[gothic-l] Re: How do you create an adverb in Gothic?

Wed Jan 28 22:09:08 UTC 2015

Dear Roel, 

 The brief treatment of adverbs at the aforementioned site is incomplete and misleading. The best detailed scholarly discussion of Gothic adverb-formation is Frank Heidermanns' article "Der Ursprung der gotischen Adverbien auf -ba" (1996, >Historische Sprachforschung<, pp. 257-275), which I would strongly urge you to consult.

 Note that it is not true that -ba forms only adverbs of manner: e.g. abraba 'greatly, very' is an adverb of intensity, not of manner.

 Nor is it true that -o does not form adverbs of manner: e.g. e.g. sprauto 'quickly'.

 As the Heidermanns article shows, the choice between -ba and -o is determined not by semantic considerations but rather by morphological factors; in other words, it is form not meaning which is the decisive factor here.

 Edmund

---In Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com, <roellingua at ...> wrote :

 Ok, I have found a different answer in the course of Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/gotol-5-X.html http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/gotol-5-X.html

 Suffix -ba. This suffix generally derives adverbs of manner from associated adjectives

 Suffix -ō. This suffix frequently derives adverbs from adjectives.

 This basically means that, if an adjective explain how something is done, you use -ba and otherwise you can use -o.

 2015-01-27 23:09 GMT+01:00 edmundfairfax at ... mailto:edmundfairfax at ... [gothic-l] <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com mailto:gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>:
   Dear Roel,

 As I stated in the original post, -o appears to be the usual adverbial ending for adjective stems ending in -isk- and -eig-, cf. 'thiudisko' (from *'thiudisks'), 'witodeigo' (from *'witotheigs').

 Edmund

---In Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com mailto:Gothic-L at yahoogroups.com, <roellingua at ...> wrote :

 Awiliudo þus Audamunda, (Edmund = auds + munda) 

 Skeireins þeina waila filu ist, satja þo her undaro, haba fraihna:

 (your explaination is very good, I 'll put it under here, I have a question:)

 Magum in waurdam miþ -isk- aiþþau -eig- nauh -o brukjan, þau þata unraihta brukein Gutiskons razdos waurþi?

 (Can we use -o in words with -isk- or -eig-, or would that be incorrect use of the Gothic language?)

  In the case of Gothic, the adverbial suffix -o appears to have been non-productive specifically with simplex adjectives (= non-derived ones). In other words, it had become lexicalized in such cases, and the learner simply had to memorize which adjectives took this ending. The suffix -ba, on the other hand, appears to have been productive and was used everywhere except where there was already a lexicalized form with -o. 

 In certain cases, however, -o is regular:

 1) in the suffix -leiko: e.g. 'aljaleiko, antharleiko, lathaleiko.' With most of these, there is NO corresponding adjective in '-leiks.'

 2) adjectives suffixed with -isk- and -eig-: e.g. 'thiudisko, witodeigo.'

 In other words, -o was regularly only in conjunction with other derivational suffixes.

 As to the vowel before the suffix -ba, that is determined by the class to which the adjective belongs. The majority of Gothic adjectives belong to the a-stem class, and this 'a' will appear before -ba, thus:

 abrs (a-stem) - abraba
 ainfalths (a-stem) - ainfalthaba

 but:

 hardus (u-stem) - harduba (although 'hardaba' is also extant)

 For more details on the formation of adverbs, see Heidermanns' article "Der Ursprung der gotischen Adverbien auf -ba" (>Historische Sprachforschung< 1996, vol. 109, pp. 257-275).

 2015-01-27 2:59 GMT+01:00 edmundfairfax at ... mailto:edmundfairfax at ... [gothic-l] <gothic-l at yahoogroups.com mailto:gothic-l at yahoogroups.com>:

 You may wish to look over my post of 4 Dec. 2014, which explains the formation of adverbs.

 Edmund

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