kommen

Forms

kommen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present kommt, past tense kam, past participle gekommen, past subjunctive käme, auxiliary sein)^[1] In the 18th century writers mostly still used the umlauted kömmst, kömmt, which survive in dialects;^[2] Adelung's authority made kommst, kommt standard.^[2] The past participle was at first kommen without ge-, still common in Goethe.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German komen, inherited from Old High German queman, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *kweman, inherited from Proto-Germanic *kwemaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷem- (“to step, go, come”).^[3][4][1] The same strong verb is Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌼𐌰𐌽 (qiman), Old Norse koma, Old English cuman, Old Saxon kuman and Old Frisian kuma, with English come and Dutch komen.^[3][4][1] Outside Germanic it is related to Ancient Greek βαίνω (baínō, “I go”), Latin veniō (“I come”), Tocharian B käm- (“to come”) and Lithuanian gim̃ti (“to be born”), perhaps “to come into the world”.^[3][4]

Kluge takes the Germanic verb from an originally zero-grade formation.^[3] Kroonen notes the two Germanic variants ⟨*kweman-⟩ and ⟨*kuman-⟩ and thinks the verb most likely continues an old root aorist.^[5] The initial /kw/ (Old High German ⟨qu⟩) merged with the following vowel into ⟨o⟩ in Middle High German.^[4][2] The old Germanic initial survives in bequem.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German queman is recorded from the last quarter of the 8th century in glosses and in Isidor, the Monsee fragments and the Tatian, and later in Otfrid and Notker.^[7] Its senses were “come, arrive, return, come out, arise, descend from, enter, reach, follow, fall to someone's share”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The Grimms' dictionary dates the breakdown of the old initial to about the 10th century, with ⟨qua-⟩ holding out longest, in places until today.^[9] Paul describes how the /w/ first merged with the vowel in the present and participle and was then lost in the preterite as well (Middle High German quam – quāmen).^[2]

The verb names the result of a movement of any kind, and its manner is added with a participle (gegangen, gefahren, geflogen kommen).^[2] bringen serves as its causative, so that the two often run in parallel.^[2] The old noun Kunft “coming, arrival”, Old High German kumft (8th century), was given up as a free word in the early 19th century but lives on in Ankunft, Herkunft and Zukunft, and in künftig.^[4][6]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German queman appears in glosses.^[7]
• 8th century – The noun kumft “coming” is recorded.^[4]
• 10th century – The initial ⟨qu-⟩ begins to be lost.^[9]
• 18th century – Writers still use kömmst, kömmt;^[2] Adelung's kommst, kommt later prevails.^[2]
• Early 19th century – Kunft goes out of use as a free noun.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To come towards a place and get there; to arrive.^[10][1]
2. To come over, go somewhere to join someone.^[1]
3. To get somewhere, to manage to reach it (wie komme ich schnell auf die Autobahn?).^[10][1]
4. To be put or belong somewhere.^[1]
5. Impersonal: to happen, come about (wie kommt es, dass …?).^[1][10]
6. With aus: to come from a place or background.^[1]
7. With von or durch: to be due to, result from.^[1]
8. With auf: to think of, hit on (an idea or answer).^[1]
9. With um: to lose, be deprived of.^[1]
10. (colloquial) To have an orgasm.^[1]

Word family

• ankommen
• bekommen
• verkommen
• vorkommen
• umkommen
• zukommen
• abkommen
• auskommen
• Ankunft
• Herkunft
• Zukunft
• künftig
• willkommen
• vollkommen
• Einkommen
• Abkommen
• Kommen

Related words

• Kunft
• bequem
• English come

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 516
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. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 456
7. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 7, 48
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 189
9. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 11, 1625
10. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag