[gothic-l] "hi-" pronoun

[David Salo]

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>Above is the supposed Gmc. paradigm for the proximal demonstrative pronoun
>"this". It is has been tentatively developed with assistance of attestation
>to the following Gothic paradigm:
>
>      M           N            F
>
>N.    he'         hita         hei
>A.    hina        hita         hijo'n
>G.    his         his          hizo's
>D.    himma       himma        hizai
>I.    hije'       hije'        hije'
>L.    hei         hei          ?
>
>      heis        hijo'        hijo's
>      hins        hijo'        hijo's
>      heize'      heize'       heize'
>      him         him          him
>
>The Goths used some of these forms, most notably "himma" in the phrase
>"himma daga". Would they and/or did they use the paradigm as such? Need they
>have used it, or did the simple demonstrative suffice as evidenced in such
>archaic formulae?

    Presumably if it had been common we'd have seen a lot more of it in
Wulfila!  I imagine that the paradigm would have been much closer to other
Gothic pronominal paradigms, which show a strong unity, and of course there
would be no locative or instrumental:

N.	he	hita	hi
A.	hina	hita	hija
G.	his	his	hizos
D.	himma	himma	hizai

N.	heis	hija	hijos
A.	hins	hija	hijos
G.	hize	hize	hizo
D.	him	him	him

Remember that a non-stressed final -o > -a in Gothic.

He might have been his, after the model of is 'he'.

/\     WISTR LAG WIGS RAIHTS
\/            WRAIQS NU IST                               <> David Salo
<dsalo at softhome.net> <>



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