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Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

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  • Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus
• Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  eggyk > 15-03-2026, 02:08 PM

  (15-03-2026, 11:17 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Apart from that, I keep repeating that the word order "so take quickly me" is unnatural, also in MHG. Proponents of the "gahes mich" reading choose to ignore this rather than address it, even though (going by what Torsten wrote above), Huth changed the word order himself to the perfectly acceptable "so nimm mich ganz."

  
  Regarding word order, is there a plausible case of a foreign speaker messing up the word order? I know that as an english speaker, I constantly mess up the order of words in dutch sentences. (although this word order would be unnatural in both in this example). That being said, if I were to hear "so take quickly me and my friend okay?" from a (non-fluent) dutch or other foreign speaker it wouldn't surprise me. 
  
  Would a language like latin, or others, accept the word order? I can imagine a non-fluent speaker simply translating the sentence without too much thought on the word order, especially on the last page, perhaps as practice or a note.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Torsten > 15-03-2026, 02:31 PM

  (15-03-2026, 11:17 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Apart from that, I keep repeating that the word order "so take quickly me" is unnatural, also in MHG.

  
  As a native German speaker, I don't find this word order that problematic. Consider:
  
  "Nimm das Buch schnell" — take the book, and do it quickly. The speed is secondary.
  "Nimm schnell das Buch" — quickly! Take the book! The urgency is foregrounded.
  
  Both forms are standard German. The adverb placement shifts the emphasis, not the grammaticality. "Nimm schnell mich" would emphasize the urgency even more strongly — take me, and do it NOW.
  
  Dutch has similar flexibility. "Neem snel het boek" versus "Neem het boek snel" — both are grammatical, with the same emphasis shift.
  
  That said, I have no expertise in medieval German.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  eggyk > 15-03-2026, 03:40 PM

  (15-03-2026, 02:31 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Dutch has similar flexibility. "Neem snel het boek" versus "Neem het boek snel" — both are grammatical, with the same emphasis shift.
  
  That said, I have no expertise in medieval German.

  
  "Dus neem snel mij" sounds completely wrong to me. "Dus neem mij snel" sounds okay. I don't think you can substitute a pronoun with a noun in that way in this case. The pronoun naturally attaches to the verb.  
  
  I asked my partner, she said that "dus neem snel het boek" sounds better, but "dus neem snel mij" sounds wrong.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Koen G > 15-03-2026, 04:21 PM

  Eggyk is correct: "neem snel het boek" and "neem het boek snel" are both fine. They have a subtly different connotation, maybe, depending on context. The problem comes with the personal pronoun, which I should have made more specific. 
  
  "verb schnell mich" does not feel like something a German speaker would write either. 
  
  
  For me, the long-s plus this awkward word order is enough to make the reading as "adverb - personal pronoun" unlikely. "Gasmich" is most likely one word, and given the "so nim" construction, most likely a noun.
  
  Of course, "gasmich" as gaismilch also has problems. That's why we're still struggling with this.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Torsten > 15-03-2026, 04:39 PM

  (15-03-2026, 04:21 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view."verb schnell mich" does not feel like something a German speaker would write either. 

  
  "Nimm schnell" is standard German. "Nimm schnell ein Taxi!", "Nimm schnell ein Stück Kuchen!" — nobody would question these. 
  
  The reason "nimm schnell mich" feels unusual is not that it's ungrammatical, but that it foregrounds the urgency over the object. You don't expect it because normally "mich" would carry more weight than "schnell." But unusual emphasis is not the same as wrong grammar. If on f116v someone is pleading to be taken urgently — by death, by God, by a beloved — the urgency might genuinely outweigh the object.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Koen G > 15-03-2026, 05:01 PM

  That's not the point, Torsten. It feels weird because "mich" is a pronoun, not a noun like book or taxi. 
  
  If you don't believe me, here's what Gemini has to say:
  
  

  Quote:If you were using a noun instead of a pronoun, you’d have more flexibility:

  • Nimm schnell das Geld. (Take the money quickly.) — Common
    
  • Nimm das Geld schnell. (Take the money quickly.) — Also Common
    

  But with pronouns, the order is much stricter:

  • Nimm es schnell. (Correct)
    
  • Nimm schnell es. (Incorrect/Sounds very strange)
    

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Torsten > 15-03-2026, 05:12 PM

  (15-03-2026, 05:01 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If you don't believe me, here's what Gemini has to say:

  
  I would suggest that you ask Gemini whether "Nimm dies schnell" and "Nimm schnell dies" are both possible. "Dies" is a pronoun too — and both word orders work.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  eggyk > 15-03-2026, 05:50 PM

  (15-03-2026, 05:12 PM)Torsten Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would suggest that you ask Gemini whether "Nimm dies schnell" and "Nimm schnell dies" are both possible. "Dies" is a pronoun too — and both word orders work.

  
  "mich" is a personal pronoun, and "dies" is a demonstrative pronoun, so they are not comparable in that way. 
  
  But here is what you asked: 
  
  

  AI Wrote:"Nimm mich schnell" and "Nimm schnell mich"
  
  No, only "Nimm mich schnell" is natural and correct.
  "Nimm schnell mich" is almost always wrong or very unnatural."Nimm mich schnell." → Completely correct and idiomatic. (Take me quickly. / Grab me fast. / Pick me up quickly.)
  
  "Nimm schnell mich." → Sounds very strange or outright incorrect to native speakers in almost all contexts.
  
  Personal pronouns (like mich, dich, uns, etc.) as direct objects almost always come immediately after the verb in imperatives — they are very strongly attracted to the verb position. Putting the adverb between the verb and the pronoun breaks this strong preference.

  
  The AI also said that the example with "dies" is technically grammatically correct in both, but that "nimm dies schnell" is far more natural.

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  JoJo_Jost > 15-03-2026, 06:09 PM

  That's AI nonsense. Sorry. What changes is the word that's emphasized and thus takes center stage.
  
  “Nimm schnell mich” means: Choose me quickly. (Pick me quickly) You'd say this, for example, when playing soccer in a group and selecting players; it's said by someone who wants to be picked before everyone else. Here, the emphasis is on "mich" (me).
  
  "Nimm mich schnell": “Pick me quick” means: Choose me quickly. Here, the emphasis is on “quickly.”
  
  It’s not about me, but about the speed. That’s the difference.
  
  
  The last word indicates what should be emphasized...
  
  ---
  
  By the way, I wouldn’t read too much into the long “s”; even if it was common practice, “common” in medieval writing meant something quite different from what “common” means today. There simply wasn’t a fixed set of rules that everyone followed. The “mich” is most likely really a “mich” = “me”

• RE: Huth's reading of f116v: "gâs" as "ganz" confirmed in medieval German corpus

  Koen G > 15-03-2026, 06:16 PM

  I see, so you'd say it as "Take me! Quickly!" rather than "take me quickly". I see how it can be use in such a marked context. But I don't expect any attestations of the like in Medieval manuscripts.
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