What does the be- prefix change when applied to adjectives and verbs? There are many such words that seemed to be coined of this process, for example:
behold, beget, befallen, beridden, bedazzled, bedevil, between, befluxed
That's just off the top of my head; I am positive that I've missed plenty more. How does (or did) be- change the "root" of each word? (Scare quotes, because many of these "roots" don't seem to be actual words in modern English).
And also, I'm aware that words typically often gain different meanings, sometimes vastly away from their original sense, in the process of word evolution; in addition to asking what be- prefixation means in the present day, I'm also wondering about what the first coiners of these words, many from Old English, would have been thinking as they coined them, and if the be- prefix evolved from a "natural" preposition.