> > Do they have April Fools Day in Iceland?
>
> "Fyrsti apríl" :)
Ah, every day is April Fools Day in our house! And speaking of
which, I've made a few corrections to that old thing [
http://www.oe.eclipse.co.uk/nom/dog.htm ] -- and I spotted some
scribal garbling in Jóddamál as it originally appeared.
But what I'm wondering now is...
Ok er hann spyrr til ferða hennar þá ferr hann í mót henni með
fjölmenni ok fagnar henni vel ok bauð henni til sín með öllu liði
sínu því at hann kunni veglyndi systur sinnar. Þat líkaði henni
allvel ok þakkaði honum stórmennsku sína.
`And when he heard of her journey, he went with a large party to
meet her and welcomes her warmly and invited her to stay with him
with all her company, as he knew the generosity of his sister. She
liked that very well and thanked him for his hospitality.'
(Laxdla saga 5).
...are there any limits on when 'sinn' can be used refering to a non-
subject. E.g., in this example, could you say 'ok er hann spyrr til
ferða sinna'? I see that 'liði sínu' crops up quite a bit; are
there certain words where the reflexive is prefered, out of
tradition or habit maybe? Or is it completely optional?
Are the pronouns, sik, sér, sín, more strictly limited to referring
to a subject?
I see that Old English gets up to similar antics:
Nu ðu miht gehyran, hyse leofesta, hu he wundra worn wordum cyðde,
swa þeah ne gelyfdon larum sinum modblinde menn.
`Now you can hear, dearest lad, how he revealed a wealth of wonders
with his words, although men, blind in their minds, didn't believe
his teachings.'
(Andreas 810-814).
Although I suppose this could just be a case of Long Distance
Reflectivisation, referring back to the subject of the main clause.
Latin seems quite gung-ho about when to use its reflexive possessive
adjective; Gothic less so, but still, I did find one unambiguous
example:
distahida mikilþuhtans gahugdai hairtins seinis
`he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts'
(L 1,52)
Stefán Einarsson's Icelandic grammar (from the 1940s) has an
interesting comment. He says that for some people, in one
situation, at least, the choice of whether to use a reflexive
depends on whether the verb is subjunctive or indicative:
hana dreymdi, að bróðir sinn sinn kæmi til sín
hana dreymdi, að bróðir hennar kom til hennar
But he also says that "there is some vacillation on this point."
> None of these examples sound to me like the abomination you
originally
> brought up :)
Haha, let's see if I can abominate you with some more examples from
the same book. But I'm guessing these sound better?
ég gaf konungi ambáttina sína
"I gave a king his own slave"
ég gaf ambáttina konungi sínum
"I gave the slave to his (!) own king" ("her", surely...)
Llama Nom
--- In
norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Haukur Þorgeirsson
<haukurth@...> wrote:
>
> > Do they have April Fools Day in Iceland?
>
> "Fyrsti apríl" :)
>
>
> > Þakkar hann þeim broeðrum sína liðveizlu,
>
> Completely idiomatic to me.
>
>
> > ok mun enn sem fyrr eptir framaverk, at þér munuð laun hyggja
vinum
> > yðrum fyrir sitt starf
> > and, as always after glorious accomplishments, I expect you'll
think
> > to reward your friends for their trouble
> > (Ásmundar saga kappabana 3).
>
> No problem.
>
>
> > enn hvat vilir þér nú bióða Haraldi kononge firir sitt starf?
> > but what will you offer King Harald for his trouble
>
> No problem.
>
>
> > Hann kallar ok biðr allþarfliga örninn friðar, en hann segir at
Loki
> > skal aldri lauss verða nema hann veiti honum svardaga at koma
Iðunni
> > út of Ásgarð með epli sín, en Loki vil þat.
> >
> > Surely they're Idun's apples, aren't they?
>
> Yes. I don't see any problem here. There is nothing ambiguous
about the
> sentence.
>
> None of these examples sound to me like the abomination you
originally
> brought up :)
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>