RE: [norse_course] Re: Hrafnkell 613-632 / Alan´s Translation

LN

 

-----Original Message-----
From: norse_course@yahoogroups.com [mailto:norse_course@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of llama_nom
Sent: Sunday, 5 March 2006 9:40 PM
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Hrafnkell 613-632 / Alan´s Translation

 

Gwyn Jones: "That same summer there was a big run of fish in

Lagarflot, which proved a great help towards housekeeping in the

district, and that held good every summer."

 

What is the subject of 'af slíku gerðisk mönnum búshoegindi'.

 

  Is it a sort of subjectless sentence?  Maybe "from

that [the quantity of fish] *it* was very helpful to the running of

the farm" = "from that, they derived great help" = "that was very

convenient for them"?

 

I took ‘búshoegindi’ as the subject but if that was the case ‘gerðisk’ should really be ‘gerðask,’ since ‘búshoegindi’ is, according to Zöega and Gordon, neut pl. Although grammatically plural, perhaps the author treated it as ‘semantically’ singular noting that ‘hoegindi’ is also the nom sg form of the root noun. If that´s not the case then, ‘búshoegindi’ can only be acc pl and I, with my limited knowledge, can make no sense of that!

 

 

Kveðja

Alan