What does the 'a' in a-knocking, for example, means?

Question

I've seen lyrics, poetry and other texts with this kind of construction, with an 'a' preceding a verb ("He came a-knocking on my door', or something like it) and have no idea of its meaning. Why is it there and when can I use it?
(I'm not a native English speaker.)

Answer 1

It's old English, a relic of the time when the past participle would begin with y- so that an author such as Chaucer would write y-gonne for "gone" and y-wonne for won". Similarly, the present participle (words ending in -ing) would be prefaced with "a". In some parts of the country this survived until comparatively recently, hence in Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens one reads (chapter 13) "You won't catch Ned a-dying easy. No, no. He knows better than that.' ... at your door--and always a-knocking double knocks at it, too, or never trust me! ..."
I would advise against using it. People don't nowadays.

Answer 2

this is a pretty common construction in colloquial dialects. The meaning is roughly the same as without the a-.

It does give a slight nuance to the present continuous meaning. It usually follows an intransitive verb and indicates a focused, intense or purposeful action.

For example: to say "he went running" would mean someone was going out for a nice jog. On the other hand "he went a-running" means that he was running as fast as he could in a panic.

In your example, "he came a-knocking on my door" is not necessarily literal, it could mean "he came for a visit" or maybe "he made romantic advances toward me" even if the man never knocked on a door.

Answer 3

It's incorrect slang to change the verb "knocking" to a noun "knock". If you were to hit a door once it would be "a knock" the action of hitting the door repeatedly is knocking.

They are just adding it in, to make something rhyme or flow better.

Short answer, bad English.

Answer 4

it may be a meaningless expletive, to fill up the metre. (especially in iambic verse.)

if it has any meaning I would understand it as:

He came "doing the act of" knocking, which means pretty much the same as "he came knocking".

So I guess that the function of the "a" is, in fact, to intervene between the two stressed syllables "came" and "knock," and to fill up the metre.

Answer 5

It is merely used for rhythm and rhyme. 'Came' and 'knocking' don't sound as nice poetically as 'came a-knocking' because the 'a' is a transition between the 'came and the 'knocking'. In other words, you almost strike a balance of two two-syllable words. In this example, you can picture the words, due to pronunciation, actually being 'came-a' and 'knocking'. The 'a' is soft, with 'knock' being emphasized more. This gives a pleasing rhythm of ONE-two ONE-two. The 'a' is placed on 'knocking' instead of 'came' because 'came-a' simply doesn't make as much sense as 'a-knocking'.

Answer 6

I think it means "to" or " to be"