I was not happy with this either because I saw it as a "great shoal" of fish  and if one shoal then it is nominative singular - and the subject as I believe 
Further to this could it be possible that the spelling consisted of an error of spelling, by the original writer and nothing more, or the rendering of a dialectic pronunciation. My spelling can be atrocious, especially if working under pressure - sure I pressurise myself quite a bit - keen you know.!!
I saw a shoal as being singular no matter how many fish in it.
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!   
Say what you like Alan, call it limited, I wish I had the experience and knowledge of this fascinating language that you have
Thousands of fish but all in one shoal - so there
Kveðja
Patricia
----- Original Message -----
From: AThompson
To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 6:25 AM
Subject: 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


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