[gothic-l] The Gothic Definite Article

[Dicentis a roellingua@gmail.com [gothic-l]]

Hi Edmund,

This makes even more clear that all those people using sa, so and thata,
because they think due to some dictionaries that these are articles, that
they are doing it wrong most of the time. I tend to drop sa, so or thata as
an article nowadays. Also, the adjective being weak or strong already makes
clear if a word is definite or not.

Goths manna = a good guy
Goda manna = the good man
Hunds jah godana mannan = the dog and a good guy
Hunds jah godan mannan (i 'm not sure if this is the accusative of manna) =
the dog and the good man

Op woensdag 14 januari 2015 heeft edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l] <
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> het volgende geschreven:
>
>
> 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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