[gothic-l] Re: The vocative in Gothic

Tue Dec 23 01:06:27 UTC 2014

As some may not have access to the Braune/Heidermanns Gothic grammar, I give here a summation based on the latter's remarks. 

 As a rule of thumb, the vocative of NOUNS is the same as the nominative EXCEPT in the following cases:

 1) if the NOMINATIVE SINGULAR has an inflectional -s, this ending is dropped:

 masc. a-stems: skalk! (L19,17), thiudan! (Mk15,18)
 masc. ja-stems, long: laisari! (L3,12)
 masc. ja-stems, short: not attested

 fem. o-stems: not attested
 fem jo-stems, long: mawi! (L8,84)
 fem jo-stems, short: halja! (1Cor15,55)

 masc. i-stem: juggalaud! (L7,14)

 masc. u-stem plural: brothrjus meinai liubans! (1Cor15,58)

 masc. n-stems: ahma! (Mk9,25)
 neut. n-stems: barnilo! (Mt9,2)
 fem. n-stems: mawilo! (Mk5,41)

 consonant stems: fadar! (Gal4,6), brothar! (L6,42), dauhtar! (L8,84); frijond! (L14,10)

 2) U-STEMS and FEM. I-STEMS in the SINGULAR can apparently use either the -s-less form or the dative singular:

 u-stems: (voc. sg.) sunu! (L18,38) beside (dat. sg.) sunau! (L8,28)
 fem. i-stems: (dat. sg.) Iesu Nazorenai! (Mk1,24); an -s-less form is not extant

 In the case of the vocative of u-stems, the -s-less forms appears 10x, the dative 8x.

 As to the VOCATIVE OF ADJECTIVES, the weak form is always used:

 e.g. atta weiha! (J17,11)

 EXCEPT in the following cases where the strong forms are used instead:

 1) possessive adjectives always take the strong adj. endings: e.g. guth meins! (Mt27,46)

 2) present participles regularly take the weak adjective endings: e.g. o sa gatairdands tho alh! (Mk15,29)

 Braune/Heidermanns make reference to a few further apparent exceptional cases, which seem to me to be not vocatives but elliptical clauses:

 e.g. Hails, Thiudan Iudaei! (Mk15,18) 'Hail, King of the Jews!' ("hails" = '(sijai) hails!')

 Edmund

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20141222/a84bdff3/attachment.htm>