Gothic Online (a course by Todd B Krause and Jonathan Slocum)

[llama_nom]

One or two more gripes:

Lesson 1

"Nevertheless, on etymological grounds and because of the archaic 
nature of the morphology, it is common in scholarship to ascribe 
values to Gothic letters which preserve the distinctions between, 
say, ei and e, or between ái, ai, and aí, though they may be prior 
to Wulfila's time, and not in accordance with Wulfila's own 
pronunciation."

If the distinction between Proto Germanic /i:/ and /e:/ had already 
been lost by the time the Gothic alphabet was created, (1) why would 
Wulfila have use two spellings, and (2) how would he have managed to 
use them correctly most of the time?  Isn't it more likely that the 
distinction was blurred after his time?  This would agree more with 
the fact that confusion between <ei> and <e> is sporadic and 
commoner in certain sections of the bible.


Lesson 2

"Luke 2.49 also begins with an interesting collocation: þa þatei 
sokideduþ mik? The phrase hva þatei is a compressed phrase 'what is 
this?', the þata then pointing to what follows, hence the relative 
marker ei. This phrase has, by the time of the Gothic text, become 
frozen as a way of saying 'why'. A similar development happened 
within Latin during the Middle Ages, where quid est quod -- 
literally 'what is (this, the fact) that...' -- came simply to 
denote 'why'."

Not a valid example; matches the Greek.


Lesson 3

"In verse 6.6, the phrase habáida táujan '(what) he would do' 
provides an example of a compound future tense, still with a sense 
of necessity given by haban."

Giving a "sense of necessity" is one use of the auxiliary 
verb 'have' in *English*.  Its Gothic cognate 'haban' is used seven 
times to express futurity, but I don't think that it's used anywhere 
else apart from that to express necessity.  The statement might be 
more applicable to another Gothic verb used to express the future, 
namely 'skulan', which does sometimes have a sense of necessity or 
obligation, though that sense of obligation is not always present 
when it's just being used to express the future.


Lesson 4

"In Luke 4.3 we find a nominative form sunáus instead of the proper 
nominative sunus 'son'; a similar form diabuláus replaces the proper 
nominative diabulus in Luke 4.5. It is likely that, shortly after 
the time of Wulfila (if not before), the diphthong áu was 
monophthongized and subsequently indistinguishable from u, leading 
to occasional scribal confusion."

The fluctuation between <u> and <au> is confined to certain cases of 
the singular of u-stem nouns (the nominative is almost always -us), 
and is usually seen as a specific morphological change, rather than 
a general phonetic one.  There is no regular confusion between <u> 
and <au> elsewhere in stressed or unstressed syllables.  Whether or 
when /áu/ was monophthongised is another question...


Lesson 6

"The following passage is Mark 4:1-12, the parable of the Sower and 
the Seed. Looking at Mark 4.1, we find swaswe ina galeiþandan in 
skip gasitan in marein 'so that he entered into a ship, and sat in 
the sea'. The construction is actually an infinitival result clause, 
at its most basic swaswe... ina... gasitan 'so as... (for) him... to 
sit'. The participle galeiþandan is a masculine accusative modifying 
ina, '(for) him going'."

Invalid example; synatax matches Greek.

"Mark 9.9 gives an illustration of what, in grammars of the 
classical languages Greek and Latin, is typically termed the 
sequence of tenses: anabáuþ im ei mannhun ni spillodedeina 'he 
charged them that they should tell no man'. The direct command would 
have employed a present subjunctive or imperative. However when the 
indirect command is introduced by a past tense verb, the present 
subjunctive or imperative is rendered by a past subjunctive. A 
similar situation obtains in Modern English: the future tense in 'He 
will go home' is restructured as a past subjunctive (or really a 
past tense of the present 'will') when subordinate to a past tense 
main verb, as in 'He said that he would go home.'"

Gothic preterite translates Greek aorist, as usual, so this clause 
offers no direct information about the sequence of tenses in Gothic.


Lesson 9

"Another interesting construction is found in Mark 16.8: dizuh-þan-
sat ijos reiro jah usfilmei, literally 'and then a trembling beset 
them, and amazement'. "

More literally (and graphically): "trembling and amazement sat them 
to pieces" !


LN



--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at o...> wrote:
>
> 
> http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/eieol/gotol-TC.html
> 
> Look what I just found!  A complete course for beginners with 
> paradigms, syntactical notes, historical background sketches, and 
a 
> chapter on Crimean Gothic with a translation of Busbeque's letter 
> and a discussion of the phonology of Crimean Greek.  Lots of great 
> stuff.  I've just a few quibbles, mainly that some points about 
> syntax use examples where the Gothic is a perfect match for the 
> Greek (and thus possibly an imitation of the Greek), without 
> mentioning this fact:
> 
> Ch. 2 "Luke 2.49 also begins with an interesting collocation: hva 
> þatei sokideduþ mik? The phrase hva þatei is a compressed 
> phrase 'what is this?', the þata then pointing to what follows, 
> hence the relative marker ei. This phrase has, by the time of the 
> Gothic text, become frozen as a way of saying 'why'. A similar 
> development happened within Latin during the Middle Ages, where 
quid 
> est quod -- literally 'what is (this, the fact) that...' -- came 
> simply to denote 'why'."
> 
> Ch. 3 "The syntax of John 6.14 is similarly noteworthy: 
> gasaíhvandans þoei gatawida táikn Iesus, literally 'seeing the-
which-
> (Jesus)-did miracle', where the relative clause has been pulled to 
> the front, before its actual antecedent. This fronting of the 
> relative clause is common to many of the Indo-European languages, 
> including Sanskrit and even its modern daughters, such as Hindi."
> 
> But in the section on "historical present" tense, agreement and 
> disagreement with the Greek text is noted as in Streitberg 299.1.  
> But on the whole, very worthwhile.
> 
> Llama Nom
>







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