Reflexives + Position of possessive pronouns

[llama_nom]

> je suis probablement la personne la plus mal outillée 
informatiquement,

Don't be so sure of that!  I haven't even worked out how to type 
Greek characters yet in a way that will display correctly in these 
messages, hence my error-riddled capitals.  And it's only recently 
that I've learnt the trick of toggling between different encoding 
options in the VIEW menu of Explorer so that I can at least read the 
majority of the UNICODE Greek characters (although accented vowels 
still all appear as little squares).

> Que vaut-il mieux ? un message en anglais sur les /maranos/ --
qui a permis toutefois de dériver vers /gasehvum/ *vs* /gasehvun/ ! -
-,
ou en français sur les possessifs réfléchis ?..

Absolutely.  One of the best discussions we've had here in ages.  
I'll try to summarise where we've got up to, no doubt adding to the 
confusion!  Please let me know if I've misunderstood or 
inadvertantly misrepresented anything you've written.

(1) Streitberg comments, in Gotische Syntax, that the normal word 
order in Gothic, when there is no Greek model to follow, is to place 
the possessive pronoun/adjective, reflexive or otherwise (meins, 
þeins, sein-, is, izos, unsar, izwar, igqar, ugkar, ize, izo), after 
the noun possessed (L 7,44; Mt 6,17; L 2,28; L 19,35-36; R 11,14; 
2Tim 3,4)  Sometimes in contrast to the Greek, unless of course 
these were a feature of the Greek text the Gothic translator(s) used 
(L 6,40; L 9,51; J15,10; Mt 7,24-26).  A few instances where the 
possessive pronoun/adjective comes first, can be seen as emphatic, 
to express a contrast (2Cor 10,4; L 5,33).  These comments refer to 
the Gothic, when there is no Greek model in instances where the 
translator(s) was/were forced to make a slightly looser rendering 
than usual.

(2) Gothic 3rd person pronouns in a non-finite embedded clause may 
refer to the subject of the embedded clause (Mk 14,67), or to the 
subject of the main clause (Mk 15,17).  But sometimes, the Gothic 
uses non-reflexive forms in a non-finite embedded clause to refer to 
the subject of the main clause (L 1,73-74; 1Cor 15,28).  These 
examples appear to diverge from Greek usage, but Richard has 
suggested that this appearence may be deceptive, see below.

(3) There are a lot of instances in the New Testament, where Gothic 
appears to use the distinctive 3rd person reflexive possessive 
pronoun/adjective sein- to translate the Greek AUTOU "of him", 
genitive of the pronoun AUTOS.  These are in contexts where the 
reflexive form would be appropriate according the rules of both 
Gothic and Greek grammar, namely, where the possessor is the subject 
of the clause in which the possessive pronoun/adjective appears.  
However, Richard has suggested that in such instances, AUTOU may in 
fact represent hAUTOU, a shortened form of the reflexive hEAUTOU.  
As he points out, the translator(s) of the Gothic bible was/were in 
a better position to understand such matters than modern scholars of 
NT Greek.  In classical Greek, it was normal for the reflexive 
possessive pronoun/adjetcive to come before the noun, but in New 
Testament Greek it very often comes after.  I suggested that this 
might be a matter of emphasis, but Richard--who knows far more about 
this--has pointed out that the writers of the various gospels have 
different preferrences in this regard.  So, perhaps more of an 
arbitrary or stylistic difference?

(3) Now, this creates a bit of a dilemma for those of us looking for 
evidence for Gothic syntax.  If the Gothic translator(s) were aware 
of these Greek 3rd person pronouns, possessive and otherwise, as 
distinct reflexive forms (even though this information is not 
conveyed in modern editions of the Greek New Testament), then their 
choice of reflexive or non-reflexive forms in Gothic can't tell us 
anything about native Gothic usage, or if it did, we wouldn't know, 
since we don't have access to the information they had about when 
AUTOS is really hAUTOS!  In fact (if I understand Richard 
correctly), if anything, the Gothic use of reflexives might 
actually, in some cases, be useful evidence for interpreting the 
meaning of the Greek text.

(4) A thought: how well does Gothic agree with the  Vulgate and 
earlier Latin translations in the matter of reflexives?  Are there 
any differences in the rules governing the use of reflexives in 
Latin and Greek at this time?  Do the Latin translations show a 
tendency to immitate any Greek practise, in respect of reflexives, 
which isn't natural to Latin?

(5) If Richard is right, and the use of reflexive forms in Gothic is 
based on a Greek tradition which preserved the distinction between 
AUTOU and hAUTOU in these instances where modern editions print 
AUTOU, then reliable evidence for Gothic native usage would have to 
come from elsewhere, for example from instances where Gothic *seins 
translates the Greek possessive adjective IDIOS which, though often 
used in place of the reflexive, doesn't necessarily always have to 
refer to the subject.  He cites Mt 25,55, unfortunately not 
preserved in the Gothic translation [ 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/message/8639 ], "he gave to 
each one according to his (THN IDIAN) ability".

There, how's that sound?

Llama Nom






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