A short gothic poem

Sun Jul 7 04:24:25 UTC 2013

My objection was in fact NOT to the use of the past participle in the poem but rather to the form "fulhada", which is a confusion of a past participle and an inflected rather than paraphrastic present passive form; if an inflected present passive form is to be used, then it must be 'filhada' or a prefixed form of the same.

As you rightly observe, the paraphrastic passive construction could also be used to form present passives, with a present or future reference. Given that the verb 'wisan' is inherently stative, the form 'ist fulhans' is naturally to be interpreted as a stative passive. That the inflected pres. passive cannot have a stative meaning, however, I have my doubts, but at this point, I will do more research and report my findings in due course.

Certainly, the use of 'ist fulhans' (with the past part. properly agreeing with whatever word it is to modify), or by ellipsis simply the past part. alone, would seem to be a very acceptable choice in the context of the poem. The following example is very close in sense:

ni waiht auk ist gahulith thatei ni andhuljaidau (Mat10,26) 'for nothing is hidden that may not be revealed'

To my thinking, the verb 'affilhan' ('to bury away' so as to hide) seemed apt given the context of the poem: the stress seems to be on the absolute loss God knows where -- 'buried in an abyss of oblivion', I believe it was. The prefix 'af-' seemed to heighten the effect but, of course, need not be used.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Grsartor at ... wrote:
>
> Sorry to harp. Here is why I think that "fulhan" rather than  "filhada" was 
> right:
>  
> The formula "it is written" occurs repeatedly in the New  Testament, and is 
> expressed by Wulfila as "gameliþ ist" or "gamelid ist".  Example:
>  
> Matt 11:10 sa ist auk bi þanei gameliþ ist:  sai, ik insandja aggilu 
> meinana faura þus, saei gamanweiþ wig þeinana faura þus. 
>  
> This is he of whom it is  written,
>  
> "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
> who shall  prepare thy way before thee."
>  
> There are many other examples, such as Mark 1:2, Mark 7:6,  Luke 2:23, 3:4, 
> 4:4, 4:8.
>  
> It is clear, then, that to the question "where is the word of  the prophet" 
> a possible answer would be
>  
> gameliþ [ist] in malmin - [it is] written in the  sand,
>  
> Gothic, like English, using a past participle.
>  
> And so, if the question is "where is our heritage", as in the  poem we have 
> been concerned with, an answer like "buried in ..." would surely  contain 
> "buried" as a past participle, wherefore my belief that the original  
> "fulhan" was right.
>  
> Now let us consider Edmund's counterexample:
>  
> "hwana wileith ei fraletau izwis? Barabban thau Jesu, saei haitada  
> Xristus?" (Mat. 27,17)
> 'Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas or  Jesus, who is called 
> Christ?'
> 
> Here, the present passive  (haitada) may have been chosen because the sense 
> was that Christos is what  people keep calling him. On the other hand, "it 
> is written" refers to something  written once and for all. I think the 
> latter example is more relevant to the  answer for what has happened to our 
> heritage: it has been buried once and for  all, rather than that people keep 
> burying it.
>  
> A look at the original Greek perhaps supports my conjecture.  For 
> corresponding to Edmund's quoted "saei haitada Xristus" it has "ton  legomenon 
> Christon", meaning "the one called Christ" - using for "called" a  present passive 
> participle, legomenon. On the other hand, "gamelid ist"  translates a Greek 
> perfect, "gegraptai" - it has been written. I am told that  the Greek 
> perfect expresses an abiding consequence of an action, and Wulfila  chose to 
> represent this by the same construction as English uses. If our  heritage has 
> been buried, or lies buried, it is in another abiding state,  and so I guess 
> that Greek would use a perfect, and Wulfila would have  represented this by 
> "fulhan ist".
>  
> As for compounds of "filhan", Matt 8:22 uses "gafilhan" for  burying (leave 
> the dead to bury their dead). On the other hand, the suggested  "affilhan" 
> is used in Luke 10:21 to mean to hide something away.
>  
> Mark 14:8 uses "usfilh" to mean burial.
>  
> Luke 9:59 and 9:60 uses "usfilhan" for bury
>  
> John 12:7 "gafilh" is burial.
>  
> Gerry T.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In a message dated 06/07/2013 00:10:03 GMT Daylight Time,  
> edmundfairfax at ... writes:
> 
> 
> 1)  "sijain" should be 'sijai'
> 
> 2) There seems to be much confusion about  the formation of the Gothic 
> passive. A careful look in a good grammar, such as  Braune's (5.1, 2004), will 
> reveal that there is an inflected passive only in  the present indicative and 
> present subjunctive; in the preterite, a  paraphrastic construction is used 
> consisting of a suitable preterite form of  the auxiliary 'wisan/wairthan' 
> and the past participle of the main verb. I  quote from the Braune:
> 
> "Das Passiv ist nur noch in einigen Formen des  Indikativ und Optativ 
> Praes. vorhanden...die fehlenden Passivformen werden  umschrieben durch das Part. 
> Praet. mit dem entsprechenden Formen von  'wairthan' oder 'wisan', z.B. 
> 'daupjada' "werde getauft' (Mk. 10,38), aber  'daupiths was' 'wurde getauft' 
> (Mk. 1,19)."
> 
> The present passive is  formed by using the stem of the infinitive, not the 
> preterite. Thus, 'fulhada'  is altogether incorrect.
> 
> It should also be noted that there is no  perfect in Gothic. A passive can 
> have both an active or stative sense. As an  example of the stative sense, 
> consider the following line from the Gothic  Bible:
> 
> "hwana wileith ei fraletau izwis? Barabban thau Jesu, saei  haitada 
> Xristus?" (Mat. 27,17)
> 'Whom do you want me to release to you?  Barabbas or Jesus, who is called 
> Christ?'
> 
> Here 'haitada', the  third-person singular present indicative passive of 
> the verb 'haitan', clearly  has a stative rather than active sense; the 
> subordinate clause could also be  rendered as 'whose name is Christ'. Thus, it 
> does not follow that ''filhada'  'is buried' must have only an active sense, 
> and not a stative sense.
> 
> 3)  The Goths employed the convention of scriptio continua ('continuous 
> writing'),  that is, writing without spaces between words (e.g.  
> "tobeornottobethatisthequestion"). But in modern editions, words are normally  separated 
> by spaces, and prefixes and suffixes are written together with the  word they 
> belong to without the use of hyphens. Thus "af-grundithai" ought to  be 
> written 'afgrundithai'.
> 
> 4) The form "afilhada" lacks the 'f' of the  prefix and should be 
> 'affilhada'.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In  gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Grsartor@ wrote:
> >
> > Sorry to quibble  at this stage, but:
> >  
> > (i) I think "sijain" should be  "sijai".
> >  
> > (ii) I think the original choice of "fulhan"  for "(lying) buried" was  
> > right. The form "filhada" means that a  thing is buried in the sense that 
> someone 
> >  is in the act or  habit of burying it. Since the burial is complete you 
> > want the   past participle, which is passive in sense. In the modern 
> Germanic 
> >  languages it  is apparently active when used with "have" as an 
> auxiliary,  but 
> > this  construction I think was adopted from the Latin  tongues, and does 
> not 
> > appear in  Gothic. In any case the true  passive sense is brought out in 
> > modern German, or  occasionally  in English, e.g.
> >  
> > The police have got the building  surrounded (= the police have 
> surrounded  
> > the  building).
> >  
> > Gerry T.
> >  
> >   
> > In a message dated 05/07/2013 21:19:17 GMT Daylight Time,  nodead4@  
> > writes:
> > 
> > Understood!
> >  
> > Therefore, the poem finally is of this  form:
> > 
> >  Hvar ist othal unsar? / Hvar ist arbi unsar?
> > Afilhada   ufarmaudeins af-grundithai 
> > Hindana  thizos ahwos,  aiwis  andÃ©is  
> > Wulthag sijain fraweit. 
> > 
> > I was using  "heritage" as broadly meant,  so I finally choose "arby" 
> > instead  of "othal" then. I guess you should be  credited in the 
> recording  booklet!!
> > 
> > Many thanx to all.  
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "nodead4" <nodead4@>   wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello all, I have composed a short poem  Gothic  language. I'm not a 
> > linguist nor an expert, so there  will be several mistakes.  Some help is 
> > requested to make it  right. (This is part of a song in english,  but I 
> wanted to 
> >  include this speech in a middle section).
> > > 
> > >   
> > > Hvar ist othal unsar? (where is our heritage?)
> > >  Fulhans ana  ufar maudeis af-grunditha (buried into the abyss of  
> oblivion)
> > > Thairh  thata ahwa,  aiws andï¿½is (across  the river, the end of an 
> era)
> > >  Wolthags fraweit wisan.  (Glorious revenge be)
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Thanx   in  advance.
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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> 
> 
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