This handbook was written specifically for beginning students. It presents twenty-seven graded readings, each accompanied by a vocabulary and an explanation of grammatical details; the final chapter provides a sample of the Codex Argenteus. Among the readings, the first seven are in effect preliminary exercises. The remaining twenty readings represent the Gothic Bible and the Skeireins. The external history of the language is also outlined, as well as the elements of phonetics, and the essentials of phonologic and analogic change.
The present work is designed to provide a carefully graded introduction to the grammar and vocabulary of the Gothic language. The material is presented in a way that I have found very effective in my teaching of other languages over the years, with enough examples and exercise material to lead the student to a rapid and intelligent reading of the extant texts. In addition to this purely practical goal, I have also tried to clarify, to the extent possible, the aspectual nature of the Gothic verb, a subject somewhat neglected in the textbooks currently available in English. . . . Because the study of Gothic is usually undertaken by students of Germanic or Indo-European philology, I have included a discussion of the historical phonology and morphology in a supplementary series of lessons whose contents parallel that of the corresponding lessons in the Grammar. . . . The texts given include all extant portions of the four gospels together with the extant portions of Romans and First Timothy. The Gospel According to Luke has been fully glossed at the foot of each page to spare the student the loss of time in looking up words . . . . The end Glossary contains the complete vocabulary of the Gothic Bible with the exception of proper names and a few transliterated Greek words. --from the Preface
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN: UOM:39015056477592
Category: Gothic language
Page: 224
View: 337
Underspecification, utilizing inheritance trees, also infuses the inflectional morphology, which admits a non-configurational syntax with verb-headed clauses. This book also brings the reader into the ambience of the fourth-century Goths. Readings from the Wulfilian bible, the extant eight pages of the Skeireins, together with a glossary, a bibliography and index, complete this volume..
A textbook introducing the language used as the gateway from the Germanic languages back to Indo-European, and also as a common ancestor to many later Germanic languages. Because most of the surviving manuscripts are literal translations of the Greek original and so provide no information about syntax, Bennett breaks with the principle of the series to produce some non-original material for the 27 graded readings. Each is accompanied by a vocabulary and an explanation of grammatical details, tie includes a full glossary, but decided against a separate grammar for reasons of space.
