Dostoevskii's "Biblical syntax" in "Bros. Karamazov"

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues and Prof Lagerberg:

Would it perhaps help to "justify" Dostoevskii's phrase if you would
translate it as:

"by which ways Thou knoweth, save them."

My impression is that this type of phrase crops up not rarely in OCS 
and early East Slavic.  It can even be expressed thus in (archaic) English
(see above).

Best wishes to all,
Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois (USA).
_________________________________________________________________

Date: Wed 7 May 00:36:04 CDT 2008
From: <LISTSERV at BAMA.UA.EDU>  
Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS 
To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU> 
 
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 13:06:06 +1000
From: Robert Lagerberg <robertjl at UNIMELB.EDU.AU> 
Subject: Re: Brothers K. 

Thanks for your prompt reply and explanation. Yes, obviously CS, and the use
of a comma would make the overall structure clearer, but it still doesn't
explain the use of the instrumental for the relative pronoun. One would
expect the acc. pl. form here as the direct object of '(which) Thou
knowest', not '(by which) Thou knowest'. In NT Greek the relative pronoun is
sometimes put into the same case as its antecedent (see for example Luke 5:9
and compare with 'correct' use in OCS texts), but, as a learned colleague
points out, this is not the case in Church Slavonic. So perhaps we have here
a word for word (and case for case) translation from the Greek, or something
else.

Robert Lagerberg
_______________________________________________________________ 

> From: <mclellan at PRINCETON.EDU>
> Reply-To: "SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list"
> <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:50:02 -0400
> To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Brothers K.
> 
> The phrase is not Russian, but Church Slavonic.
 
> имиже (imizhe). here spelled as two words, is the relative
> pronoun, веси (properly вѣси in the orthography in which
> Dostoevsky wrote it) (vesi), from вѣдѣти, "to know," is the
> verb.  "By the ways/paths which Thou knowest, save them."
> Frank McLellan
____________________________________________________________
> 
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 10:22 PM, Robert Lagerberg wrote:
> 
>> Can anyone parse the following sentence from Brothers Karamazov
>> (Еще одна
>> погибшая репутация), specifically the two verbal
>> forms which appear to be at
>> odds with each other?
>> ими же веси путями спаси их

 «Господи, помилуй
>> их всех, давешних, сохрани их,
>> несчастных и бурных, и направь. У
>> тебя пути: ими же веси путями спаси
>> их. Ты
>> любовь, ты всем пошлешь и радость!» —
>> бормотал, крестясь, засыпая
>> безмятежным сном, Алеша.
>> 
>> Thank you
 >> Dr Robert Lagerberg
__________________________________________________________________

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