Re: CHAT: silly names
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, March 18, 2001, 0:40 |
|---|
On Sat, Mar 17, 2001 at 05:46:20PM +0000, Raymond Brown wrote:
> At 8:03 pm +1100 17/3/01, D Tse wrote:
> >Can someone tell me if such agglutinations are meant to be common in Welsh?
>
> *Pwllgwyngyll would not be odd as a place name. After all, _pwll gwyn
> gyll_ as perfectly grammatical and acceptable Welsh as "white hazels pool"
> is in English.
"White hazels pool" is not acceptable, in my idiolect. It has a plural noun
in apposition with a noun ("hazels pool"), whereas the first noun in this
type of apposition must be plural to be grammatical to me. I've read that
this constraint is supposed to be general in English except for some nouns*,
but now I'm always hearing things like "systems analyst" et al. So I would
say "white hazel pool."
* The general exceptions in English, from what I've read, are irregular
plurals, those not formed with -s. So "teeth grinding" is considered
grammatical, but not "hands wringing." Strangely though, these two are
outlawed in my idiolect. I'm just weird, I guess!
--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo
Replies