Neo-gothic poem needs help

[David Kiltz]

On 31.08.2005, at 01:05, Arthur Jones wrote:

> Also, the accusative 'mik draumeith' was logical and reminded me of  
> the archaic NHG "mich duenkt" --methinks in English.

On the note of Gothic 'to dream'. No, I can't find an attested form  
either in the Gothic corpus. However, next to _*draum-, draugm-_  
consider derivatives of PGerm. _*sweƀnaz_ (swebnaz_). In the OldEngl.  
poem 'Dream of the Rood' we find the expression "...swefna ... hwaet  
me gemaette", thus, a dream 'that met me'. So Arthur might, perhaps,  
as well consider using something like _*swibns_ as 'dream'. As for  
impersonal expressions like 'methinks/ mich dünkt', it should be  
noted that in (archaizing) NHGerman it's 'mir träumt' with dative,  
not accusative. In Icelandic it's the accusative e.g. 'mik dreymdi  
draum'. Languages are, of course, where the term applies -strictu  
sensu- logical. Otherwise, they wouldn't work. However, I don't see  
how the accusative is necessarily more 'logical' than the dative.  
Germanic languages feature a certain kind of 'impersonal'  
construction with rather complex underlying linguistic structures  
(such as agentivity, focus etc.). There is a good deal of oscilation  
between the use of accusative and dative in such cases. However, it  
doesn't seem to be arbitrary but, at least to my sensitivity as a  
native speaker of German, there are subtle differences in meaning.  
Roughly speaking, the accusative indicates a more active involvement  
of the logical subject. Personally, although it's 'mir träumt' in  
German, I'd go for an accusative as well.

-David






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