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I was given the following particle in phrasal verbs said to be separables:

ab-, an-, auf-, aus-, bei-, ein-, fest-, her-, herein-, hin-, los-, mit-, nach-, vor-, weg-, weiter-, zu-, zurück-, zusammen-,

and depending on the meaning of the word:

durch-, über-, um-, unter-, voll-, wider-, wieder-,

but is this list exhaustive?

For instance, what about fernsehen?

Ich sehe die television fern

Shouldn't it be also in the list?

I looked throughouly at this question, but it didn't wholly answered my question as far as mine is about the particles that generate separable verbs rather than a list of separable verbs which, I know would be too braod and too long. My purpose is to systematize my learning of verbs: I want to know, when I have a verb, in which cases can I separate it from its particle.

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Revolucion for Monica
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    Your sentence is not correct. It should be Ich sehe fern as fernsehen already includes the notion of Television. – Ralph M. Rickenbach Feb 22 '16 at 07:24
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    Possible duplicate of List of separable verbs (Infinitiv+Verb) – chirlu Feb 22 '16 at 07:32
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    Fern- shouldn't be in the list because it is used only in fernsehen (and maybe in a couple of other very rarely used or artificially constructed words). – Eller Feb 22 '16 at 07:35
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    Equivalent link for the separable verbs: http://www.canoo.net/services/Controller?service=inflectionRules&filter=VerbSeparable&inflectionClass=Trennbare+Verben&entryClass=Cat+V – chirlu Feb 22 '16 at 07:36
  • "Fernsehen" can be considered a composite verb built from "Fernseher" and "sehen" - The duplicated "sehen" part doesn't make sense and is removed. Compare to "radfahren". Such composite verbs are always separable, IMHO. – tofro Feb 22 '16 at 10:54
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    @tofro Are you sure that fernsehen is built from Fernseher and sehen? I would say the opposite - that Fernseher" derives from _fernsehen. – Eller Feb 22 '16 at 11:55
  • @Alex.S Okay, from your thoughts about fernsehen this list can be considered as exhaustive? – Revolucion for Monica Feb 22 '16 at 12:21
  • @Alex.S: I'd say we can be pretty sure both "Fernseher" and "fernsehen" derives from "fern sehen". You must have the box first (and a name for it) before you can watch it (and need a word for that ;) ) – tofro Feb 22 '16 at 15:27
  • No, the list is not complete. At first glance umher- and herum- are missing, but there may easily be others. On the other hand, I don't see the benefit of a complete list, if in doubt, one will look at the dictionary anyway. So you hope by learning the list by heart you will not need the dictionary at all? – guidot Feb 22 '16 at 15:30
  • @chirlu: This is definitely no duplicate of the question (infinitive+verb), since here just particles are given. – guidot Feb 22 '16 at 15:36
  • @guidot: The question got changed, it originally asked for a list of the verbs; that was too broad or answered by a canoonet link, whatever you prefer. – chirlu Feb 22 '16 at 15:42
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    While the attempt to create such a list is generally commendable, I am not sure whether it will actually help you learning your vocabulary. I would rather recommend you try and memorize your verbs /with a bit of context/ (This is how my brain tries to work, at least once it does...) like "durchführen - execute - ich führe ein Projekt durch". I cannot really imagine how you will ever try and have a conversation with a bunch of different lists floating around in your head.... - And no, the list is certainly not exhaustive even if we fail to come up with more entries – tofro Feb 22 '16 at 17:14
  • @Alex.S that's not correct. fern is not just a particle for fernsehen, but also for other particle verbs such as fernbleiben. – Janek Bevendorff Feb 22 '16 at 17:41
  • @JanekBevendorff fernbleiben is one of those two and a half rarely used words :) – Eller Feb 23 '16 at 10:12
  • I guess you can also make a word from the antiquated expression "Fernsprecher" -> fernsprechen. But in general it doesn't matter how many words use a certain particle to make it a particle. Only the rules matter and these apply for fern like for any other particle as described in my answer below. wider is another word for which I can come up with only one particle verb (widerspiegeln, all other words such as widersetzen are prefix verbs) and it's still a particle. – Janek Bevendorff Feb 23 '16 at 10:17
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    I think it is easier to have a list of prefixes that are not separable such as be- , ver-, zer-. That list is much smaler. – rogermue Feb 23 '16 at 19:05

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I don't think that you should really try to build an exhaustive list of particle verbs and their particles. My grammar lexicon (DUDEN, Die Grammatik, 2005) has 10 pages for particle verbs alone.

Here is a list of possible particles/prefixes as I found it in that dictionary (Rule 1062):

  1. ab, an, auf, aus, bei, durch, hinter, mit, nach über, um, unter, vor, wider, zu; ein (entspricht der Präposition in)
  2. her, hin, herunter, hinunter, dahin
  3. fest, frei, hoch
  4. preis- in preisgeben, stand- in standhalten, teil- in teilhaben, teilnehmen

(1) prepositional, (2) adverbial, (3) adjectival, (4) substantival

This list is already really long, but it is explicitly marked as exemplary and indeed, there are many, many more (e.g. entgegen, entlang, gegen [1]; fort, heim [2]; fern, glatt [3]; stand, wett [4]).

To make things more confusing, there is a distinction between particle and prefix verbs. Particle verbs can be separated, prefix verbs cannot.

For instance, durchstreifen is a prefix verb, but durchtragen ist a particle verb. durchlaufen is both a particle and prefix verb and has a slightly different meaning depending on what it actually is. Another example is überprüfen (prefix verb), überwechseln (particle verb) and übergehen (both prefix and particle verb).

So from the prefix alone you can't tell if you can separate a word or not. A better way to tell if a verb is separable is the stress. Prefix verbs are stressed on the verb part, particle verbs are stressed on the particle.

Using the verbs from above, this would be durch'streifen for the prefix verb and 'durchtragen for the particle verb. durchlaufen can be either stressed as durch'laufen (then it is a prefix verb and means to go or run through something, e.g. a gamut) or 'durchlaufen (then it is a particle verb and means to wear something out by walking with or over it, e.g. shoes).

Prefixes, that can come in front of prefix verbs (but are also particles) are durch, über, um, unter, hinter and wider. The rest build particle verbs, but as I said already, the list goes on and on.

Janek Bevendorff
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  • Okay, this is scary but it answers my question. I touhght german would have been a bit more "user friendly"... I will let it open until tomorrow and then accept your answer. – Revolucion for Monica Feb 22 '16 at 18:29
  • I don't think I'd ever be able to memorize all particle verbs as a foreign language learner. I guess your best bet is to just learn the most import ones and leave the rest to practice and gut feeling. At least that's how I do it, but German is my first language, so not too surprising. – Janek Bevendorff Feb 22 '16 at 19:11