The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge-
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C. Jac Conradie
Abstract
The prefix ge- has become morphologically much less integrated with the past participle (p.p.) in Afrikaans than in Dutch as a result of across the board regularization of the p.p. in Afrikaans. Other changes relating to ge- include the loss of complementary distribution with prefixes such as be-, ver- and ont- and its usage as participial marker on verb clusters. Changes such as these tended to enhance the morphological independence of ge-, implying a change in status from inflectional morpheme to that of clitic. In Standard Afrikaans, however, ge- often remains unrealized because of its optionality owing to a phonological condition specifying that a p.p. consist of an unstressed – stressed sequence of syllables. This tends to turn ge- into a dummy element, which suggests a movement away from word status and therefore a less likely candidate for grammaticalization. Afrikaans ge- is, however, also characterized by closer association with the function of past tense formation, which suggests resemanticization. In Griqua Afrikaans, ge-/ga- seems to meet criteria for degrammaticalization to a greater extent, to the point of becoming a free morpheme. The latter development has to be discounted as a further step towards degrammaticalization in view of possible substrate influence from free particles in Khoekhoe. Key words: Past participle; affixation, cliticization; degrammaticalization; Dutch; Afrikaans; Griqua Afrikaans
Abstract
The prefix ge- has become morphologically much less integrated with the past participle (p.p.) in Afrikaans than in Dutch as a result of across the board regularization of the p.p. in Afrikaans. Other changes relating to ge- include the loss of complementary distribution with prefixes such as be-, ver- and ont- and its usage as participial marker on verb clusters. Changes such as these tended to enhance the morphological independence of ge-, implying a change in status from inflectional morpheme to that of clitic. In Standard Afrikaans, however, ge- often remains unrealized because of its optionality owing to a phonological condition specifying that a p.p. consist of an unstressed – stressed sequence of syllables. This tends to turn ge- into a dummy element, which suggests a movement away from word status and therefore a less likely candidate for grammaticalization. Afrikaans ge- is, however, also characterized by closer association with the function of past tense formation, which suggests resemanticization. In Griqua Afrikaans, ge-/ga- seems to meet criteria for degrammaticalization to a greater extent, to the point of becoming a free morpheme. The latter development has to be discounted as a further step towards degrammaticalization in view of possible substrate influence from free particles in Khoekhoe. Key words: Past participle; affixation, cliticization; degrammaticalization; Dutch; Afrikaans; Griqua Afrikaans
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
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Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
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Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
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Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & Acknowledgements vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I. General and specific issues of language change
- Competing reinforcements 3
- On the reconstruction of experiential constructions in (Late) Proto-Indo-European 31
- Criteria for differentiating inherent and contact-induced changes in language reconstruction 49
- Misparsing and syntactic reanalysis 69
- How different is prototype change? 89
- The syntactic reconstruction of alignment and word order 107
-
Part II. Linguistic variation and change in Germanic
- The Dutch-Afrikaans participial prefix ge- 131
- Diachronic changes in long-distance dependencies 155
- Changes in the use of the Frisian quantifiers ea/oait “ever” between 1250 and 1800 171
- On the development of the perfect (participle) 191
- OV and V-to-I in the history of Swedish 211
- Ethnicity as an independent factor of language variation across space 231
- The sociolinguistics of spelling 253
-
Part III. Linguistic variation and change in Greek
- Dative loss and its replacement in the history of Greek 277
- Word order variation in New Testament Greek wh-questions 293
-
Part IV. Linguistic change in Romance
- The morphological evolution of infinitive, future and conditional forms in Occitan 317
- The evolution of the encoding of direction in the history of French 333
- Velle -type prohibitions in Latin 355
- The use and development of habere + infinitive in Latin 373
- Index 399
