millennium

[ualarauans]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Lombard" <manielombard at ...> wrote:
>
> I actually meant: "faura Xristáus gabáurþái; afar Xristáus  
gabáurþ!"

That's OK grammatically.

> > faura Xristau gabauranamma and afar Xristu gabauranana 
respectively. Actually
> this is a calque from Latin (post aliquem natum "after smbd. was 
born"), I don't
> know if it was acceptable to say so in genuine Gothic. The accent 
on birth may
> be appropriate since we count years from this precise date (be it 
real or
> artificially set later), not from "Christ's time" in general.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't seem to understand your calque from Latin though (((
> 
> 
> So "faura Xristau gabauranamma" literally means "before Christ, a 
born one,
> before (a) born Christ"?

Yes, the latter, literally. Queer as it may seem to us, this was the 
way the Romans said it. And I think that Gothic with its syntax 
heavily depending on classical models could utilize this one, too.


> faura + dat
> 
> Xristus (dat. Xristáu)
> 
> past participle gabaurans (strong dat gabauranamma < infinitive 
gabauran? i. e.
> a form of baíran expressing the passive ?)

Yes, gabaurans is past participle, the infinitive being gabairan "to 
give birth". There's no passive infinitive in Gothic, only finite 
forms, synthetic in presence (gabairada "I/he/she/it is born") and 
analytical in preterite (gabaurans was/warþ "I/he/she/it was born").

> Why not faura Xristáu þamma gabáuranim?

þamma gabauranin? Hmm... Wouldn't this imply that besides the born 
Christ there was also an unborn one? Ever heard of Gothic 
gnostics? :) I remember similar examples in the Bible without the 
article, e.g. at andanahtja þan waurþanamma. 

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