On my run this morning I had another moment of seeing how the parts can indicate something about the meaning of the whole word. The word was jemand and it means “someone, somebody. anyone, or anybody,” which fits with its parts:
je – “each”
je – “ever”
je – “per, as in for each or for every”man – “one” or “you” or “we” or “people” or “they”
The man inside jemand is a signal that this indefinite pronoun can only replace a person. There is another family of je words – jeder, jeden, jedem, jedes, and jede – that can be used to replace either an object or a person. These latter je-words can also be used as adjectives as in this example from PONS:
Ich liebe jede Art von Schokolade – I love any form of chocolate
Thank goodness for this blog allowing me to tell someone, anyone, and/or everyone about this discovery!
