Re: THEORY: poetic devices [was: Hiatus in Artlangs]

> Date:         Sun, 19 Nov 2000 01:39:01 EST
> From:         Elliott Lash <AL260@...>
>
> J Cowan aniye:
>
>  This sort of reminds me of how the _Kalevala_ has some lines where
>  some of the words don't mean anything: they are modified versions
>  of other words in the line that do mean something.  Sorry to be
>  so vague, but I think JRRT talks about this somewhere.
>
>
>  I think that icelandic does something like this as well.
> The words that immediately come to mind are ón and
> ár(?) .
There's of, as in

sjaldan liggjandi úlfr / lamb of getr // né sofandi maðr sigr (Hávamál 58)

seldom the lying wolf / lamb will get // nor the sleeping man victory

One theory is that it is a vacuous particle left in where the meter of
the verse would otherwise be ruined by the loss of the old Germanic
verbal prefixes --- in this case probably be-. (Gothic bi-gitan means
to find).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)