A STUDY of GOTHIC ABSOLUTE CONSTRUCTIONS Although The

言語研究(Gengo Kenkyu) 93(1988),39～60 39 A STUDY OF GOTHIC ABSOLUTE CONSTRUCTIONS •\ As Compared with Those in the Greek Original•\ Yoko EDA Although the Gothic Bible, translated by the Gothic/Greek bilingual bishop, Wulfila, is widely known to be virtually the sole source of information on the Gothic language, it is also true that the issue as to whether or not the language of Wulfila's translation really represents Gothic as spoken and used by Goths in his days has been keenly discussed by a number of scholars for many years. There is no denying, however, that Wulfila's text shows in a number of places linguistic features which can only be considered peculiar to Gothic, and not transferred from Greek. One such feature is the Gothic use of neuter plural participle forms instead of their corresponding masculine or feminine plural participles, as in the original Greek-a notable discrepancy discussed in Y. Eda (1981). That this peculiar use of neuter plural forms in Gothic may have descended directly from Proto-Indo-European is suggested by the similar use of such neuter plural forms in Hittite. The absolute use of participles in Gothic may also be considered such a Gothic or Germanic peculiarity. Absolute participial constructions, parallel to Modern English examples such as weather permitting and generally speaking, are extremely frequent in Wul- fila's Gothic. Moreover, as was pointed out Streitberg (Gotisches Elementarbuch Sect. 260) and Van Der Meer (Praepositionen 90- 91), Greek genitive absolute constructions were replaced in Gothic by dative absolutes (and occasionally accusative absolutes), except 40 Yoko EDA for one instance in which Wulfila uses a genitive absolute construction with the genitive singular noun dagis 'of (a) day'. On one occasion, Wulfila even prefers the dative absolute as a translation of a Greek finite verb form (specifically, aorist indicative first person singular). These facts rule out the possibility that Gothic absolute constructions are mere calques on the Greek original. For the absolute participial constructions in the Greek Bible predominantly employ the genitive case, though the use of the accusative, the dative and the nominative case for such constructions is also attested. In the Greek original, the genitive absolute is used to denote such variety of meanings as cause, situation, concession, condition and time, whereas in Wulfila's Gothic these meanings are generally covered by the dative absolute. How should such semantic functions of the Gothic dative absolute be accounted for? As a result of extensive merging of the oppositions of the original Proto-Indo-European case system, the Gothic dative came to be used to express temporal, locative, ablative, instrumental and comitative functions in addition to its basic dative function. Both Hirt (Handbuch des Urgermanischen 181) and Delbriick (Verglei- chende Syntax I, 195 ff.; II, 494 ff.) recognize such a multifunc- tional use of the Gothic dative. Since the semantic functions of the Gothic dative absolute such as temporal, causal, conditional and comitative more or less overlap with the prepositional functions of the Gothic dative mentioned above, the rather extensive use of the dative absolute in Gothic may be attributed to the wide range of semantic functions of the dative case itself. In contrast to the frequency of the dative absolute, the accusative absolute construction in Gothic is not so common (about 12 instances), and the use of the genitive and the nominative absolute is practically limited to a single occurrence in each case. In A STUDY OF GOTHIC ABSOLUTE CONSTRUCTIONS 41 his Gotisches Elementarbuch, Streitberg makes no mention of the use of the accusative absolute in Gothic, let alone that of the genitive absolute, though he discusses the nominative absolute use briefly (Sect. 244). Further, in his Gotische Casus-Syntaxis Van Der Meer seems reluctant to recognize the existence of the accusative absolute in Gothic. In fact, he even tries on one occasion (64) to reinterpret dauhtar (feminine singular accusative, hereafter f sg A) in "jah atgaggandein inn dauhtar Herodiadins (=and when Herodias' daughter came in-Mark 6:22)" as a mistaken form for dauhtr (f sg D), since there is no formal distinction between the dative and accusative singular in the in-stem present participle of the feminine gender. There exist, however, several other unmistakable examples of the feminine accusative absolute where no such rein- terpretation is possible, so that Van Der Meer's emendation of dauhtar to dauhtr is irrelevant even if correct. Let us adopt the following classification of Gothic absolute constructions and consider each variety in detail. A. The Gothic absolute construction in the dative case B. The Gothic absolute construction in the accusative case C. Others (i. e. Gothic absolute constructions in the genitive and in the nominative case) A. The Gothic Absolute Construction in the Dative Case In this group A, a considerable number of examples are preceded by the preposition at. According to Van Der Meer (Praepositionen 87 ff.), the dative absolute (hereafter D Abs) with at is found with either locative or temporal meaning, whereas the accusative absolute (hereafter A Abs) with the preposition at seems to be limited to a temporal meaning. Van der Meer, however, concludes that there seems to be no clear semantic distinction between the dative absolute construction with at (at+D Abs) and the one 42 Yoko EDA without it in Wulfila's Gothic. He further adds that the reason the original Greek genitive absolute (hereafter G Abs) construction was translated into Gothic with an absolute construction having a grammatical case other than the dative remains unclear and that the dative absolute construction is, on the other hand, pro- fusely employed in Skeireins. The number of occurrences of the Gothic preposition at+a combination of a dative pronoun (or noun) either preceded or followed by a present (or past) participle (hereafter pt) in the dative, that is, at+D Abs (+ sem S) where (+sem S) means that the given absolute construction contains an explicitly expressed semantic subject (i. e. either a pronoun or a noun as mentioned above) and those of the dative absolute construction without at, namely, D Abs (+ sem S) are just about equal. Se- mantically speaking, these two sets, at + D Abs (+ sem S) and D Abs (+ sem S), are practically indistinguishable from one an- other. In this connection, it may be said at least that the construction at + D Abs (+ sem S) is to be regarded equivalent to D Abs (+ sem S). As for the semantic subjects of these absolute participial constructions, the first or the third person singular dative pronoun mis 'me' or imma 'him' denoting Jesus Christ is often used in the singular, while in the plural (hereafter pl) the third person plural dative pronoun paim, im 'them' or allaim 'all' takes place most frequently. On the other hand, when the semantic subject happens to be a proper name, it is almost exclusively Iesua or Iesu, the dative case form of 'Jesus'. Further, there are scattered instances of the dative form of a common noun such as winda 'wind' in John 6: 18: "winda mikilamma waiandin (=a great wind blowing)." m sg D <waian: pt m sg D As for examples of past participles in such absolute construc- A STUDY OF GOTHIC ABSOLUTE CONSTRUCTIONS 43 tions, there are only a few of them, where past participles are always declined strong. (1) Examples of Gothic D Abs (+sem S)-Greek G Abs (+sem S), namely, the Gothic dative absolute corresponding to the Greek genitive absolute with semantic subjects expressed in both constructions. John 8: 30 pata imma rodjandin managai galaubidedun 3 m sg D<rodjan: pt m sg D imma ταυτα α υτου λαλουντοs, πολλοι επιοτευσαν ει αυτον 3 m sg G<λ αλεω: pt m sg G (=As he said these things, many believed in him.) (2) Examples of Gothic at +D Abs (+sem S)—Greek G Abs (+ sem S), namely, the Gothic dative absolute with the preposition at preceding and with its semantic subject expressed, whose Greek counterpart is the genitive absolute with its semantic subject also expressed. Luke 7: 24 at galeipandam an paim airum Iohannes dugann rodjan <galeipan: pt m pl D m pl D du manageim bi Iohannen. απελθοντων δετων α γγελων 'Ιωαννου ηρξατο λεγειν <α περχομαι: pt m pl G <α γγελοs: m pl G προs τουs οχλουs περι' Ιωαννου (=When the messengers of John had gone, he began to speak to the crowds concerning John. ) When we analyze the examples of (1) from a semantic view- point, they predominantly carry a temporal meaning such as 'when' or'while' though a few instances of causal 'as' or concessive 'though' meaning are aslo found . In Skeireins, there is an ana- coluthic use of Gothic dative absolute constructions where each dative absolute behaves like an independent clause or sentence (Die Gotische Bibel 457 fn.). 44 Yoko EDA Similarly, in group (2), an overwhelming number of examples are temporal (`when' or while') , possibly more or less influenced by the intrinsic meaning of the preposition at, which denotes time. There are also scattered examples of causal 'as' or concessive 'though' use . (3) Examples of Goth D/A Abs(+ sem S)—Greek G Abs (+ sem S), namely, the Gothic dative/accusative absolute construction corresponding to the Greek genitive absolute with semantic subjects expressed in both constructions. In Gothic, all the present participles are declined weak, and when they are feminine, They are declined exactly like in-stem feminine weak nouns, where the distinction between the feminine singular dative and the feminine singular accusative form is neu- tralized: managein 'multitude' (f sg D or A).

Load more