Handy Reference Grammar

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This thread will contain a reference grammar for the course. It'll be no substitute for D. Simon Evans' A Grammar of Middle Welsh, but it will give the bare bones of the material by topic.

The problem is, A Grammar of Middle Welsh is a very dense book which aims to be exhaustive, so that what you really need to know for practical purposes can be buried under masses of detail that you don't need to know.

Thus, for example, I'll put up a post on 'Nouns and Adjectives', which will introduce all the standard twists and turns, such as how you make nouns plural. Once you have read these, you will be in a secure position to use A Grammar with discrimination.

There will be eight of these reference grammar sections on this thread, and I will introduce them gradually while we read the text.

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Before we head into the next sentence, we need to cover a further area of grammar in more detail.


Pronouns in Middle Welsh: 1


Pronouns are little words like 'she, he, they, them, him, I, we' etc, that stand in for a noun.

In the sentence, 'I liked Arawn, but even so, I killed him', the use of the word 'him' means that we don't have to say, 'I liked Arawn but even so, I killed Arawn', which would be long-winded and silly.


Though Middle Welsh is, on the whole, pretty straightforward grammatically (it is nothing compared to Old Irish!), the system of pronouns is, alas, one of the more complicated areas. But, as one would expect, pronouns occur constantly in Middle Welsh texts, and we need to get to grips with them, at least in a preliminary way, before proceeding any further.

The problem is, there are several sets of pronoun forms, which carry different shades of meaning. Middle Welsh is able to distinguish very delicately and with a single word ideas that have to be expressed in English with whole phrases, like 'he', as opposed to 'he for his part', 'he, the afore-mentioned', 'he in turn', and 'he himself'.

There are three sets that you need to learn now, the double set of subject/object pronouns, also called the stressed independent pronouns, and the possessive pronouns.

We have already met a few of these.

The stressed independent pronouns come in two varieties, simple and conjunct.

Stressed Independent pronouns: simple forms

[/b]

Singular

1st mi - 'I, me'

2nd ti - 'you' (one person)

3rd ef - 'he, him'
hi - 'she, her'


Plural

1st ni - 'we, us'

2nd chwi - 'you' (more than one person)

3rd (h)wy(nt) - 'they, them'[/td][/tr][/table]

Stressed Independent pronouns: conjunct forms

[/b]

Singular

1st minheu - 'I, me'

2nd titheu - 'you' (one person)

3rd ynteu - 'he, him'
hitheu - 'she, her'


Plural

1st ninheu - 'we, us'

2nd chwitheu - 'you' (more than one person)

3rd wynteu - 'they, them'[/td][/tr][/table]


(The -eu ending in all these rhymes with English 'die'. ynteu sounds like English 'untie' if you put the stress on the first syllable. wynteu is like English 'win-tie')

So, note that Welsh, unlike English, does not distinguish when a pronoun is subject or object. English has different words: 'He kills me', not 'he kills I', for example. For Welsh, the pronouns are the same whether they are subject or object.

So, why do we have two sets of pronouns here, the second a syllable longer than the first? Quite simply, they have different nuances. The first set is straightforward, with no fancy meanings. The second set implies a kind of contrast, best expressed in English with a phrase something like 'in turn, also, for his part'. Thus:

mi: 'I'

minheu: 'I for my part, I also, I in turn'


These two sets of forms are used as follows:

as subjects, especially in the Abnormal Order (e.g. ef a doeth, 'he came', ynteu a doeth, 'he came in turn').
as objects
in apposition to a proper noun (Pwyll ynteu, 'Pwyll for his part...')

You will see these forms constantly from now on, so it's worth learning them.

* * *

The next lot to learn are the possessive pronouns.

The possessive pronouns singular 1st uy, uyn 'my' (causes nasalisation) 2nd dy 'your' (belonging to one person) (causes lenition) 3rd y 'his' (causes lenition) y 'her' (causes aspiration and prefixes h- to a following vowel) plural 1st yn, an 'our' (prefixes h- to a following vowel) 2nd ych 'your' (more than one person) 3rd y [occasionally yw, eu] 'their' (prefixes h- to a following vowel)

These come before the noun they refer to, like their English equivalents. Note the mutations they cause!:

dy dat, 'your father' (from tat)
y gath, 'his cat' (from cath)
y urawt, 'his brother' (from brawt)
an pechodeu, 'our sins'
y phechodeu, 'her sins'.


* * *

Take a breather.



Now, as you will see, several of these possessive forms are highly ambiguous. y, in particular, is unhelpful, as it can be 'his, her' or 'their' depending on the following mutation or absence thereof.

As several consonants, like s, f, h, n, r, etc. don't undergo mutation, huge ambiguities can arise; e.g., is y santes 'the female saint', 'his female saint', 'her female saint' or 'their female saint'? We cannot tell.

So the cunning medieval Welsh came up with a special system to clear such ambiguities up.

What you do is place the corresponding independent pronoun above (from either set, depending on nuance) AFTER the noun which has a possessive pronoun in front of it, to bolster or shore up that possessive pronoun. Under these circumstances, the first and second singular forms are often lenited to ui, di and uinneu, ditheu (ui and uinneu can even appear as i and inneu, losing their initial consonants altogether).

So, let's see this in action:

dy dat di, 'your father' (from tat) - literally 'your father you' y gath ef, 'his cat' (from cath) - literally 'his cat he' y urawt ynteu, 'his [own] brother' (from brawt) - literally 'his brother he for his part' an pechodeu ni, 'our sins' - literally 'our sins we'. uy mam inheu, 'my own mother' - literally 'my mother I for my part'

As a result,

y santes, 'the female saint' y santes ef, 'his female saint' y santes hi, 'he female saint' y santes wynt, 'their female saint'

become totally formally distinct and clear. The independent pronouns are used to make the identity of the possessor clear. (Strictly speaking, only the 3rd person possessive forms could be ambiguous, but this 'shoring up' or 'bolstering' system is used with all persons.)

It is not compulsory to use this system in any given instance, but it is very very common. (We had y urawt not y urawt ef in the third sentence of our text.)

That's enough for now! Please tell me if this isn't clear. It does become clearer in practice, I promise.