302 The Loom of Language
The verb werden has two past participles, (a) warden when it is used as
a helper in passive expressions, (b) gewoiden when used as an
ordinary verb meaning to become *
(a) er zst gesehen warden he has been seen
(£) die Mikh ist saue* geworden the milk has become sour
When the English to signifies in order to the German uses urn zu>
eg erist auf dem Bahnhof, um seine Fiau abzuholen (he is at the station
to meet his wife) The same combination um . zu must be used when
an adjective before the infinitive is qualified by zu (too) or
gemg (enough), e g
er war zu schwach um aufzustehen he was too weak to get up
er hat Geld genug um sick zuruckzuziehen he has money enough to
retire,
GERMAN SYNTAX
The rules given on p. 287 do not exhaust the eccentricities of German
word-order. The behaviour of verb prefixes reinforces our impression of
dislocation Both in English and in French the prefix of a verb, e.g. be-
(in behold, etc) or re- (in recortnaitre = recognize) is inseparably married
to the root German has some ten of such inseparable verb prefixes; but
it also has others which detach themselves from the root and turn up in
' another part of the sentence Of the former, little needs to be said.
Some of them are recognizably like English verb prefixes, others are not
None of them except miss- has a clear-cut meaning This class is made
up of be-s ent, emp-s er-y ge-^ miss-, ver^ wider-* zer- The only useful
fact to know about them is that their past participles lack the ge- prefix,
eg er hat sich betrmken (he got drunk), er hat meme Karte noch mcht
erhalten (he has not yet received my card), er hat mich verraten (he has
betrayed me)
The separable German verbs carry preposition suffixes like those of
our words undergo^ uphold, overcome^ withstand In one group the
preposition is always detached, and comes behind the present or simple
past tense of the verb of a simple sentence, or of a principal clause, but
sticks to the verb root in a subordinate clause This is illustrated by
comparison of the simple and complex sentences in the pairs:
(a) Die Dame geht heute aus
The lady is going out to-day
Die Dame> die gerade ausgeht, tst krank
The lady who just went out is ill