Title: Study of Prefixes in Old English, Old High German and Gothic
Abstract: In this paper, we explore the meaning(s) of the on- prefix in Old English its corresponding prefixes in Gothic and Old High German. To do so, we compare and analyze the uncompounded (without prefix) and compounded (with prefix) meanings of strong Verbs listed in the book ’Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben’ (a dictionary of Germanic Verbs and their forms in its daughter languages) and put forward possible meanings of the prefix and their possible sources. We observed three major meaning clusters:1) The prefix denoted a reversal or weakening of the original uncompounded meaning2) The prefix denoted a the action being done in a face-to-face capacity, to either positive or negative effect3) The prefix indicated a relationship between the action done and the doer of the action.These results enable an in-depth study of the prefixes that are derived from the original Proto-Germanic language.