Re: Question? de Valek

No - it's not about placement relative to each other (the
description/subject pair that is). Let's think about it in
terms of English. We like this kind of phrase:

1) the shade of the tree.

However, we are equally pleased with this:

2) the tree's shade.

The fact that these both work equally well is not because of the order. The
order we're looking at is convention and not something actually
needed for things to make sense. For instance what's wrong with:

3) shade the tree's.

Well, this looks funny in English is all - yet it's perfectly understandable
and perfectly legitimate in German (Schatten des Baumes), for instance. The
reason things work out in 1-3 are that the tree is in the genitive case - or
in a possessive form (the ['s] ending here). Since we retain the genitive
case, in English, for ownership, we can still talk about the shade of a tree
as if it is OWNED by the tree. In Spanish, PEOPLE don't usually own things
anymore and Raymond's car becomes "the car of Raymond". I'm sorry - but this
just doesn't sit well with the English speaking Raymond (i.e., me).
So, in Norse, when I put,in the genitive case, war and death (ofrids ok
heljar) and APPLY it to god (ass) I get:
war's and death's god -or- god war's and death's
the two variations harbor stylistic differences - but they have the same
meaning as far as I know. It just looks funny in English, since this kind of
use of the genitive has now passed away.
Your use of the term "description" is nicely intuitive. That is just
how I think about it - as if the noun has been turned into an adjective.
That is also how one may figure out which noun gets the genitive ending by
sticking it on the "description" (or, the noun that comes after the 'of').

Raymond

-----Original Message-----
From: Valek
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 4/15/2003 5:39 PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Question? de Valek

So what your saying is that if you put the subject in front of the
description, the description takes ownership. Putting the description
before the subject, the subject takes ownership, right? Thanks.

> If there is a god of war as well as a god of death then THIS

particular

> god is OWNED by both war and death and we have:
> ass ofrids ok heljar (-or- ofrids ok heljar ass)
> where the feminine noun hel is used in place of the adjective daudi.
>
> There is no doubt an ON word corresponding to 'of' like

German 'von'

> or Latin 'de', etc. but, as in these languages, I guess that it

wont often

> (or ever) be used in the sense of our English 'of'.
>
> There are, no doubt, several members out there that could add

a great

> deal to this discussion ...
>
> Anybody ..., Anybody ..., Anybody ..., Anybody ..., ...
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Valek
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: 4/5/2003 5:04 PM
> Subject: [norse_course] Question?
>
> What is the Old Norse word for "of". For example "God of War and
> Death" god is ass, war is ofridr, ok is and, and death is daudi,

> that correct? But I can find the Old Norse word for "of". Can

anyone

> help me. Thanks.
>
>
>
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