Re: Ce[i]n

David Bell wrote:

[Interesting comments on Middle Welsh at the end
 of this message.]

> galf < Q ?? [Q qualme? < KWAL-?]
Yes, from _qualme_. I thought _qualme_ 'painful death' would be
more appropriate in this case than _faire_ 'natural death'.

[kw] -> [k], [m] -> [v] when adjacent to a liquid or nasal. The
final vowel drops.

> > cul   oron     fag   se isce
> > dress mountain every in mist
> > 'Dresses every mountain in mist'
> > [kUl o'rOn vag se i'Se]
> cul < Q ???  [Q qulu < KUL- = gold(metal)?]
I have *no* idea where I got that from. I used an old translation
into Quenya I made of that poem, and must have done some
vinyacaarie of my own. :)  I think it's from _colla_ 'bore, worn'.
The verb I used was _coola_. [o:] -> [u]

> fag < mag < Q ?? (why not ilya?)
Again, from the old translation. I used the word _maaca_ 'every'.
maaca -> maaga -> maga -> mag. Plus mutation (first phoneme of
adjectives) -> fag [vag].

_ill_ 'all' from Q _ilya_ would be possible too as you say.
This is now _yll_ [i:K], due to the {y} influencing the {i}.

> se < Q -sse locative? [Ah, Q cases become prepositions???
> o < Q -o genitive!]
Yes! :) I don't know if that's very realistic, but it seemed
easier than trying to come up with a noun or verb that I had
to wear down and grammaticalize.

> isce < Q hiise? < KHIS-? [There seems to be more than Welsh
> mutation here.]
Well, I had big problems with _hiisie_. [h] -> 0, leaving _iisie_.
Then the vowels shortens -> _isie_. Then the vowels are supposed
to drop, but I didn't really know what to do with [ie]. So I
thought, why not let s+i -> [S]? But then I kept the final [e].
I really should do something about that word. Perhaps use the
form _hiise_ which would render _is_. That would OTOH clash with
'dusk' _hiise_ -> _is_. But OTOH I could use _histe_ -> _ist_
or _loome_ -> _luf_ for 'dusk'.

> > na'el      llim len
> > be:PRS'2SG AUG  beautiful
> > 'You are so beautiful'
> > [najl KIm len]
> llim This is an innovation, yes?
Well, I used _limbe_ 'many' and let that get a more general
augmentative meaning. I'm not sure if that should be _llif_
instead. The rules are "nasal + voiced stop -> nasal",
"medial [m] -> [v]" and "drop final vowel". I'm not sure in
which order to apply them.

> len < llen < Q linda? < LIND-?
Yup. The vowel combo iCa -> eC. Initial [l] -> [K].

> > allo lum*     era
> > from clouds:PL remote
> > 'From remote clouds'
> > [a'Ko lUm e'ra]
>
> allo < Q -ablative.  I see the pattern now.
> era < Q ???
_Era_ is actually from _haira_ 'remote'. ai -> e
and [h] and final vowel drop.

> > ffen      alch  or   iar
> > lightning flash over sea
> > 'lightning flashes over the sea'
> > [fEn alx Or jar]
> ffen < pen < Q ??? [Q pende < PEN- = slope?]
> Is lightning plural here? (ffen < pen?)
Oops. _Alch_ should be 'ray of light' i.e. 'lightning'
from Q. _alca_.

_Ffen_ is from Q _faina_ 'emit light'. So the line above
should be:

ffen       alch         or   iar
emit:light ray:of:light over sea
'Lightning flashes over the sea.'

> > na'ir   ffan*    ir     chess      o'i     anar
> > are'the cloud:PL the:PL feather:PL GEN'the sun
> > 'The clouds are the sun's feathers'
> > [najr fan Ir xEs oj a'nar]
> chess < Q quesse?  Is ch < q a regular change?
No, {ch} is the mutated form of {c}, which I decided should
occur after the definite article. I'm still not sure if there
should be mutation or not after _i_ (sg) and _ir_ (pl).

> > se anyn
> > in evening
> > 'in the evening'
> > [se a'ni:n]
> anyn < Q anduune?  What are the sound change rules that operate
> here?
Yes, from _anduune_.
nd -> n
uu -> y [i:]
final e drops

> Nice work Daniel.  This is real promising.
Thanks! I'm just reading an article on Middle Welsh which has
some *very* interesting features, especially for marking the
A of transitive and intransitive verbal nominal clauses. It's
actually an active language! (At least partly.) Who would've
known? :)

Anyway. The A is marked with the preposition _o_ which has
the meaning 'from, of'. Example:

kymryt o    Arthur y   daryan eureit
take   from Arthur the shield golden
'Arthur took the golden shield.'

This only applies to non-finite verbal nominal clauses, but
I'm not really sure what he means by that. They're all
translated with the past tense. What say the experts on Welsh
on this list? [I do hope they read this comment.] Is it
something like "From Arthur (there is) taking of the
golden shield"?

I'm thinking of doing something similar with Cein. Perhaps by
using the Mystery Case "respective" which ends in _-s_ and
thus would trigger "spirant mutation". Then the _s_ could
fall and leave only the mutation. I.e. the A argument would
be marked by mutation only.

Another idea is to use the preposition _allo_ which could
wear down to _llo_ and then _o_ plus spirant mutation or
something.

I'm thinking Cein would be spoken at the same time as Sindarin
(as is not the case for amman-iâr, but for Rokbeigalmki? I'm
sorry I don't know this better.) and so would have a bunch of
Sindarin borrowings, which would lead to pairs such as:

_anon_ 'door, entrance' < Q _andon_ 'great gate'
_tarn_ 'gate' < S _tarn_ 'gate'

That is, the word for 'great gate' expanded in meaning to the
more general 'door, opening, entrance', and when there arose
a need for 'gate', they borrowed the Sindarin word.

We'll see what comes out of it all. I'm very excited! :)

||| daniel

--
<> Mad llamgalf! <> daniel.andreasson@telia.com <>
<>     Ond llam! <> www.geocities.com/conlangus <>

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