2409: Functionality of Ge- in German Jul 26, 2021

The prefix 'ge-' in German has a wide variety of meaningful, grammatical functions, though this is on the decline in some. One use is to form collectives, such as 'Gebirge' (mountain range) from 'Berg' (mountain), ‎'Gewässer' (body of water) from 'Wasser' (water). It is also used for nouns from verbs to express frequency and repetition, like '‎Gerede' (chatter) from '‎reden' (talk). It is used quite commonly and fairly ubiquitously for forming past participles from verbs, especially with '-en' or '-et' suffixes, though this last point is contentious about how distinct 'ge-' is if would require these suffixes. Aside from these, it is also used to express the terminitive case in certain regional dialects—e.g. 'geleiten' (escort) from 'leiten' (lead)—along with referential nouns formed from verbs—‎'‎Gelege' (clutch of eggs) from 'legen' (lay). Finally, it is used to indicate union, like the Latin-based 'co-and 'com-' do in English and indeed certain German loan-words.