Perfetc form of verbs

[Grsartor at AOL.COM]

Hi, gadrauhts and all other members.
 
About perfects in Gothic, and sorry for taking a long time about answering. 
 First, a longish digression, summarising an unsystematic look at parts of 
the  Gothic New Testament and the original Greek, which indicates the  
following.
 
Where translations into English have a perfect Gothic regularly uses a  
preterite. This is true even when the construction is virtually a present ("I  
have been with you so long") and would, I believe, be so translated in, eg,  
French and German. However, we should bear in mind that the translation was 
made  from documents written in Greek, in which a preterite usually lies 
behind a  construction that in English is expressed by a perfect. The perfect 
seems to be  used much more sparingly in Greek than in English. Where a 
Greek perfect is  used, it still seems to be a preterite in Gothic, as in the 
following examples,  in which the original Greek is followed by its 
translations into Gothic and  English:
 
Mark 1:15
engike he basileia tou theou (the kingdom has drawn  near)
atnehvida sik thiudangardi guths (the kingdom approached)
the  kingdom of God is at hand (RSV translation)
 
Mark 1:38
exelelytha (I have come out)
qam (I came)
I came out  (RSV translation)
 
John 14:9 is interesting:
 
tosouton chronon meth hymon eimi kai ouk egnokas me (so long I am with you  
and you have not got to know me)
swalaud melis mith izwis was jah ni  ufkuntheis mik (the Gothic uses two 
preterites)
"Have I been with you so  long, and yet you do not know me?" (RSV 
translation)
 
In conditional sentences "would have done" something is expressed by a  
preterite subjunctive.
 
Wulfila's Gothic is often a very literal translation from the Greek, but in 
 his treatment of tenses it looks as if he has regard above all for Gothic  
usage.
 
Now, to come to the suggested use of perfect participles with "haban" and  
"wisan". So far as I know or can recall there are no examples of active 
perfects  so expressed in Gothic, but since other Germanic tongues have adopted 
the "have  done" and "have/is gone" construction, which I am told originated 
with the Latin  tongues, it seems a fair guess that if Gothic had survived 
it, too, would have  acquired this mode of expression. To introduce it 
therefore would seem to be  much like making new words to fill the gaps in the 
extant Gothic. The only  caution I feel like expressing is that if you make a 
new perfect, it would be  desirable to be quite clear what its purpose 
should be; for the perfect as used  in English no doubt does a somewhat different 
job from its counterparts in other  tongues. Indeed, there even seem to be 
differences between British and American  use of the perfect.
 
Gerry T.


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