This reference grammar of Gothic includes much history along with a description of Gothic grammar. Apart from runic inscriptions, Gothic is the earliest attested language of the Germanic family in Indo-European. Specifically, it is East Germanic. Most of the extant Gothic corpus is a 4th-century translation of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Wulfila. This translation is historically important because it antedates Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. Gothic inflectional categories include nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Nouns are inflected for three genders, two numbers, and four cases. Adjectives also have weak and strong forms, as do verbs. Verbs are inflected for three persons and numbers, indicative and nonindicative mood (here called optative), past and nonpast tense, and voice. The mediopassive survives as a synthetic passive and syntactically in innovated periphrastic formations. Middle and anticausative functions were taken over by simple reflexive structures. Nonfinite are the infinitive, the imperative, and two participles. Gothic was a null subject language. Aspect was effected primarily by prefixes, relativization by relative pronouns built on demonstratives plus a complementizer. Complementizers were the norm with subordinated verbs in the indicative or optative. Switch to the optative was triggered by irrealis (the unreal), matrix verbs that do not permit a full range of subordinate tenses (e.g. hopes, wishes), potentiality, and alternate worlds. Many of these are also relevant to matrix clauses (independent optatives). Essentials of linearization include prepositional phrases, default postposed genitives and possessive adjectives, and preposed demonstratives. Verb-object order predominates, but there is considerable variation. Verb-auxiliary order is native Gothic.
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