Linguistics
Welsh language
Welsh structure differs from English with regard to object references. English emphasizes individuation, making a clear distinction between singular and plural reference. In Welsh, however, the complex number marking system makes the number reference of nouns much more opaque allowing a much stronger emphasis on collections than in English. While evidence suggests that learning collective nouns is difficult, this may relate to English speakers specifically because the structure of English emphasizes individuals. The basic forms of some Welsh nouns refer to collections and modified with a unit ending to individuate one from the collection (e.g. coed 'trees' versus coeden 'tree'). Such differences may have both cognitive and linguistic consequences. This study examines noun type distributions in Welsh and English to determine the extent to which the two languages differ with regard to number reference. Samples of the most frequent nouns in Welsh and English texts, with their type and token frequencies, were classified into different noun categories. The results showed a strong similarity across the two languages for some noun types (e.g. singular/plural nouns and collective nouns). However, an additional collection/unit classification in Welsh accounted for 2.5% of all noun types, with collection forms occurring almost as often as unit forms. Where plural forms accounted for 25.4% of noun tokens in English, very few plural forms were used in Welsh (1.25%). The opacity of number reference in Welsh may have important effects on the way Welsh-speaking children learn their language and thus impact on the theories of language acquisition.
This paper examines the placement of obligatory adverbial phrases in positive main clauses in Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi, in the first part (Y Keis) of Ystoryaeu Seint Greal, and in Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn in which a third singular or plural form of mynet is combined with a locative phrase containing the preposition y or at. Within the individual texts, considerable positional variation occurs, but this variation can be shown to be explicable in terms of a contextual and pragmatic analysis. The comparison of the positional patterns and their narrative uses in the three texts shows a striking stability of the pragmatic principle for the placement of constituents in positive main clauses in the language of Middle Welsh prose – even if, as it may be the case in a few examples from Ystorya Bown, the syntactic choices of the Middle Welsh translator have been influenced by his Anglo-Norman source. Finally, some promising paths for future research are delineated.
This study shows that adjectives in Welsh can be modified by various phrases in pre-adjectival position, post-adjectival position, and in a more complex configuration in which a modifying expression precedes a prepositional phrase which contains the modified adjective. Welsh is similar in some respects to other languages, but it is distinctive in the use of plain adjectives and not de-adjectival adverbs, a relatively extensive use of post-modification, and the very distinctive use of a prepositional configuration. Formal analyses, using X-bar configurations, consider whether modified adjectival phrases can be described as Degree Phrases or Adjective Phrases, and whether the modifiers are heads, specifiers, or adjuncts. The different syntax of the prepositional configuration is discussed separately. The analysis also considers multiple modification, and various constraints.
Recent research into the development of the Welsh negation has shown that it follows the principle of Jespersen's Cycle, in which an originally emphatic negative-polarity expression gradually loses its emphasis and finally becomes the only, or at least the main, marker of negation. One important stage in this process is characterized by the occurrence of negative-polarity expressions with unambiguous adverbial force. In this article, I will analyse and classify the uses of dim as an expression of negative polarity in the Middle Welsh adaptation of the Anglo-Norman Geste de Boeve de Haumtone, Ystorya Bown de Hamtwn, and discuss a range of loan phrases that are used as negative-polarity items.
It has long been observed that certain final consonant clusters in Welsh may provoke vowel epenthesis (svarabhakti), deletion of one member of the cluster, or metathesis. These clusters consist of a consonant followed by [r], [l] or [n]; other sorts of final clusters are permitted. The occurrence of epenthesis, deletion or metathesis, moreover, depends not only on the type of cluster involved, but also on the prosodic size of the input form. I argue in this paper that these three processes – epenthesis, deletion and metathesis – are all directly connected. All arise in order to avoid a sonority sequencing violation: an obstruent followed by a sonorant in a final cluster represents illicit rising sonority in a coda. To account for the data at hand, the analysis will rely on the interaction between several constraints, including a constraint militating against epenthesis, a constraint militating against deletion, and a constraint working against metathesis. The interaction of these constraints serves to capture the effects of epenthesis, deletion and metathesis in avoiding a violation of the undominated 'sonority sequencing' constraint. In addition, prosodic structure will be shown to play a role in deciding between epenthesis (which occurs in the case of a monosyllabic input form), and deletion or metathesis (which occurs when the input form is bisyllabic). Finally, account will also be given for the fact that the epenthetic vowel is a copy of the stem vowel (rather than simply a 'default' vowel such as schwa) by means of a correspondence relation between the epenthetic vowel and the underlying stem vowel.
Middle to Modern Welsh relative clauses feature two binary formal oppositions of complementizer selection and gap realization that have typically been taken to be in some sort of parallel distribution in such a way that a single independent variable (traditionally, constituent structure 'depth') can account for the realization of both. It is demonstrated that the two formal variables cross-cut one another distributionally, in such a way that no one single independent variable can account for both sets. The paper shows that the first set of complementizer selection in many construction types, particularly relativization on notional 'possessors', behaves in a manner that resembles case-marking as well as construction-type marking, so that relativization on objects of prepositions in possessive constructions coding possessors behaves in a manner systematically different from either objects of true locative prepositions or objects of prepositions that mark 'experiencers'. While complementizer selection and gap realization are not correlated distributionally, complementizer selection in possessive clauses enters into correlation with other variables of morpho-syntactic form, including PP NP word order, that are also diagnostic of clauses coding notional 'possession'. It is argued that only a construction-based or 'coding view' of syntax can take account of these data.
This article looks at variation in the distribution of /j/ in post-tonic syllables in Middle Welsh. It extends previous studies by looking at variation at the level of the individual lexical item, using data from a stylistically and lexically relatively homogeneous group of law manuscripts from both north and south Wales. Many items show no variation, appearing either with /j/ or without /j/ in all texts. Variable items show different patterns of distribution: for some items, /j/-full forms are restricted to northern texts, and even there compete with /j/-less forms; for other items, the /j/-full forms dominant in the northern texts are found alongside /j/-less forms even in the south. With frequent items, it seems clear that the overall patterns closely resemble those found with cases of lexical diffusion of linguistic innovations. In addition to documenting the patterns of variation, this article makes some proposals as to how they may have arisen. It is suggested that, in the items investigated closely here (plural suffixes and synchronically monomorphemic items), two processes play the major role: a sound change deleting /j/ in the onset of post-tonic syllables, which diffuses south-to-north; and analogical extension of /j/ into the -eu and -oed plural suffixes, restricted to northern varieties.
The corpus is a planned corpus, and aims to reflect the rich diversity of the texts attested in Welsh during the period 1500–1850 by including texts and samples of texts from different stylistic levels and of varying geographical provenance. A number of the texts included are not available in adequate modern editions or are available only in modernised form, hence the corpus also provides access to a number of texts in an easily available form for the first time. It is hoped that this will encourage further linguistic, literary and historical research on these texts.
The corpus is encoded using Extensive Markup Language (XML) in a format that conforms to the standards of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). This should ensure its long-term preservation, and also allows flexibility in the way the texts of the corpus can be displayed and used. The corpus files can be viewed online here, and are also available for download here in a number of formats: as plain XML files; as viewable HTML documents in two formats (diplomatic and edited); as corpus files designed for use with the Concordance software package; and as web-based indexes and concordances. Although the corpus contains no grammatical tagging, the XML files contain some encoding designed to facilitate the usefulness of the corpus as a source for linguistic research. This concerns mainly spelling and graphical variation. Original spelling is maintained, but tagging for scribal errors and extreme orthographic variation is included, and is used in the indexes and concordances. Other editorial conventions are documented here.
The corpus is arranged into different groups of text types in order to represent the stylistic diversity of the Welsh language, while allowing for differences in the specific range of text types actually available at different periods. The texts therefore include drama, personal letters, ballads, political (didactic) prose, scripture, historical narrative, narrative prose, and religious prose. For each text a representative sample of approximately 15,000 words is included. With texts whose total length is less that around 20,000 words, and also in the case of dramatic texts (the interludes) we have generally chosen to include the entire text. Overall the corpus contains around 420,000 words from 30 texts.
