Questions about Welsh
Re: Questions about Welsh
It looks to me like the diminutive -yn/en was simply extended to a singulative meaning and applied to a number of collectives, but you're right that some of these collectives appear to have originally been singular in meaning. Plant is apparently cognate with English 'plant' (how weird is that?) and was borrowed from Latin into Celtic languages. It's also the origin of Irish/Gaelic clann, which literally only means 'offspring' or 'descendants' and appears to have no singular. I don't think it was ever singular in the sense of 'child'. However, words like moch have singular cognates in Goidelic (mucc).
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
Re: Questions about Welsh
Could the -en/-yn endings be related to un? As in "one of" the collective? I'm basically trying to figure out how to evolve such a system naturally for my conlang, it doesn't really help me with learning Welsh - learning plant/plentyn, moch/mochyn, coed/coeden etc is easy enough. Apparently coed comes from Proto-Celtic *koidos but I can't find a definition for it, so I can't tell if it was singular or a collective, but its Brythonic decendant, *koɨd apparently meant 'wood' / 'forest'.Yng wrote:It looks to me like the diminutive -yn/en was simply extended to a singulative meaning and applied to a number of collectives, but you're right that some of these collectives appear to have originally been singular in meaning. Plant is apparently cognate with English 'plant' (how weird is that?) and was borrowed from Latin into Celtic languages. It's also the origin of Irish/Gaelic clann, which literally only means 'offspring' or 'descendants' and appears to have no singular. I don't think it was ever singular in the sense of 'child'. However, words like moch have singular cognates in Goidelic (mucc).
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Questions about Welsh
No. The presence of n in both morphs is purely coincidental.Jonlang wrote:Could the -en/-yn endings be related to un?
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Re: Questions about Welsh
Matasović has *kayto- "wood" for this word, cognate to Gothic haiþi "field"Jonlang wrote:Apparently coed comes from Proto-Celtic *koidos but I can't find a definition for it, so I can't tell if it was singular or a collective, but its Brythonic decendant, *koɨd apparently meant 'wood' / 'forest'.
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Re: Questions about Welsh
In Cornish (and Breton), the -enn (f. sing.) can itself sometimes take a plural -ow where it would make semantic sense. E.g. gwels 'grass, grassland, pasture' (W. gwellt); gwelsenn 'a blade of grass'; gwelsennow '(several individual) blades of grass'. Breton : geot, geotenn, geotennoù.
Kyn nag ov den skentel pur ...
Re: Questions about Welsh
I can't remember if I've asked this on this forum before, but....
Can anyone explain, or point me in the direction of somewhere that can, how the aspirate mutation evolved?
Can anyone explain, or point me in the direction of somewhere that can, how the aspirate mutation evolved?
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Questions about Welsh
Jonlang wrote:I can't remember if I've asked this on this forum before, but....
Can anyone explain, or point me in the direction of somewhere that can, how the aspirate mutation evolved?
Source: http://www.fanad.net/mut01.pdfWithin the morphophonological mutation system proper, the spirant mutation occurs where the Brythonic maintained an “oxytonic” s (in the final, accented syllable) before an initial aspirata. For example, Brythonic treiyés 'three' ended in s and motivated spirantization which remained even after the s had disappeared, as in Welsh tre [sic] chant 'three hundred' from cant 'hundred'.
Re: Questions about Welsh
Diolch yn fawr!linguoboy wrote:Jonlang wrote:I can't remember if I've asked this on this forum before, but....
Can anyone explain, or point me in the direction of somewhere that can, how the aspirate mutation evolved?Source: http://www.fanad.net/mut01.pdfWithin the morphophonological mutation system proper, the spirant mutation occurs where the Brythonic maintained an “oxytonic” s (in the final, accented syllable) before an initial aspirata. For example, Brythonic treiyés 'three' ended in s and motivated spirantization which remained even after the s had disappeared, as in Welsh tre [sic] chant 'three hundred' from cant 'hundred'.
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Questions about Welsh
Mae'n bleser i wneud cymwynas.Jonlang wrote:Diolch yn fawr!