating this example nevertheless because you first mentioned "accept" in a comment if I noticed correctly.
- [^3]: English "aggregate" is via Latin "aggrego" from Latin "ad gregem", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd". Switching to infinitive forms, Latin "ad gregem ducere" (literally "to lead [animals, etc.] to the herd [so as to make them a part of the herd]" was shortened to a "adgregere" and eventually "aggregere". The herd in question can be pre-existing or created only by this act of "aggregation" or "grouping".
- [^4]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
#3: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2020-12-05T17:35:04Z (over 3 years ago)
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
(The derivational process isn't limited to Latin. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin or to European languages. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
#2: Post edited
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2020-12-05T17:33:01Z (over 3 years ago)
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Preposition simply became prefixes.- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
- Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
- Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Prepositions simply became prefixes.
- To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
- For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".
- The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
- This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
- Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
- (The derivational process isn't limited to Latin. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
- [^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
- [^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.
#1: Initial revision
by
Jirka Hanika
·
2020-12-05T17:18:20Z (over 3 years ago)
Like any language change, it can be [a bit confusing to current speakers](https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/ky81y/verbing_weirds_language/) while it is happening, but once the resulting verb is established, nobody will blink anymore.
Latin was especially fond of verbification of prepositional phrases. Preposition simply became prefixes.
To overcome your unsettling feeling, you can open a Latin dictionary near the beginning and look for words where the initial "a" is followed by a double letter. This is typically a residue of a prefix "ad-", itself derived from a preposition "ad", having undergone assimilation[^1] to the first sound of the root.
For example, "accido", "addico", "affecto", "aggrego". This last one is from "ad grex", i.e. "to the group" or "to the herd".
The actual frequency of the process is perhaps higher than what the suggested procedure intuitively demonstrates, because sometimes the assimilated letter was written as a single letter ("aspiro"), or the assimilation was blocked by semantic considerations ("adbibo" meaning "drink a toast to"; if it became "abbibo", then the prefix "ad-" would become "ab-", the semantic opposite of "ad-".)
This derivational process remained productive in successor languages and also in English. The tendency to create new English(!) words by combining Latin prefixes with Latin roots was at its height in 17th and 18th centuries, but the process is available to this day and it [even has a name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_compound).
Your example word "agree" probably[^2] first underwent this process in Late Latin or Old French, so this particular verb was borrowed into Middle English in its finished form.
(The derivational process isn't limited to Latin. However, many languages don't have any prepositions, so they naturally cannot use the exact same process.)
[^1]: English "assimilate" comes from Latin "assimilare" from "ad similem" ("towards similar"). I wanted to translate Latin "assimilare" with English "incorporate" but then I'd be tempted to add another footnote to point out that the originally Latin prefix "in-" comes from a preposition "in".
[^2]: I'm not trying to pin down a single word. I'm trying to show that the general process was extremely common.