Am 05/28 22:31 kam@CARROT.CLARA.NET yscrifef:
> The nom. sing. ending was at most /-s/ so that no syllable was added,
> whereas the nom. pl. (and most other case endings) added a syllable /-es/.
> Final syllables were generally lost between Late British and Early Welsh/
> Cornish/Breton, so the last bit of the stem disappeared from the nom. sing.
> but was retained in the plural, and was thus reinterpreted by later
> generations as a plural marker. This gave a pool of a dozen or so plural
> endings which spread by analogy to other words based on either form or
> meaning. Some words have alternative plurals, or different plurals now than
> at earlier stages of the language. The choice of plural also often differs
> between W/C/B.
>
Aah, I understand this now and I find it enlightening. I shall have to
consider how it could be applied to Brithenig. It might prove to be
dissimilar to Welsh as Brithenig preserves the oblique in preference to
the nominative. I will have to go back and study Old Brithenig
paradigms I think.
> Some examples :
>
All except brawd/brodyr are found in Brithenig.
> British sing. - plural --- Welsh sing. - plural
>
> katus - katowes (battle) --- cad - cadau (the commonest pl. ending)
ill cad - llo chad (*chadew?)
This would assume OB cadum - caduos
> latru: - latrones (thief) --- lleidr (< lladr) - lladron
ill lladrun - llo lladrun
> (from Latin, the inflexions modified to conform with British)
Brithenig, unfortunately, conforms in contrast to British.
> trebes - trebiyes (settlement) --- tref - trefi or trefydd
hmmm, ill tref - llo threfi(dd) could prove productive in Brithenig.
> merkess (<merket-s) - merketes (daughter etc.) --- merch - merched
lla ferch - llo ferched. The meaning here has changed to 'girl', but
son/daughter, borrowed from Romance as ill ffeil/lla ffeil could now
have the plural llo ffeilidd. Interesting.
> bra:ter - bra:teres (brother) --- brawd - broder (now usually brodyr)
>
Brithenig has ill ffradr. I don't know if this could vary between ill
ffrad - llo fradr. It seems a bit forced to me.
- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus hobbit@griffler.co.nz
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html
Your voice has been heard.