legged, bodied, whiskered, etc

[Terra]

What is called when a word that doesn't even have a standard verb form has "-ed" tagged onto it to make it a modifier?

Such happens in:
- four-legged cat
- able-bodied man
- whiskered man

[Bob Johnson]

verbed

[Salmoneus]

... they're called adjectives.

[Miekko]

In Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World, I ran into a relatively fun formation (multiple times):
"railinged".

Kinda cute.

Interesting enough, it seems German doesn't form similar adjectives using participle morphology, whereas at least some North Germanic varieties do. Is this done in Dutch? Or is it something English got from Scandinavian? Is it something continental west Germanic's lost?

[zompist]

It's a suffix which goes back to Old English -ede, distinct from (but possibly related to) the past participle— e.g. hringede, hócede 'ringed, hooked'. Old Norse had some similar forms, e.g. eygðr 'eyed', and for that matter Latin had forms like caudātus 'tailed'.

Naturally most modern examples are formed by analogy (that is, the suffix is still productive).

[linguoboy]

Interesting enough, it seems German doesn't form similar adjectives using participle morphology, whereas at least some North Germanic varieties do. Is this done in Dutch? Or is it something English got from Scandinavian? Is it something continental west Germanic's lost?

I think Dutch patterns with German, e.g. viervoetig "four-legged", snorharig "whiskered", dikbuikig "big-bellied", etc. I'm not sure what the history of these forms is nor whether cognates of OE -ede are attested.

[din]

In Dutch, we do have -end(e), which is a progressive verbal ending (no longer used as such today), which is also used to turn verbs into adjectives:

vallen > een vallend glas (falling glass)
varen > een varende boot (a sailing boat)
dringen > een dringende zaak (a pressing matter)

etc.

[linguoboy]

In Dutch, we do have -end(e), which is a progressive verbal ending (no longer used as such today), which is also used to turn verbs into adjectives:

But we're talking about adjectives without corresponding verbs. "Four-legged" looks like it derives from a hypothetical verb *leg "to furnish with legs", but such a verb doesn't exist in English and never has. Are there any Dutch adjectives with the -end ending for which there is no identifiable verbal source?

[Salmoneus]

It's a suffix which goes back to Old English -ede, distinct from (but possibly related to) the past participle— e.g. hringede, hócede 'ringed, hooked'. Old Norse had some similar forms, e.g. eygðr 'eyed', and for that matter Latin had forms like caudātus 'tailed'.

Naturally most modern examples are formed by analogy (that is, the suffix is still productive).

Iirc, it's very common in Latin - not necessarily specifically deverbal adjectives without the appropriate verbs, but in general Latin frequently applies derivative suffixes to imaginary or hypothetical forms - or, alternatively, just to the wrong form. [In English, this is the same, since verbs and nouns look the same, but in other languages we can distinguish between applying a derivation to an otherwise unattested verbal form, and applying it directly to a noun even though it's normally only applied to verbs].

Two ways to think of this:
a) we think that suffixes are, eg, verb->adjective. But in practice, the ->adjective bit is a lot more important than the verb-> bit, so it is frequently 'misapplied'. Another example of this is applying two derivative suffixes with the same function, which Latin did so extensively that many of the common derivative morphemes originally had two distinct elements. Again, iirc.

b) just as languages often have gaps in inflectional paradigms, so too they often have gaps in derivational morphemes. So an adjective can be derived from a 'verb' that is completely unobjectionable in form, but happens never to actually be used. For instance, there is no verb "to able-body", but this may just be because it would have no use. The form, we might say, still exists in potentia in the derivational schema, available for derivational morphemes to be stuck onto it.

[Acid Badger]

I sometimes use to call my dog Viergebeintes, but that's obviously a totally non grammatical construction in German.

[din]

In Dutch, we do have -end(e), which is a progressive verbal ending (no longer used as such today), which is also used to turn verbs into adjectives:

But we're talking about adjectives without corresponding verbs. "Four-legged" looks like it derives from a hypothetical verb *leg "to furnish with legs", but such a verb doesn't exist in English and never has. Are there any Dutch adjectives with the -end ending for which there is no identifiable verbal source?

True.

I suppose nouns are more readily turned into verbs in Dutch, though. Where English says things like 'to play football', 'to use the internet' or 'to send an e-mail' you can say 'voetballen', 'internetten' and 'e-mailen' in Dutch. I guess a noun > adjective derivation is needed less often, for that reason. So you could say 'de voetballende/internettende/e-mailende man' (though the latter two, I suppose, do sound a little unusual).

The -ig(e) examples that you translated are related to English -y (as in shiny, stinky, airy, etc.). So viervoetig would be *four-leggy.

(Not sure if this was already obvious to you)

Cognates (in Dutch) of OE -ede would be -de/-te, I'd think (I admittedly know little about etymology). It shows up in the past participle, and adjectives derived from it: roken > gerookt > gerookt(e) (to smoke > smoked (p.part) > smoked (e.g. meat)). But zomp already referred to that (in the context of OE)

[Yng]

I suppose nouns are more readily turned into verbs in Dutch, though. Where English says things like 'to play football', 'to use the internet' or 'to send an e-mail' you can say 'voetballen', 'internetten' and 'e-mailen' in Dutch. I guess a noun > adjective derivation is needed less often, for that reason. So you could say 'de voetballende/internettende/e-mailende man' (though the latter two, I suppose, do sound a little unusual).

The usual verb is 'to e-mail'. I don't think you can really internet, but you can probably football?

[Terra]

I suppose nouns are more readily turned into verbs in Dutch, though. Where English says things like 'to play football', 'to use the internet' or 'to send an e-mail' you can say 'voetballen', 'internetten' and 'e-mailen' in Dutch. I guess a noun > adjective derivation is needed less often, for that reason. So you could say 'de voetballende/internettende/e-mailende man' (though the latter two, I suppose, do sound a little unusual).

The usual verb is 'to e-mail'. I don't think you can really internet, but you can probably football?

Indeed, one can "email". One simply "uses" the internet, or "goes online". One plays football.

Iirc, it's very common in Latin - not necessarily specifically deverbal adjectives without the appropriate verbs, but in general Latin frequently applies derivative suffixes to imaginary or hypothetical forms - or, alternatively, just to the wrong form. [In English, this is the same, since verbs and nouns look the same, but in other languages we can distinguish between applying a derivation to an otherwise unattested verbal form, and applying it directly to a noun even though it's normally only applied to verbs].

Two ways to think of this:
a) we think that suffixes are, eg, verb->adjective. But in practice, the ->adjective bit is a lot more important than the verb-> bit, so it is frequently 'misapplied'. Another example of this is applying two derivative suffixes with the same function, which Latin did so extensively that many of the common derivative morphemes originally had two distinct elements. Again, iirc.

b) just as languages often have gaps in inflectional paradigms, so too they often have gaps in derivational morphemes. So an adjective can be derived from a 'verb' that is completely unobjectionable in form, but happens never to actually be used. For instance, there is no verb "to able-body", but this may just be because it would have no use. The form, we might say, still exists in potentia in the derivational schema, available for derivational morphemes to be stuck onto it.

Thank you Salmoneus.

[daan]

In Dutch, we do have -end(e), which is a progressive verbal ending (no longer used as such today), which is also used to turn verbs into adjectives:

But we're talking about adjectives without corresponding verbs. "Four-legged" looks like it derives from a hypothetical verb *leg "to furnish with legs", but such a verb doesn't exist in English and never has. Are there any Dutch adjectives with the -end ending for which there is no identifiable verbal source?

I can't think of any. As for the original -d(e), my first suggestions would be idiomatic expressions like the 'gelaarsde kat' or 'gebeende ezel'. It turns out that for each of them one can find a corresponding verb (which meanwhile has fallen out of use). The verb 'laarzen' had a rather different meaning than in 'de gelaarsde kat' though, so maybe they are actually unrelated and the latter could therefore still be an example similar to those in the OP.

[merijn]

Dutch also has (adjective)be+noun+d(e) de bebaarde man = the bearded man de behaarde jongen=the hairy boy het krap behuisde kantoor= the office in a small building,
This is of course in addition to -ig which seems to be the standard translation of this -ed

[hwhatting]

Dutch also has (adjective)be+noun+d(e) de bebaarde man = the bearded man de behaarde jongen=the hairy boy het krap behuisde kantoor= the office in a small building,
This is of course in addition to -ig which seems to be the standard translation of this -ed

German has that, too, (behaart "hairy", bebrillt "wearing glasses" etc.) These look like participles of non-existing verbs, formed on the analogy of forms like bekleidet "dressed" from intransitive verbs in be- (this prefix normally mean "supply with" / "make receive / undergo / suffer" the actions or state of the simple verb be- is prefixed to, so bekleiden means "dress somebody").
The Latin and OE suffixes mentioned by previous posters have a parallel in Slavic, e.g. Russian nosatyj "having a (big) nose" from nos "nose", rogatyj 'horned" from rog "horn", gorbatyj "hunchbacked" from gorb "hunchback". All these suffixes go back to the PIE adjective suffix *-to- that could be added to verbal roots to form the so-called "verbal adjective" which became a past (passive) participle in many IE languages, but which also combined with what were orignally stem vowels to form new suffixes like the *-a:to- we see in the Latin or Slavic examples.

[jal]

Dutch also has (adjective)be+noun+d(e) de bebaarde man = the bearded man de behaarde jongen=the hairy boy het krap behuisde kantoor= the office in a small building,
This is of course in addition to -ig which seems to be the standard translation of this -ed

The be- prefix is also used (mostly non-productively) with nouns to form verbs meaning "to supply with X", e.g. "beplanten", "bewateren". *"bebaarden" then would mean "to supply with a beard" and "bebaard" "having been supplied with a beard", though I think the examples merijn describes are not derived in this way, but rather directly. From "behaard" there's also a noun "beharing", which may be derived directly from the root "haar", or via the adjective.


JAL