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    -jei
    quickinfo

    The suffix -jei derives verbs from nouns, adjectives or verbs. It grammaticalized out of the lexical verb jeie to hunt, hence it rather is a suffixoid, and it still has a semantics which mostly indicates some wild or uncontrolled behaviour. An example is topjeie to play with a top. Formally, the derivations still inflect in the same manner as the irregular verb jeie itself.

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    [+]Noun as base

    In Frisian, one can find verbal compounds with a noun as first part, and the verb jeie to hunt as second part. These compounds have the meaning 'to hunt at {noun}' or 'to drive {noun}. The noun normally denotes an animal in these cases. Examples can be found in the table below, some of them showing the linking element -e-:

    Table 1
    Base form Compound
    murd polecat murdejeie to hunt polecats
    roek rook roekejeie to hunt rooks
    mol mole mollejeie to hunt moles
    mich fly miggejeie to hunt flies
    flie flea fliejeie to hunt fleas
    maits maggot maitsejeie to hunt maggots
    skiep sheep skieppejeie to drive sheep
    snoek pike snoekejeie to drive pikes

    However, the verb jeie also has a metaphorical meaning which can loosely be described as to move fast or forcefully, which can be applied both transitively and intransitively. The existence of this vague metaphorical meaning, in combination with the easy availability of noun incorporation in Frisian, may have a led to a very productive pattern. Subsequently, the part -jei(e) may have been interpreted as a suffix that derives verbs from nouns, very much like the pattern of conversion. A semantic difference remains, however: verbs with jei denote a rather "wild" action, an aspect that must have been retained from the original meaning of the verb jeie. Some examples are presented below:

    Table 2
    Base form Derivation
    skosse ice floe skoskejeie to jump from one ice floe to the other
    draak dragon draakjeie to fly a kite
    slide sledge slydjeie to sledge
    top top topjeie to play with a top
    hoep hoop hoepjeie to bowl a hoop
    bean bean beanjeie to thresh beans (with horses)
    belslide horse-sledge belslydjeie to take part in a competition with horse-sledges
    bôle bread bôlejeie to bring around bread
    hynder horse hynderjeie to play horsey
    dong manure dongjeie to harrow
    koalsied coleseed koalsiedjeie to thresh rape (with horses)
    strie straw striejeie to thresh straw (with horses)

    Morphologically, the relation with the original verb remains intact, as all these verbs inflect in exactly the same manner as the irregular verb jeieitself. As the inflectional suffixes are needed anyway, one could infer that the derivational suffix is the part -jei.

    The suffix -jei cannot occur after all nouns since there is a semantic restriction that it can only be used to denote a "wild activity". In this vein one can often find a slight meaning difference between the verb with -jei and comparable verbs derived by neutral transposition or conversion of the noun. For example, huorrejeie means to go to prostitutes, while huorkje means to whore (< hoer prostitute), and grapjeie means to put on airs, while grapkje means to joke (< grap joke).

    The development sketched above seems to be a fine example of grammaticalization. This is supported by the fact that the derivational pattern with -jei has extended to a few adjectival bases. The following ones, with a common semantic property "uncontrolled behaviour", are relevant:

    Table 3
    Base form Compound / Derivation
    gek crazy gekjeie to poke fun (at)
    mâl silly mâljeie to joke with someone
    wyld wild wyldjeie to hurry about

    In these cases the meaning of the derivation is also a "wild activity" . The verbs have counterparts without -jeie which have (almost the) same meaning. Compare gekjeie to poke fun (at) vs gekje to poke fun (at), mâljeie to joke with someone vs mâlje to joke with someone and wyldjeie to hurry about vs wyldzje to hurry about.

    An alternative analysis for these verbs could be that they are not directly derived from an adjective, but rather from a converted verb (with an adjectival base). To be more concrete, in this way mâljeie would not have been derived from the adjective mâl, but from the verb mâlje. If this analysis is correct, verbs like mâljeie should be dealt with in the following section.

    [+]Verb as base

    The suffix -jeie can also derive verbs from verbs which already denote a "wild activity":

    Table 4
    Base form Derivation
    strune to forage strúnjeie go out to spy on a couple making love (and disturb them)
    dúnje to behave restlessly dúnjeie to behave restlessly
    twirje to whirl twirjeie to snow whirling
    boartsje to play boartjeie to horse around
    bolje to stop work boljeie to stop work (to strike)
    donderje to nag donderjeie to be a pain in the ass
    ferdonderje to waste away ferdonderjeie to make a mess of things
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    Particle verbs

    At first sight, it might seem that there are also adverbial bases. Candidates are fuort away in fuortjeie to chase away and gear together in gearjeie to crowd together. Prepositions functioning as base could be nei after in neijeie to chase after, oan on in oanjeie to boost and troch through in trochjeie to hurry on. However, these cases are more profitably analyzed as particle verbs. We then have a kind of compound with the verb jeie as the right-hand member.

    [+]Morphological properties

    Verbs with -jei inflect in exactly the same manner as the paradigm of the irregular verb jeie to hunt.

    [+]Phonological properties

    The suffix -jeie does not bear stress; the stress pattern of the base form remains the same, for example in: DONderje to nag > DONderjeie to be a pain in the ass and BÔle bread > BÔlejeie to bring around bread.

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    Literature

    This topic is based on Hoekstra (1998:143-144) and Hoekstra (1991).

    References
    • Hoekstra, Jarich1991Tiidwurden op -jeieFriesch Dagblad09-03Taalsnipels 176
    • Hoekstra, Jarich1998Fryske wurdfoarmingLjouwertFryske Akademy
    About this article
    Author(s): Siebren Dyk, Joke Weening
    Category: Frisian Morphology
    Keywords: suffixverbgrammaticalizationsuffixoid
    Version: 1.0, April 2016
    Version history:
    version editor(s) date remarks
    1.0 Siebren Dyk, Joke Weening April 2016
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