Published by the Oxford University Press www.oup.com its ISBN
0-19-927110-0
It is clearly set out and I would not have thought it too
specialised, or theoretical, for it is published for Students as one might
well imagine from it's source, I have read but little of it so far but I have
every hope thet my knowledge of the language may well improve.
I hope this is of help, of course as an err umm specialist
sort of book it's pricey, as there are not millions of people about to buy it
I suppose, perhaps a library might help because you could find out within a
couple of days whether it is worthy, and consider it for
purchase
Blessings,
Patricia who suffers from an advanced Bibliomania - probably
terminal !!!!
This is a very ingenious idea,
and one that hadn't occured to me. I'm not so sure it works
though, but I'm not really in a position to judge, given what Haukur has
said about editorial leeway in the matter of abbreviations. I
tried searching in an online text of Hrólfs saga kraka, for konungr,
konung, konungrinn and konunginn, and found examples of the indefinite
accusative 'konung' used of an already introduced person, e.g. Chapter
18 Svipdagr ríðr fyrir konung "S. rode in front of THE king"; 19 ok kvað
konung mega þat sjá "and said that THE king could see"; 22 Svipdagr gekk
þegar fyrir konung "S. immediately went before the king". Two of
these are governed by a preposition, but one is the direct object of a
verb, albeit in an accusative + infinitive construction. There are
also plenty of instances of the definite nominative
konungrinn.
(I'm not counting instances where 'konung' appears with a
proper name, or with other demonstrative.)
Come to think of it,
that one's only attested in post-medieval manuscripts. Looking now
at Hervarar saga, the R version, which I think dates from the 15th c., I
find no examples of 'konunginn', and only two of
'konung':
Hjörvarðr biðr konung segja skjótt "H. asked THE king to
answer quickly"
Nú grunar konung, hverr maðrinn mun vera. "Now
the king suspects who this man must be." (But the verb 'gruna' takes
accusative for the logical subject, so here 'konung' might be considered
the subject, in spite of its accusative form.)
Völsunga saga is
preserved in a manuscript from around 1400, and the text is dated to the
13th century. It contains lots of examples of the nominative
'konungrinn', but as far as I can see only one accusative 'konung' where
English would have a definite article, e.g.
Randverr heimti konung á
tal "Randver sought an audience with the king"
But for all I know
these are the exceptions. Maybe it would be better to start with a
proper critical edition and try to establish just what the rules are are
some particular time in history, although even then the composite nature
of so many of these texts and their scribal history could complicate
things. Or is there a really obvious rule that we're
overlooking?
Llama Nom
PS. Can anyone recommend any good
general books on Old Norse syntax? Preferrably not to specialised
or theoretical, but with lots of practical
detail.
--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, IK
<hobbi-germanista@...> wrote:
> >Throughout
this story `konungr' appears countless times without a >
>definite article where, in English, one would normally be used; then
> >out of the blue, the article is used in: `Ok nú er hann
sá konunginn.' > >Can anyone give a reason why it would
be used on this particular > >occasion? > > As
I have seen so far ON seems to be quite consequent in using >
indefinite form when referring to a person who is already introduced
> to the reader - by his title. As in that part of the text that you
have > translated the 'konungur' is in definite form only when it
becomes the > object (i.e. transformed to accusative) of the
sentence: > > 'Ok nú er hann sá konunginn.' > >
Otherwise the word 'konungr' appears in nominative or dative. > May be
using indefinite form when referring to an already introduced >
person as the acting person seems to be ok in ON, but as soon as it
> becomes the objective of the action of an other person it must be
> clarified - by adding definite article - that it is the
aforementioned > person and not someone new, i.e. 'He saw the
king [that we've been > talking about]' and not a new king was seen.
May be ON sees this time > better to use definite form, feeling
that indefinite form could be > confusing. > >
> Anyway I am may not be right, one might give a different
explanation > too. > > Greetings, > >
Imre Kovacs > Hungary