Bibliography
Silva
Nurmio
Contributions to journals
Meelen, Marieke, and Silva Nurmio, “Adjectival agreement in Middle and Early Modern Welsh native and translated prose”, Journal of Celtic Linguistics 21 (2020): 1–28.
abstract:
This paper investigates adjectival agreement in a group of Middle Welsh native prose texts and a sample of translations from around the end of the Middle Welsh period and the beginning of the Early Modern period. It presents a new methodology, employing tagged historical corpora allowing for consistent linguistic comparison. The adjectival agreement case study tests a hypothesis regarding position and function of adjectives in Middle Welsh, as well as specific semantic groups of adjectives, such as colours or related modifiers. The systematic analysis using an annotated corpus reveals that there are interesting differences between native and translated texts, as well as between individual texts. However, zooming in on our adjectival agreement case study, we conclude that these differences do not correspond to many of our hypotheses or assumptions about how certain texts group together. In particular, no clear split into native and translated texts emerged between the texts in our corpus. This paper thus shows interesting results for both (historical) linguists, especially those working on agreement, and scholars of medieval Celtic philology and translation texts.
abstract:
This paper investigates adjectival agreement in a group of Middle Welsh native prose texts and a sample of translations from around the end of the Middle Welsh period and the beginning of the Early Modern period. It presents a new methodology, employing tagged historical corpora allowing for consistent linguistic comparison. The adjectival agreement case study tests a hypothesis regarding position and function of adjectives in Middle Welsh, as well as specific semantic groups of adjectives, such as colours or related modifiers. The systematic analysis using an annotated corpus reveals that there are interesting differences between native and translated texts, as well as between individual texts. However, zooming in on our adjectival agreement case study, we conclude that these differences do not correspond to many of our hypotheses or assumptions about how certain texts group together. In particular, no clear split into native and translated texts emerged between the texts in our corpus. This paper thus shows interesting results for both (historical) linguists, especially those working on agreement, and scholars of medieval Celtic philology and translation texts.
Nurmio, Silva, “The development and typology of number suppletion in adjectives”, Diachronica 34:2 (2017): 127–174.
abstract:
This paper looks at the cross-linguistically rare phenomenon of number suppletion in adjectives. I consider how such suppletion arises by looking at six known examples with a special focus on the Brittonic languages (Breton, Cornish and Welsh), which are discussed as an extended case study. Three generalisations are suggested on the basis of the typological study. First, adjectives denoting size (“small” and “big”) are at the centre of this phenomenon. Second, where the etymology of the adjectives is known, the plural member of the suppletive pair for “small” develops from a lexeme denoting something having been divided into or consisting of small parts. These lexemes can also be used with some singular nouns and in such cases they denote the component structure of the referent. Finally, adjectives with number suppletion tend to mark plural number consistently in environments in which plural marking is otherwise optional or rare.
abstract:
This paper looks at the cross-linguistically rare phenomenon of number suppletion in adjectives. I consider how such suppletion arises by looking at six known examples with a special focus on the Brittonic languages (Breton, Cornish and Welsh), which are discussed as an extended case study. Three generalisations are suggested on the basis of the typological study. First, adjectives denoting size (“small” and “big”) are at the centre of this phenomenon. Second, where the etymology of the adjectives is known, the plural member of the suppletive pair for “small” develops from a lexeme denoting something having been divided into or consisting of small parts. These lexemes can also be used with some singular nouns and in such cases they denote the component structure of the referent. Finally, adjectives with number suppletion tend to mark plural number consistently in environments in which plural marking is otherwise optional or rare.
Nurmio, Silva, “Collective nouns in Welsh: a noun category or a plural allomorph?”, Transactions of the Philological Society 115:1 (2015): 58–78.
abstract:
A noun category in Welsh which has a shorter form for a collection/plural meaning and a suffixed singulative for a single instance has been described in the literature as both a number category and a plural allomorph, often with terminological ambiguity and blurring of boundaries between different noun types. This paper is an investigation of the features of these nouns using a number of theoretical approaches which cumulatively support the argument that collective can be considered a full number category in Welsh.
abstract:
A noun category in Welsh which has a shorter form for a collection/plural meaning and a suffixed singulative for a single instance has been described in the literature as both a number category and a plural allomorph, often with terminological ambiguity and blurring of boundaries between different noun types. This paper is an investigation of the features of these nouns using a number of theoretical approaches which cumulatively support the argument that collective can be considered a full number category in Welsh.
