Talk:Welsh morphology

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[edit] References and further reading

A whole bucketload of references and further reading that can be added to this article can be found here. Uncle G 19:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Limited soft mutation

I've added some information about the limited version of the soft mutation, which does not mutate "rh" or "ll", and have given instances where it occurs accordingly. However, by doing this I have had to divide the list of contexts in which the soft mutation occurs into a list for the limited version and a list for the full version. As a result, I put all the contexts of the limited soft mutation that I know of into that list, but put the remainder in the list for the full soft mutation: this means that some of the entries for the full list may in fact belong to the limited list, because I'm not sure that all the entries on the full list belong there for certain. Can anyone help? Pobbie Rarr 21:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verb doubts

I have a little Welsh dictionary (Hippocrene Practical Dictionary) whose verb appendix gives totally different conjugations of "bod", "cael", "mynd" and other verbs. For example:

Bod: present: wyf(ydwyf), wyt(ydwyt), mae/yw/oes, ^ym(ydym), ych(ydych), ^ynt(ydynt) imperfect: oeddwn, oeddit, oedd, oeddem, oeddech, oeddynt future: byddaf, byddi, bydd, byddwn, byddwch, byddant etc.

Cael: present: caf, cei, caiff, cawn, cewch, cânt, etc.

Mynd: present: af, ei, â, awn, ewch, ânt etc.

What are these? Dialectal variations? Why are they important enough to be the only forms in the dictionary? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cpom (talk • contribs) 01:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The forms in your dictionary are the literary forms, while the forms on this page are the spoken forms. Ultimately I'd like to see the complete conjugations of both the literary language and the spoken language given, although that may be more appropriate for b:Welsh than for this page. —Angr 06:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nasal mutation

The article says that nasal mutation is really only used in two circumstances in spoken Welsh, but it doesn't say which two (of the three?) situations are being referred to. Can someone add this information? Thanks. --SameerKhan 07:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the two situations referred to are the two where it crosses a word boundary (after fy and after yn); people tend to forget about it occurring after the an- prefix since once a word like annheg has been learned, nasal mutation doesn't have to be actively applied to it anymore. I don't think NM is losing ground after the prefix an-; only in word-initial position after fy and yn. —Angr 07:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I see, so people are presumably just memorizing words like annheg instead of productively applying the rule an+teg? Sounds plausible to me. And regarding the "fy" and "yn" situations: you say these two words introduce the only place where people have to really apply the nasal mutation rule (since they presumably know the word with the unmutated consonant first and then have to derive the mutated form in this situation)... are you also saying that in these two places, the nasal mutation is not as commonly used as the soft mutation in the spoken language? So people are always mutating the consonant, but often to the soft consonant instead of the nasal after "fy" and "yn"? Also, I'm curious - what exactly is the status of aspirated mutation in spoken Welsh these days? If anyone has an idea, please let me know. As a phonologist, I'm always curious as to how much abstract phonology can be maintained in a (relatively) endangered language. --SameerKhan 09:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in a position to comment much about the spoken colloquial language, but my understanding is that if Nasal Mutation is not used after fy and yn, then Soft Mutation is. Likewise with the Aspirate Mutation; as I understand it, when it's avoided in the spoken language, it's replaced by Soft Mutation, not by the absence of any mutation. —Angr 11:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! --SameerKhan 21:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)