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I am looking for a list of “trennbare Verben” just like the following ones (with Infinitiv+Verb): sitzenbleiben, fallenlassen, kennenlernen, spazierengehen

Anything goes as long as it fits the infinitive+verb scheme.

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2 Answers 2

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It would be far beyond the scope of this site to provide a list of all separable infinitive to verb compounds.

Online dictionaries will sometimes provide such lists.

A list with at present 59 separable verb-to-verb compounds from bestehenbleiben to wissenlassen is maintained by canoo.net:

canoo.net: List of infinitive to verb compounds

All those verbs follow the scheme infinitve + verb form and usually are separable.

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  • The link to the list is not permanent and has already stopped working for me. I get a list of all words instead.
    – chirlu
    Oct 25, 2015 at 18:50
  • @chirlu: thank you for pointing: is the link (after my edit) better?
    – Takkat
    Oct 25, 2015 at 18:55
  • Seems to be working.
    – chirlu
    Oct 25, 2015 at 18:57
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    @Takkat that's a good policy, but it also means, that your answer is quite meat-free, if you catch my drift. If the link dies, this thread becomes worthless. Oct 26, 2015 at 20:33
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    @Takkat It’s really not that big a list.
    – Crissov
    Oct 28, 2015 at 9:15
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Deutsche Rechtschreibung – Regeln und Wörterverzeichnis (entsprechend den Empfehlungen des Rats für deutsche Rechtschreibung):

B Getrennt- und Zusammenschreibung
(…)
§ 34 Partikeln, Adjektive, Substantive oder Verben können als Verbzusatz mit Verben trennbare Zusammensetzungen bilden. Man schreibt sie nur in den Infinitiven, den Partizipien sowie im Nebensatz bei Endstellung des Verbs zusammen.

Dies betrifft (…) (4) Verbindungen mit einem verbalen ersten Bestandteil.
Verbindungen aus zwei Verben werden getrennt geschrieben (…)
E7: Bei Verbindungen mit bleiben und lassen als zweitem Bestandteil ist bei übertragener Bedeutung auch Zusammenschreibung möglich. Dasselbe gilt für kennen lernen: (…)

There are actually very few verb-verb compounds whose infinitive is written as one word according to recent orthographic rules. It’s only valid (and not required) if the combined meaning is opaque, i.e. the first, left-hand part is used in a figurative sense or the combined meaning is not transparent at all and therefore must be learned. It’s usually literal meaning if you can form a semantically compatible statement without the second part. That basically just leaves +bleiben und +lassen as right-hand parts.

  • Ich will dich nicht hängenlassen. ‘I don’t want to abandon you.’
  • Ich will dich nicht hängen lassen. ‘I don’t want to let them hang you.’ → Ich will nicht, dass man dich hängt.
  • Ich will nicht schon wieder hängenbleiben. ‘I don’t want to repeat class again.’
  • Das Bild wird bei mir nicht hängenbleiben. ‘I won’t remember this picture.’
  • Das Bild soll nicht an der Wand hängen bleiben. ‘The picture shall not stay hanging on the wall.’ → Das Bild hängt an der Wand.

There is another one, +lernen, that is debatable. It differs from the other two in that it often originally did or still may use a zu in front of its left-hand partners, e.g. kennen+, lieben+ and schätzen+, when separated. You’ll be fine always splitting those.

Canoo’s 59-word list from @Takkat’s answer contains 10 duplicates because they have two entries, one for the literal meaning (hence outdated spelling) and one for a conventionalized figurative meaning: haften+, hängen+, kleben+, liegen+, stecken+, stehen+bleiben and hängen+, liegen+, stecken+, stehen+lassen.

The rest, with just one entry, for +bleiben and +lassen is bestehen+, sitzen+bleiben and bestehen+, bieten+, bleiben+, blicken+, fahren+, fallen+, gehen+, kommen+, laufen+, platzen+, ruhen+, sausen+, schießen+, schleifen+, schmoren+, schwimmen+, sein+, setzen+, sitzen+, spielen+, sprechen+, springen+, steigen+, sterben+, treiben+, vermissen+, wissen+lassen.

Some of the other entries are never used figuratively, some (almost) always. All entries for spazieren+ followed by another verb of movement (+fahren, +führen, +gehen, +reiten) are always split nowadays – spazieren is often used as an adverbial verb if you will, but can also be used on its and then implies walking (gehen). The other two entries for +gehen, i.e. flötengehen ‘go down the drain’ and stiftengehen ‘run off’, don’t relate to flöten ‘(play the) flute’ and stiften ‘donate; create’, respectively, in any obvious way, so they should be written as one word except when – rarely – used in a literal sense, but according to official rules they are now split always. Go figure.

One entry doesn’t actually follow the alleged INF+INF pattern and is inseparable: sonnenbaden. There is a reflexive verb sonnen which basically means the same as sonnenbaden ‘sun-bathe’, but it’s not used to form the compound which instead is based directly upon Sonne ‘sun’.

PS: This has been a major point of criticism by professional writers when the orthography reform was publicly discussed in the second part of the 1990s, and still is. PEN authors etc. would have preferred a general rule that favored writing as one word whenever the compound meaning was not literal, regardless of the types of the components. As you can see, it’s more relevant to adjective+verb compounds etc. – kennen lernen was the only change that was really disliked, hence its exceptional inclusion later on.

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