• Pages
  • Table of Contents
  • About These Lessons
  • The Sounds of Gothic
• Lessons
  • Unit 1
  • Unit 2
  • Unit 3
  • Unit 4
  • Unit 5
  • Unit 6
  • Unit 7
  • Unit 8
  • Unit 9
  • Unit 10
  • Unit 11
  • Unit 12
  • Unit 13
  • Unit 14
  • Unit 15
  • Unit 16
  • Unit 17
  • Unit 18
• Nouns
  • Pure A-Stems
  • Pure A-Stem Plurals
  • Masculine JA-Stems
  • Neuter JA-Stems
  • WA-Stems
  • Feminine Ō-Stems
  • JŌ-Stems; Decl. of Thousand
  • Masculine I-Stems
  • Feminine I-Stems
  • Irregular I-Stems
  • U-Stems
  • N-Stems
  • Minor Declensions
  • Personal Pronouns
  • Reflexive Pronoun
  • WH Pronouns
  • Relative Pronouns
  • Demonstrative Pronouns
  • Posessive Pronouns
  • Indefinite Pronouns
  • Negative Indef. Pronouns
  • Paradigm Tables
• Verbs
  • Present Personal Endings
  • Preterite of Strong Verbs
  • Preterite, Consonant Changes
  • Ablaut Table
  • Principal Parts of Strong Verbs
  • "To Be", Present Tense
  • "To Be", Preterite Tense
  • "To Will", Conjugation
  • Reduplicated Preterites
  • Class I Weak Verbs
  • Irregular Weak Verbs I
  • Class II Weak Verbs
  • Class III Weak Verbs
  • Class IV Weak Verbs
  • Preterite-Presents
  • Auxiliary Verbs
  • Passive Voice
  • Imperative
  • Subjunctive
  • Participles
  • Verbs Governing the Genitive
  • Verbs Governing the Dative
  • Verbs with Feeling
• Adjectives
  • Strong A-Stems
  • Strong JA-Stems
  • Strong WA-Stems
  • Strong I-Stems
  • Cardinals 1 to 10
  • Cardinals Beyond 10
  • Declension of Two and Three
  • Weak Declension
  • Gender of Groups of People
  • Ordinals
  • Comparatives
  • Superlatives
  • Adverbs
  • Adverb Compar. and Superl.
  • Participles
  • Adjectives Governing the Genitive
  • Adjectives Governing the Dative
• Misc
  • Prepositions
  • Conjunctions
  • Questions: Yes/No
  • Questions: WH
  • Cardinals 1 to 10
  • Cardinals Beyond 10
  • Months, Days of Week
  • Colors
  • Other Uses of Accusative
  • Other Uses of Genitive
  • Other Uses of Dative
  • Compound Formations
  • Prefixes
  • Suffixes
• Lexicon
  • Gothic-English
  • English-Gothic
  • Gótico-Español
  • Español-Gótico
• Tools
  • Rhyme Utility
  • Keyboard
• Feedback

Unit 4

4.1) Feminine Ō-Stem Nouns

So far, we've seen only masculine and neuter nouns. A great many feminine nouns in Gothic belong to the ō-declension, which is cognate to the ā-declension of Latin and Greek. Here's the declension using the example of the word giba (gift):

(As with most nouns, the vocative singular of giba would be the same as the accusative, and in the plural it would be the same as the nominative.)

Some other nouns declined like giba include:

4.2) Adjectives in Gothic: Strong Declension of Pure A-Stems

Like nouns, the adjectives have different declensions and change their endings for all cases. But unlike nouns, they are declined in two ways, called strong and weak. We'll cover the weak declension in unit 11.

Here's the strong declension of mikils (great, large), an a-stem adjective, in the singular:

In the neuter nominative singular, the pronominal form of adjectives (mikilata here) is never used predicatively. So, while it is perfectly correct to say either mikil huzd beidiþ (a great treasure awaits) or mikilata huzd beidiþ, it is not correct to say **þata huzd ist mikilata. You would say þata huzd ist mikil.

The plurals of this adjective are:

Far and away the majority of Gothic adjectives are declined like mikils, including the number one (áins), and the following list:

Adjectives agree with the number, gender, and case of their nouns with few exceptions. When referring to a mixture of masculine and feminine entities, adjectives take either the neuter plural or the masculine plural; when used with nouns that refer to a multitude of people, the masculine plural is usual, even if the noun is singular and/or feminine.

Stems ending in -d with nom. masc. sing. in -þs have the voiced d in the oblique cases as well as the nom. fem. forms and neut. pl., and the unvoiced þ in the word final position or before s. The following table gives the declension of báuþs (deaf; mute; dull):

Words that should end in þ are every now and then attested in d, for example gōd salt; iþ jabái salt báud waírþiþ, ƕē gasupōda? "Salt is good, but if the salt becomes bland, with what is it seasoned?" where we would have expected gōþ and báuþ for the neuter adjectives (for now, don't worry too much about the unfamiliar grammatical features).

4.3) Verbs Governing the Dative

Some verbs take their direct object in the dative, instead of the more usual accusative. This includes most notably waírpan (to throw) and its compounds, as well as:

A few verbs take either an accusative or a dative with a difference in meaning:

The verb háusjan (to hear) usually takes a dative or a genitive, but occasionally takes an accusative. The meaning seems to be the same.

4.4) Adjectives Governing the Dative

Many adjectives also govern the dative, such as:

4.5) A Tale in Gothic

Now that we have enough vocabulary and grammar, here is some Gothic reading in the form of a story. Since there aren't many attested works in Gothic, the following story is based on an original tale by a friend of this site's admin.

Notes:

• 1. Bauan means "to dwell, reside".
• 1. riqizeins = dark, in the same way that gulþeins = golden.
• 3. ei = that, joining clauses (in unit 9.2 we'll examine this further); af = from.
• 4. iþ = but.
• 6. jah = and.
      nist = ni ist.
      alja = neut. sg. of aljis, other (we'll examine this declension in the next lesson).
• 8. sweiban = stop; untē = until; because.
  
• 9. We could also say laggana wig without the preposition, since the accusative governs lengths of time and space.
• 10. waírþan can mean either become or come to pass.
• 11. áinis dagis means the same thing as áinamma daga.
• 13. Áinam is an adverb meaning "alone".
• 14. The pronoun sums is used here as a noun equivalent.
      Háuseiþ is the third person singular of háusjan, to hear.

« Previous Lesson   Table of Contents   Next Lesson »