Etymologically
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Satz

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Pronunciation

  • /zat͡s/, /sat͡s/[1]

Forms

Satz m (genitive Satzes, plural Sätze)[1] A plural without umlaut is found until the 17th century.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German saz (also satz), found earlier only in compounds such as Old High German ursaz and bīsaz, from about 900.[3][4][2] The noun exists only in German.[5] Pfeifer and Duden treat it as a noun formed to setzen, and so in ablaut with sitzen.[4][5] Kluge separates the old sense “position, situation”, which he takes as the abstract noun of the verb meaning “sit”, from the senses “leap” and “statement”, which he explains as back-formed from the verb meaning “set”, as “that which is set”.[3][6]

The verb continues Proto-Germanic *satjaną (“to set”), the causative of *sitjaną (“to sit”), and is the same word as Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 (satjan), Old Norse setja and Old English settan, whose modern form is English set.[7] Its root is Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”).[7][8] Wiktionary compares Yiddish זעץ (zets, “a punch”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German saz is found once on its own, in a 10th-century gloss, apparently in the sense “determination”.[8] Middle High German saz had a wide range: the place where something is set, position, a pledge or stake in a game, what has been laid down (an ordinance, law or contract), a fixed price, an utterance, a resolve, and a leap.[4][9][5]

Semantic evolution

Duden sorts the many senses into two groups, “the act of setting” and “what is set”, and notes that few of the medieval ones survived.[5] The grammatical sense grew out of the Middle High German use for an arrangement of words, as in Konrad von Würzburg's miner worte satz.[10][5] Duden dates it to the 16th century, Pfeifer to the 17th;[5][4] it became a fixed term in the 18th century, when Gottsched (1749) and Adelung (1781), following the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff, defined the Satz as the joining of a subject and a predicate.[10] From the logical sense came that of a proposition or theorem (Lehrsatz).[5][2]

The sense “leap” is already Middle High German.[5] Only in New High German, mostly in the 18th century, came the printer's sense (the setting of type, 1740), the musical one (a movement of a work), “a set of things that belong together” and “sediment, grounds”.[4][10] Hungarian borrowed the word as zacc “coffee grounds” (1900), and Norwegian as sats.[11][1]

Timeline

  • About 900 – Old High German compounds in -saz appear.[4]
  • 10th century – Kluge's date for the word;[3][8] Old High German saz in a gloss.[3][8]
  • 13th century – Konrad von Würzburg writes of miner worte satz.[10]
  • 16th–17th century – the grammatical sense “sentence” appears.[5][4]
  • 1740 – first record of the printer's sense.[10]
  • 1781 – Adelung defines the sentence by subject and predicate.[10]
  • 18th century – the senses “set”, “sediment” and “movement” are recorded.[4]
  • 1900 – Hungarian zacc is recorded.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sentence: Der zweite Satz ist zu lang.[12][1]
  2. A proposition, theorem or principle: der Satz des Thales.[12][1]
  3. (printing) The setting of type; the typeset matter.[12][1]
  4. (music) A movement of a larger work; also the way a piece is set, its texture.[12][1]
  5. (official) A fixed rate: Der Satz für Übernachtungen wurde erhöht.[12]
  6. A set of things that belong together: ein Satz Schraubenschlüssel.[12][1]
  7. (hunting) A litter of hares or rabbits.[12]
  8. (computing) A data record.[12]
  9. Sediment, grounds: der Satz im Weinglas.[12][1]
  10. (tennis, volleyball, table tennis) A set: Sie gewann den dritten Satz.[12][1]
  11. A leap or bound: Der Hund sprang mit einem Satz über den Bach.[12][1]

Word family

  • Absatz
  • Ansatz
  • Aufsatz
  • Einsatz
  • Ersatz
  • Gegensatz
  • Grundsatz
  • Lehrsatz
  • Nebensatz
  • Hauptsatz
  • Bodensatz
  • Satzung
  • Umsatz
  • Vorsatz
  • Zusatz

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 1837
  3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 788
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 717
  6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  7. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 846
  8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 617
  10. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  11. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag