Re: initial mutation or trigger? Re: re Mutations

On Fri, Oct 15, 2004 at 12:13:05AM +0200, Rodlox
wrote:
> > Explain what you now understand a trigger to be.
>
>  an isolate either at the beginning of a sentance
(common), or just before
> the word...and the trigger can change the meaning of
a sentance by simply
> being one letter different.
Marcos replied:
Well, it seems to me that what we were talking about
was pretty much the
opposite of that.  The meaning doesn't change, but one
of the sounds
does, do to the phonetic environment.  I mean, I don't
know Welsh, but
the initial consonant mutation seems fundamentally
similar to the final
consonant mutation in the English indefinite article:
the final
consonant is normally zero, but becomes [n] before a
vowel.
-Marcos


My reply:
Eh...vaguely. But actually often times mutation in
Welsh does change the meaning of the sentence or word.

For the Welsh examples:

Prynodd Huw ~ Huw (a) brynodd

Here, the "a" is a fronting particle that tells us
that the object or subject of the sentence has been
fronted. It is almost always omitted in speech. What
is left is the mutation (prynodd > brynodd) that marks
essentially the same thing, but has become the sole
marker.

But after the particle 'y' there is no mutation, so:
Ddoe y prynodd Huw gar.

Here, the "y" is a particle that marks some other
portion of the sentence as fronted. This can be an
adverbial phrase, etc. Since this particle is also
usually omitted, the sole difference in mutation is
what shows which has been fronted.... And...actually,
I think I just figured out Rodlox's confusion.

Trigger languages tend to have an element which is
marked as the "focus", but its actual role in the
sentence (subject, object, instrument, etc) is marked
on the verb.

Since the Welsh "brynodd" in this case is used when
the fronted (focused) element is the subject or the
object, and the form "prynodd" is in this case used to
show that some other type of thing is fronted, a
trigger like situation seems to have occured. There is
no trigger particle (but "A" and "Y" might have been
viewed as such, at least by Rodlox), and the verb
changes according to the fronted element.


Anyways, back to my main point. Welsh mutation also
marks direct objects of finite verbs (a grammatical
not phonetic category). It also marks the distinction
between "ei" "his" and "ei" "her":

ei dad "his father"
ei thad "her father"

It marks the the interogative form of some tenses of
the verb:

 DDylai hi fynd? "Should she go?"
 (verb: dylai "she should go")

And so forth. So, I think that most of the instances
of mutation in Welsh are actually more grammaticalized
phenomena, than phonetic.

Elliott

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