--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, timothy caster <warcharger2000@...> wrote:

>
> but like take the word go, and makeing it into going.

Hi Timothy,

Grammarians call this form of a verb the "present participle". In Old Norse: 'ganga' "to go, walk" becomes 'gangandi' "going, walking". Or 'fara' "to go, travel" becomes 'farandi' "going, travelling".

(1) 'litlu síðar kom maðr gangandi í höllina' "shortly afterwards, a man came walking into the hall"

The Old Norse suffix has slightly different forms depending on gender, number and grammatical case (what role it plays in the sentence). (See, for example, Gordon: An Introduction to Old Norse § 103, or any grammar of Old Norse.) Be aware though that Old Norse makes less use of present participles than Modern English, and often has the simple present or past tense where English can have some form of the verb "to be" (is, are, was, were, am) plus a present participle.

(2) Þorleifr stóð úti
"Þorleifr stood outside"
"Þorleifr was standing outside"

Old Norse typically uses an infinitive in an object clause where English can have a present participle.

(3) ok þar sá hann dal ganga upp at fjöllum fagran og mikinn
"and there he saw a valley going up to the mountains, fair and big"

While the Old Norse suffix -andi is sometimes used to make a verbal noun, especially in immitation of a Latin construction called the gerund, it isn't used as generally as English -ing to make nouns out of verbs.

(4) fögr var sú kveðandi at heyra
"it was beautiful to hear that singing"

Also, in this usage, the suffix -andi often conveys a different meaning to English -ing, namely to express obligation or necessity, what is right, proper or needful.

(5) hverir hlutir elskandi eru
"and these things ought to be loved"

(6) er yðr eigi segjandi saga til
"there's no need to tell you the story"

The last three examples are from Jan Terje Faarlund's book Old Norse Syntax. As you might guess, it isn't usually possible to translate an English verbal noun ending in -ing simply by adding Old Norse -andi to a verb.

(7) þeir vóru beztir hestar at reið
"they were the best horses for riding"

(In this example, the noun 'reið' is derived from Old Norse 'ríða' "to ride", but there's no general rule for how such nouns are made from verbs.)

Another complication is that Old Norse makes use of the suffix -andi to form agent nouns, a function not shared by English -ing.

(8) gefandi "giver"

This version of the suffix also has its own set of different forms depending on the role in plays in the sentence. (See, for example, Gordon: An Introduction to Old Norse, § 91.) In the singular, it's declined like the masculine present participle, but it has it's own set of endings in the plural: gefendr (nominative), gefendr (accusative), gefanda (genitive), geföndum (dative). But note that not all agent nouns in Old Norse are formed in this way! In fact there are a variety of ways of making an agent noun, so there's no one suffix that can always be relied on to translate English -er.

LN