[gothic-l] The Gothic Definite Article

[OSCAR HERRE duke.co@sbcglobal.net [gothic-l]]

??????.....edmund 


On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 7:00 PM, "edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l]" <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
  


  
A few weeks back, a question concerning the use of the definite article was raised. I have since found my copy of Geoffery Kovari's >Studien zum germanischen Artikel, Entstehung und Verwendung des Artikels im Gotischen< (1984), and can now give a few statistics on the use of the Gothic definite article, which may be of some help to those engaged in translating into Gothic.

Kovari compared all the instances of the Greek article against those in the corresponding Gothic translation, according to certain collocations, e.g. article + noun; article + noun + genitive attribute consisting of article + noun; etc.

I give his statistics for the article when used with NOUNS only (rather than with adjectives or participles, for example), rounded off to the nearest number. In the following, N = noun, P = personal pronoun, PR = preposition, Nm = personal name. I have made up a few simple examples to make the pattern clear:

1) In 70% of the cases where Greek has 'the N' (e.g. 'the dog'), Gothic has 'N' ('dog')

2) In 86% of the cases where Greek has 'the N of the N' (e.g. 'the size of the house'), Gothic has 'N of N' ('size of house')

3) In 83% of the cases where Greek has 'the N of P' (e.g. lit. 'the dog of him'), Gothic has 'N of P' ('dog of him') i.e., 'that dog of his'

4) In 77% of the cases where Greek has 'PR the N' (e.g. 'in the house'), Gothic has 'PR N' ('in house')

5) In 81% of the cases where Greek has 'PR the N of N' (e.g. 'in the corner of the house'), Gothic has 'PR N of N' ('in corner of house')

6) In 92% of the cases where Greek has 'PR the N of P' (e.g. lit. 'with the dog of him'), Gothic has 'PR N of P' ('with dog of him') i.e., 'with that dog of his'

7) In 93% of the cases where Greek has 'the Nm' (e.g. lit. 'the Mary'), Gothic has 'Nm' ('Mary')


It should be quiet clear from the foregoing that very roughly about 80% of the time, the Greek definite article is NOT translated into Gothic when used with nouns. It should also be borne in mind that the Greek use of the definite article on the whole corresponds fairly well to that of modern English. Thus, for those of you translating from Greek or English into Gothic, these percentages may be of some help in determining whether you are overusing the definite article. The use of articles in languages generally tends to be a complicated affair, and there is clearly more to Gothic article-usage than this, but this at least gives some perspective.

Edmund  
 
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