A cognitive approach to the allegedly left-headed prefix verbs in German: Arguments for the interaction of prefixation and event-schema metonymy *

In this article, the much discussed problem of apparently left-headed German prefix verbs (e. g. besohlen ‘sole’, erschneidern ‘obtain by tailoring’, verschimmeln ‘become mouldy’) will be addressed from a cognitive perspective. It will be argued that nominal bases are metonymically reconceptualized as events inside the derivatives. This proposal has two advantages over previous approaches. First, it is not necessary to assign verbal or verbalizing properties to the pre-fixes be -, ent -, er -, ver -, and zer -, which have their origin in prepositions or adverbs. Secondly, an overgeneration of virtual verbs, i. e. of verbs which are not or no longer attested (e. g. * da-chen ‘roof’, † sohlen ‘sole’) is avoided because the metonymic and hence purely conceptual verbalization process takes place in the context of the inseparable prefixes. The prefixes neither change the word-class of their bases nor provide argument structures, which are predicted by a small set of conceptual event schemata. The function of the prefixes is rather to add semantic or aspectual information. Synchronic support for the proposal to be presented first of all comes from the fact that conversion, which historically preceded prefixation in German, is still active. Contrastive analyses of English and German non-derived denominal verbs will illustrate this point. Moreover, many prefix verbs still co-exist with non-derived denominal verbs (e. g. schot-tern (< Schotter ‘gravel, ballast’) vs. beschottern , entschottern , verschottern ). A more general observation is that the compatibility of denominal verbs with the holistic (or ‘synoptic’) perspective conveyed by the inseparable prefixes depends on the metonymic patterns underlying these verbs


Introduction
This article offers an innovative answer to the controversially discussed question where the verbal properties of prefix verbs with non-verbal bases come from.In English, prefixes generally preserve the lexical category of the derivatives they form, e. g. friendlyA  unfriendlyA, argumentN  counter-argumentN.In this respect, they differ from suffixes, which always determine the category of their output and thus constitute the heads of the derivatives they form.Prefixes deriving verbs from nouns have a special status because they seem to change the wordclass of their bases, e. g. cageN  encagev, witchN  bewitchV.If these prefixes -like suffixes -had the status of heads, they would violate the Righthand-Head Rule (RHR) postulated by Williams (1981: 248).This rule states that "[i]n morphology, we define the head of a morphologically complex word to be the righthand member of that word."Since prefixation -as compared to the dominance of conversion and -ize/-ify suffixation -plays a subordinate role in Modern English verb formation, there are only a few exceptions to the RHR, e. g. bewitch, encage, dethrone, disarm, unmask.1However, in languages like German, where verbs are more productively derived from nouns by means of prefixes or particles, systematic exceptions to the RHR would have to be accounted for.Thus, the focus of this article will be on German prefix verbs -especially on those displaying the inseparable prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-in whose context nominal bases occur quite frequently.
Analyses of verbal prefixes combining with non-verbal bases roughly fall into two types.Analyses of the first type (e. g.Lieber 1981;Selkirk 1982;Olsen 1986Olsen , 1990;;Eschenlohr 1999;Štekauer 2000;Donalies 2005) allow right-and left-headed constituents to determine the grammatically relevant properties of complex words.Thus, class-changing prefixes are assigned head status, and it is accepted that prefix verbs with non-verbal bases constitute exceptions to the RHR.Analyses of the second type (e. g.Marchand 1969;Wunderlich 1987Wunderlich , 1997;;Scalise 1988;Stiebels 1998;von Heusinger/Schwarze 2006) are based on the assumption that nonverbal bases of prefixes are formally converted into hypothetical verbs prior to prefixation.Thus, prefix verbs displaying non-verbal bases become compatible with the RHR.The latter position is also reflected by the notion of Präfixkonversion ('prefix conversion') introduced by Fleischer/Barz (1992: 308) for verbs like bewirten 'host', verarzten 'give someone medical treatment', or entkeimen 'sterilize'.
Given these routes to prefix verbs, two fundamental problems remain.As far as the first option is concerned, the fact that the German prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-have their origin in prepositions and adverbs (Habermann 2015(Habermann : 1805) ) calls their verbalizing potential into question.A problem with the alternative view is an overgeneration of hypothetical verbs, i. e. of verbs which are either obsolete (e. g. †sohlen 'sole', †helmen 'helmet' as in besohlen, behelmen) or which have never been attested (e. g. *dachen (< Dach 'roof') as in bedachen, *muttern (< Mutter 'mother') as in bemuttern).In other words, a proposal according to which conversion takes place prior to prefixation would have to account for the (synchronic) non-existence of these unprefixed verbs.
The aim of this article is to present a new proposal according to which well entrenched material concepts (i.e. concepts expressed by simplex nouns like Sohle 'sole', Dach 'roof', Schimmel 'mould', to name but a few) are metonymically reanalysed as events in the context of the inseparable prefixes. 2This proposal is based on the cognitive view that noun-verb conversion is an instance of metonymy, or, more precisely, of event-schema metonymy (Kövecses/Radden 1998;Dirven 1999;Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez/Pérez Hernández 2001;Bauer 2018b;Baeskow 2021Baeskow , 2022aBaeskow , 2022b)).According to this view, the role played by the participant a base noun denotes is so salient for the event to be expressed that this participant can metonymically represent the event as a whole, e. g. to shampoo one's hair  INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION, to bottle the wine  GOAL FOR CAUSED MOTION. 3The metonymic construal of events is based on event schemata which are defined over a small set of thematic roles and hence make predictions as to the argument structures of metonymically created verbs.As far as German prefix verbs are concerned, it will be shown that event-schema metonymy interacts with prefixation in that the inseparable prefixes operate on classes of metonymically analysable events.Rather than changing the word-class of their bases from noun to verb, these prefixes impose a synoptic perspective in the sense of Dewell (2015) on the metonymically construed events.In this function, they focus on event-internal factors like direction of motion, energy, or attention, an entity's transformation in a setting, or a moment of change, which is more in line with their genesis. 4  Diachronic support for the proposal that prefixation interacts with event-schema metonymy comes from the fact that the reanalysis of material concepts or qualities as events without overt derivational markers has been an option at least since the Middle High German period.As pointed out by Eschenlohr (1999: 104), conversion even preceded prefixation in the history of the German language.Synchronic evidence for the cognitive proposal comes from two factors which will be dealt with in this article.First, noun-verb conversion is still active in Germanthough not as productive as in English -and all the metonymic relations identified for English non-derived denominal verbs in Baeskow (2021) are also available for German.Secondly, quite a few non-derived denominal verbs still co-exist with semantically similar prefix verbs, e. g. hämmern vs. behämmern (< Hammer 'hammer'), wässern vs. bewässern, entwässern, verwässern (< Wasser 'water').
As far as the data collection is concerned, 319 German prefix verbs displaying nominal bases were extracted from six sources, namely Balmer/Brennenstuhl (1986); Fleischer/Barz (1992); Donalies (2005); Dewell (2015); the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (DWDS); and the German Web 2020 (deTenTen20) provided by Sketch Engine.The DWDS is online accessible, and lists of prefix verbs become available by entering the sequences be-, ent-, er-, ver-, or zer-into the search field.In Sketch Engine, word lists were created for verbs beginning with these prefixes, and the first 1000 hits (per prefix) were searched for types of denominal prefix verbs.A list of data thus collected, which also illustrates the distribution of the prefixes over the metonymic patterns that underlie the verbalized nouns, is provided in the appendix.This list does not claim to be exhaustive, but it is large enough to reveal tendencies.
The article is structured as follows: Section 2 offers an overview of conversion as event-schema metonymy and its relevance for German prefix verbs.In section 3, evidence for the interaction 3 Throughout this article, metonymic (and metaphorical) relations as well as cognitive terminology (e. g.LAND-MARK) and concepts (e. g.TOOL) will be represented in small caps.Beyond metonymic relations, thematic roles such as Instrument or Proto-Agent will be capitalized. 4Some of these factors have been subsumed under the label of Aktionsart (e. g.Deutschbein 1939;Zifonun 1973;Fleischer/Barz 1992).
ISSN 1615-3014 6 of event-schema metonymy and prefixation in German prefix verbs with nominal bases will be provided.Section 3.1 shows that although noun-verb conversion is less productive in German, it is based on the same metonymic relations as in English.In section 3.2, the synchronic coexistence of non-derived denominal verbs and semantically similar prefix verbs will be discussed in order to support the view that both types of verbs are subject to event-schema metonymy.Section 3.2.1 provides a brief overview of diachronic and synchronic properties of the inseparable German verbal prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-and introduces two perspectival modes which according to Dewell (2015) underlie the conceptualization of events, namely sequential and synoptic.In section 3.2.2, a case study involving the polysemous verb schottern (< Schotter 'gravel, ballast') and three prefixed competitors is intended to show that the prefixes do not have a verbalizing function, but impose a synoptic perspective on the conceptually reanalysed events.A generalization proposed in section 4 is that the distribution of the inseparable prefixes depends on the metonymic patterns underlying types of verbalized nouns.Section 5 summarizes the insights gained in this article and provides a brief outlook on the role of metonymy in word-formation, including limits and prospects.

Conversion as metonymy and implications for German prefix verbs
Representatives of Cognitive Linguistics recognized a long time ago that metonymy and metaphor, which were traditionally conceived of as figures of speech, are omnipresent in everyday discourse (e. g.Lakoff/Johnson 1980;Lakoff 1987;Grady 1997;Koch 1999).Thus, for example, the names of famous creators can be used to refer to these people's oeuvre (He is reading Shakespeare  PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT), and conceptual metaphors such as  Brdar-Szabó (2014: 332), the basic function of metonymy is that of a "mental shortcut" which allows speakers to refer to concepts whose expression would otherwise be linguistically complex in a more economical way (e.g. the ham sandwich vs. the person ordering a ham sandwich).5 A semantic alternative to zero-derivation as a morphological process is proposed already by Langacker (1987: 473f.).Although Langacker does not describe conversion as metonymy, he observes that deverbal nouns like cheat may be the result of "semantic extension".However, the observation that the semantic classes of English non-derived denominal verbs identified by Clark/Clark (1979) are reanalysable as metonymic relations was first made explicit by Kövecses/Radden (1998).The major classes, which Clark/Clark label according to the case roles (cf.Fillmore 1968) of their parent nouns, comprise locatum verbs (saddle the horse), location verbs (bottle the wine), duration verbs (summer in Paris), agent verbs (author the book), goal verbs (orphan the children), and instrument verbs (hammer, taxi).If these verbs are reanalyzed metonymically, the role played by the base-noun participant is the metonymic vehicle which provides mental access to an event in which this participant plays a salient role (i.e. the metonymic target).6Thus, for example, the metonymic relation underlying verbs like to hammer is INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION, whereas verbs of the type to bottle are reanalysable as GOAL FOR CAUSED MOTION.
While Kövecses/Radden deal with conversion only marginally, the metonymic approach to noun-verb conversion was elaborated by Dirven (1999) and applied to innovative denominal verbs from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) by Baeskow (2021).As observed by Dirven (1999), event-schema metonymy (i.e. noun-verb conversion in traditional terminology) is describable on the basis of a small set of schematic events which are defined by configurations of thematic roles and which -as we shall see in section 3.1 -are also applicable in German.The schemata represented in (1) are slightly modified variants of those postulated by Dirven (1999: 285).
( These representations differ from Dirven's event schemata in two ways.First, the essive schema (or schema of "beingness") postulated by Dirven for verbs like to author or to nurse has been omitted because these verbs are highly dynamic and profile the Agent rather than stative relations of beingness.Secondly, three of the event-defining roles -namely the Agent and the Patient of the action schema and the transfer schema as well as the Recipient of the transfer schema -are conceived of here as proto-roles in the sense of Dowty (1991) and Primus (1999Primus ( , 2012)).
Following Primus (2012: 32), it is assumed here that the Proto-Patient is always defined relative to a Proto-Agent's activity.Thus, this complex role only occurs in the action and transfer schema.By contrast, the Patient of the motion schema may undergo a change of position or change of state without being causally affected by a Proto-Agent, and the Patient of the location schema is spatially located (e. g.Pete motelled in Australia).7 A further important aspect adopted from Radden/Dirven (2007: 272) is that the event schemata can be instantiated in different "worlds of experience".For example, while the action schema abstracts over events in the force-dynamic world in which a human agent deliberately and responsibly acts on an entity or individual -possibly by using an instrument and performing the action in a certain manner -motion can occur either in the force-dynamic world or in the material world.If it occurs in the force-dynamic world, an Agent either instigates its own motion (self-motion) or causes another entity to move towards a Goal (caused motion).If it occurs in the material world, it is not induced by an Agent (e. g.The ball rolled down the hill).As far as non-derived denominal verbs are concerned, it is important to note that motion towards a Goal can be metaphorically interpreted as an entity's change of state (e. g.Kastovsky 1996: 205).Examples from the OED are to scapegoat someone (GOAL FOR CAUSED MOTION) or to gel "become a gel" (GOAL FOR MO-TION).The image schema underlying both a change of position and a change of state is that of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL.If a quality appears as the Goal, it is also reinterpretable as a final state (e. g. to clean, to empty).
While there are only a few formal constraints on noun-verb conversion in English and German8 , the interpretation of (innovative) non-derived denominal verbs is mainly guided by three factors.These factors comprise the discourse context, which also provides the syntactic context (cf.Clark /Clark 1979;Aronoff 1980;Neef 2005;Schönefeld 2018), world knowledge as to the base nouns (cf.Clark /Clark 1979;Karius 1985;Kiparsky 1997;Štekauer 1996, 2005 (1976), e. g.English: hammer, bicycle, saddle; German: Bürste 'brush', Harke 'rake', Schaufel 'shovel'.Since most speakers know how to interact with these objects in everyday life, cognitively grounded knowledge accounts for the effortless conceptualization of material concepts as events.Moreover, as shown by Baeskow (2022aBaeskow ( , 2022b)), this kind of knowledge is also relevant for the mental simulation (or imagination) of events in which no referent of the base noun, but only a multi-modally accessible 'impression' of this concept is implied.Such an impression may be the perceptually salient shape of an object (e. g.The car pretzeled itself around a tree), an acoustic signal (e. g.Someone was hammering on the door), a movement typically performed when interacting with an object (e. g.She bicycled her legs), or a dynamic mental image like that of a hovering helicopter (e. g. parents helicoptering over their children).
However, despite its creative potential, event-schema metonymy is not fully productive.For example, while to bottle the wine is well-established, phrases like ?to glass (the wine) or ?to vase (the flowers) are not attested although they are perfectly interpretable.While it has to be admitted that there are accidental gaps in the system, explanations which cover at least a subset of possible but non-existent verbs are provided by Rimell (2012: 154) and Baeskow (2022b: 610).As pointed out by Bauer (2018b: 179f.), gaps in the paradigms of figurative readings are as common as gaps in the paradigms of derivational affixes (?possibleness, ?swanling).For example, although nouns like head, hand, or foot can be used metonymically to refer to persons, nouns denoting body parts do not systematically motivate such PART-FOR-WHOLE readings.
ISSN 1615-3014 9 Before we proceed to the analyses, a remark as to the status of event-schema metonymy is required.As pointed out by a reviewer, a problem with the metonymic approach to conversion is that vehicle and target belong to different types of categories (i.e. THING and EVENT, respectively).Thus, the shift between a participant and an event is conceptually more complex than metonymic reanalysis.It should be noted, however, that according to Dirven (1999), eventschema metonymy is a special case of metonymy.Unlike reference metonymy, which serves to identify an anonymous individual in a communicative situation (The hamburger left without paying  ORDERED FOOD FOR CUSTOMER), event-schema metonymy operates over schematic events at a higher level of abstraction, namely that of predicate-argument structure; cf.Schönefeld (2005) for a detailed discussion.Moreover, as argued by Cetnarowska (2011), a metonymy like We don't need another Einstein also correlates with a categorial shift, which in this case involves different subcategories of the category THING (proper noun  common noun).
3 Evidence for the interaction of event-schema metonymy and prefixation in German prefix verbs with nominal bases

Conversion as event-schema metonymy in German and English
The fact that noun-verb conversion (or event-schema metonymy in terms of Cognitive Linguistics) is active in Modern High German synchronically supports the hypothesis that non-verbal bases occurring in the context of German inseparable prefixes, too, are metonymically reconceptualized as events.German displays the major semantic classes of converted verbs -namely instrument, locatum, goal, patient, agent and manner verbs -as well as a small number of means verbs, duration verbs, and stative location verbs.In the following sections, the major classes will be discussed in comparison with English.Each class will be labelled by its underlying metonymic relation.9 As a preliminary, it should be pointed out that German infinitival -en is no obstacle to the metonymic reinterpretation of non-verbal bases as events because there is a consensus in the pertinent literature that this morpheme does not have the status of a word-formation element (cf.for example Fleischer/Barz 1992: 44;Vogel 1996: 28f.).In this respect it differs from the morpheme -ier-and its variants -isier-, -ifizier-, which typically verbalize non-native bases although native bases occur sporadically (Eisenberg 2012: 293;Eisenberg 2020: 298).Verbs like betonieren 'concrete', archivieren 'archive', stolzieren 'strut' etc. are explicitly excluded here from the metonymic approach because of their overt derivational marker, which -unlike infinitival -en or the inseparable prefixes -determines the verbal properties of its output.

Instrument for Action/Motion
As in English, the base nouns of many instrument verbs denote basic-level objects in the sense of Rosch et al. (1976).The effortless interpretability of concepts like HAMMER 'hammer', SCHAUFEL 'shovel', or BÜRSTE 'brush' as events can be explained by considering that most speakers share not only general (or encyclopaedic) knowledge as to these objects, but also know ISSN 1615-3014 10 how to physically interact with them.This kind of cognitively grounded knowledge can be activated to mentally simulate events in which these objects play a salient role; cf.Baeskow (2022a)  .If these verbs co-exist with denominal verbs, the latter convey connotative nuances which are not inherent to the former.For example, in English, the verb eyeball 'to stare at from a short distance away in an intimidating or disapproving manner' (OED) conveys a higher degree of intensity than look or watch.In German, the semantically similar verb äugen (< Auge 'eye') differs from sehen or schauen in that it is predicted of animals in its literal sense -although a metaphorical transfer to the human domain is possible, e. g.Vorsichtig, ängstlich äugte er nach allen Seiten 'Cautiously, anxiously, he looked in all directions' (DWDS).In its metaphorical reading, the verb also signals intensity, but the negative connotation ascribed to eyeball by the OED is missing.The intensity of perception is rather due to distrust or curiosity (DWDS).
The German verb buckeln differs from the reflexive verb sich verbeugen 'to bow' in that it implies submissiveness.

Locatum for Caused Motion and Goal for (Caused) Motion
A further metonymic pattern that is well represented in both languages is LOCATUM FOR CAUSED MOTION.As in English, most locatum verbs display an applicative (or ornative) reading.Typical instances of the motivating concepts (i.e. the metonymic vehicles) are movable entities -or "placeables" in Clark/Clark's (1979: 791) terminology -each of which has a function with respect to the Goal it is brought into contact with.Thus, for example, a saddle has a function with respect to a horse, but not vice versa.Functionally relevant entities to be located with respect to other participants are either concrete objects (e. g. satteln 'saddle', kacheln 'tile', polstern 'upholster') or substances (e. g. ölen 'oil', fetten 'grease', wässern 'water', botoxen 'botox').In both languages, concepts of the category SPICE are suitable mental shortcuts to activities that consist in adding ingredients to dishes, e. g. salzen 'salt', pfeffern 'pepper', zuckern 'sugar', trüffeln 'truffle'.A relatively new German locatum verb which was borrowed from English is chippen 'to implant a microchip under the skin of an animal, which contains the registration data of the owner and the animal' (Steffens/al-Wadi 2014: 83f.).To a lesser extent, the class of locatum verbs also comprises privative verbs.In this case, the Locatum is the entity which is caused to be removed from a Source entity of which it is an integral part.Examples from German are schälen 'peel', lausen 'delouse', sich schuppen 'scale', köpfen 'behead', häuten 'skin'.These verbs pattern with English skin, peel, feather, bark, or pit.
The Goal is also reinterpretable as a final shape or a final state.Especially in English, there are quite a few denominal verbs whose vehicle concepts have a perceptually salient shape.If this shape is mapped onto an entity, a (metaphorical) change-of-state reading is obtained.Among the English 20 th century neologisms from the OED there are verbs like mushroom '(cause to) expand into the shape of a mushroom', sickle 'of red blood cells: to become crescent-or sickleshaped', dog-leg 'of a course, route, etc., or a person following it: to turn or bend', or rosette 'cause (cells, parasites, etc.) to form a rosette or rosettes'.Although these examples suggest that the underlying metonymic pattern GOAL 'final shape' FOR (CAUSED) MOTION is used more creatively in English, it is also attested in German.Examples of German denominal verbs exploiting the primary concept SHAPE are bündeln 'bundle', knoten 'knot', würfeln 'cut into cubes', or stapeln 'pile', which display more literal meanings.Moreover, in contrast to English, some of these goal verbs are reflexives, e. g. sich kringeln 'coil', sich kugeln 'roll over', sich wellen 'curl; become wavy', sich türmen (< Turm 'tower') 'pile (up)', or sich locken 'curl'.In each case, the visually perceptible distinctive shape of the underlying object outranks this object's function in salience and serves as a reference point for the event construal.
The set of German goal verbs also comprises unaccusative verbs like schimmeln 'mould', rosten 'rust', rußen 'soot', schäumen 'foam', or klumpen 'lump', which denote internally caused events in the material world.According to Levin/Rappaport Hovav (1994: 52), events are internally caused if an entity or substance undergoes a change of state without the intervention of an Agent (e. g.Das Brot schimmelt 'The loaf is getting mouldy').In their unaccusative reading, these verbs only activate the motion schema (GOAL FOR MOTION).Verbs like krümeln, bröseln 'crumble', or splittern 'splinter' conceptualize the Goal as scattered particles that detach from a substance or entity.
The subset of goal verbs created from human roles such as fool, beggar, knight, orphan, or widow is restricted in both languages though slightly better represented in English.Established German verbs listed by Marchand (1964: 111) are knechten 'enslave' and narren 'fool'.More recently, speakers of German borrowed the English verb to friend in its innovative reading 'to add (a person) to a list of friends or contacts on a social networking website', e. g.Jeder darf sie frienden und unfrienden, wie er lustig ist 'Everyone may friend and unfriend her as they please' (tip.berlin.de).As observed in Baeskow (2017), frienden, which contrasts with sich mit jemandem befreunden 'become friends with someone', is one of a set of verbal anglicisms that allow for a distinction between virtual-world and real-world activities.Further examples are chatten vs. schwätzen, liken vs. mögen, haten vs. hassen, or followen vs. folgen.

Proto-Patient for Action
Verbs created by the metonymic relation PROTO-PATIENT FOR ACTION are those whose basenoun concepts are classifiable as either effected objects (i.e. objects caused to come into existence by a Proto-Agent) or affected objects (i.e. entities which are acted on by a Proto-Agent without being caused to undergo a change of state).It is this dependency on a Proto-Agent in the force-dynamic world that distinguishes patient verbs from goal verbs like schimmeln 'mould', krümeln 'crumble', or splittern 'splinter', which occur without a Proto-Agent's intervention.Both English and German display patient verbs that highlight effected and affected objects.Examples of English verbs highlighting effected objects are muscle up 'develop larger muscles', pothole 'produce potholes in (ground, a roadway, etc.)', newspaper (in the sense of 'write for a newspaper'), pastiche (in the sense of 'create a pastiche or parody'), or selfie 'take a selfie'.In German, classical patient verbs formed from the perspective of effected objects are buttern 'make butter', wursten 'make sausages', käsen 'make cheese', reimen 'rhyme', or münzen 'coin'.German verbs whose base nouns denote representations in the sense of Dowty (1991: 569) surface as non-derived patient verbs only if they were borrowed from English, e. g. filmen 'film', texten 'text', scripten 'script', scannen 'scan', podcasten 'podcast', storyboarden 'storyboard'.The relative salience of the effected object also manifests itself in unergative verbs of the type kalben 'calve', fohlen 'foal', lammen 'lamb'.However, the pattern according to which ISSN 1615-3014 13 the young animal (i.e. the Proto-Patient of the action schema) metonymically stands for the activity of giving birth to this animal is unproductive in both languages.
As indicated above, Proto-Patients are also interpretable as affected objects.As such, they are part of the objective aimed at by an Agent (cf.Primus 1999: 32).Verbalized nouns that give relative salience to affected objects are first of all those which denote activities related to the catching of animals (e. g.English: mouse, fish, eel, snoek, yabby, otter; German: fischen 'fish', mausen11 'mouse', krebsen (literally) 'catch crayfish') or the gathering of natural products (e.g.English: mushroom, fowl, apple (< fir apple) 'gather fir cones', blackberry, egg 'collect (wild fowls') eggs'; German: ernten 'harvest', heuen 'hay', beeren 'berry').This pattern has been slightly more productive in English than in German.Following Marchand (1963: 177), it is assumed here that meals metonymically conceptualized as events are affected objects, too.
From a contrastive perspective it is interesting that English displays a number of 'verbs of entertainment' related to games (ping-pong, pat-a-cake, bridge), sports (golf, cricket, ski), music (guitar, fiddle, drum), dancing (quadrille, boogie, boogaloo), and other leisure activities (party, potlatch, rally, winter-sport).The patient-like character of these verbs manifests itself in collocations like play bridge, play golf, play the guitar, do/dance the boogie, or throw a party, which signal affectedness because games, dances, or parties do not unfold independently of human agents.Similarly, musical instruments do not produce sounds on their own.The construal of events in which someone plays a musical instrument is slightly more productive in German (e. g. trompeten, flöten, geigen, trommeln, klampfen, orgeln 'play the trumpet, flute, violin, drum, guitar, organ').In both languages, some verbs formed from the names of musical instruments also have metaphorical interpretations, and the images thus created may differ considerably, e. g.English to trombone 'move to and fro as in playing the trombone' (OED) vs. German etwas (aus-)posaunen 'make internal information public'.While the English image is based on the perceptually salient arm movements typically performed by someone playing the trombone, the German metaphor evokes the sound made by this instrument.
As far as German verbs formed from the names of games are concerned, Marchand (1964: 113, 117) lists kegeln 'bowl', skaten 'play skat', würfeln 'dice', dialectal binokeln, and pokern 'play poker', the latter of which was borrowed from English.A neologism to be added to this subclass is gamen (< English game), which developed a specific meaning 'engage in computer games' in German and hence contrasts with the more general verb spielen 'play'.A subclass which is extended productively according to the English model is the one containing verbs of dancing, e. g. twisten, steppen, rocken, rappen, raven, hip-hoppen, breakdancen (cf.Baeskow 2018). 12Nouns ending in a vowel are excluded for phonological reasons (*boogie-en, *tango-en, *boogaloo-en).The only native verb of dancing is walzen, which occurs in Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther in the sense of 'to dance a waltz'. 13 Generally, however, speakers of German make use of the syntactic phrase X tanzen (e. g.Walzer tanzen, Tango tanzen), which in English constitutes an alternative (do/dance the boogie).

Means for Action
The extension of a further class, namely that of means verbs, is motivated by the need to verbalize for example the use of popular online services or the application of approved methods.
Although German verbs like googeln, skypen, twittern, facebooken, zoomen, or airbnben are influenced by English because the motivating concepts were developed in the United States (cf.Baeskow 2017), verbs such as faxen 'fax', kabeln 'cable', or funken 'radio' show that the metonymic relation MEANS FOR ACTION was already established before the Digital Age.As in English (e. g.Marconi, Rolf, Hobday), some verbs are created from the names of inventors, e. g. morsen (< (Samuel F. B.) Morse) 'morse', röntgen (< (Wilhelm Konrad) Röntgen) 'x-ray', kneippen (< (Sebastian) Kneipp) 'undergo a Kneipp therapy', or, more recently, riestern (< (Walter) Riester) 'make private provision for old age with a Riester pension'.From a cognitive point of view, the inventor metonymically stands for the method he or she developed, and this method then serves as a reference point for the activity of applying this method.

Manner of Action for Action and Manner of Motion for Motion
Means verbs of the type Hobday, röntgen are to be semantically distinguished from verbs like Houdini (< (Harry) Houdini), Wayne (< (John) Wayne), Richard Nixon (Clark/Clark 1979), hegeln (< (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) Hegel), genschern (< (Hans-Dietrich) Genscher, the former German Foreign Minister), or merkeln (< (Angela) Merkel), which are created by the metonymic relation MANNER OF ACTION FOR ACTION.In these cases, the metonymic vehicle merely functions as a tertium comparationis.As pointed out by Pang (2010Pang ( : 1338)), eponymy is first of all a WHOLE-FOR-PART relation because a person's biography (or macronarrative) stands for one life-narrative, or, more precisely, for one "act or behavior embedded in one of the life-narratives" which is (contextually) salient. 14Such an act or behaviour is referred to as a minimal narrative by Pang.Since a person's life-narrative is a complex network of information, it is not surprising that speakers of different languages may foreground and verbalize different minimal narratives ascribed to a personality.For example, according to the website fremdwort.de,the verb to Merkel was coined by the British press in order to denote an event in which someone expresses their disapproval in a way that is ascribed to the former federal chancellor Angela Merkel.In Germany, a different biographical aspect ascribed to Angela Merkel serves as a reference point to the event construal, namely her alleged reluctance to make decisions.Eponymous verbs are likely to disappear if the name bearer ceases to be a focus of public interest.German verbs like barzeln (< (Rainer) Barzel), genschern, or beckern (< (Boris) Becker) are a case in point (cf.Neef 2005: 111).English manner-of-action verbs like to Uncle Tom, to Micawber, to Mickey Mouse (OED), to Superman (Davies (2018-), or to Sherlock Holmes (nzetc.victoria.ac.nz) and German schlumpfen 'smurf' reveal that the verbal eponyms may also be created from the names of fictional characters, each of which is ascribed a set of life-narratives by its creator from which (contextually) salient minimal narratives can be selected and verbalized.
If the motivating concept is of the category ANIMAL, a behavioural trait or cluster of behavioural traits the animal is conventionally or contextually perceived to display is mapped onto a person's way of acting (e. g.English: watchdog, tomcat, pussy; German: hamstern 'hoard', bocken (< Bock 'ram') 'sulk', stieren (< Stier 'bull') 'stare', büffeln (< Büffel 'buffalo') 'cram') or a person's way of moving (e. g.English: crayfish, beetle, eel; German: robben 'crawl', tigern 'pace (like a tiger)', dackeln 'move about like a dachshund').Again, there may be languagespecific contrasts.For example, while English to crayfish conveys the meaning components 'to move like a crayfish' or 'to act in a cowardly or scheming manner' (OED), the corresponding German verb krebsen in its manner reading conveys the image of someone labouring unsuccessfully.Similarly, to eel maps the animal's habit of moving sinuously onto a human being, whereas German sich aalen means 'to stretch out comfortably', 'to loll (about)'.In both languages, the metonymic relation MANNER OF MOTION FOR MOTION also underlies verbs created from material concepts that evoke dynamic mental images, such as to cartwheel, to screwball, to yo-yo (up and down) in English or eiern (< Ei 'egg') 'wobble', wogen (< Woge 'wave') '(poetically or metaphorically) surge, welter', kreisen (< Kreis 'circle'), kurven (< Kurve 'curve') in German.A more innovative verb coined by Erwin Strittmatter is pfeilen (< Pfeil 'arrow'), which depicts the swallows' way of moving through the air like arrows; cf.Fleischer/Barz (2012: 436).

Proto-Agent for Action
The metonymic relation MANNER OF ACTION FOR ACTION presented in the previous section helps to distinguish between verbs of the type to fool (about), to doll (up), to Donald Trump, which only allow for a manner interpretation, and verbs formed from occupational nouns like to nurse, to butler, or to nanny, which highlight the Proto-Agent although a manner reading is contextually available, too.Consider for example the following sentences from the Internet: (3) a. Servants would normally live in the home of their employer, but in this case, it would seem likely that he butlered at a large Victorian house just across the road called Spring Cottage […] (davenportstation.org.uk)b.The waiters and waitresses also butlered a variety of other appetizers. (tripadvisor.co.uk) Without contextual information, the concept BUTLER evokes a scenario in which a (male) individual serves another individual of superior rank in a feudal setting.Serving is the activity or ISSN 1615-3014 16 function which typically defines the role of a butler.In (3a), the context signals that the referent of he was a butler by profession and hence displayed class-membership.The metonymic relation underlying the verb to butler in this sentence is PROTO-AGENT FOR ACTION.In sentence (3b), which is part of a customer review of a noble restaurant, the concept BUTLER provides mental access to a similar scenario, namely that of serving.However, the Proto-Agents of the sentence -namely the referents of the waiters and waitresses -are not professional butlers, but perceived to serve the appetizers in a butler-like manner.These examples show that the interpretation of an occupational noun as an agent or manner verb strongly depends on the context.
As far as German is concerned, verbs like quacksalbern 'quack', lümmeln 'sprawl', schulmeistern (< Schulmeister 'schoolmaster') 'lecture', doktern, and even schauspielern (< Schauspieler 'actor') 'play, act' are considered here to be manner-of-action verbs rather than true agent verbs because they denote temporary activities in which an individual is perceived to act like a quack, a schoolmaster, an actor, etc.Moreover, as pointed out by Marchand (1963: 174), verbs like these tend to display a pejorative connotation which, however, is not necessarily inherent to the motivating concepts.For example, the verb schauspielern evokes an everyday scenario in which someone 'plays a role' that does not correspond with his or her real character or nature.
In other words, a person pretends to be what he/she is not in order to deceive other people.
Significantly, the set of non-derived denominal verbs following the pattern PROTO-AGENT FOR ACTION is restricted in both languages.In the pertinent literature, two explanations are offered for the underrepresentation of the Proto-Agent in noun-verb conversion and hence of a participant that is "by default given more prominence in linguistic structures than participants in other roles" (Himmelmann/Primus 2015: 48).First, English (as well as German) displays a large number of deverbal agent nouns formed from simplex verbs.If these nouns were reverbalized (e. g. *to teacher, *to baker; *lehrern, *bäckern), the resulting denominal verbs would be synonymous with the verbs that served as an input to the verbalization process (cf.Jespersen 1942: 99;Marchand 1969: 373;Clark/Clark 1979: 799f.;Bauer 1983: 279).The second explanation is directly related to the first one.As observed by Clark/Clark (1979: 799f.), a verb like butcher -to which we may add for example butler, author, lawyer, chauffeur, monger, puppeteer and German agent verbs like schriftstellern (< Schriftsteller 'author') 'compose literary texts', schreinern/tischlern (< Schreiner/Tischler 'carpenter') 'do carpentry', schneidern (< Schneider 'tailor'), gärtnern (< Gärtner 'gardener'), or schiedsrichtern (< Schiedsrichter 'umpire') -lack a verbal ancestor.In each case, the occupation serves as a mental shortcut to the activity or a set of activities typically associated with it.A further, more general explanation for the underrepresentation of the Agent is that event-schema metonymy provides speakers with the means to give relative salience to minor participants such as the Instrument or the Goal and to create events from those participants which would otherwise have to be expressed periphrastically, e. g. to bottle the wine vs. to put the wine in bottles; den Nagel in die Wand hämmern 'hammer the nail into the wall' vs. den Nagel mit dem Hammer in die Wand schlagen 'drive the nail into the wall with/using a hammer'.The criterion of economy of expression is vital to the formation and interpretation of non-derived denominal verbs.
The contrastive analyses performed in this section have shown that non-derived denominal verbs follow the same metonymic patterns in English and German.As compared with the wealth of denominal verbs listed by Clark/Clark (1979) and the considerable number of ISSN 1615-3014 17 20 th /21 st -century neologisms from the OED (cf.Baeskow 2021), the inventory of German converted verbs is more restricted.However, the overall picture changes if we take into consideration that event-schema metonymy is also operative in more complex German verbs which according to Fleischer/Barz (1992: 308) are the product of Präfixkonversion ("prefix conversion").This point will be discussed in the following sections.

3.2
The co-existence of unprefixed and prefixed verbs As pointed out in section 1, conversion competes with native prefixation especially in German.
Although quite a few German prefix verbs -especially those displaying inseparable prefixeshave non-verbal bases, it will be shown in this section that these verbs do not violate the RHR because their bases, like those of converted verbs, are reinterpretable as events.So far, this proposal is in line with Wunderlich (1987Wunderlich ( , 1997) ) and Stiebels (1998).However, it differs from these approaches in two significant ways.First, it allows us to dispense with the rather complex theoretical apparatus required by these authors because the reinterpretation of material concepts (i.e. nouns) as events is again a matter of event-schema metonymy -as in the case of conversion proper. 15Secondly, the metonymic reconceptualization does not take place prior to prefixation, but inside the derivative.Thus, the generation of virtual verbs which are not or no longer attested outside the derivatives (e. g. *dachen, *schriften, †sohlen, †golden) is precluded.Before this proposal is presented in more detail, a brief overview of the diachronic and synchronic properties of the inseparable prefixes is required.

Diachronic and synchronic properties of inseparable verbal prefixes
The German inseparable prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-have their origin in local adverbs or prepositions.According to Habermann (2015Habermann ( : 1805)), they show the highest degree of desemanticization because they lost not only their stress, but also their status as free morphemes.In this respect they differ from particles like aus-(e.g. ausschlüpfen 'hatch out'), durch-(e.g. durchschimmern 'shimmer through'), or herum-(e.g. herumsitzen 'sit around'), which are less grammaticalized and still exist as prepositions or adverbs. 16Verbal particles bear primary stress and become separated from their bases in verb-first and verb-second constructions (cf.for example Ackerman/Webelhuth 1998: 314; König/Gast 2007: 277-279; Eisenberg 2020: 265).In the present study, the focus will be on inseparable prefixes, which are more relevant for the problem of headedness outlined in section 1 because they occur much more frequently in the context of non-verbal bases than separable ones.17 According to the etymological dictionary of German compiled by Pfeifer et al. (1993), which is online accessible, the prefix be-, which co-existed with Old High German/Middle High German bī (New High German bei 'at, near'), lost its independence already in Old High German when the adverb bī assumed a prepositional function.Because of its original spatial meaning "um…herum" ('around'), the inseparable prefix predominantly signals that there is a strong impact on an object which affects this object as a whole and which is grammatically reflected by the transitivity of be-verbs.
As shown by Fritz (2011: 45f.), who provides an etymological treatise of originally local adverbs, be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-reached the last of four diachronic stages, which is characterized by loss of stress, phonological change, and formal independence of adverbs or adpositions.
The diachronic development sketched above shows that the prefixes never displayed verbal properties.This state of affairs raises the question where the verbalizing potential synchronically ascribed to these morphemes should come from (cf.Wunderlich 1987: 325 andOlsen 1990: 43 for a similar view).Moreover, since denominal verbs like hämmern 'hammer', lüften 'ventilate', wässern 'water', salzen 'salt', schimmeln 'mould' and many more are well-established in German (cf.section 3.1), no further verbalization by means of prefixes is required.As predicted by Lieber's (2004: 161) Redundancy Restriction, affixes do not add (semantic) information that is already inherent to their bases.Nevertheless, each of these verbs may co-occur with at least one of the inseparable prefixes.An important link between the original meanings of grammaticalized spatial morphemes and their synchronic functions as prefixes or particles is revealed by Brinton (1988: 194f.).Drawing on insights from Bolinger (1971) and Traugott (1978), according to which the development of situations through time is conceived of in spatial terms, she argues that the originally spatial meanings of these morphemes have an effect on the synchronic (a)telicity of situations.Thus, "particles which express movement from, to, over, or through come to indicate situations orientated or headed towards a goal (telic situations), whereas particles which express stasis or location [e.g.English on; HB] come to indicate situations atelically continuing or repeating at a particular time."Some concrete examples are provided by Traugott (1978: 391-393), who observes that 'terminative/resultative' (telic) markers derive from terms denoting source (e. g.Gothic fra-, German ver-, er-, aus-), goal, path (e. g.German ver-), and the vertical plane (e. g.German auf-).While there are no clues as to verbal behaviour in the history of the German inseparable prefixes, they obviously adopted the function of aspectual markers.Moreover, while a prefix may synchronically express more than one Aktionsart (cf.Fleischer/Barz 1992: 320-327), there is not much semantic overlap because the prefixes tend to occupy semantic niches, and this behaviour is not entirely arbitrary either.For example, recall that according to Habermann (2015Habermann ( : 1807)), the local meaning of ver-is still discernible in New High German verbs of the type verrücken 'to push something somewhere'.
A unified approach which accounts for the synchronic aspectual and semantic diversity of the five inseparable prefixes and which is in line with their historical development is provided by Dewell (2015), who adopts a cognitive framework.According to Dewell, these prefixes impose a different 'perspective' on the verbs they combine with.Following Talmy (2000: 68-76), Dewell distinguishes two perspectival modes that serve to conceptualize an object or event: sequential and synoptic.The sequential construal is more dynamic and allows us to keep a close track of a moving entity and the activity it is involved in.The synoptic construal, by contrast, is more holistic because the focus of attention is directed from a distance at the setting as a whole and on what is going on in this setting.Thus, it is comparable to a bird-eye's view.Given these perspectives, we may state that event-schema metonymy per se prompts a sequential construal: A salient participant (which corresponds to the base noun) is selected from a set of participants interacting in a schematic event in order to provide mental access to the whole event.This participant is the attention centre (cf.Baeskow 2020), and by zooming in on this participant we see the course of the event unfold; cf.section 3.1.By contrast, prefixation involving inseparable prefixes prompts a synoptic construal.In this case, the overall scene as a "shaped whole" (Dewell 2015: 263) is more relevant than the participants interacting therein.At the level of primary experience, we are dealing here with a FIGURE-GROUND effect.While the focus of attention is on the FIGURE (i.e. on a salient participant such as the Instrument, the Proto-Agent, or the Locatum) in event-schema metonymy, the overall scene and hence the GROUND (or LAND-MARK in Dewell's terminology) is taken into view in the case of prefixation involving inseparable prefixes.As far as causative verbs are concerned, the scene or LANDMARK is often represented by a Proto-Patient that surfaces as the accusative object, e. g.Sie bewässerten die städtischen Grünanlagen 'they irrigated the urban green areas'.Significantly, the base-noun participant (e. g. the Locatum Wasser in the case of bewässern) remains a noteworthy part of the scene, but its degree of salience is not as high as in the event denoted by the unprefixed verb (i.e. wässern) because our attention is distributed over the scene as a whole.The prefixes direct our attention to event-internal factors such as motion along a set of directed paths, an entity's transformation in a setting, or a moment of change.This function will become more concrete as we proceed. 18  Moreover, although particles and prefixes display a relatively high degree of polysemy (e. g.Henzen 1957: 103), Dewell succeeds in identifying highly abstract schematic images not only for particles, but also for be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-.Each schematic image abstracts over the various meanings associated with a particle or prefix and hence functions as a least common denominator for these morphemes' semantics.To render these highly abstract issues more tangible, an interesting sample of verbs that developed around the German concept SCHOTTER 'gravel, ballast' will be analysed from a cognitive perspective in the following section.

A case study: The verb schottern and its prefixed competitors
A possibility emerging from the cognitive view outlined above is the combination of derivation and event-schema metonymy in the case of the so-called German "prefix conversion" (Fleischer/Barz 1992: 308).Under the present approach, the inseparable prefixes function as triggers for the metonymic reanalysis of their non-verbal bases as events -independently of whether or not a corresponding verb is synchronically attested (e. g. schottern), obsolete (e. g. †sohlen), or non-existent (e. g. *kernen).At the same time, they impose a synoptic perspective on the conceptually renanalysed events, thus deprofiling the salient participant denoted by the non-verbal base while focussing on the setting as a whole.However, since the base-noun participant remains an integral part of the metonymically analysed event, the sequential perspective is mentally implied but conceptually backgrounded in the context of inseparable prefixes.Note that the sequential construal is also backgrounded by the prefixes if the base is an existing simplex verb (e. g. die Blumen gießen 'to water the flowers' vs. die Blumen begießen 'be-water the flowers').Strong synchronic support for the hypothesis that the inseparable prefixes operate on metonymically construed events comes from the co-existence of synchronically attested unprefixed and prefixed verbs.Consider for example the verb schottern (< Schotter 'gravel, ballast'), which is polysemous in isolation and which also occurs in the context of the prefixes, beent-, and ver-.
18 Evidence for the cognitive reality of the two types of construal comes from the fact that they also surface in the syntax.Consider for example the following sentences from Talmy (2000: 71), both of which describe a scene in which a few houses are dispersed over a valley.(i) There is a house every now and then through the valley.(Sequential mode) (ii) There are some houses in the valley.(Synoptic mode) The difference between the two sentences manifests itself in the selection of forms that convey the impression of either dynamism (sequential mode) or inertness (synoptic mode).In (i), the singular form of house, the subject agreement, the adverbial expression of moderate temporal dispersion (every now and then), and the motion preposition through encode the sequential and hence more dynamic perspectival mode.This example shows that a sequential construal is suited to express fictive motion.In (ii), plural number and agreement, the quantifier some, which indicates a moderate total quantity, and the locative preposition in convey a more static impression of the same scene.(knorr-transporte.de)'Our company owner Heinrich Knorr had been looking for a method to gravel forest and forestry roads in a more efficient way.So far, the gravel has been applied unmetered over the entire surface of a forest road.[…] In 2006, he therefore developed a patented method of spreading the amount of gravel in a targeted and dosed manner on the forest and woodland paths.' b.Auch Ludwigshafener, die ihren Garten entschottern wollen, können sich bei der ILA bewerben.
(rheinpfalz.de)'Ludwigshafen residents who want to clear their garden of gravel can also apply to the ILA.' c. Wenn niemand der Hinterbliebenen den Grabstein wolle, werde er in der Regel verschottert.
(COSMAS II) 'If none of the surviving relatives want the gravestone, it is usually turned into gravel.'Since gravel or ballast is a coarse, hard material used in road building or rail construction, the concept SCHOTTER is suited to provide mental access to a situation in which a street or railway bed (i.e. the Proto-Patient of the action schema) is covered with this material.This situation corresponds with the conventionalized LOCATUM-FOR-CAUSED-MOTION reading of the verb schottern, which is activated in (4a).More recently, this verb assumed a further meaning component, namely 'to obstruct train traffic by removing the ballast from the bed of a railway.'According to Steffens/al-Wadi (2014), this reading is datable with some precision because it was created for the protest action "Castor schottern" initiated in September 2010.The purpose of this activity was to prevent the Castor transport to the interim nuclear waste storage in Gorleben (Lower Saxony) by removing lots of gravel from the railway bed. 19Presumably, the ISSN 1615-3014 22 unexpected though perfectly imaginable privative reading was intended to attract public interest, and its creative force is enhanced by an additional metonymy according to which the concept CASTOR (i.e. a container in which nuclear waste is stored) stands for the route to be cleared of ballast. 20Yet another innovative reading of the verb schottern can be observed in (4c).In this example, the manner of motion stands for the whole motion event.The context evokes a scenario in which the mountain biker (i.e. the Proto-Agent of the action schema) cycles down the hiking trails, with the wheels of his bike making their way through the gravel that covers the routes.This innovative use of the verb schottern conveys a very dynamic and vivid impression of the activity going on in this setting.What is interesting about the examples in ( 4) is that apart from the established applicative reading, the innovative privative and manner-of-motion readings, too, are readily available in the given contexts by event-schema metonymy alone, i. e. without the intervention of inseparable prefixes.In each case, the metonymic reconceptualization of the material concept SCHOTTER as an event gives rise to a sequential construal which in (4c) is reinforced by the adverbial particle hinunter 'down'. 21he examples in (5) show that the verbalized noun Schotter also occurs in the context of inseparable prefixes.Obviously, however, the existence of the unprefixed verb schottern and its various readings strongly suggests that these prefixes neither change the word-class of their base nor function to provide verbal arguments, which are available from the small set of event schemata introduced in section 2. This state of affairs raises the question how the metonymically created verb schottern can be distinguished from its prefixed competitors, which do not seem to be redundant.At this point, Dewell's differentiation between a sequential and synoptic construal gains relevance.Let us begin by looking at the context in (5a), which provides a good illustration of this distinction.The passage "[…] wie man Wald-und Forstwege auf effizientere Art und Weise beschottern kann" ('[…] how to be-gravel forest and forestry roads in a more efficient way') depicts the main function of the prefix be-, which is to locate a path from a source of energy (usually the Proto-Agent, which is not mentioned in (5a)) to a focal accusative LANDMARK (realized as Wald-und Forstwege).This path, which in the example represents the directed motion of particles, is diffuse in that it does not end at a specific point on the LAND-MARK.More technically, the path defined by be-consists of a set (or multiplex) of vectors which have a common starting point and whose endpoints are randomly distributed over the LAND-MARK'S surface, as illustrated in Figure 1. 22igure 1: Schematic be- (Dewell 2015: 57) Although the method developed by Heinrich Knorr allows for a controlled and well-dosed distribution of the gravel, the path of the particles that make up the coarse material consists of numerous vectors, and the final location of the individual particles on the surface remains undetermined, or diffuse.The prefix be-profiles the directed though random distribution of the particles on the forestry roads, thus focusing on the setting as a whole.This is the synoptic perspective.By contrast, the subsequent passage "Bisher wurde der Schotter undosiert auf der gesamten Fläche eines Waldwegs aufgetragen" ('So far, the gravel has been applied unmetered over the entire surface of a forest road') reflects a sequential construal which directs the reader's attention from the moving gravel to the changing surface of its final destination.Moreover, as observed by Dewell (2015: 83), be-verbs often contrast with their unprefixed variants in that they denote complex technical routines rather than everyday activities.This semantic nuance, which accounts for doublets like wässern 'water' vs. bewässern 'irrigate', lüften vs. belüften 'ventilate', or tanken vs. betanken 'refuel', also becomes most evident in (5a).Another important observation made by Dewell (2015: 55) is that the be-variants of doublets like those listed above convey the impression of "sustained activities" because the activities denoted by these verbs do not have concrete endpoints.Thus, the be-paths are also temporally diffuse.
In sentence (5b), the verb schottern is prefixed by ent-, which roughly describes removal, or separation (cf.Eisenberg 2020: 274; Dewell 2015: 100).In their reversative reading, ent-verbs like entschottern are in an antonymous relation to applicative be-verbs because they denote the undoing of a prior process referred to by the base or associated with the base.In (5b), the process to be reversed is that of covering the garden with gravel -as practiced by some garden owners nowadays.Like be-, the prefix ent-profiles a multiplex of homogeneous paths which, however, does not extent from a source of energy (the Proto-Agent) towards an accusative LANDMARK, but leaves this bounded region. 23Once again, the prefix verb -unlike its unprefixed variantinduces a synoptic construal because the focus of attention is not on the gravel and the role it plays in the event, but on the departure of material from an accusative LANDMARK, which is the garden that is cleared of the gravel it was covered with in (5b).
As far as the verb verschottern in (5c) is concerned, the gravel is the Goal or, more precisely, the result of the causative activity.Although the class of German ver-verbs is semantically heterogeneous, Dewell convincingly shows that an entity's loss of its original status is the (highly abstract) core meaning underlying all verbs of this class.Significantly, however, the focus of attention is not on this entity's change of state.Dewell's (2015: 182) very abstract ISSN 1615-3014 24 schema for ver-, which is represented below, consists of two images.The first one depicts a setting in whose centre a FIGURE is located.Due to the synoptic perspective, we do not concentrate on what happens to this entity, but on the setting, which in the second image no longer contains the FIGURE (at least in its original form).
Figure 2: Ver-as synoptic displacement (Dewell 2015: 182) According to this schema, the prefix ver-profiles the "moment when a FG [FIGURE; HB] loses its original status and can no longer be recognized or defined in its original role in the synoptic setting."(Dewell 2015: 190) Applied to (5c), the tombstone schematically contained in the first image is no longer part of the second image after its transformation into gravel, which rendered it unrecognizable.
The discussion of the verb schottern and its prefixed variants confirms that the prefixes do not have a verbalizing function, but induce a shift from the sequential to the synoptic perspective, thus requiring non-verbal bases to be metonymically reinterpreted as events.The discussion further reveals that a successful shift of perspective from sequential to synoptic depends on the metonymic relations underlying verbalized nouns.For example, the verb schottern is compatible with inseparable prefixes only in its applicative or privative locatum reading (beschottern, entschottern) and in its goal reading (verschottern).By contrast, its highly dynamic manner-ofmotion reading 'to move by cycling down the gravelled hiking trails' does not motivate a synoptic construal.This observation, which will be elaborated in section 4, allows for the hypothesis that the inseparable prefixes operate over metonymic patterns that underlie verbalized nouns, or, more specifically, over the event types represented by these patterns.

Generalizing observations
The data collected for this study, which are displayed in the appendix, show that there is no one-to-one relation between prefixes and metonymic patterns and that some degree of semantic overlap is tolerated.Nevertheless, each prefix shows preferences for certain patterns -depending on its semantic properties.In German, unprefixed verbs which follow the metonymic pattern LOCATUM FOR CAUSED MOTION are in competition with verbs prefixed by be-, ent-, and ver-.If be-operates on events which are analysable in terms of this metonymic relation, an abstract set of paths which extend from a source of energy to a focal accusative LANDMARK is being profiled.The elements which make up the path vectors are quite heterogeneous and include for example particles (beschottern, bestäuben 'dust'), placeable objects (bestuhlen 'provide with chairs', beschildern 'signpost'), substances (bewässern 'irrigate', beschmutzen 'pollute'), or abstract concepts (bemitleiden 'pity', bespaßen 'entertain').In the latter case, the transfer of energy along the be-paths takes place in the psychological world.As far as verbs like beauskunften 'provide information', begutachten 'review', or beweihräuchern 'adulate' are concerned, the semantic criterion of 'sustained activity' is activated.In examples like these, be-also signals that an accusative LANDMARK is provided with "more extensive and adequate attention" (Dewell 2015: 62).
If the prefix ent-operates on events which are analysable in terms of the metonymic relation LOCATUM FOR CAUSED MOTION, it induces a privative or reversative reading.Although the boundaries between privative and reversative readings are not always clear cut, denominal verbs like entrinden 'bark' or enthaaren 'depilate' suggest that a privative reading is typically (though not necessarily) activated if the Locatum is in a PART-WHOLE relation with the entity from which it is removed (cf.Baeskow 2006).In their reversative reading, ent-verbs signal the undoing of a prior process denoted by or associated with the base -as illustrated in (5a) and (5b) for beschottern and entschottern.However, since privative and reversative readings are closely related (cf.Dewell 2015: 114-115), ent-verbs often unify both readings in that they denote not only a LANDMARK'S deprival of something ('privative'), but also the reversal of a prior process ('reversative').This observation also holds for denominal verbs like entwaffnen 'disarm', entkorken 'uncork', entkleiden 'undress', entgiften 'detoxify', etc. 24 Consider for example the following sentence from the Internet: (6) So wurden schon Reichsbürger wieder entwaffnet: "Wir haben zwei Widerrufe von Waffenerlaubnissen aufgrund dieser Basis und ein derzeit laufendes Widerrufsverfahren."(merkur.de)'Thus, Reich citizens have already been disarmed again: "There are two revocations of firearms permits on this basis and one revocation procedure that is currently underway."'In this context, the verb entwaffnen conveys a privative reading according to which the referents of Reichsbürger were deprived of their arms.At the same time, the context reveals that firearm permits had previously enabled these people to arm (bewaffnen) themselves, and it is precisely this process which is now reversed by the new regulation.Thus, entwaffnen also activates a reversative reading.As observed already by Kastovsky (1996: 206), the interpretation of verbs as reversative, locative, or ablative on the one hand and ornative/privative on the other is basically a matter of perspective.
While be-in its applicative reading productively modifies denominal verbs that follow the metonymic pattern LOCATUM CAUSED MOTION, the polysemous prefix ver-does so to a lesser extent.As outlined in section 3.2.2, this prefix profiles a setting in which a Proto-Patient (or FIGURE) loses its original status in that it becomes unrecognizable, obscure, hidden, etc. or disappears.Given the semantics of the prefix thus depicted, it is not surprising that a number of base nouns denote (chemical) substances which have the potential to alter the state of the entities they are caused to get in contact with, e. g. vergolden 'gild', versilbern 'silver', verzinken 'zinc', vernickeln 'nickel-plate', vergiften 'poison', verwässern 'dilute'.As far as the verb verwässern is concerned, the synoptic construal of the event denoted by the simplex verb wässern induces a shift of attention from the salient 'water' participant and its effect on a LANDMARK (e. g. die Blumen 'the flowers') to a more global setting in which a substance loses its original physical quality.If a substance such as milk, a soup, or a sauce is 'verwässert', it is caused to become too thin because too much water has been applied to it.Significantly, the synoptic construal of events also accounts for metaphorical extensions of verb meanings.For example, a situation in which a substance is caused to become too thin due to the excessive addition of water is readily mapped onto a situation in which a theory, a text, an argument, etc. is flawed and hence reduced in quality, e. g.Man versuchte, seine Theorie zu verwässern 'They tried to weaken his theory' (DWDS).
While be-and ver-partially overlap with respect to applicative locatum verbs, the prefix verproductively operates on verbs following the metonymic relation GOAL 'final state' FOR MO-TION, which is not available for be-, e. g. verschimmeln 'mould', verrosten 'rust, erode', verkrusten 'crust'.Again, the focus of attention is on a synoptic setting in which a FIGURE undergoes a definite change of state.However, since this physical transformation is not caused by an Agent, but takes place in the material world in the sense of Radden/Dirven (2007), this participant surfaces as the subject in the syntax, e. g.Damit das Haar nicht verfilzt, sollte man es gut durchkämmen 'To prevent the hair from matting, comb it well.'Given the cognitive approach adopted in this study, the contrast between verbs like schimmeln vs. verschimmeln, rosten vs. verrosten, or dampfen 'steam' vs. verdampfen 'evaporate' is a matter of perspective, i. e. 'sequential' (tracing an entity's change of state) vs. 'synoptic' (focusing on the setting which loses its FIGURE).In a more figurative sense, the prefix's tendency to profile the moment when an entity loses its original status also renders it suitable to indicate that an individual loses its identity or social status, e. g. vertrotteln 'get senile', verbauern (< Bauer 'peasant') 'become countrified', verwaisen 'become an orphan', verwitwen 'become a widow'.Note that although verwaisen and verwitwen predominantly occur as adjectival participles (verwitwet, verwaist), occurrences of the underlying verbs verwitwen and verwaisen are attested, e. g.Ver-verbs following the metonymic relation GOAL 'final state' FOR CAUSED MOTION typically refer to events in which the transformation of a FIGURE in a setting is caused by an Agent (e. g. verschrotten 'scrap', vertonen 'set to music').Thus, these verbs are inherently transitive.Causative denominal ver-verbs formed from human roles are rare.While versklaven 'enslave' and verhexen 'bewitch' are conventionalized, a more recent formation listed in the DWDS is verpartnern, which is restricted to the context of same-gender civil unions.Two further examples found in the literature are verknechten (< Knecht 'servant, menial, farm hand'), which semantically corresponds with versklaven, and verpreußen 'make Prussian'.Individuals thus ISSN 1615-3014 27 affected are caused to lose their independence, which is in line with the semantics of the prefix ver-.
A further prefix that operates on a small subpattern of the metonymic relation GOAL FOR (CAUSED) MOTION is zer-, which according to Dewell (2015: 165-169) signals that an entity loses its internal structure, so that it becomes unrecognizable.In this case, the Goal consists of scattered particles, e. g. zerkrümeln, zerbröseln 'crumble to pieces', zersplittern 'splinter to pieces'.Once again, doublets like krümeln vs. zerkrümeln, bröseln vs. zerbröseln, or splittern vs. zersplittern show that the events unfold from the perspective of the salient base-noun participant in the case of the non-derived denominal verbs, whereas the prefix verbs prompt a synoptic construal.Specifically, the prefix zer-focuses on the moment of disintegration in a setting while deprofiling the Goal which motivates the sequential construal.Additionally, the semantics of the prefix zer-evokes an impression of destruction (cf.Habermann 2015: 1806), which imposes a negative connotation on verbs displaying this prefix.This semantic niche is also occupied by deverbal zer-verbs in their resultative reading, e. g. zerdrücken 'crush', zerreden 'talk down', zerbeißen 'bite to pieces'.
If a synoptic setting is created for the restricted set of verbs whose underlying metonymic relation is PROTO-AGENT FOR ACTION, the prefix be-signals that the Proto-Agent is strongly focussed on the Proto-Patient or pays special attention to this participant -either in a positive or in a negative sense, e. g. jemanden bemuttern 'mother someone', jemanden bewirten 'host someone', jemanden bespitzeln 'spy on someone', jemanden bevormunden 'patronize someone'.By contrast, the prefix er-conveys the semantic nuance of 'attainment'.Consider for example the pair schreinern 'do carpentry' vs. erschreinern 'obtain by doing carpentry' discussed by Stiebels (1998: 285f.), to which we may add gaunern 'scam' vs. ergaunern 'obtain by scamming' and schneidern 'tailor' vs. erschneidern 'obtain by tailoring'.While the unprefixed members of these pairs place the focus on the Proto-Agent acting as a carpenter, a crook, or a tailor, the er-variants profile the moment of achievement, i. e. the moment when the Proto-Agent attains his or her goal.According to Dewell (2015: 132), er-verbs imply "a gradually extending durative run-up process as part of their meaning."However, this run-up process, which anticipates the achievement, is backgrounded, whereas the eventual arrival of the process at its goal space is being profiled by er-.Note that the backgrounded run-up process precisely corresponds with the events expressed by the unprefixed verbs schreinern, gaunern, and schneidern.While these sequentially interpretable events are the result of event-schema metonymy (PROTO-AGENT FOR ACTION), the prefix er-overtly signals the moment of attainment, and the additional argument for the obtained entity -which may be either concrete (8a) or abstract (8b) -is provided by the action schema.However, since agent verbs are limited anyway for reasons discussed in section 3.1.6,the small inventory of prefixed denominal agent verbs, which also includes a single ver-verb (verarzten 'give someone medical care'), cannot be expected to undergo significant expansion.Note that the 'attainment' reading of er-also renders this prefix compatible with the metonymic pattern MEANS FOR ACTION, e. g. ergoogeln, erwürfeln, errudern, ersegeln.What is being profiled again is the moment when a Proto-Agent reaches a goal -in this case by means of googling, dicing, rowing, or sailing.
Interestingly, the inseparable prefixes do not productively operate on the metonymic pattern INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION either although instrument verbs form the largest class of non-derived denominal verbs not only in English, but also in German (cf.section 3.1.1).One possible explanation for this state of affairs is that activities expressed by instrument verbs are less compatible with a synoptic construal if they lack a noteworthy phase or moment of change which might be profiled by an inseparable prefix.As shown in the appendix, instrument verbs are only sporadically prefixed by be-, er-, zer-, and ver-.The prefix be-(e.g. behämmern 'be-hammer', beharken 'be-rake') signals temporally sustained and focussed activities.As far as er-is concerned, only two instrument verbs were found in the literature, namely eräugen 'spot' and erdolchen 'stab to death'.Both verbs activate the 'attainment' reading of their prefix.If instrument verbs are prefixed by zer-, the impression of complete destruction is being conveyed (e. g. zerbeilen 'smash with an axe', zerhämmern 'smash with a hammer').
If an activity is performed with a tool which causes an entity to lose its independence, the prefix ver-is the means of choice, e. g. verankern 'anchor', verdübeln 'dowel', verschrauben 'screw'.While causative verbs like these unambiguously follow the metonymic pattern INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION, verbs like verkeilen 'wedge', verketten 'link, chain', or verklammern 'clamp' are also attested as reflexive verbs (sich verkeilen, sich verketten, sich verklammern).In this usage, they rather pattern with inchoative verbs like verdunsten 'evaporate' or vergreisen 'age' (GOAL FOR MOTION), with the difference that the Goal is a final shape.Following Belz (1997), Dewell (2015: 206) assumes that verbs of this type denote events in which entities which are of the same kind are joined and thus lose their separate identity to form a unified whole.The following examples from the DWDS illustrate this point.
'The two children became frightened and their hands clasped together.'While a relatively small set of instrument verbs allows for a synoptic event construal, verbs referring to the manner of action or manner of motion definitely prefer a sequential interpretation.Thus, they either occur as unprefixed verbs or in the context of particles (i.e. separable prefixes), which according to Dewell (2011Dewell ( , 2015: 22) : 22) trigger a sequential reading.For example, one particle which frequently combines with manner verbs is herum-, which in this context signals atelic, non-goal-directed activities, e. g. herumlümmeln 'loll about', herumgeistern 'spook', herumstromern 'roam', herumstümpern 'dabble', herumschlawinern 'gad about'. 26he semantic niche filled by herum-also manifests itself in the pair jemanden verarzten vs. an etwas/jemandem herumdoktern.While the agent verb verarzten denotes the activity of giving someone medical care (though not necessarily in a professional sense), herumdoktern 'to tamper with something/someone' conveys the impression of dilettantism.
In this context, it is interesting to note that in German youth language, verbs of dancing borrowed from English quite systematically combine with the particle ab-(e.g. abdancen, abrocken, absteppen, abgrooven) which in this context merely fulfils an intensifying function (cf.Androutsopoulos 1998: 95) and modifies the manner of motion.Since the participants involved in the events denoted by the unprefixed verbs are constantly in motion and remain unaffected by any external force, these events, too, elude a synoptic construal.
The cases of prefix conversion discussed in this section confirm the hypothesis that the compatibility of verbalized nouns with the synoptic perspective and hence with inseparable prefixes depends on their underlying metonymic relations.The data show that a synoptic construal works best for event types that follow the metonymic relations LOCATUM FOR CAUSED MOTION (e. g. besohlen 'sole', entgiften 'detoxify', verchromen 'chrome'), GOAL 'final state' FOR MO-TION (e. g. verschlammen 'silt'), and GOAL 'final state' FOR CAUSED MOTION (e. g. vertonen 'set to music', zertrümmern 'smash').Obviously, the verbalized nouns occurring in the context of these prefixes are well suited for the synoptic construal because the referents of their base nouns have a direct and perceivable impact on other participants in the setting.Due to competition with simplex verbs, the productivity of the pattern PROTO-AGENT FOR ACTION is limited independently of a sequential or synoptic construal.Nevertheless, a handful of prefix verbs which are based on this pattern are attested.While instrument verbs prefer a sequential construal, manner-of-action and manner-of-motion verbs seem to be incompatible with a synoptic construal.If at all, verbs of the latter types rather combine with particles like herum-or ab-.The activities denoted by manner-of-action/motion verbs and by many instrument verbs lack a noteworthy phase or moment of change which might be profiled by an inseparable prefix.The data discussed in this section also revealed that, despite a certain degree of overlap, the semantics of the five inseparable prefixes determines their distribution over the metonymic patterns.

Conclusion and outlook
In this article it was shown that the long-standing problem of apparently left-headed prefix verbs in German (besohlen 'sole', entschottern 'clear of ballast', verschimmeln 'become mouldy', etc.) can be solved if we adopt a cognitive approach according to which prefixation interacts with event-schema metonymy -a purely conceptual process which renders material concepts interpretable as events.Since metonymy applies inside derivation, the question of whether or not the verbalized nouns are attested (e. g. splittern 'splinter'), obsolete (e. g. †sohlen 'sole'), or non-existing (e. g. *kernen) is irrelevant, and an overgeneration of hypothetical verbs is avoided.
ISSN 1615-3014 30 So far, event-schema metonymy had been restricted to English noun-verb conversion (cf.e. g.Kövecses/Radden 1998;Dirven 1999).If this approach is applied to German prefix verbs displaying non-verbal bases, the problem of assigning verbal or verbalizing properties to the inseparable prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-, which have their origin in prepositions or local adverbs, does not arise.The present study has shown that there is diachronic and synchronic support for the hypothesis that German inseparable prefixes operate on metonymically construed events.From a diachronic perspective, it is important that conversion preceded prefixation in the history of the German language (cf.Eschenlohr 1999) and that prefix verbs have coexisted with unprefixed verbs at least since the Middle High German period.Even if many unprefixed verbs have fallen out of use (e. g. †sohlen 'sole' vs. besohlen, †golden 'gild' vs. vergolden, †ruhigen 'calm' vs. beruhigen), their former existence reveals that the non-overt conceptualization of material concepts (or qualities) as events has always been an option not only in English, but also in German.Synchronic support for the proposal made in this study first of all comes from the observation that conversion is still active in German -though not as productive as in English.Contrastive analyses of noun-verb conversion in both languages were performed to illustrate this point.Furthermore, German prefix verbs still compete with unprefixed verbs in Modern High German.A case study performed for the verbal cluster that developed around the concept SCHOTTER ('gravel', 'ballast') has shown that we are not forced to assign verbal properties to the inseparable prefixes or to assume that these prefixes create verbal argument structures, which under the present approach are provided by a small set of event schemata in the sense of Dirven (1999).The main function of the inseparable prefixes is to impose a synoptic and hence more holistic perspective (cf.Dewell 2015) on the metonymically verbalized nouns, which is more in line with their origin as prepositions or adverbs.Thus, the focus of attention is no longer on the base-noun participant and the role it plays in the event (this sequential construal is backgrounded in the context of the prefixes).Instead, the focus is on paths located relative to a LANDMARK (be-, ent-), moments of attainment, change, or separation (er-, ver-, zer-), and factors related to Aktionsart (e. g. the intensifying function of be-).Furthermore, it was shown that a successful shift of perspective from sequential to synoptic depends on the metonymic relations underlying the verbalized nouns and that the distribution of the five inseparable prefixes over these relations is semantically determined.
A final point to be raised here concerns the limits and prospects of event-schema metonymy in conversion and beyond.Although this article cannot provide an in-depth discussion of this point, it should be noted that there are two sets of data involving inseparable prefixes which seem to resist a metonymic analysis.The first set comprises adjectival participles like bebrillt 'bespectacled', bemützt 'wearing a cap', behandschuht 'gloved', bemoost 'mossy', behaart 'hairy', bepelzt 'furred', etc.On the one hand, we might argue that the path from a source of energy to a LANDMARK is still implied in participles like bebrillt, bemützt, or behandschuht because there must have been activities of causing the FIGURE to come into contact with the LANDMARK.On the other hand, this argument does not hold for participles like bemoost 'mossy', behaart 'hairy', bepelzt 'furred', bebuscht 'bush-covered', or beschilft 'reeded' because these participles denote internally caused relations.Be-participles rather seem to convey a snapshot of a variety of settings, with the focus being on the contact between a FIGURE and a LANDMARK.Moreover, since the holistic aspect typically associated with be-is preserved in participles of the type bemoost, beschilft, bebuscht, bepelzt (i.e. a LANDMARK is extensively covered with moss, reeds, bushes, fur, etc.), it is well conceivable that the meaning activated by be-in these forms is a relic of its original spatial meaning 'um…herum' ('around'); cf.section 3.2.1.In participles of the type bebrillt, it might be the meaning 'bei' ('at', 'near') of the prefix's predecessor bí which is still implied.
A further set of problematic data comprises complex verbs like verstaatlichen 'nationalize', versinnbildlichen 'symbolize', veranschaulichen 'illustrate'; begradigen 'straighten', belobigen 'praise', berücksichtigen 'take into account', entmutigen 'discourage', or entmenschlichen 'dehumanize', which combine prefixation and suffixation.A metonymic reinterpretation of these verbs' bases as events is implausible not only because of their morphological complexity, but also because none of them are attested as a verb (e. g. *staatlichen, *lobigen, *menschlichen).27This is not surprising because German event-schema metonymy proceeds from basiclevel concepts which are readily interpreted as events.Quite a few complex bases occurring especially in the context of be-are not even attested as adjectives (e. g. *gradig, *lobig, *rücksichtig).As far as complex verbs like begradigen, belobigen, or berücksichtigen are concerned, it might be argued that these were formed by analogy with verbs whose bases do exist as adjectives, such as benötigen (< nötig 'necessary'), belästigen (< lästig 'irksome'), befleißigen (< fleißig 'busy') or belustigen (< lustig 'amusing').A further problem which cannot be solved conceptually is that adjectives ending in -ig and -lich behave differently with respect to verbalization (cf.Eschenlohr 1999: 221-230 for a detailed discussion).
Despite the obvious limits sketched above, there are domains of word-formation beyond conversion and prefix conversion in which metonymy (and metaphor) play a role.To begin with, there is some consensus in the literature that metonymy is the key to the interpretation of exocentric compounds such as pickpocket, egg head, or birdbrain (Jespersen 1942: 149;Booij 2002: 143;Benczes 2015;Bauer 2016).As far as the well-known polysemy of er-derivatives is concerned, Ryder (1999) and Panther/Thornburg (2002) ascribe a prototypically agentive reading to the suffix and assume that other readings (e. g. computer, retriever, creeper, 49-er, yawner) are metonymically (or metaphorically) related to this sense.Significantly, Panther/Thornburg (2002) also allow metonymy (and metaphor) to operate on the bases of -er derivatives.As far as non-deverbal -er derivatives like Wall Streeter 'person professionally employed on Wall Street' or hoofer 'professional (vaudeville/chorus) dancer' are concerned, they assume that the denotatum of the base functions as a reference point from which the activity performed by the Agent (i.e. by the referent of the -er derivative) can be metonymically (or metaphorically) inferred.Metonymy also plays a role in grammaticalization processes.For example, Koch (2012: 295f.)assumes with Mutz (2000) and Rainer (2005) that the diachronic change of a free morpheme into an affix is an instance of metonymic reanalysis.The Modern English suffix -hood < OE hād "state, rank, order, condition, character" illustrates this point.And yet, the question as to the overall impact of metonymy on word-formation is far from being settled even in Cognitive Linguistics (cf.Radden/Kövecses 2007;Schönefeld 2005;Janda 2011Janda , 2014;;Brdar/Brdar-Szabó 2014;Brdar 2017;or Bauer 2018a for controversial discussions), and further investigation as to the precise nature of this synthesis is required.
(7) a. Auch wenn Frauen verwitwen, ist es schwerer für sie, als für verwitwete Männer, noch mal ein neues Glück zu finden.(domradio.de)'Likewise, when women become widowed it is more difficult for them than for widowed men to find a new happiness again.' b.Städte vergreisen, Dörfer verwaisen.Der demographische Wandel trifft Städte und Gemeinden mit voller Wucht. 25(deutschlandfunk.de)'Cities are aging, villages become orphaned.Demographic change is hitting cities and local communities with full force.' (8) a. Mit ihrer Masche ergaunerten die Betrüger Waren im Wert von mindestens 10 Millionen Euro von Online-Versandhändlern in ganz Europa.(German Web 2020) 'With their scam, the fraudsters scammed goods worth at least 10 million euros from online mail order companies all over Europe.' b.Im Tageszentrum Winarskystraße […] hat sie sich längst den Ruf einer Modeikone erschneidert.(pressreader.com)'At the Winarskystraße Day Center [...] she has long since earned herself the reputation of a fashion icon.' The prefix er-originates from the Old High German preposition ur 'from', 'out of', or 'up, upwards', which according to Pfeifer et al. is still retained in the German noun Urlaub 'vacation, holiday'.While the original prepositional meaning, which still surfaces in verbs like sich erheben 'rise' or ersprießen 'sprout', has become obsolete, er-now mainly signals a resultative 'attainment' reading (e.g. ergaunern 'scam') or functions as an Aktionsart marker.Examples of the latter function are perfective erschießen 'shoot' and inchoative erröten 'blush'.