Uppkomsten av betydelsen ’förstå’ hos verbet förstå och andra indoeuropeiska verb

Abstract

Förstå is the central Swedish word for ‘to understand’. The verb is a loan from Middle Low German vorstān ‘to understand’, with counterparts in other West Germanic languages, German verstehen, Dutch verstaan etc. How a prefix in conjunction with the word for ‘to stand’ has given the meaning ‘to understand’ is by no means self-evident, and several different explanations have been suggested. Section 2 deals with the rise of the meaning ‘to understand’ in förstå, together with a discussion of a corresponding development
in three other comparable prefixed verbs, Greek ἐπίσταμαι, Middle Low German understān (English understand) and Old High German in(t)stantan (Middle High German en(t)stehen). In the Greek verb the physical sense ‘stand beside something’, in understān the very similar ‘stand in the midst of something’ (not, as is generally believed, ‘to stand under something’) is the origin of the cognitive meaning ‘to understand’. In Old High German in(t)stantan, I explain the sense ‘to understand’ as a development from ‘by standing obtain something’. I also prefer explaining the rise of the sense ‘to understand’ in Middle Low German vorstān as a similar semantic process. In the analysis of the four prefixed verbs in section 2 it was found essential to acquire a grasp of the semantic development of
‘to understand’ in Proto-Indo-European verbs. Section 3 gives a survey of the semantic developments that have been found, broken down into twelve categories consisting of the “pre-meanings”, the basic senses of the verb or a secondary sense of it, which is the
basis for the sememe ‘to understand’ in each category. In the categories 3.1–3.7 we find metaphorical processes (and similar developments) from the following pre-meanings: ‘grip, grasp with hands; acquire, come into possesion of’; ‘gather (and sort or order; separate, distinguish’; ‘arrive at’; ‘stand beside or in the midst of or in front of something’; ‘technically or electrotechnically join’. Categories 3.8−3.12 involve a transfer of the sense impressions ‘hear’ and ‘see’ and the development from the cognitive ‘notice’ and ‘know’.