Some indistinct grammar information

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Fredrik" <gadrauhts at h...> wrote:
> I don't know how good verbix is but acording to them saian is 
saisot. 
> No s at all.
> Look at: http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/go.asp?
T1=saian&D1=15&H1=115


Hails Fredrik,

See for yourself [ 
http://www.wulfila.be/Corpus/Find.asp ], 'saisost' is attested at L 
19,21.  It is the only 2nd sg. past form of a strong verb ending in 
a vowel to have survived.  See Braune/Helm 'Gotische Grammatik' 170, 
note 2: "Ob alle vokalische auslautende Stämme die Endung -st 
annahmen, ist wegen Mangel an Belegen nicht sicher" (Whether all 
stems ending in a vowel took the ending -st is uncertain due to the 
lack of evidence).

I don't think Verbix is currently a very reliable guide to Gothic 
verbs.  I've just had a quick look at it, but I see that the final 
consonant is missing in the 3rd sg. imperative of 'magan', 'kunnan' 
and derivatives.  It doesn't recognise that some derivatives 
of 'kunnan' are preterite-present verbs, others weak 3.  Those it 
doesn't recognise at all it mistakes for class 4 verbs, because of 
the -nan.  The "warning" about verbs it doesn't recognise shouldn't 
deceive you into thinking that it is reliable about all of the 
others.  There are even problems with the verb "to be" (with the 
imperative, for which Gothic actually only used the subjunctive).


> 
> Even waian is like this on their site:
> http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/go.asp?T1=waian&D1=15&H1=115



'waian' is attested in the past plural 3rd person: waiwoun (Mt 7,25-
27), but not the 2nd singular.  So nobody really knows.  Our only 
clue is 'saisost', which suggests the ending -st after vowels, thus 
presumably *waiwost.



> A weird thing is itan. Could that be êt in 1st sing. and êtt in 
2nd, 
> past ofcourse? Shouldnt it be like at and ast or smth?



'itan' and 'fra-itan' are irregular in Gothic as they are in the 
other early Germanic languages.  The vowel of the past plural 
appears also in the singular.  So instead of the expected *at, we 
would have *et.  Attested is the plural 'etun' (17,27-28), fretun (L 
8,5; M 4,4); and the singular 'fret' (L 15,30).  Compate past 
1st/3rd singular Old English 'æt' (long vowel); Icelandic 'át'.  In 
Gothic, the 2nd sg. past would be *est, and for 'fra-itan' *frest.

Note also that -b + t > -ft, thus 'gaft' "you gave".  By this 
logic, -g ought to become 'h'.  It doesn't in 'magt' "you can", but 
I suspect this is just an analogical spelling, since <g> may have 
been pronounced the same as <h> in this position anyway.

Incidentally, the change of dentals to 's' before the 't' of the 2nd 
person sg. past suggests that certain other consonants should have 
changed too, as they do before -t- in other parts of speech.  Thus 
perhaps *skoft "you made" (from 'skapjan') and *woht "you were 
awake" (from 'wakan').  But unfortunately no examples have survived 
to show whether this did happen, or whether they were *skopt, 
*wokt.  For what it's worth, my guess is *skoft, etc.  But who 
knows...

Llama Nom




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