German and Latin-derived nouns

[pne]

The other day, I saw a headline in the newspaper along the lines of Bank-Manager bekommen dieses Jahr hohe Boni, and it made me think.

The word Bonus is borrowed into German from Latin, and the (nominative) plural Boni is sometimes borrowed along with it. However, those are the only two cases that are borrowed; other cases are formed on the German model (i.e., typically without endings on the noun).

What would things be like, though, if the comple inflection model were borrowed?

Hey, hab' ich dir schon von meinem Bono erzählt? - Ach, lass mich doch mit der Höhe deines Boni in Ruhe. Du findest deinen Bonum wohl besonders toll, was. - Ha! Warte bloß, bis du hörst, dass ich dieses Jahr gleich drei Bonos bekommen habe! - Drei Boni? Nicht schlecht. Und was ist der Betrag deiner Bonorum? - Ach, verglichen mit den Bonis, die ich vorletztes Jahr bekam, nicht so dolle.

Comments

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

This sent me off on a "What If?" of my own:

"What if German used the cognate of "bonus" instead of borrowing it?"

I *think* I came up with "die Zewen (-es,-e)", or something like it. Does any such word exist, or even something plausibly close semantically and phonetically?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Does any such word exist

No, and presuming your word is singular and the two endings in parentheses are gen.sg. and nom.pl., a gen.sg. ending of -es seems wrong to me for a feminine noun.

or even something plausibly close semantically and phonetically?

I can't think of anything suitable, no. How did you come up with that word? Oh, because bonus < duenos?

About the closest thing I can think of now is "Steuer" (tax), but even that's quite a stretch both semantically and phonetically from your word.

I wonder whether German even has a cognate of "bonus".

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

seems wrong to me for a feminine noun

Yeah, it is. I managed to fetch the wrong article. I started with "der" and decided for some reason to change to "das", but ended up writing "die" instead. I blame cosmic rays.

Your etymology is correct: PIE *d(e)u-eno-

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You've also missed an important diachronic rule, Spak: The deletion of medial /w/. Cf. PGmc. *saiwiz > OHG sêo (dat. sêwe) > NHG See. (The one common exception is Löwe, which may represent a spelling pronunciation; cf. Lemberg "L'viv" from MHG Lewenberg.) Your proposed coinage would become a homophone of NHG Zehn.

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

Okay. Suppose a zero-grade form of the PIE root: *dueno- instead of *deueno-, leading to ~ *das Zwenn (-es, -e).

How's that?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Looks like a plausible German word to me (though I'd be more likely to form the genitive simply in -s; the "full" -es sounds a bit formal or old-fashioned to me in such a word-form, about like forming the dative with -e in forms such as "dem Mann(e)") -- just one that doesn't, to my knowledge, exist.

I shall have to introduce it! It's likely to be neuter, you say?

"Ich habe dieses Jahr wieder ein besonders hohes Zwenn bekommen!"

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You need to read more Enlightenment-era literature. This usage, where Latin borrowings are fully declined even when embedded in German prose, is common there. I assume this practice went out of fashion at the same time as Latin began to disappear from the common curriculum.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

I dislike Latin (all great arguments about its usefulness aside, I just thought it was entirely boring after seven years), but this made me giggle.

> Und was ist der Betrag deiner Bonorum?

Ahahaha.

There was a great article about this kind of Plural on Zwiebelfisch, but I can't find it anymore. Probably tucked away in the paid archives somewhere. Aww.

[denial-land.livejournal.com]

Bah, wrong icon. I meant to pick these cute little parrots.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

I think it used to be used that way in German, i.e. with the real Latin cases.