What is "get a-moving"?

Question

I often come across verbs of continuous tense prefixed with "a-".  What is it trying to say?  When or where do we say in this way?Above is one of the examples I have come aacross recently.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Please show us the full sentence, with some context. Where did you find it?.

I've only heard people talk like this in old Cowboy movies, and I don't remember the last time I saw it in writing.

Clive

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousI often come across verbs of continuous tense prefixed with "a-". What is it trying to say?

It is a relic of an older form of English. You will see it used in American English in the 1800s, particularly in the south.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/a-?r=66

Entries:
(literary or archaic) ( used before a present participle) in the act or process of: come a-running, go a-hunting

a reduced form of the Old English preposition on, meaning “on,” “in,” “into,” “to,” “toward,” preserved before a noun in a prepositional phrase, forming a predicate adjective or an adverbial element ( afoot; abed; ashore; aside; away), or before an adjective ( afar; aloud; alow), as a moribund prefix with a verb ( acknowledge), and in archaic and dialectal use before a present participle in -ing (set the bells aringing); and added to a verb stem with the force of a present participle ( ablaze; agape; aglow; astride; and originally, awry).

Examples:
Here We Come A-wassailing (or Here We Come A-caroling) is an English traditional Christmas carol and New Year song, apparently composed c. 1850. The old English wassail song refers to 'wassailing', or singing carols door to door wishing good health, while the a- is an archaic intensifying prefix; compare A-Hunting We Will Go and lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas (e.g., "Six geese a-laying").

Healer · Answer

The example I gave I heard exactly from the American cowboy movie Montana I watched last night.  I have heard something similar from somewhere else too, probably not of modern-day conversation.

Clive · Answer

You said I often come across verbs of continuous tense prefixed with "a-".

Are you sure you know what 'often' means?

Clive

Healer · Answer

I do know and use words made up of an adjective or a noun prefixed with a letter 'a' but without a hyphen in between. What I am puzzled is those action words prefixed with a letter 'a' with a hyphen in between.

Basically, I presume the answer to my question is supposedly as what you said as follows.
a reduced form of the Old English preposition on, meaning “on,” “in,” “into,” “to,” “toward,”which is not a modern-day usage. Having read the explanation I also think the prefix "a-" could be omitted completely and the conjugation is still grammatically correct. For example, come running and go hunting used these days instead of come a-running, go a-hunting used in old days.

Clive · Answer

Yes. Just omit the prefix a-. It's not in common usage,and is likely to make your English sound silly.

Clive

Healer · Answer

Well, it has appeared more than seldom to me. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/> Perhaps I pay too much attention to everything.

CalifJim · Answer

AlpheccaStarsIt is a relic of an older form of English. You will see it used in American English in the 1800s, particularly in the south.

Out of curiosity, have you seen any reference to the types of verbs this construction can be used with? I ask because I have never seen a- -ing with a stative verb (a-being, a-having, etc.), and I believe I once read somewhere that (even in its heyday) it could not be used with statives.

CJ

Healer · Answer

You could well be correct in that I have hardly come across the sort of constructs but I can't be sure.  I won't completely rule them out though for poetic and archaic constructs didn't seem to follow any rules as we all use nowadays.  Your question has however helped further pique my interest in this area.  Thanks!

AlpheccaStars · Answer

CalifJimOut of curiosity, have you seen any reference to the types of verbs this construction can be used with?

Borrowed from this (long discussion) http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/a-running-prefix-a-before-verb.283120/ on another forum:

From the OED:

11. Expressing action, with a verbal noun or gerund taken actively. Now arch. and regional.
a. After be (or occasionally another verb expressing state) and before a verbal noun: engaged in (some activity). Also withof and object. Cf. http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=a-going&first=1&max_to_show=10&single=1&sort_type=alpha&xrefword=in&ps=prep.&homonym_no=1 prep.1 11c, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/crossref?query_type=word&queryword=a-going&first=1&max_to_show=10&single=1&sort_type=alpha&xrefword=on&ps=prep. prep. 12b.
N.E.D. (1884) states: ‘In literary English the a is omitted, and the verbal noun treated as a participle agreeing with the subject, and governing its case, to be fishing, fighting, making anything. But most of the southern dialects, and the vulgar speech both in England and America, retain the earlier usage.’ 2003 Daily Tel. 18 Nov. 23/1 The invitation has been such a long time a-coming.

b. After a verb denoting or implying motion and before a verbal noun: to, into (some action). Cf. prep.1 11c, prep. 23.
2005 Daily Tel. 20 June 9/1 Eligible bachelors..meet marriageable ladies..at a country pub to go a-courting in the Cotswolds.

c. Before the gerund of a transitive verb and its object. 2000 O. SENIOR in N. Hopkinson Whispers from Cotton Tree Root 139 This fish not just moving, it dancing. A-wiggling and a-moving its tail.

d. Before a gerund used as subject or object complement generally, equivalent to (and generally considered to be) a present participle. 2006 Nature 4 May p. vii/1 Male túngara frogs a-wooing produce a species-specific call to attract females.

Other examples:
Mark Twain:
a ) "Well, I'd been a-runnin'a little temperance revival thar,
b ) bell-crown hat, and shoe-boots a-shinin' like silver,
Bob Dylan:
"The times they are a-changing..."
Another song:
"Frog, he Would A-Wooing Go."

What is "get a-moving"?

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