Questions about Welsh

[Jonlang]

To be honest I just read my post and I can't remember what I was getting at either. I really am burning the candle at both ends and all I can say is that it must've made sense in my head at the time. I've had about 5 hours of sleep since Saturday and it's clearly doing me no good. I think I'll come back to it once I've caught up on sleep!

[Jonlang]

What's the difference between the agent suffixes -wr (gwerthwr) and -ydd (arlunydd)?

[linguoboy]

What's the difference between the agent suffixes -wr (gwerthwr) and -ydd (arlunydd)?

Not much that I can see. Nowadays -ydd seems more productive. (Of your two examples, gwerthwr has been attested since about 1400 whereas arlunydd is barely a century-and-a-half old.)

[Jonlang]

What's the difference between the agent suffixes -wr (gwerthwr) and -ydd (arlunydd)?

Not much that I can see. Nowadays -ydd seems more productive. (Of your two examples, gwerthwr has been attested since about 1400 whereas arlunydd is barely a century-and-a-half old.)

So you'd say that -wr seems to be more people performing a function whereas -ydd is more people who actually make, produce and create things?

[Astraios]

No, a productive suffix is one that can be used freely to form new words, as opposed to an unproductive suffix which can’t. In English -er is a productive agent suffix, because you can add it freely to any verb you want (killer, dancer, walker, eater, seer, …), while -ant is an unproductive agent suffix, because it only exists in a few words (mendicant, supplicant) and you can’t use it freely (i.e., you can’t say *killant, danceant, walkant, eatant, seeant, …). linguoboy is saying that in Welsh -ydd seems more productive (more freely used with any verb) than -wr.

[Jonlang]

No, a productive suffix is one that can be used freely to form new words, as opposed to an unproductive suffix which can’t. In English -er is a productive agent suffix, because you can add it freely to any verb you want (killer, dancer, walker, eater, seer, …), while -ant is an unproductive agent suffix, because it only exists in a few words (mendicant, supplicant) and you can’t use it freely (i.e., you can’t say *killant, danceant, walkant, eatant, seeant, …). linguoboy is saying that in Welsh -ydd seems more productive (more freely used with any verb) than -wr.

Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up!

[linguoboy]

No, a productive suffix is one that can be used freely to form new words, as opposed to an unproductive suffix which can’t. In English -er is a productive agent suffix, because you can add it freely to any verb you want (killer, dancer, walker, eater, seer, …), while -ant is an unproductive agent suffix, because it only exists in a few words (mendicant, supplicant) and you can’t use it freely (i.e., you can’t say *killant, danceant, walkant, eatant, seeant, …). linguoboy is saying that in Welsh -ydd seems more productive (more freely used with any verb) than -wr.

Good catch. The response had me completely flummoxed.

(Not just verbs, btw. E.g. llyfrgell "library" > llyfrgellydd "librarian", without a corresponding verb *llyfrgellio or whatever.)

[Jonlang]

Does anyone know why Gareth King refers to fy, dy, eich, ein, ei and eu as possessive adjectives instead of possessive pronouns? I mean they correspond to the English pronouns my, your, their, our, his and her

[linguoboy]

Does anyone know why Gareth King refers to fy, dy, eich, ein, ei and eu as possessive adjectives instead of possessive pronouns? I mean they correspond to the English pronouns my, your, their, our, his and her

What makes you say those are "pronouns" rather than "adjectives"?

[Yng]

'Possessive adjectives' is also sometimes used to refer to the English set. It's a matter of analysis.

[Jonlang]

Does anyone know why Gareth King refers to fy, dy, eich, ein, ei and eu as possessive adjectives instead of possessive pronouns? I mean they correspond to the English pronouns my, your, their, our, his and her

What makes you say those are "pronouns" rather than "adjectives"?

Probably because I'm an idiot. But someone on Facebook pointed out that they're adjectives and the pronouns are mine, ours, theirs etc.

[linguoboy]

Probably because I'm an idiot. But someone on Facebook pointed out that they're adjectives and the pronouns are mine, ours, theirs etc.

As Yng says, it's a matter of analysis. You can analyse them as pronouns representing nouns in the possessive case (e.g. "Yng's" > "his"), as adjectives, or even as determiners. None of these is actually "wrong" as long as you're consistent in your analysis.

(Incidentally, I'm not convinced that mine, ours, etc. are always pronouns. Compare: "It's more mine than ours" with "It's more green than blue".)

[Jonlang]

The creator of the Welsh Duolingo course said:

Except that Welsh doesn't have possessive pronouns that meet this definition. Eg to say This car is mine, we have to use an emphatic sentence 'Fi sy biau'r bêl hon' = It's me who owns this ball. So it makes more sense to refer to 'fy.....i' as a possessive pronoun as compared to 'i' as the ordinary pronoun.

[Pole, the]

Does anyone know why Gareth King refers to fy, dy, eich, ein, ei and eu as possessive adjectives instead of possessive pronouns? I mean they correspond to the English pronouns my, your, their, our, his and her

It's because in English terminology the meaning of “pronoun” is narrower than in the traditional linguistics, so for example “my”, “which”, “this” are usually considered adjectives or determiners and not adjectival pronouns.

[Znex]

The creator of the Welsh Duolingo course said:

Except that Welsh doesn't have possessive pronouns that meet this definition. Eg to say This car is mine, we have to use an emphatic sentence 'Fi sy biau'r bêl hon' = It's me who owns this ball. So it makes more sense to refer to 'fy.....i' as a possessive pronoun as compared to 'i' as the ordinary pronoun.

The GCC also says you can express mine in a sense by having a "dummy" object for fy...i to wrap around.

eg. Mae'i ardd o'n fwy na'n un i. "His garden's bigger than mine/my one."
Roedd ei farciau o'n well na'n rhai i. "His marks were better than mine/my ones."

[Imralu]

(Incidentally, I'm not convinced that mine, ours, etc. are always pronouns. Compare: "It's more mine than ours" with "It's more green than blue".)

That structure can be used with nouns too though: "It's more dog than cat."

[Yng]

The creator of the Welsh Duolingo course said:

Except that Welsh doesn't have possessive pronouns that meet this definition. Eg to say This car is mine, we have to use an emphatic sentence 'Fi sy biau'r bêl hon' = It's me who owns this ball. So it makes more sense to refer to 'fy.....i' as a possessive pronoun as compared to 'i' as the ordinary pronoun.

The GCC also says you can express mine in a sense by having a "dummy" object for fy...i to wrap around.

eg. Mae'i ardd o'n fwy na'n un i. "His garden's bigger than mine/my one."
Roedd ei farciau o'n well na'n rhai i. "His marks were better than mine/my ones."

Yes, though that's pretty colloquial.

[Richard W]

Is Lloegr one syllable or two? I was startled to see the final consonant marked as syllabic, which doesn't accord with what I've heard.

[Yng]

Two syllables - something like (I am not very good at phonetics) [KoEgEr].

[Znex]

Going off Wiki, it's basically something like ['ɬɔɨ̯.gɨr~'ɬɔɨ̯.gr̩].

[Jonlang]

Going off Wiki, it's basically something like ['ɬɔɨ̯.gɨr~'ɬɔɨ̯.gr̩].

I think it would be more like:

['ɬɔɨ̯.gər] in the North, and
['ɬɔi̯.gər] in the South.

Although there are more than two dialects, apparently five discernible ones. The vowel sound between /g/ and /r/ doesn't really seem to matter but moving from /g/ to /r/ without a vowel seems pretty impossible.

[linguoboy]

I think it would be more like:

['ɬɔɨ̯.gər] in the North, and
['ɬɔi̯.gər] in the South.

In much of the South, <oe> is pronounced [oː].

I'm inclined to believe what Yng reports about his own speech.

The vowel sound between /g/ and /r/ doesn't really seem to matter but moving from /g/ to /r/ without a vowel seems pretty impossible.

It's perfectly possible. Syllabic rhotics are a thing--just ask the Czechs.

[Richard W]

The vowel sound between /g/ and /r/ doesn't really seem to matter but moving from /g/ to /r/ without a vowel seems pretty impossible.

It's perfectly possible. Syllabic rhotics are a thing--just ask the Czechs.

Moreover, doing it as just one syllable is also perfectly possible - compare the French pronunciations at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ma%C3%AEtre. The French Canadian one is quite pertinent. (The modern French entry at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/maitre then adds confusion by giving a bisyllabic transcription.)

[Richard W]

Two syllables - something like (I am not very good at phonetics) [KoEgEr].

Thanks, I've got some unlearning to do. For example, I'd learnt llyfr 'book' as [ɬɨvr] (one syllable), whereas it's something like [ɬəvr̩] (two syllables). Another problem with the notion that Welsh spelling specifies the pronunciation.

[linguoboy]

Another problem with the notion that Welsh spelling specifies the pronunciation.

Really, syllabification (with its implications for vowel quality) has been my only real trouble with pronouncing Welsh. There are so few exceptions to the basic rules I was taught that I can't even remember them right now.