infixes and postpositions

[Lionel Mandrake]

English has lots of prepositions - words which come before their objects. But there is at least one English postposition - a word which acts like a preposition but comes after its object. The word is "ago", as in "two years ago".

Latin is like English in this respect. The only Latin postpositions I know of are "causa" and "gratia", both of which take a genitive object and mean "for the sake of". A paradigm for this is "ars artis gratia", 'art for the sake of art'. (The MGM logo which says "ars gratia artis" is bad Latin.)

English has lots of prefixes (re-, un-, ...) and suffixes (-ible, -able, -ness, ...), which are tacked on at the beginning and end, respectively, of a word. Other languages have infixes, which are inserted into a word. The only English infix I know of is "fucking", as in "unbefuckinglievable" or "absofuckinglutely". :)

[Tyrs WolfDaemon]

1. You're right

Absoshittinglutely just doesn't sound right. Sounds like something went wrong in the bathroom.

[Lionel Mandrake]

2. You can try other present participles, but

"absopissinglutely" and "absofartinglutely" don't sound right, either. "Absogoddamnlutely" sounds a little better. I can imagine John Wayne saying this on camera.

The reading would be something like "AB-so-GOD-{pause)-DAMN-(pause}-LUTE-ly", which is a bit awkward compared to "AB-so-FUCK-ing-LUTE-ly".   :)

[dimbear]

3. Postfixes are rife in German, and little as I know of the language, I believe

infixes are key elements of Basque.

OTOH, one could give an argument that 'ago' is an adverb.

Two years ago.

Two years agone.

Two years past.

:)

[Lionel Mandrake]

5. Yes, German has lots of suffixes

and also lots of prefixes. I think most Indo-European languages are like that.

Some German verbs have separable prefixes, which are attached to the infinitive but not to the finite forms of the verb, if I remember correctly. (It has been a while since I studied German.)

I will give two reasons why I don't consider "ago" an adverb:

1. Adverbs can move around, whereas a preposition (or, presumably, a postposition) must appear just before (or just after) its object. I can say, "Lately I've been tired," or, "I've been tired lately." I can say, "I bought a car two years ago." I can't say, "*I bought a car ago two years." That's because "lately" is an adverb, and "ago" is not.

2. For "ago" to be an adverb, it would have to modify something other than a noun. This doesn't seem to be happening in the phrase "two years ago".

[dimbear]

7. Seems pretty convincing to me.

There are some sentences where you just can't put your finger on any particular part of speech, at least not with an ordinary amount of education. "He bothered me, and I gave him the what for."

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. "what for" is enigmatic.

It's not in the Oxford English Dictionary. The College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (1956) has the following entry:

what for,   1. for what purpose? why? 2. (Slang) punishment; especially, a whipping: as, I'll give him what for!

I conclude that "what for" is an Americanism, deemed not worthy of inclusion in the parochial OED.

The relationship, if any, between the two meanings given by Webster's is obscure. We are left with a noun phrase "what for" which can't be analyzed further.

[saras]

4. That's useful.

although I think it's un-fucking-believable rather than unbe-fucking-lievable

hallefuckinglulah

[Lionel Mandrake]

6. One of the nice things about "fucking"

is that you can stick it almost anywhere, as long as it feels right.
(double entendre intended)   :evilgrin: