Re: Case

At 7:24 pm +0200 14/7/99, BP Jonsson wrote:
>At 03:56 -0400 11.7.1999, John Cowan wrote:
.........
>>There's an interesting parallel in the German for "Jesus Christ"
>>(and each word separately):the Latin case endings are kept!
>>Nom. Jesus Christus, Acc. Jesum Christum, etc.
[snip]
>Swedish has the genitive "Jesu Kristi", tho "errors" from this usage do
>occur.  No distinct accusative, however.  Must remember to check if it was
>used in the older (16th and early 18th century) Bible translations!
>
>BTW it occurs to me that "Iesus" is irregular in Latin itself.  AFAIK the
>inflection is borrowed from greek but is irregular there too!  Ray?
It is borrowed from Greek and certainly by classical standards it is
irregular there also, being of course a borrowing from Aramaic.

But the Greek declension is not abnormal for the modern language nor IIRC
for foreign names partially assimilated into Hellnic Greek.  It is given a
final -s for nom., and a final -n for the acc. and no ending for the gen. &
dative, thus:

IHCOYC (nom)               /ie:su:s/
IHCOYN (acc)               /ie:su:n/
IHCOY  (gen., dat., voc.)  /ie:su:/

...with circumflex on the final upsilon.  Probably even in Hellenic form it
denoted stress, as in the modern language where /e:/ has become /i/, thus
/ji'sus/ etc.

But Greek commonly had the definite article before proper names, so cases
could usually be quite clearly distinguished.

Similarly the Latin had only three forms: Iesus (nom.), Iesum (acc.) & Iesu
(gen., dat, abl. and vocative).  The 'u' was long in the 1st cent. (but may
have been shortened before the acc. -m) and the word was, following the
Greek, irregularly stressed on the final.

If German does indeed keep the Latin forms, then it should have:
Jesus Christus (nom)
Jesum Christum (acc)
Jesu Christi (gen)
Jesu Christo (dat)

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G.Hamann - 1760]
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