[gothic-l] A grammatical question

[Grsartor at AOL.COM]

In answer to the question how you say, for example, "the lair of the wolf" 
etc:

Assuming it reasonable to use Gothic ligrs for English lair, we might expect

    sa ligrs þis wulfis, sa ligrs þize wulfe, þai ligros þize wulfe

for "the lair of the wolf", "the lair of the wolves", and "the lairs of the 
wolves".

But my general impression, which is not supported by any systematic 
examination of the extant Gothic, is that double use of a definite article 
(the ... of the ...) is largely avoided. I give below a few examples, taken 
from a randomly chosen page of Mark.

14:41 ...galewjada sunus mans in handuns frawaurhtaize.

The Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.


14:62 ...jah gasaihwiþ þana sunu mans af taihswon sitandan mahtais jah 
qimandan miþ milhmam himinis.

And you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming 
with the clouds of heaven.


In these examples there are five genitive constructions of the kind under 
consideration. In four of them Gothic avoided the article altogether. It is 
often pointed out the Wulfila modelled his translations into Gothic very 
closely on the original Greek, so that there is doubt about how natural 
Wulfilian Gothic would have seemed to a Goth; but in the matter of definite 
articles, at least, Greek has certainly not been slavishly followed. For in 
the examples given above, Greek had "the ... of the ..." in every genitive 
construction (even "the son of the man"), except that "at the right hand" was 
expressed by "ek dexion".

And now, just to show that there was no rigid rule forbidding "the ... of the 
..." in Gothic:

14:61...þu is Xristus sa sunus þis þiuþeigins?

Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?


As for the Gothic counterpart of "the wolf's lair" I do not know whether 
there are instances of such a construction as

        *þis wulfis ligrs.


One last thing. Gothic usage of the definite article, regardless of 
genitives, seems to be much different from that of English. Perhaps someone 
could explain why and when Gothic (from an English speaker's point of view) 
omits the article.

Gerry T.

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