[split] Discussion of f116v interpretations by Anton Alipov

[ThomasCoon]

Thank you for your comments!

I'm not very good in (Middle High) German grammar, so please correct me if I'm wrong in the following considerations.

Suppose it reads "valden ubren". Now, if "ubren" expands as "uber den", then we should expect some noun in genitive after "den", since "den" is an article. We cannot expect this noun to be encoded by aror sheey, because a construct like "this object fold (it) over the" is not natural for German language. And neither we have any noun following "den".

Now, therefore, this "ubren" does not stand for "uber den".

But could it stand just for "over" (without any article)? If so, would the reverse word order like "this object fold over" (in the meaning "fold (it) over this object") be fine for German? In Russian this would not be against the rules; albeit does not sound very natural, but would be OK e.g. in the poetic verse.

Suppose it is "uber", but subject to declension. Which case, then?

Because "falten" is a motion (folding implies moving things), uber could take accusative case, and "den" is an accusative article. In German, an article like "den" can stand without a noun ("Hast du den Ball?" - "Ja, ich habe den im Auto") but only if the noun is clearly understood and already mentioned. If the aror sheey is something like "find a table / stream / cross / Bible", and the next direction is "fold (this spell paper) over it", then "ubern" as "über den" might make sense. But I personally think that option A is correct - that "ubern" is an elided "uberen/oberen."

Actually I'm trying to find possibilities for the scenario where aror sheey denotes some object, over which one needs to fold the paper with the spell.

There are some arguments against such a scenario though. The object would be necessarily a small one, because to fold paper over some large object, such as part of a body, you need a huge sheet of paper (not a spell, but rather a newspaper). Next, if aror sheey stands for an object, then we are left in the dark as to the purpose of the spell. Fold me over aror sheey, then take me quickly... und so weiter? 

If it is a small and thin piece of paper (even the size of a fortune cookie slip), you could fold it length-wise several times. But I agree that the translation wouldn't make much sense. "find a table, and fold (the spell) over it, and then take me quickly" is simply nonsensical.

So I guess we hunt down a MHD professor. I don't want to bother my old German department because I don't want to give them more work.

Also, mind that if "valden" stands for "falten", it is infinitive, not imperative. So it is not "fold it over!", but, at most, "to fold over".

Can we imagine a context in which infinitive would be appropriate? Russian Wikipedia page suggests that in MHD, and especially in AHD, infinitive was somewhat more flexibly used than it is nowadays.

In a set of instructions, the infinitive is often used in German. If you own any equipment in Russia that comes with multilingual instructions, you can see this on the German pages: "(1) den Kopierer anschalten. (2) das Papier auf die Glasoberfläche legen. (3) den Start-Knopf drücken."