Talk:herbei-

herbei-
This is not a German prefix. -- Prince Kassad 19:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * How so? Do you also say that hervor- is not a German prefix? Is it because it is her- + bei-? --Dan Polansky 22:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, all derived terms are simple compounds using the word herbei. This is evidenced by the fact it's possible to split up the derived term into its constituent compound parts and it will retain its original meaning, i. e. herbeiführen may be alternately written as herbei führen. The same applies to hervor- as well. -- Prince Kassad 22:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * BTW best definition ever. fr:herbei- says this is a particle, whatever that is. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I see. But there are not going to be many German prefixes left: most can be declared prepositions or particles. Consider, for example, ab-, auf-, an-, and aus-.
 * One consequence of denying prefixhood to these is that most German verbs with separable prefixes (the term "separable prefix" is contradictory per your exposition) are going to be compounds (Komposita), which seems really strange to me.
 * Which of the prefixes in Category:German prefixes do you consider prefixes worth keeping? (BTW, I don't consider kardio- a prefix but a combining form. See also de:Kategorie:Präfix (Deutsch).) ---Dan Polansky 22:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * On another note, gives 38,100 results hits while  1,510,000 results. The former seems to be a rare form that does not really prove anything. If herbei- is not a prefix per the existence of herbei, I do not see how auf- is a prefix given the existence of auf. --Dan Polansky 22:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Separable prefixes are already treated as independent words in Dutch (as adverbs to be precise), and the words that have them are listed as compounds. It doesn't seem like such a strange idea to me. —CodeCat 22:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A consequence of this treatment is that there are very few prefixes left in Dutch, at least native ones; those that are left would be mostly Latin-based or Ancient Greek-based. See Category:Dutch prefixes. I wonder whether this treatment matches Dutch linguistic works. --Dan Polansky 23:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You cannot split up the word aufhören, for example, while conveying the same meaning. "auf hören" does not make any sense. Therefore, these are true prefixes, like ab-, an-, aus-, be-, ent-, ein-, ver-, zer-, etc. -- Prince Kassad 23:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, "aufhören" is a separable verb, as in "Hören Sie mal auf". Why can't I argue that "aufhören" is a compound made from "auf" and "hören"? Yes, I cannot meaningfully write "auf hören", but that alone does not prove prefixhood of "auf-" if prepositions are allowed for compounding.
 * What about the following: herab-, heran-, heraus-, herein-, herum-, herunter-? --Dan Polansky 23:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And "herbeiführen" behaves as a separable verb: "Dadurch, daß wir gewisse Dinge tun, führen wir andere herbei" (Example found in Google books.) --Dan Polansky 23:26, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You can combine the last batch of suffixes with *any* verb you want. You can create words like heruntergießen, herabschauen and hereinsprühen. This makes them anything but prefixes. -- Prince Kassad 23:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The readiness for combination of a candidate prefix has nothing to do with prefixhood, if you ask me; it does not detract from prefixhood. --Dan Polansky 23:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
 * German allows for an arbitrary amount of adjectives, adverbs and prepositions to be combined with verbs to form new compound verbs. Compare for example schnellöschen, which is composed of schnell + löschen and means "to speedy delete". It certainly does not turn schnell into a prefix. -- Prince Kassad 21:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (<) The term schnellöschen is a rare form whose infinitive is not even attestable in Google books, so I wonder why you pick this as an example. Furthermore, schnell is an adjective rather than a preposition, which makes all the difference: I would argue that prefixes often correspond to prepositions and certain adverbs. You still have to explain that "auf-" is a prefix, given with how many verbs it combines, and given the existence of the preposition "auf". I argue that "herbeiführen" is morphologically analogous to "aufhören". --Dan Polansky 09:12, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm quoting here a response made by User:Atelaes in response to the deletion of Wander- a few pages above:
 * If part of a compound is simply a word, which means the same thing in the compound as it does alone, then we should not have an affix entry for it. Ancient Greek is chock full of this phenomenon. We should only have affix entries when the part of a compound does not have a standalone counterpart, or means something different when its used as a compound. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 13:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * auf- is a prefix simply because its meaning is not identical to the standalone word auf. You cannot write "auf hören", it makes no sense. -- Prince Kassad 14:24, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not that it matters, but for the record — I don't think you're interpreting Atelaes' statement the way that he intended it. —Ruakh TALK 21:48, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (<<) de:W:Zusammengesetzte Wörter (compound words#classification by the part of speech of constituents) does not list any of the terms derived from herab-, heran-, heraus-, herein-, herum-, herunter- as compounds. OTOH, it says that „Fast alle Wortarten können miteinander kombiniert werden“ in a quotation, meaning that almost all parts of speech can be combined.
 * On another note, it is unclear that "herbei" is really a separate word. If "herbei" always occurs as part of a separable verb, then it may look as a separate word whenever the separable verb is in the separated position, but it is unclear that this alone suffices for the separateness of "herbei". I admit that "herbei führen" can be found in some old German works in Google books.
 * The terms herbei-, herab-, heran-, heraus-, herein-, herum-, and herunter- are listed in http://www.welt-im-web.de/?N%26uuml%3Btzliches_in_Dateiform:Deutsche_Vorsilben, although the website is no academical reliable resource.
 * Unfortunately, I do not know of external reliable authorities to check with, or else I would post some links. --Dan Polansky 09:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * One more link: http://www.dwds.de/?kompakt=1&qu=herbei-.
 * For a list of terms derived from "herbei" or "herbei-", such as herbeizaubern or herbeireden, see also de:herbei.
 * As an aside, I do not boldly vote for anything in this thread. I do not claim to understand what a prefix is. --Dan Polansky 14:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am also not an expert, but IMO "herbei" is not a prefix, but part of a compound, because it is a separate word (according to the Duden), which functions as an adverb. It is true that it is rarely used standalone, but this is true for all adverbs. A standalone usage would be the interjection "Herbei!" to call people to come to you. As for the general definition of prefixes, I would use the term prefix only for something that does not also exist as a separate word with exactly the same meaning. Therfore "ent-" (englisch: de-) would be a prefix, but "auf" and "ab" not, because they exist as adverbs with the same meaning (don't confuse them with the prepositions "auf" and "ab" that have a different meaning). --Zeitlupe 09:15, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just noting that canoo.net treats words such as herbeiführen as adverb+verb compounds (as opposed to aufhören which they call a prefixed verb, see and . I tend to agree with that view, but I'm not so sure either. Dan Polansky's objection that herbei etc. might not be unbound words at all seems legitimate, though all dictionaries I know do treat them as adverbs and thus words. On the other hand, canoo.net also treats elements such as zurecht in zurechtbiegen as prefixes which I don't quite understand. Longtrend 14:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Standalone uses are easy to find, I've just added one; to find others, search for "herbei, herbei". Standalone use only proves it's an adverb, not that it isn’t a prefix, but like PK, Zeitlupe and Longtrend, I have the feeling that it isn't a prefix. De.Wikt has de:herbei, not de:herbei- (contrast de:ver- and de:über, de:über-). On the other hand, the Duden has it as a prefix (and adverb). - -sche (discuss) 06:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Delete it seems there just aren't very many prefixes in German and this is not one of the few.Lucifer 23:49, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

deleted -- Liliana • 15:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Related discussion: Talk:zurück-. - -sche (discuss) 16:43, 1 April 2016 (UTC)