Inflecting Jesus Christ (was: Never violate a universal ...)
From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
Date: | Friday, September 5, 2003, 16:16 |
Andreas Johansson scripsit:
> Swedish disbeys #2. (You can, with good justification, argue that the -s
> genitive is nowadays an enclitic, but I'll refuse to take seriously any
> analysis that says that _Jesu_ is formed from _Jesus_ by adding a clitic!)
/me waves hand and says "Suppletion". :-)
Do you have constructions in Swedish like "the mayor of Boston's hat"
(standard) or "That umbrella's the young lady I go with's" (colloquial)?
I've always thought it was a cool feature of German that "Jesus Christus"
(or either part thereof) keeps its Latin inflections:
Nom: Jesus Christus ist der EINZIGE Weg zu Gott.
Gen: Wir sind alle Glieder des Leibes Jesus Christi.
Dat: Na, heute Morgen habe ich einen Telefonanruf von Jesu Christo bekommen.
Acc: Wir wollen nun untersuchen, was die Bibel tatsächlich über Jesum
Christum berichtet.
All examples are from actual German web pages, and I tried to avoid
pre-20th-century texts. In passing, I also spotted these forms
in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Dutch, but I don't believe
there was any live usage.
--
John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com ccil.org/~cowan
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb
Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof
Deity donated dentition;
deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever
God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh
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