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1.1.2.6 Elative compounds
quickinfo

Elative compounds indicate a high degree of the property denoted by the head, for example doodkroank (very ill, deadly ill). The non-head elements are mostly, but not always, nominal or verbal. In many cases, these elements have lost their literal meaning completely, e.g. noagelnäi(lit. ‘nail-new’).

The elative compounds muuskenstil ‘very quiet’ and klitskewäit ‘soaking wet’ contain diminutives as first parts (cf. [1.2.8]).

1
böädeläärm (‘very poor’, lit. ‘beg-poor’), gäärsgräin (‘as green as grass’), doodkroank (‘very ill’, lit. ‘dead-ill’), faalduun (‘very drunk, lit. ‘fall-drunk’), gloudnäi, noagelnäi, spogel- hoagelnäi (‘brand new’, lit. ‘glow-, nail-, mirror- or hail-new’), klits(ke)wäit, mjukswäit, oaswäit (‘very wet’, lit. ‘shower-, manure-, scoop-wet’), knäppeltjuk (‘very drunk’, lit. ‘club-thick’), koakelbunt (‘multicoloured’), muuskenstil (‘very quiet’, lit. ‘little-mouse-quiet’), njugenklouk (‘very smart’, lit. ‘nine-smart’), pieper-juur (‘very expensibve’, lit. ‘pepper-expensive’), truchgoud (‘very good’, lit. ‘through-good’)

Some lexemes, like dood- (‘dead-‘), stok- (’stick-) and bloud- (‘blood’) are productive as intensifying parts in elative compounds.

2
bloudäärm (‘very poor’), bloudjung (‘very young’), doodeerdelk (‘very honest’), doodmäk (‘very meak’), stokbliend (‘completely blind’), steenoold (‘very old’), steenriek (‘very rich’), stokäärm (‘very poor’), stokbesepen (‘very drunk’)

Taboo-lexemes are rare as elative morphemes, but not inexistent. The element gods- (‘god-‘) , which is also found in godshillich (‘hypocrite’) seems to have a pejorative flavour, just like skiete- (‘shit-‘).

3
godstrurich (very miserable, lit. ‘god-miserable’), godserbarmelk (idem), skietewäit (soaking wet)

The intensifying morpheme is not necessarily homophonous to the corresponding lexical item, as it was already shown in the examples gods- and skiete-. The linking element -e- is also found in pikkeswot (‘pitch black’) and pikketjuusterch (‘pitch dark’), compare [1.1.2.8] on linking elements . In some cases, the intensifying morpheme adopts the shape of a plural noun (e.g. muzedood, lit. ‘mice-dead’) or a diminutive (e.g. klitske-wäit, lit. ‘little-shower-wet’ and muuskenstil, lit. little-mouse-quiet’).

Present participles are also used as intensifying elements in compounds.

4
striekend ful (completely full, lit. ‘striking full’),

In some cases, the participial ending (-end) has been reduced to -en or -e, so that these former participles should be analysed synchronically as bound morphemes.

5
bäärstetjuk (‘very thick’, lit. ‘bursting thick’), proppenful (completely full, lit. ‘stuffing-full’), stikkensääd (‘completely satiated’, lit. ‘choking-satiated’), stikkefät (‘very fat’, lit. ‘choking-fat’, from stikkend fät)
References
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