Welsh challenge (4)

This post is the 4^th instalment of the Welsh leg of my current Celtic challenge. It covers chapter 3 of Colloquial Welsh. For earlier instalments, please see Welsh Archives – Language Miscellany

Possession

Welsh has no transitive verb meaning have. Instead, the verb mae is used with the preposition gyda (‘with’), or in speech often the shortened version ’da (example 1).

(1) Mae car ’da   John
     Is      car with John
    ‘John has a car’

In questions, mae is replaced by oes (example 2) and in negatives mae is replaced by does ddim (example 3).

(2) Oes car ’da   John?
    Is     car with John
    ‘Does John have a car?’

(3) Does ddim car ’da  John
      Is      not   car with John
     ‘John does not have a car’

Questions beginning oes are answered with oes (for ‘yes’) and nag oes (for ‘no’).

As examples 1 to 3 show, in Welsh, the possessor follows the thing (or person) possessed.

Possession in northern Welsh

In northern Welsh, a different construction is used with gan (‘by), covered in chapter 6 of the textbook.

Mutations

Some initial consonants change in some environments. This process is known as mutation. There are 3 types of mutation: s

• oft mutation (treiglad meddal)
• aspirate mutation (treiglad llaes)
• nasal mutation (treiglad trwynol)

Table 1 lists the 9 consonants that undergo mutation, giving their unmutated form (radical) and the mutated forms. Of those consonants:

• 3 undergo all 3 mutations <c, p, t>;
• 3 undergo the soft and nasal mutations <g, b, d>; and
• 3 undergo only the soft mutation <ll, m, rh>.

Table 1. Mutations in Welsh

For simplicity, table 1 shows only the written form of the consonants, not their phonological form or phonetic form.

Some initial consonants appear as mutated forms only, eg < dd-, f->. On the other hand:

• <g,b,d> can be either radicals or soft-mutated forms of the radicals <c, p, t>;
• <r-> can be a soft mutated form of either <rh-> or <gr->;
• <l> can be a soft mutated form of <ll> or of <gl->, or a radical <l->;
• an initial vowel can either be present in the radical or be a soft mutated form of <g->.
• <w> can either be present in the radical or be a soft mutated form of <gw->.

More on mutation

Borsley et al (2007) provide some useful comments on mutation:

• soft mutation is a form of lenition, turning unvoiced stops into voiced stops and turning voiced stops into fricatives (and deleting the voiced stop <g> entirely).
• nasal mutation affects the 6 stops <c, t, p, g, b, d>, producing homorganic nasals <ngh, mh, nh, ng, m, n>. (homorganic means produced with the tongue at the same place of articulation);
• only the 3 unvoiced stops written <c, t, p> undergo aspirate mutation, becoming homorganic unvoiced fricatives <ch, th, ph>.
• mutation may lead to a morpheme having as many as 4 different forms (eg tad [‘father’], dy dath (‘your father’]’ ei thad [‘her father’], fy nhath [‘my father’]).  
• not all prepositions, numerals, clitics, determiners and other functional items trigger mutation.
• some homophonous pairs of words behave differently for mutation. For example:
  (a) predicate marker yn (discussed below) triggers soft mutation) but the progressive aspect marker yn triggers no mutation;
  (b) masculine possessive pronoun ei (‘his’) triggers soft mutation but the equivalent feminine form ei (‘her’) triggers aspirate mutation.
• personal names do not mutate and neither do foreign place names and unassimilated loan words, but domestic place names do mutate.
• not included in the above summary are:
  (a) hard mutation (treiglad celad), a process of fortition (opposite of lenition), seen in teg (‘fair’) / tecaf (‘fairest’);
  (b) aspiration: the addition of /h-/ to some words starting in a vowel.   

Comparison with mutation in Irish

The Welsh soft mutation seems similar to Irish ‘lenition’. For a brief introduction to Irish mutation, please see Irish spelling and pronunciation – Language Miscellany

Irish ‘eclipsis’ converts the voiced consonants /b d g/ to nasal /m n ŋ/, in much the same way as Welsh nasal mutation. Irish ‘eclipsis’ also converts the unvoiced consonants /f p t k/ to their voiced counterparts /v b d g/. In contrast, Welsh converts /f p t k/ to

For a broader comparison of mutation in Welsh, Irish and the other 4 modern Celtic languages (Breton, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx), please see Celtic (Indo-European), James Fife and Gareth King, Chapter 24 in The Handbook of Morphology, edited by Andrew Spencer and Arnold M Zwicky 1998.

Offering and accepting things

To offer something, use hoffech chi / hoffech ti, with soft mutation affecting the following noun phrase (example 4) or verb (example 5).

(4) hoffech chi   ragor o  goffi
      like       you  more of coffee
     ‘would you like more coffee?’

Ragor and goffi are the soft mutated forms of rhagor and of coffi.

(5) hoffech chi  weld y     fywdlen
     like       you see  the menu
    ‘would you like to see the menu?’

To accept and offer, use: hoffym (‘I like’); iawn (ok); o’r gorau (alright’ gorau = ‘best’), pam lai? (why not?), synaid da! (‘good idea’)

Nouns: gender and plural

The shape most nouns does not predict their gender, through most nouns ending in -yn are masculine and most nouns ending in -en are female.

The commonest plural suffixes (table 2) are –(i)au, -(i)on, -i and -iodd. Some nouns form the plural by changing an internal vowel. Table 2 shows some noun plurals.

Table 2. Some noun plurals

Adjectives

Adjectives follow the noun they modify: bws coch mawr (bus red big = ‘big red bus’)

In this phrase, I presume the adjectives coch mawr appear in that order because mawr modifies the sub-phrase bws coch. If my presumption is correct, it explains why the word order of the entire phrase Welsh phrase is the mirror image of the corresponding English: [[bws coch] mawr] [big [red bus]].

Other colour adjectives: du (‘black’), gwyn [fem. gwen] (‘white), glas (‘blue’), gwyrdd [fem. gwerdd] (‘green’), melyn [fem melen] (‘yellow’), brown (‘brown’), llwyd (‘grey’), oren (‘orange’), pinc (‘pink’), piws (‘purple’), … golau (‘light’), …tywyll (‘dark’).

‘Colour’ = lliw.

Some other adjectives: siwr (‘sure’), bach (‘small’), mawr (‘big’), trwm (’heavy’), tlws (‘pretty’), rhad (‘cheap’), parod (‘ready’), prysur, (‘busy’), tawel (‘quiet’), cynnar, (‘early’). Braf (‘fine’) does not mutate.

Feminine singular nouns

If a feminine singular noun appears:

• with the definite article y (‘r), the noun undergoes soft modification (unless the noun starts with ll- or rh-) (eg y ferch, ‘the girl; yr ardd, ‘the garden’)
• with a following adjective, the adjective undergoes soft modification (eg fenest fawr, ‘big window’)

Predicate marker yn

When an adjective or noun is used predicatively, it follows yn (which Borsley et al (2007) call a predicate marker), as in examples 6 and 7. The following word undergoes soft mutation (unless the noun starts with ll- or rh-).

(6) mae Aled yn   dal
      is    Aled pred tall
     ‘Aled is tall’

(7) mae Aberystwyth yn     dre   fach
      is     Aberystwyth pred town small
     ‘Aberystwyth is a small town’

In examples x and y, dal, dre and fach are the soft mutated forms of tal (‘tall’), tre (‘town’) and bach (‘small’).

Borsley et al (2007) say that the predicate marker yn probably developed either:

• from an earlier oblique case (perhaps instrumental) of the definite article used in marking adverbs; or
• from the preposition yn.

They note that predicate marker yn triggers soft mutation, whereas preposition yn triggers nasal mutation. They view this fact as supporting the idea that predicate marker yn originated in an adverbial use of the definite article

Other words and phrases

In the listings below, an asterisk * after a word shows that the initial consonant of the next word is mutated.

Verbs

diod (-ydd) (‘drink’), gwella (‘improve’; gwell = ‘better’), cwilio am* (‘look for’), tybed ‘I wonder’, gymera i (‘I’ll take’), byw ‘live’, aros (arhos-) ‘wait, stay’ [arosfa ‘waiting room’], talu (‘pay’: tâl ‘fee’), trio (‘try’), chwarae pêldroed (‘play football’, chwaraeon = ‘sports’, pêl= ‘ball’, troed [plural traed] = ‘foot’)

Nouns

amser (-au, time), tafarn (-au, ‘pub), gwin (‘wine’), hanner o chwerw (‘half of bitter’), pecyn (-nau, ‘packet’), creision (plural, crisps’), cyw iâr (‘chicken’), dinas ‘city’, tre (trefi, fem, ‘town), pentre (‘village’), cynghorwr (‘coucillor’), archfarchand (‘supermarket), (gwely)‘bed’, brecwast (‘breakfast’), caws (‘cheese’), wyau (‘eggs’), popty (‘oven’), llyfr (‘book’), ffordd (‘road, way’), draig (‘dragon’), ffrind (-iau) (‘friend’), crys (-au, ‘shirt’), crys-T (‘t-shirt’)

Determiners and pronouns

llawer (‘many, much’), unrhywun (‘anyone’), unrhywbeth (‘anything’) unrhywbeth arall (‘anything else’), arall (‘other, singular’), unwaith (‘once’)

Adverbials

wedyn (‘later’) yn anffodus ‘unfortunately’, braidd (‘rather’), ’mond ‘only’.

Conjunctions

neu* (‘or’)

Phrases

os gwelwch yn dda  ‘please’?  (os = ‘if’, gwelwych = ‘you see’ yn dda = ‘well’)

saith o’r gloch (‘7 o’clock’)

awn ni (‘let’s go’)

beth am rywbeth i fwyta ‘what about something to eat?’

pa flas hoffech chi (‘what flavour would you like?); pa (‘which’)

Alla’ i’ch helpu chi? (Can I help you?’), Gallwach. (yes,’ ‘you can’)

’na chi (‘there you are’)

faint sy arna i i chi (‘how much do I owe you?) faint = (‘how much, how many’

iechyd da (‘cheers, good health’)

fel wedes I (‘like I said’)

well i y fynd (‘I’d better go’)

gobeithio eich gwed o gwmpas (‘I hope to see you around’)

Sources

Colloquial Welsh, Gareth King (2008)

The Syntax of Welsh, Robert D Borsley, Maggie Tallerman and David Willis (2007)