On Gothic translations of Greek relative pronouns

Abstract

Abstract In Gothic translations of Greek relative clauses, the Greek relative pronoun is rendered in a variety of ways. With third person heads, Gothic relative clauses are introduced by a form of the demonstrative pronoun sa/þa- followed by the particle ei, which elsewhere functions as a clausal complementizer (e.g. sa-ei). In a restricted set of instances, the relative clause begins with a bare complementizer (ei, þei). When the head is a first or second person pronoun, Gothic deploys personal pronouns followed by ei: ik-ei, in þuz-ei. In the case of third person heads, Gothic sometimes employs one of the relative particles izei, sei, which are gender sensitive and may only relativize on subjects. The choice among these relative markers is a matter of Gothic grammar. The chapter concludes with a theoretical analysis which accounts for the properties and distributional restrictions of all these markers.