At 8:12:05 PM on Monday, July 15, 2013, elliot.holland@... wrote:

> •Nú er að segja frá Bolla Bollasyni. (Includes an
> idiomatic expression, but one you will see often when
> there is a change of subject in a saga)

> --Now is to say (inf. w/marker) from Bolla (dat.) (to)
> Bolla's sons (dat).

<Frá> here has the sense 'of, about', sense (6) in Zoëga (or
as we usually write it, simply Z6). <Bolla Bollasyni> is
simply the dative of the name <Bolli Bollason> 'Bolli
Bolli’s son'.

> --Is the declination of Bolla like this? n. Bolli; acc.
> Bolla; dat. Bolla; gen, Bolla?

Yes. The masculine name <Bolli>, like the overwhelming
majority of masculine nouns ending in <-i>, is a so-called
masculine n-stem or weak masculine noun. In the singular
these end in <-i> in the nominative and in <-a> (or for some
nouns <-ja>) in the other three cases. In the plural they
end in <-(j)ar> (nom.), <-(j)a> (gen.), <-(j)um> (dat.), and
<-(j)a> (acc.). If one case (other than nom. sing.) has the
<j>, they all do.

> --Now something is to be said away from Bolla, and on to
> Bolla's sons.

‘Now [it] is to tell of Bolli Bollason.’ In English we
might say ‘Now we turn to Bolli Bollason’, ‘Now the story
turns to Bolli Bollason’, or the like. It’s a formula
introducing a new topic, typically a person.

> •Þorkell spurði hverrar konu hann vildi biðja.

> Thorkell asked (3 per past? of spyra) of whom (f. gen.
> sing) to the woman (dat.) he (nom) wanted (past vilja) to
> ask (inf.)

> Thorkell asked of the women, whom he should propose to
> (for marriage).

> *This sentence has me totally lost. Maybe I have one of
> the cases wrong. I think -konu- is also genitive for
> -kona- but either way, the cases are throwing me off.

<Kona> is a feminine n-stem, also called a weak feminine
noun; such nouns are the feminine counterparts to masculine
nouns like <tími> (common) and <Bolli> (proper). Like their
masculine counterparts, they have a very reduced declension
in the singular: the nominative ends in <-a> and the other
three cases in <-u>, so that <konu> can be gen., dat., or
acc. Here <hverrar> does indeed modify <konu>, identifying
it as a gen. sing. The verb <biðja> is the reason for the
genitive: <biðja e-n e-s> is 'to ask something of someone',
with the thing in the genitive (<e-s>) and the person in the
accusative (<e-n>). In traditional English terms the thing
is a direct object, so we don’t expect it to take the gen.,
but ON has a number of verbs that take gen. objects.

‘Þorkel asked which woman he wanted to ask for [in
marriage].’

> •Hún er dóttir Snorra goða.

> She is daughter (dóttur acc. gen. or dat.) (of?) Snorri
> (acc. gen. or dat.), the chieftain (acc. gen. or dat.)

> *I'm confused as to why dóttir isn´t nominative,
> considering it´s the object of a copula.

<Dóttir> *is* the nom. sing. The other three cases in the
sing. are all <dóttur>. <Snorra goða> is genitive: ‘She is
Snorri goði’s daughter’.

> •Þórdís Snorradóttir var heima með föður sínum.

> --Thórdís, the daughter of Snorra (nom.) was at home with
> her father (dat.)

Snorri’s daughter: the nom. is <Snorri>, with <Snorra> in
the three oblique cases in the singular.

> •Hún var væn kona og merkileg.

> --she was a hopeful (fem) woman and noteworthy (?)

<Vænn> has several meanings, but the one that seems to fit
best here is 'beautiful'. <Merkiligr> is etymologically
something like 'able to be marked', i.e., 'able to be
noticed'; it actually means 'remarkable, noteworthy,
distinguished'. Here I think that I’d go with ‘beautiful
and noteworthy’.

Brian