Although not widely accepted in
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, the term preverb is used in
Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
(including all three families:
Northwest Caucasian
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called West Caucasian, Abkhazo-Adyghean, Abkhazo-Circassian, Circassic, or sometimes ''Pontic languages'' (from the historical region of Pontus, in contrast to ''Caspian languages'' for the Northeast Cauc ...
,
Northeast Caucasian
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in ...
and
Kartvelian Kartvelian may refer to:
* Anything coming from or related to Georgia (country)
* Kartvelian languages
* Kartvelian alphabet, see Georgian alphabet
* Kartvelian studies
* Georgians
{{disambig
Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
),
Caddoan
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of ...
,
Athabaskan, and
Algonquian linguistics to describe certain elements prefixed to verbs. In the context of
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, the term is usually used for
separable verb prefixes.
Theoretically, any prefix could be called a preverbal element. However, in practice, the term ''preverb'' applies more narrowly in those families and refers to a prefixed element that is normally outside the premise of verbal morphology like locations of noun elements or, less often, noun elements themselves.
Northwest Caucasian languages
In Northwest Caucasian languages, they can have
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s, directional and locative preverbs (like
preposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s), like in this example from
Ubykh:
Caddoan
In
Caddoan
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of ...
linguistics, preverbal elements are less well defined as a class, and often, "preverb" designates a part of the verbal root that can be separated from the rest of the root by certain prefixes, as in this
Wichita example:
Mandarin Chinese
For
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
and many other
varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
, the term refers to some words that carry the meanings of
prepositions
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
in English. In Chinese, they are lexically verbs and appear before the noun in question. They are more commonly referred to as
coverb
A coverb is a word or prefix that resembles a verb or co-operates with a verb. In languages that have the serial verb construction, coverbs are a type of word that shares features of verbs and prepositions. A coverb takes an object or complemen ...
s.
Georgian
In
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
, a Kartvelian language, the main function of a preverb is to distinguish the present tenses and the future tenses. To turn a present tense verb into a future tense, a preverb is added to the verb compound. In addition, preverbs also have directional meanings in Georgian.
Preverbs are directly attached to the beginning of the verb compound:
:აკეთებს ''ak'etebs'' ("he does it") and გააკეთებს ''gaak'etebs'' ("he will do it")
:ვწერ ''vts'er'' ("I am writing") and დავწერ ''davts'er'' ("I will write")
Note in those two examples that the meaning of the future tense is achieved only by adding the preverb; no other grammatical change occurs. In these examples, preverbs have directional meanings:
:მოდის ''modis'' ("he/she is coming")
:მიდის ''midis'' ("he/she is going")
:ადის ''adis'' ("he/she is going up (the stairs)", "he/she is getting on (a bus)")
:ჩამოდის ''chamodis'' ("he/she is arriving")
:შემოდის ''shemodis'' ("he/she is entering")
Again, note that only the preverbs are changed to convey the meaning of various directional meanings. Preverbs add directional meanings not only to the verbs of motion but also to any other kind of verbs. Compare the examples of the verb -''tser''- ("write"):
:დავწერე ''davts'ere'' ("I wrote it")
:მოგწერე ''mogts'ere'' ("I wrote it ''to'' you")
:მივწერე ''mivts'ere'' ("I wrote it ''to'' him/them")
:გადაგიწერე ''gadagits'ere'' ("I wrote to you (''from a place'')")
As can be seen from the examples, the preverb changes according to the indirect object (the person for (to) whom the verb is being done).
Many verbs have a common root. For example, "end" and "stay" have the same verb root, -''rch''-. The meanings of the verbs are distinguished by their preverbs and other elements of the verb compound:
:რჩება ''rcheba'' ("he is staying"), დარჩება ''darcheba'' ("he will stay")
:რჩება ''rcheba'' ("it is ending"), მორჩება ''morcheba'' ("it will end")
As is clear, the verbs are identical in the present tense but differ in the future tense by their preverbs.
Modern Persian
A preverb is a morpheme, which is applied together with the participles modifying their meaning and the meaning of their derivates.
Persian preverbs, referred to as "āndar" or "dar", are:
*bar
*bāz
*farā and hā
*farāz
*foru and hō
*ham
*negah and negāh
*pas
*piš
*ru
*sar
*var
*vā
Pre-verbs can modify the procedure attribute of the verbs and the infinitives, but they do not change their objective attribute:
The Pre-verb is normally positioned ahead of the verb. If the verb is composed of two separable components, the pre-verb is positioned ahead of the second component. The Pre-verb can be positioned at the end of the sentence, owing to versification requirements:
از کارِ خير عزمِ تو هرگز نگشت باز
هرگز زِ راه بازنگشتهست هيچ تير
Manuchehri (11th - 12th Century AD)
Algonquian
In Algonquian languages, preverbs can be described as phonologically separate words that may precede a verb and share its inflection. In particular, pronominal prefixes or initial change are applied to the first preverb, if any, of the verb complex rather than to the verb stem. Their meaning can range from
past tense
The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
or
perfective aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...
to meanings for which English might use an adverb or another verb, like these from
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
:
In
Munsee
The Munsee (or Minsi or Muncee) or mə́n'si·w ( del, Monsiyok)Online Lenape Talking Dictionary, "Munsee Indians"Link/ref> are a subtribe of the Lenape, originally constituting one of the three great divisions of that nation and dwelling along t ...
, some words can come between a preverb and its verb.
See also
prenoun
''Prenoun'' is the term for adjective-like prefixes that attach to nouns in Algonquian languages, Japanese, and Korean.Mühlbauer, JeffReduplication in Nêhiyawêwin (Plains Cree)'' section 2.2
Algonquian languages
For example, in Nêhiyawêwin ...
in such languages.
Pingelapese
Pingelapese
The Pingelapese language is a Micronesian language native to Pingelap, an atoll belonging to the state of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia. This atoll is the homeland to the Pingelapese people, consisting of a three-square mile range ...
is a language spoken on the Island of Pingelap atoll, located in Micronesia. This language uses preverbs in existential sentences, one of their four sentence structures. The verb is used when a character of a story or statement is already known.
References
PVB:preverb
{{Lexical categories, state=collapsed
Grammar
Parts of speech