Re: Arvorec plural endings

On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 04:34:31PM +0100, Dan Jones wrote:
> Well, all this talk of plurals in Welsh and Brithenig has got me
> thinking about the plausibility of the Arvorec plural endings. This is
> my derivation so far:
This is a nice idea. I think the probability of the dative plural being
generalised is rather small, BUT if it ever did get a foothold it would
be quite likely to spread throughout the language because its so distinctive
and occurs in almost all types of nouns.

>
> O-stems
> I've taken the dative plural -obe as my basic plural ending, giving the
> Arvorec -ow.
> Gaulish: aballos (nom s) --> aballobe (dat pl)
> Arvorec: aval (s) --> avallow (pl)
Most of the reconstructions I've seen of Celtic inflexions give the dat. pl.
as -obis -- so Gaelic -(a)ibh. So, firstly you might get i-affection (does
Arvorec have this?), and secondly, the /b/ could give /v/ << /B/, but this
could also interchange with /w/ (at the /B/ stage that is). So maybe
/-eiv/ or /-ew/. You could have a rule like Cornish that turns final
unstressed -ew into -ow though, so you'd then end up with -ow after all :)
>
> A-stems
> Paralelling the formation of the o-stems, I'm using the dative plural again, -abe, to
> give Arvorec -aw.
> Gaulish: banata (nom s) --> banatabe (dat pl)     [-a:bis ??]
> Arvorec: banad (s) --> banadaw (pl)
How does /a:/ develop in Arvorec?
>
> I-stems
> Instead of using the dative plural, I've used the genitive plural -ion.
> Gaulish: pettia (nom s) --> pettion (gen pl)
> Arvorec: peth (s) --> pethyon (pl)
Well "here", -ion would probably drop leaving just i-affection.
I'd be inclined to borrow the -ow ending from the other declensions.
But why not use dat. pl. -ibis >> -iw maybe?
>
> U-stems
> Again, u-stems use the dative plural -uebo to give -wew:
> Gaulish uebrus (nom s) --> uebruebo (dat pl)
> Arvorec: gwevyr (s) --> gwevrwew (pl)
Ouch! three consonants in a row. An epenthetic vowel might be expected, or
loss or vocalisation of the v or w.
Maybe this ending would come out a /-u:/ or /-u:w/ e.g. gwevruw or however
you'd spell it.
>
> However, I'm thinking about copying the i-stems and use the ganitive plural -uon,
> which would give
> Gaulish: uebrus --> uebruon
> Arvorec: gwevyr --> gwevron
>
> N-stems
> N-stems use the nominative plural -ones:#
> Gaulish animon (nom s) -> animones (nom pl)
> Arvorec: aenyf --> aenyvon
OK, you see that here the -on- is "covered" by the followed -es and so
survives loss of the final syllable.
>
> R-stems
> R-stems are rare in Arvorec, and migrate to the o-stems.
>
> Consonant stems.
> I'm currently using -ew from the dative plural -ebo:
> Gaulish: druids (nom s) --> druidebo (dat pl)
> Arvorec: drwyth (s) --> drwydhew (pl)
>
> What I'm wondering is how plausible is all this? Any better suggestions,
> from Brythonic examples? Also, what is the origin of the welsh plural
> ending -oedd, oh, [????] and -od while were at it?
-oedd, -ydd, -edd and -i are all from /-ijes/ (i-stem nom. plural), which you
get depends on where the stress falls.

-od is from the -t- consonant stem plural -otes e.g.

Gaulish /lukotes/ -- Breton <logod> "mice"

> Dan
Keith