Araaiþei aflaiþ

llama_nom 600cell at OE.ECLIPSE.CO.UK
Fri Jun 16 18:29:52 UTC 2006 

Hails Walhahrabn!

Ah yes, I think I had that quote from Vafþrúðnismál in the back of my
mind when I suggested that etymology.  And if I'd just looked on
Google, I'd have seen that the Online Etymological Dictionary has the
same idea [ http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wing ].  But
delving further, Cleasby & Vigfússon have a different and maybe even
more convincing explanation, that it's related to the ON verb 'vega'
"strike, fight, slay; weigh, lift" (cf. Go. -wagjan, from *wigan). 
Noreen in his Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik [
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/aa_texts.html ] mentions
'vængr' among the i-stems, as it's usually declined, but also says
that some very early manuscripts have ja-stem endings in the nom. and
acc. plural (which is presumably why the Online Etymological
Dictionary reconstructs it in that way).  But he also says (para. 379,
 note 4) that an a-stem style dat.pl. 'vængum' appears twice in the
Hómilíubók, besides 'vængjum', which (to paraphrase him slighlty) "can
probably be explained by supposing that 'vængr' derives from *væingr,
and thus belonged originally to the a-stem declension."

In which case, if Cleasby & Vigfússon are right, that would give us
Proto-Norse *wa:hingaz = Go. *wehiggs.  Too bad Hellquist's 'Svensk
etymologisk ordbok' is offline at the moment due to technical
difficulties [ http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/svetym/ ].  It will
be interesting to see what that has to say on the matter.  If anyone
had access to that or more up-to-date Scandinavian etymological
dictionaries, feel free to chip in...  Incidentally, in answer to my
ponderings, the Oxford English Dictionary has early Middle English
quotes with both 'e' and 'i' as the root vowel (c. 1200), so maybe the
shortening and raising happened independently in English and East
Norse.  Anyway, we now have the following wing words:

*wehiggs, ma. (or possibly *wai(j)iggs, ma.)
*þlugil-, -a, -o, -s?
*fiþraks, ma.
*fiþrahama, man. (or possibly -hams, ma.)

You're right, 'hanton inti fuozin' is dative.  I think other list
members may know more about this than me, but there is evidence for a
Gothic mission to southern Germany in the form of early loanwords or
loan translations relating to Christianity; the southern dialects
agree with Gothic in their choice of Christian terms sometimes where
the northern dialects follow Old English practice.  There's also the
find of the Giessen Codex in Egypt, a fragment of the Gothic Bible,
perhaps produced or used in the Vandal kingdom in Africa.

I'm still thinking about this choice of dative or accusative "of
closer reference", so I don't want to make any definite pronouncement
yet!  It would be nice to find some more Old Norse examples like
'Egill var bundinn við staf ein, bæði hendr ok foetr', except with
words where it's possible to distinguish between accusative and
nominative.  I haven't been able to find this example discussed in
Faarlund's more recent Old Norse Syntax, so I don't know if he would
agree with Sturtevant's interpretation or Nygaard's.  In Old Norse
there is a sort of adverbial accusative used to express extent of
time, distance, directions, quantity, measure, weight, degree or
extent (which might relate to Egil's predicament, since being bound
"hand and foot" is the extent to which he is bound), also points in
time, circumstance, manner: þeir sigla norðr um Sognsæ, byr góðan ok
bjart veðr "they sail north of Sognsæ with a good wind and in clear
weather."  Faarlund makes an interesting point about such accusatives:
"The accusative used in adjuncts is always the lexical accusative. 
This means that it never changes to the nominative in the passive"
(Old Norse Syntax, para. 8.5.1., p. 170).

fór annan veg
nú er annan veg til farit

Which might suggest that 'hendr ok foetr' in the quote above are
accusative, as Sturtevant thought, in which case 'handuns jah fotuns'
needn't be an imitation of Greek.  But with so little data, it's hard
to know whether there was a rule that accusative would always be used
with a participle, and dative with other adjectives.  Or where a
preposition would be preferable.  Or if it was a free choice.

> Is the adjacent instrumental object of any effect for the 
> choice of cases

Well, it could make a sentence clearer if the accusative is used in
contrast to the instrumental dative.  Not that human languages always
choose the most logical option...

Llama Nom







--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> Hails Llama Nom!
> 
> Thanks for a thorough comment! While thinking on it may I ask if the 
> following constructions could be possible, in your opinion, in 
> Gothic: blinds augam (< ON), but ga-blindiths augona [seina] (Acc.) 
> gazda (Dat. Instr.) – "one whose eyes have been stung out with a 
> barb" (as some archaic punishment)? The same about daufs ausam / 
> gadaubiths ausona; dumbs tuggon (Dat.) / *gadumbiths tuggon seina -
>  ? I mean could they be possible in "Gothic" Gothic and not as a 
> calque from the Vorlage? Maybe it's a kind of a rule that you have 
> dative after a simple adjective and accusative after a participle 
> passive? Is the adjacent instrumental object of any effect for the 
> choice of cases (e.g. gadumbiths tuggon seinai (Dat.), but 
> gadumbiths tuggon seina (Acc.) hairau (Dat. Instr.)) - ?
> That OHG parallel (Tatian 135:26 gibuntan hanton inti fuozin mit 
> strengin inti sin annuzi mit sweizduohu gibuntan) you adduce – could 
> it be a translation from Gothic (it looks so similar). Did someone 
> find evidence that the Wulfilan Bible was also being used outside 
> the Gothic realms and influenced somehow other early Germanic 
> versions? Hanton inti fuozin – is it not dative?
> 
> > I'm not aware of any cognates to ON 'vængr', but thinking about it
> > now, it occurs to me that this might actually be a contraction of 
> some
> > root with the ending -ingr.  Could it be connected with the Gothic
> > verb 'waian' "to blow"?  Go. *wai(j)iggs, Proto-Norse *wa:ing-?  
> The
> > only complication there is that the ON word is an i-stem, but maybe
> > that was a later development inspired by the mutated vowel.
> 
> It looks very probable. Could this derivation have arisen from the 
> myth in Vafþrúðnismál 37:
> "Hræsvelgr heitir, 
> er sitr á himins enda, 
> jötunn í arnar ham; 
> af hans vængjum 
> kvæða vind koma 
> alla menn yfir"
> where vængir are literally "things that produce winds", "blowers", 
> so *waijiggos would be quite to the point.
> 
> Ualarauans
> 
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > Hails Walhahrabn!
> > 
> > 'gaskokai fotum' is especially interesting because it differs from 
> the
> > accusative of the Greek: TOUS PODAS.  Sturtevant (1938) compared 
> this
> > with other Germanic examples of a "dative of respect", ON blindr 
> augum
> > "blind in the eyes"; fríðr sýnum "fair to look at"; OE giddum fród
> > "wise concerning songs".  But he also argued that 'bundans handuns 
> jah
> > fotuns' was a native Germanic construction and not just an 
> imitation
> > of Greek; he calls it an "accusative of manner" and cites ON Egill 
> var
> > bundinn við staf ein, bæði hendr ok foetr (Sturtevant 1948).  This
> > isn't decisive evidence, as 'hendr' and 'foetr' each have the same
> > form as the nominative here, and were so regarded by Nygaard (1906
> > para. 74, fn. 4).
> > 
> > Your suggestion that an unstated verb 'habands' might lie behind 
> such
> > constructions with the accusative could explain: gawasiþs taglam
> > ulbandaus jah gairda filleina bi hup seinana (Mk 1:6), also acc. in
> > Greek ZWNHN.
> > 
> > Your suggestion that an unstated preposition might lie behind them 
> is
> > interesting in the light of: eisarnam bi fotuns gabuganaim = PEDAIS
> > "with fetters" (Mk 5:4) = fotubandjom (L 8:29).
> > 
> > Streitberg (para. 244) saw 'wlits is auralja bibundans' as a
> > nominative absolute.  So did Gering, who pointed out the parallel 
> of
> > OHG: gibuntan hanton inti fuozin mit strengin inti sin annuzi mit
> > sweizduohu gibuntan (Tatian 135:26).  According to Lücke there are 
> no
> > other examples of 'was' missing from the passive like this, and
> > several scholars have suggested that 'was' was simply left out by
> > accident by the scribe: Massmann, Schulze, Köhler, H Rückert (and
> > maybe Grimm, who also considered the nominative absolute 
> possible). 
> > This would accord with the usual Gothic practice, as well as the 
> Latin
> > translations of PERIEDEDETO: facies...erat ligatus (Vulgate);
> > vultus...erat objunctus (Codex Bezae).  Metlen too suggested a 
> scribal
> > error; he thought that "the Gothic writer, with the appositive
> > gabundans still in mind, unwittingly construed also 'bibundans' the
> > same way" (Metlen 1938).
> > 
> > On the other hand, there are examples where Gothic immitates Greek 
> in
> > elliding the copular, e.g. þata andwairþo hveilahvairb (2Cor 4:17);
> > witoþ weihata jah anabusns weiha... (Rom 7:12).  Though uncommon in
> > Germanic, it's not completely unknown, cf. Hymiskviða (Old Norse): 
> ok
> > sumblsamir "and [they were] desirous of ale" (st. 1); óteir jötunn
> > "the giant [was] not happy" (st. 25), [
> > http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/hymir/hymis.html ].
> > 
> > Another Old Norse example which might be relevant here: hann átti 
> tvá
> > sonu...vænir menn "he had two sons [accusative]...fine looking men
> > [nominative]."  Sturtevant (1948) calls this anacoluthon.
> > 
> > I'm not aware of any cognates to ON 'vængr', but thinking about it
> > now, it occurs to me that this might actually be a contraction of 
> some
> > root with the ending -ingr.  Could it be connected with the Gothic
> > verb 'waian' "to blow"?  Go. *wai(j)iggs, Proto-Norse *wa:ing-?  
> The
> > only complication there is that the ON word is an i-stem, but maybe
> > that was a later development inspired by the mutated vowel.  
> Regarding
> > alternative, þlugil- / flugil-, a masculine a-stem would match the
> > German word, but my speculations about a weak ending were 
> triggered by
> > personal names in -ila corresponding to *-ilaz in other Germanic
> > languages, e.g. Agila = ON Egill.
> > 
> > Llama Nom
> > 
> > 
> > Sturtevant (1932) 'Gothic notes', The American Journal of Philology
> > 53:1, 53-60.
> > Sturtevant (1948) 'Old Norse syntactical notes', PMLA 63:2, 712-
> 717.
> > Metlen (1938) 'Absolute constuctions in the Gothic bible', PMLA 
> 53:3,
> > 631-644.
> > Nygaard (1906) Norrøn syntax.
>







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