Re: New Brithenig words, part Deux.

Am 05/29 18:30  Raymond Brown yscrifef:

> >if not why ditch the useful -i: plural in Brithenig, given that Welsh etc
> >on which B. seems to be modelled kept the equivalent British ending.
>
> I don't know - only Andrew can answer that one.  But one must remember, I
> think, that Brithenig - for all its apparent Welshness - is a Romancelang.
> I guess that since no Romancelang exhibits umlaut, then the i-umlaut
> plurals seemed out of keeping - tho I see no reason why it might not have
> developed if Brithenig has such a strong Brittonic substrate influence.
>
While Brithenig has i-umlaut, the problem has been, that until now, no
good justification has been given for the introduction of umlaut to
plurals.  The argument has usually been that Eastern Romance has plural
forms therefore Brithenig has them too.  The argument that both the
Brythonic substratic and the Romance nominitive plurals end in -i
suggests that they could have ganged up together against the oblique
stem to cause an agreement of i-umlaut in the plural of nouns and
adjectives probably during the period between the loss of the noun
endings and the collapse of the nominative paradigm with the oblique.

> Yes, but Sardinia received its Latin very early on before /k/ and /g/ began
> their process of palatalization before front vowels.  I guess that when
> that process started, Sardinia had become a bit of a backwater and remained
> unaffected.
>
> As Latin was not brought to Britain till the 1st cent AD, we must allow for
> the later changes, and the Vulgar Latin of north Gaul would surely have had
> its influence.  Indeed, one could criticise Andrew in that Brithenig
> palatalization reflects the more conservative position of Italian, in the
> heart of the Empire.
>
> In north Gaul, /k/ before /e/ and /i/ had become [ts], not [tS].  But a
> secondary palatalization had taken place before /a/ which was clearly
> fronted & pronounced [{]; here Vulgar Latin /ka/ had become [tS{].  Modern
> French preserves the old spelling, but the affricate has now become a
> simple [S], e.g. cheval <-- caballu(m), chef <-- capu[t], chat <--
> cattu(m), chateau <-- castellu(m) etc.
>
> Similar palatalization had taken place with /ga/ which became [dZ{]; but,
> languages are rarely nice & symmetrical in their behavior, and VL /ke/ and
> /ki/ became [dZe] and [dZi], not *[dze] & *[dz] to match [ts]  :)
>
> But I guess Andrew couldn't bring himself to push palatalization this far.
I considered it in a Brithenig 1.0 version that I was playing with
during the early nineties, but this feature was being phased out at the
time that I joined Conlang in '96 and introduced the current version
Brithenig 2.0, which probably about Brithenig 2.4 now :)

For some reason I took an aesthetic dislike to /ka/->/tS{/.  It was
localed to the north Gaulish family of languages and did not appear in
other Romance families that I could find.  Also I perceived the vowel
system as [ie]~[uoa], sort of +front/+palatalization versus
+back/-palatization.  Probably I should class [a] as
+front/-palatization, but still to toss it into the [ie] camp ran
headlong into my bias that felt it was assymetrical.  I had a reaction
to the orthography [cia, gia] that I was using to describe it.

While to introduce it now would be sadistically tortuous, and therefore
enticing, it would also raise the spectre of how consonants before
umlaut should be treated: [Ca/Cu] -> [Ce/Cy]; especially when C=+velar.
At this point it potentially becomes messy and I didn't like the look of
that mess.
> >>
> >This is the way I feel I should have treated the velar stops, but I
> >suspect it is too late to change it now.
>
> FWIW I find it difficult to believe that Britto-Romance would've reversed
> the palatalization processes clearly going on in Vulgar Latin of the
> Imperial period.
>
Accepted, but I like to grouse about it every so often.  Put it down to
perversity!

> As for changing, I fear such a radical change will put the whole thing back
> in the melting pot and all-sorts of other changes will be suggested and
> Brithenig will go through a long process of instability.  Possibly, in the
> end one might have three or four rival 'Brithenigs' - a bit like the rival
> Cornishes which exist today - not IMO a desirable situation.
>
Yes, I agree, that would be undesirable!


> Happy wandering  ;)
>
It was quite pleasant to go out of town and visit friends that I hadn't
seen in eighteen months.  One evening they let me sit down in front of a
computer screen to go surfing.  I dithered with it for five minutes then
wandered away and carried on reading a book I had found to read.  I
wouldn't have done that if I had been sitting here in front of my
computer.

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                       hobbit@griffler.co.nz
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

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