Morphology Notable differences from modern Welsh Middle Welsh is closer to the other medieval Celtic languages, e.g. Old Irish, in its morphology. For example, the endings
-wŷs, -ws, -es and
-as are used for 3rd person singular of the preterite in Middle Welsh as well as the form
-odd. In the same person and tense exists the old reduplicated preterite
kigleu 'he heard' of the verb
klywet 'to hear', which corresponds to the Old Irish
·cúalae '(s)he heard' from the verb
ro·cluinethar '(s)he hears'. Middle Welsh also retains more plural forms of adjectives that do not appear in modern Welsh, e.g.
cochion, plural of
coch 'red'. The nominal plural ending
-awr is very common in Middle Welsh, but has been replaced in modern Welsh by
-au.
Morphonology Like modern Welsh, Middle Welsh exhibits in its morphology numerous vowel alternations as well as the typical Insular Celtic initial consonant mutations.
Vowels There is a productive alternation between final syllables and non-final syllables known as
mutation or
centring (), which is by necessity triggered by the addition of any suffix and operates as follows: The centring mutation is due to a process of vowel reduction that operated earlier, in late Brythonic, when the stress was placed on the last syllable. The second type of affection is triggered by (typically) extant close vowels or semivowels in the following syllables, and is hence known as penultimate affection (in fact, it also reaches the antepenult in Middle Welsh). The effect varies somewhat depending on the triggering vowel, hence one may speak more specifically, for instance, of
y-affection ( a. in the second members of compounds:
march 'horse' >
moruarch 'sea-horse, whale'; b. in a noun preceded by the possessive pronouns for 3rd singular masculine and 2nd singular possessors (
y 'his' and
dy/th 'thy'):
kyuoeth 'wealth, realm' >
y gyuoeth 'his wealth, realm'; c. in a noun preceded by the numerals 1, 2 and 7:
march 'horse' >
deu uarch 'two horses'; d. in a noun or adjective preceded by a name that it describes:
brenhin 'king' >
Keredic Vrenhin 'Ceredig the king';
bendigeit 'blessed' >
Catwaladyr Uendigeit 'Cadwaladr the blessed'; e. in a possessor noun or an adjective preceded by a feminine singular noun or a semantically dual noun:
Morgant >
gulat Uorgant 'the land of Morgan',
tec 'fair' >
y wreic deccaf 'the fairest lady',
mawr 'big' >
deu uarch uawr 'two big horses'; f. in a feminine singular noun preceded by the definite article:
gwreig >
y wreig 'the woman'; g. in a noun following the prepositions
a,
am,
ar,
at,
dan,
gan,
heb,
hyt,
y,
is,
o,
tros,
trwy,
uch,
wrth, the conjunction
neu or the vocative particle
a; h. in a noun functioning as the subject after some verbal forms (in contrast to modern Welsh). It is common after many 3rd person forms of the verb 'to be', and after the 3rd person singular imperfect and pluperfect (sometimes also preterite) of other verbs. It also occurs in subjects separated from their verbs; i. in a noun functioning as the object after most verbal forms, but sometimes not after the 3rd singular present and preterite; j. in a noun or adjective functioning as a nominal predicate after the verb 'to be' or the predicative particles
yn and
y: mawr 'big'
> ot oed uawr ef 'if he was big'; k. in a noun or adjective used adverbially (including after the adverbial particle
yn); l. in a verb after the relative pronoun
a, the interrogative pronouns
pa,
py and
cwt, the interrogative particle
a, the negative particles
ny and
na, the affirmative particles
neu,
ry and
a, the particle
yt, many prefixes such as
go- and
di-, the conjunctions
pan,
tra and
yny; m. in the verb 'to be' after a nominal predicate.
2. Nasal mutation The nasal mutation replaces stops with corresponding nasals (while keeping them voiceless if the original stops were voiceless): It occurs: a. after the preposition
yn 'in' (and sometimes also the predicative and adverbial particle
yn):
pob 'every' >
ymhob 'in every'. This does not occur with verbal nouns. b. the possessive pronoun
vy 'my':
brawt 'brother' >
vy mrawt 'my brother' c. the numerals 7, 9, 19, 12, 15, 100, and by extension some others.
3. Spirant mutation The spirant mutation replaced voiceless stops with fricatives: It occurs after: a. the possessive pronoun for 3rd singular feminine possessors
y 'her':
penn 'head' >
y phenn 'her head' b. the conjunction/preposition
a 'and, with', the conjunctions
no 'than',
na 'neither, nor' and
o 'if', the preposition and adverb
tra 'over, very'. c. the negative particles
ny, na (note that these also cause the spirant mutation), the affirmative particles
neu and
ry, many prefixes such as
go- and
di- (note that these also cause lenition of the other mutable consonants) d. the numerals 3 and 6. e. the interrogative
cw 'where?' '
4. Aspiration (sandhi h
)' The consonant
h appears initially before vowels after certain pronouns, namely the possessive pronouns
y 'her',
yn/an 'our',
eu/y(w) 'their' and the 1st singular 'infixed' pronoun
-m as well as the 'infixed' pronoun -
e/
y when it expresses a 3rd person object (be it singular masculine, singular feminine, or plural)
; e.g. wynneb 'face'
> y hwynneb 'her face'.
5. Provection Provection is a phenomenon that causes devoicing of consonants within certain medial consonant clusters that may arise via morphological processes. Two identical voiced stops yield a voiceless geminate stop (e.g.
d +
d >
tt), a voiced stop is devoiced before another voiced stop or voiceless consonant (
d +
b >
tb or
tp), a voiced consonant may be devoiced before a sonorant (
d +
r >
tr) and is always devoiced before a voiceless consonant (
d +
s >
ts) and merges with a following /h/ into a voiceless geminate (e.g.
d +
h >
tt).
Nouns There are two genders, masculine and feminine. There is a definite article which precedes the noun phrase and has the form
y- before a consonant and
yr- before a vowel or . Noun plurals may end in a variety of unpredictable endings such as
-eu,
-(i)on,
-oed,
-ed, -
yd,
-et,
-ot,
-(i)eit,
-awt,
-awr,
-ant,
-er,
-yr,
-i or zero suffix with ultimate
i affection in the root). A vowel change may also accompany the addition of an ending; apart from the predictable option of centering, that vowel change may also be a penultimate
i,
y or
j affection (before
-ion,
-ieit,
-i,
-yd or rarely
-ieu) or, conversely, a reversion of ultimate
i affection before endings such as
-eu,
-on,
-ed and
-ot. The special plural suffix
-os has diminutive meaning. There are also singulative endings
-yn (masculine) and
-en (feminine), which produce singulars not only from collectives, but also from plurals:
blew 'hair' >
blewyn 'a hair';
llyc 'mouse' >
llygot 'mice' >
llygoden 'mouse'. There is no grammatical case. Nouns may be placed after another nouns to express a possessor, sometimes triggering a mutation, for which see above.
Adjectives Some, but not all adjectives may have special plural and feminine forms, and concord is not always observed. The plurals may be formed with a zero ending and ultimate
i-affection or with the ending
-(y)on , which may also cause mutation or penultimate
j-affection. The adjective-forming suffixes
-adwy,
-eit,
-in,
-lyt never allow plural formation. Feminine forms of adjectives are derived from masculine ones via ultimate
a-affection. Adjectives could be used adverbially when preceded by the particle
y(n) (
kilyaw y gyflym 'withdrew hurriedly'); when they were placed first in the sentence or were in the comparative, they did not require the particle either.
Pronouns The
personal pronouns have many forms with different functions. The
independent forms are commonly used as objects, syntactically isolated or as fronted subjects. The
reduplicated forms express emphasis, the '' 'conjunctive'
ones express contrast, and the 'infixed'
ones usually express objects or possessors, while being added to various particles and function words. The prepositional'' forms are added to prepositions ('conjugating' them). The forms as follows: The variants
i and
di of the 1st and 2nd singular simple pronouns and
inneu and
ditheu of the corresponding conjunctive pronouns are used when these follow a conjugated verb, preposition or possessed noun; Evans (1970) terms them 'affixed' pronouns. In the 3rd singular infixed pronoun, the allomorph
-i/e is used after the words
a,
y,
pan,
tra and
yny, while
-s is used after
ny,
na,
ry,
neu,
can,
gwedy,
kyt,
o and
pei. The
reflexive pronoun consists of the word
hun (pl.
hunein), preceded by a possessive pronoun (as in
myself,
yourself etc.). The most common
relative pronoun is
a. The
demonstrative pronouns may be
proximal or distal and distinguish, besides the masculine and the feminine form, a neuter one, which, however, corresponds with the plural. They are as follows: Some demonstrative adverbs are
ynaeth 'then',
yno 'there' (
yna can mean both),
ynoeth 'thither',
yma(n) 'here',
(y)velly 'so, thus'. Now was
nw in early texts, but later weithon, i.e.
y weith hon (lit. 'this time') or
yn awr (lit. 'in/the hour').
Sawl is 'so many'.
Meint 'number, size',
ryw 'kind' and
peth 'thing' can be used in various complex constructions with pronominal elements. The main
interrogative pronouns are
pwy 'who' and
pa/
py 'which'. 'What' can be expressed as
pa beth 'which thing?'. Others are
pet 'how many',
cwt 'where',
pan 'whence', ''pi 'whose'
(always merged with a copula – pieu
= pi
+yw
, pioed
= pi
+oed'' etc.).
Universal pronouns are
pawp, oll 'all' (with adjectival variants
pop and
holl) and
cwbyl 'the whole'.
Indefinite pronouns are
nep 'any(one)' and
dim 'any(thing)'.
Verbs Finite forms There are four tenses – present(-future), preterite, imperfect and pluperfect – and two moods (indicative and subjunctive). A subjunctive is distinguished from the indicative only in the present and the imperfect. The verb agrees with the subject (but it agrees in number only if the subject is placed before the verb, not after it). The inflection of the verb distinguishes two numbers and three persons, as well as a special 'impersonal' form, which is used in a way similar to a passive. Contrary to the example of
caru, the 3rd singular present of many or most verbs has
i-affection, e.g.
arch-af 'I ask', but
eirch 'he asks'. Furthermore, some verbs, especially denominatives, have a 3rd singular ending -
(h)a (originally part of a suffix). Some other, rare and archaic 3rd singular endings still occurring in Middle Welsh are
-(h)it,
-(h)awt,
-yt,
-yd. Of the different forms of the 3rd person of
bot,
yw,
ynt follow the predicate, whereas
(y) mae,
(y) maent are placed in the beginning of the clause (and can alone mean 'where?' in questions);
oes is used in negations, questions and conditions, mostly in the sense 'there is' ('there is' is also the meaning of the impersonal
yssit;
ys is used mostly with verbal nouns and in the mixed order, for which see the section
Syntax). The 3rd singular ending may also be
-i with penultimate
i-affection. Contrary to the example of
caru, and unlike modern Welsh, the 3rd person singular preterite form most frequently ends in
-wys or
-ws, or in
-s preceded by some other vowel as in
-as,
-es or
-is, e.g.
gallws 'was able'. The second person singular exhibits
y-affection. The of the subjunctives is in the process of disappearing after vowels and sonorants, but causes provection (devoicing and gemination) after voiced consonants: e.g.
dycko corresponding to 1st person singular indicative
dygaf 'bring'. The subjunctive is used to express wishes, indefiniteness, purpose or a concession. The 3rd singular may also end in
-(h)it. Note:
Bot also has special 'consuetudinal' (habitual) forms for the present and past mostly formed from the stem
byd-.
Non-finite forms Both of the verbal adjectives have passive meaning: the one in
-edic is a past participle passive (
car-edic 'loved') and the one in
-adwy is a future participle passive or
gerundive (
cred-adwy 'credible'). Less common suffixes with a past passive meaning are
-at,
-(h)awt and
-eit. The verbal noun is formed in a great variety of ways, the most common ones being: 1. just the verb stem with a zero suffix:
adaw 'leave' 2. with the suffix
-u, which is typical of stems containing
-a,
-ae,
-e- and
-y-:
caru 'love',
credu 'believe',
kyrchy 'approach', including denominative stems in
-ych-:
bredychu 'betray' 3. with the suffix
-aw, which is typical of stems ending in
-i or containing
-i-,
-u-,
-wy- or
-eu- (
keissyaw 'seek',
gwisgaw 'dress',
urdaw 'ordain',
kwynaw 'complain',
blodeuaw 'blossom') 4. with the suffix
-i, which is typical of stems containing
-o-/-oe- or ending in
-w (
adoli 'worship',
merwi 'die'); there are also some stems containing
-a-, which then undergo penultimate
i-affection:
erchi 'request'. There are also some less common suffixes such as
-ach,
-aeth,
-(a)el,
-ec,
-(e/y/u/i/ei)t,
-n,
wyn,
-(ou)ein,
-fa(n) and
-s. Verbal nouns are used very frequently in many periphrastic constructions, including prepositional phrases (with the preposition
y – lit. 'towards V-ing', i.e. 'in order to V', with the preposition
yn – lit. 'in (the process of) V-ing'), as an object of the verb
gwneithur 'do' (lit. 'to do a V-ing'). They may even occur alone without a finite verb within a narrative (lit. 'And (there was) a V-ing'). The subject could be introduced by
o 'from'.
Prepositions Prepositions are 'conjugated', i.e. pronominal morphemes are added to the prepositions. The preposition may also undergo other changes, e.g.: A vowel appears before the preposition; it may be
-a-,
-o- or
-y-, depending on the specific preposition, e.g.
ar 'on' –
arn-a-f 'on me',
rac () 'before' –
rag-of 'before me',
gan 'from' –
genhyf 'from me'. Most prepositions cause lenition (
am,
ar,
gan etc.), but
yn 'in' causes nasal mutation and
a(c) 'with' causes spirant mutation. The prepositions themselves often occur with a lenited or non-lenited first consonant. Some notable prepositions are
a(
c) 'with',
am 'around',
amcan y 'about',
ar 'on',
at 'to',
can(
t) 'with, by',
ker 'near, by',
ech 'out of',
eithyr 'outside',
erbyn 'by, for, against',
gwedy 'after',
heb 'without',
herwyd 'according to',
gerfyd 'by',
hyt 'until',
is 'below',
mal 'like',
o(
c) 'from',
parth 'towards',
rac () 'for', (
y)
rwng () 'between', tan 'under'
y 'to, for',
tra(
c) 'over, beyond',
tros 'for, instead of',
trwy 'through',
y ('to', 'for', 'belonging to'), (
y)
tu (
a(
c)) 'towards',
uch 'above',
wrth 'at, by, for',
y(n) 'in' (
y before infixed pronouns),
yr 'during, for'. Prepositional phrases often function as complex prepositions:
ym penn 'at the end of' (from
penn 'head, end'). As indicated elsewhere,
y(n) may also introduce nominal predicates and words used adverbially.
Syntax As in modern written Welsh, the VSO word order (
Gwelod y brenin gastell: "Saw the king a castle") is not used exclusively in Middle Welsh, but irregular and mixed orders are also used:
Y brenin a uelod gastell: ("[It was] the king that saw a castle"). The suggestion is that the mixed order places emphasis on the subject, and is often used in Welsh today to emphasise something. The formal difference between the two is that a negative particle (
ny/
na) precedes the subject in the mixed order (thus
Ny brenin a uelod gastell would mean "It was not the king that saw the castle", but precedes the verb in the irregular order (thus
Brenin ny uelod gastell = "The king did not see a castle"). Furthermore, the mixed order could preserve the copula that originally participated in this cleft construction (
Ys y brenin a uelod gastell). Unlike modern Welsh, however, the irregular or 'abnormal' orders are much more common than the 'normal' one, even though they require an additional particle to be grammatical. There are two main variations: 1. with a subject or object 'fronted' before the verb (SVO or OVS) and followed by the particle
a (causing lenition) – e.g.
Arawn a eirch y wrogaeth instead of
Eirch Arawn y wrogaeth 'Arawn asks for his homage'; 2. with an adverbial expression 'fronted' before the verb (AdvV) and followed by the particle
y(d) (
yd before a vowel; causing lenition) – e.g.
Y Lynn Cuch y uynn hela instead of
mynn ef hela y Lynn Cuch 'he wanted to hunt in Glynn Cuch'. Both particles may also be replaced by
ry or
yr. When the verb of a sentence is a copula governing a nominal predicate (P), early texts preferred the order VPS, but PVS becomes more common in the bulk of Middle Welsh prose. If the nominal predicate is not fronted, it may be introduced by the particle
y(n):
y bu (yn) barawt ('it's ready'). A direct question is introduced by
a:
A dywedy di ynni? 'Will you tell us?' Modifiers, both adjectives and 'genitives', normally follow their nouns, e.g.
gwreic dec 'a fair woman',
pendeuic Dyuet 'the prince of Dyfed' (with lenition if the nouns are feminine). The nouns indicating a possessor (the 'genitive nouns') are, morphologically, just unmarked nouns juxtaposed with another noun (apart from the lenition after a feminine noun). Independent pronouns can be appended in the same way, redundantly, after a noun already modified by a possessive pronoun (
y erchwys ef, lit. 'his dogs (of) him') and likewise after a 'conjugated preposition' (
arnaf i, lit. 'on-me me'). An adjective may precede a noun if connected with it by the particle
a 'which' (
maur a teith 'a long journey') and a few adjectives such as
hen 'old' and
prif 'chief' are also normally placed in front of the noun. Possession is expressed literally as '(possessed) is with (possessor)', rather than with a verb 'to have'.
Numerals Only the cardinal numerals for 2 to 4 and the ordinal numerals for 3 to 4 have a gender distinction. The ordinal numerals are mostly formed with the suffix
-uet, less commonly
-et or
-yd (masculine) /
-ed (feminine), while '1st' and '2nd' are
suppletively formed. The morphologically simple cardinal numerals and their corresponding ordinal numerals are as follows: The numerals from 11 to 19 are formed in a variety of ways. 12 and 15 simply conjoin a simple numeral with the word 'ten'; 11, 13, 14 are literally 'N on ten'; 16, 17, 18, 19 are 'N on fifteen', and 18 is 'two nines'. The original pattern was that of 12 and 15, and some early texts contain words for 11, 14 and 19 that follow the same pattern. The ordinals apply the ordinal form sometimes of the unit and sometimes with the word ten. Between 20 and 40, numbers are expressed as 'N on twenty'. The numbers from 40 to 180 are expressed using a
vigesimal system, with multiples of 20 ('N twenties'), and, if necessary, units exceeding the nearest multiple designated as 'N and N twenties' (or, sometimes, as 'N twenties and N'). Hundreds and thousands are denoted by conjoining the unit they are multiples of with the words for 'hundred' and thousand. Exceeding units are indicated added to the hundred or the thousand using the word 'a(c)' 'and': 'N and N hundred' (or 'N hundred and N'). In accordance with this, the number 6,666 is expressed as
chue guyr a thri ugeint a chuechant a chue mil, i.e. 'six men and three twenties and six hundred and six thousand'. Both cardinal and ordinal numerals generally precede the nouns that they modify (except for
kyntaf 'first'); the noun after a cardinal may be in the singular, as in
deu wr 'two men', or in the plural. If the numeral is composite, the noun comes after the first element:
teir llong ar dec 'three ships on ten', i.e. '13 ships'. The phrases with a cardinal can also be constructed as 'N of Xs', e.g.
tri o wyr 'three men', and this is the normal pattern with thousands (
pym mil o wyr '5000 men'). Sometimes, compounds are formed:
cannwr 'a hundred men'. == Sample text ==