Ball Martin, M?ller Nicole. The Celtic Languages

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506 THE BRYTHONIC LANGUAGES

2 a Medially after a stressed vowel, [θ] in the groups [rθ] and [lθ] was lost, or reduced to

[h]; e.g. gortheby ‘to answer’ > gurryby.

b Finally after a stressed vowel, [rθ] > [rɦ] c. 1625 > [r]; e.g. warbarth ‘together’ >

uarbarh > worbar.

c Finally after an unstressed vowel, [θ] was lost c. 1575 after /r/, and occasionally

other wise; e.g. lowarth ‘garden’ > looar.

d Otherwise, /θ/ remained stable; e.g. coth ‘old’ > coath.

3 a After a stressed vowel, [rð] > [rr]; e.g. kerthes ‘to walk’ > kerres.

b Otherwise, /ð/ remained generally stable; e.g. arluth ‘lord’ > arleth.

4 a Intervocally, after stressed /I/ and /y/, /x/ was lost; e.g. byghan ‘small’ > bean.

b Finally after vowels, [x] > [ɦ] > [∇]; e.g. ﬂ ogh ‘child’ > ﬂ ôh > ﬂ ô.

c /x/ in /- lx/ and /- rx/ either became /θ/ c. 1525; e.g. Carnmargh ‘horse’s rock- pile’ >

Carnmarth; or an epenthetic vowel developed; e.g. molgh ‘thrush’ > mola.

d /- rx- / > [- rr- ]; e.g. arghans ‘silver’ > arrance.

5 /h/ remained stable.

Other consonants

1 a In a few words, /z/ > [r]; e.g. yth esov vy ‘I am’ > thera vee; gasas ‘he left’

> garaz.

b In some words, the reﬂ ex of Old Cornish /s/ was palatalized to [dʒ]; e.g. MidC vynsa

‘he would’ > LateC vendzha.

c Otherwise, /s, ss, z, ʃ, tʃ, dʒ/ remained generally stable.

2 Pre- occlusion: /mm/ > [bm] and /nn/ > [dn] c. 1575; subsequently [- bm- ] > [-bb- ] and

[- dn- ] > [- dd- ].

3 [n] was lost in the groups [ns], [nz] when unstressed; e.g. trystyns ‘sadness’ > trystys.

New lenition

In Late Cornish, as in some dialects of Breton, [f- ] and [s- ] became voiced to [v- ] and [z- ]

when preceded or followed by /m, n, l, r/ or a vowel. A notable example is the place- name

Penzance < MidC Pensans ‘holy head’; note that penn is masculine, indicating that this

‘new lenition’ obeyed slightly different grammatical rules from ‘old lenition’. Later, [v- ]

and [z- ] were found even in absolute initial, e.g. fals ‘sickle’ > voulz.

Stress

There is very little textual evidence as to how Cornish was stressed. Evidence from place-

names suggests that the pattern was the same as in Breton (though not the Gwenedeg

dialect thereof). We may surmise that, in common with Breton and Welsh, the normal

stress in polysyllables was originally on the ultimate syllable, and that it changed, per-

haps c. 1050, to the penultimate. Unpublished work by Keith Bailey on stress in Middle

Cornish verse suggests that, as in Welsh, the stress- accent was usually on the penultimate

syllable, but the pitch- accent remained on the ultimate.

Stress in monosyllables

1 Monosyllabic nouns and verbs were normally stressed.

2 The deﬁ nite article, possessive adjectives, verbal particles, conjunctions and preposi-

tions were normally unstressed.

3 The sufﬁ xed pronouns (personal enclitics) and certain words such as Middle Cornish

us ‘is’ were sometimes stressed and sometimes unstressed.

CORNISH 507

Normal stress in polysyllables

The primary stress fell on the penultimate syllable, and a secondary stress fell on the

fourth and sixth syllables from the end. This applied to most polysyllables, including

close compounds.

Double stress

In the following cases of disyllables, both syllables were stressed, the second bearing the

primary stress:

1 loose compounds;

2 noun and adjective, e.g. den bras [Ædɛːn"braːz] ‘big man’;

3 place- names of the type noun + qualiﬁ er, e.g. Penzance [Æpɛn"zans]

Antepenultimate stress occurred in:

1 words of three syllables or more containing an epenthetic vowel, e.g. banathel

["banaðǝl] ‘broom’;

2 certain loan- words from English, e.g. oratry ["ɔratri].

Ultimate stress occurred in the following cases:

1 where longer forms had been shortened,e.g. yma [I" ma ː] ‘there is, there are’, verbs in

- he;

2 numerous adverbs and prepositions, e.g. ynweth [In’ wɛːð] ‘also’, avel [a"vɛːl] ‘as’;

3 compounds of war ‘on’ and na- (negative preﬁ x), e.g. warnans [war"nans] ‘down-

wards’, nahen [na" hɛːn] ‘any other’;

4 certain loan- words from English, e.g. attes [att"ɛːz] ‘at ease’.

Quantity of vowels

The quantity rules of Old and Middle Cornish

In British, as in Classical Latin, vowels were long or short intrinsically. This system broke

down in the late sixth century, and was replaced by one in which the length of vowels

depended upon their phonetic environment. These rules were:

1 In unstressed syllables, all vowels were short.

2 In stressed syllables, vowels preceding consonant groups and double consonants

were short.

3 In stressed syllables, vowels preceding single consonants were long in monosyllables

and of mid- length in polysyllables.

The length of vowels was thus dictated by the stress and by the nature of the following

consonants.

Weakening of the quantity rules in Middle Cornish

The rules were weakened by certain loan- words from Middle English, which had half-

long (or even long) vowels preceding voiceless consonants (e.g. cota ‘coat’, frut ‘fruit’).

Whereas previously, single consonants (except for /f, θ, s/) were necessarily phonemically

508 THE BRYTHONIC LANGUAGES

voiced, and double consonants (except for /mm, nn, ll, rr/) were voiceless, this was now

no longer the case.

The new quantity rules in Late Cornish

Whereas Middle Cornish possessed three degrees of vowel- length, Middle English had

only two, long and short. Circa 1600, the Cornish quantity system changed so as to con-

form more to the English system. This prosodic shift eliminated the half- long vowels,

which usually became short. This is most evident in words containing /n/, in which the

spelling changed from <n> to <nn>; e.g. MidC benyn [‘bεÚn

In] > LateC bennen [‘bεnεn].

Sandhi

Sandhi in Middle Cornish

The incidence of consonantal phonemes which could occur ﬁ nally and initially in Middle

Cornish is given in Table 11.11.

Table 11.11 Incidence of consonantal phonemes in Middle Cornish

Native Found only in loan- words

Finally Phonemically

voiced

/b, g/

/v, ð/

/p, t, k/

/d/ /dʒ/

/pp, tt, kk/

/bb, dd, gg/

Phonemically

voiceless

/f, θ/

/x, s/

/ʃ/

Initially Phonemically

voiced

/p, t, k/

/b, d, g/

/v, ð//dʒ/

Phonemically

voiceless

/f, h, s/

/tʃ/ /ʃ/

The rules of external sandhi applicable to these phonemes may be surmised with the help

of spellings such as those given in Table 11.12. The rules are made more complicated by

the phonemes which occur only in loan- words. They may be written thus:

1 The following were invariably voiceless: /p, t, k/; /pp, tt, kk/

2 The following were invariably voiced: /m, n, l, r/; /mm, nn, ll, rr/, /bb, dd, gg/

3 The following remained voiced before or after a vowel, a nasal or a liquid, and in

absolute initial; but otherwise may have been unvoiced: /b, d, g/, /v, ð, dʒ/

4 The following may have been partially voiced (by new lenition) before or after a

vowel, a nasal or a liquid; but otherwise remained voiceless: /h, ʃ/, /f, θ, x, s/

Examples in external sandhi are given in Table 11.12.

CORNISH 509

Table 11.12 Unvoicing of initial consonants in external sandhi

Initial

consonant

/b- / /d- / / g- /

Final

consonant

/- b/ Phrase pup tyth/pœb

dIð/ ‘every day’

OldC /- nt/ Pl.n. Nanpean/nant

bIxan/ ‘small valley’

Pl.n. Nantrisack/nant

dreIsɛg/ ‘thorny valley’

Pl.n. Nantquitho/nant

gwIð- / ‘valley of trees’

quitho is thought to be

a double pl.

/- g/ Pl.n Carplight/kryg

bleIð/ ‘wolf barrow’

Pl.n. Carrick Calys

/karrɛg galɛz/ ‘hard

rock’ (nulliﬁ ed lenition)

/- z/ < OldC

/- t/

/- z/ < OldC

/- d/

Pl.n. Ponspretall/pɔnz

prIttɛl/ ‘brittle bridge’

Pl.n. Striddicks/rIz

dreIsɛg/ ‘thorny ford’

Pl.n. Trecorm/rIz

gɔrm/ ‘dun ford’ with

replacement of rys by

tre.

/- s/ Phrase crowspren

/krɔÁs prɛnn/ ‘cross of

wood’

which, being a

close compound, would

normally have lenition

Pl.n. Restowrack/rɔs

dɔÁrɛg/ ‘watery spur’

with replacement of ros

by rys.

/- θ/

Pl.n. Porthpean/pɔrθ

bIxan/ ‘small harbour’

NB porth is masculine

Phrase benna tu/bɛnnaθ

dyÁ/ ‘blessing of God’

Pl.n. Porthcovrek/pɔrθ

gɔvrIg/ ‘rivulet harbour’

Notes: Pl.n. = place- name

The phonemic representations apply to MidC, except where shown.

The same rules applied internally within words and word- compounds, for example:

goffyth ‘he shall know’ /gɔðvIð/ /ðv/ > [ff]

wheffes ‘sixth’ /hwεxvεz/ /xv/ > [ff]

ractho ‘for him’ /ragðɔ/ /gð/ > [kθ]

Sandhi in Late Cornish

The following place- names suggest that in Late Cornish it was common for the second,

if not both, of the consonants at a boundary to be voiced; i.e. there was a tendency for the

above rules of sandhi to break down:

Rosegooth < MidC ros gof ‘promontory of a smith’ cf. Rosko in Breton

Creegbrawse < MidC cruk bras ‘large barrow’

Porthgwidden < MidC porth gwyn ‘white cove’ cf. Port Quin on north coast.

510 THE BRYTHONIC LANGUAGES

Phonotactics

Initial clusters of consonants found in Middle Cornish are as follows:

gn sn

pl pn kl bl gl ﬂ sl

spl stl skl gwl

pr tr kr br dr gr fr vr

spr str skr gwr

gw hw

L in loan- words, M in mutated words, P in place- names

An epenthetic vowel developed in [wl- ]: wlas ‘land’ > wollaz.

Final clusters are as follows:

ns ntʃ

ndʒ

ls lx lv

rk rd

rf rs rx rv rθ rð rtʃ

Intonation

Since intonation appears to be the last feature of a supplanted language to disappear (after

phonology, morphology and lexicon), it may be that even now the distinctive ‘sing- song’

intonation heard in the English of the far west of Cornwall represents that of traditional

Cornish. This is a topic which requires research before it is too late.

Mutations

Phonology of the common mutations

The initial mutations arose in the ﬁ rst instance as phonological changes in British in the

ﬁ fth and sixth centuries AD (Harvey 1984), and a mutation table in Cornish might have

been (phonetic notation) as outlined in Table 11.13.

Table 11.13 A possible table of mutations for Primitive Cornish

Ref. no. Name

1 (none) pp tt kk bb dd gg mm nn ll rr ɣw

2 lenition b d g ß ð ɣ μ nl Rw

3 spirantization f θ x

4 provection pp θθ kk

5 lenition- and- provection f tt xx f hw

CORNISH 511

The changes [x] > [ɦ], [μ] > [v], [β] > [v], loss of [ɣ], and [ɣw] > [gw] > [g] meant that the

mutation table changed to the following in Middle Cornish (Table 11.14).

Table 11.14 Mutations in Middle Cornish

Ref. no.

1 pptt kkbbðð dd mm nn ll rr g ɣw

2bð g v ð ∇ vnl www

3fθ ɦ

4ppttkk

5 f tt xx f hw hw

Table 11.15 shows the frequency with which mutations were shown in writing.

Table 11.15 How often were mutations indicated by the spelling?

Text % Mutation no. % Mutation no. %

MC 94 2 p > b 1192 48 3 p > f 118 69

OM 87 2 t > d 1252 68 3 t > θ 169 83

PC 80 2 k > g 2179 64 3 k > h 222 44

RD 77 2 b > v 2680 93 4 b > p 142 91

BM 74 2 d > ð 2011 75 4 d < t 306 83

BK 91 2 g > ∇ 901 74 4 g > k 309 79

TH 76 2 g > w 3427 90 5 b > f 539 100

SA 65 2 m > v 1697 91 5 m > f 97 97

CW 93 2 tʃ > dʒ 74 19 5 g > h 334 94

vLC 59 5 d > t 248 95

Lh. 73

vLC means ‘vernacular Late Cornish’; Lh. means Lhuyd’s writings.

For the 5th state mutation, developments of /f/ and /h/ were taken as indicating that the

mutation had taken place; this gives very high scores.

Table 11.16 shows common cases of each of twenty- one written mutations. Eighteen

of these also applied to loan- words ([tʃ] > [dʒ] exclusively so); these, of course, are ana-

logous, since the original causes of the mutations had disappeared some eight centuries

before the loan- words were borrowed.

Table 11.16 Examples of initial mutations

Mutation Common examples Examples in loan- words

Lenition

p > b bobel ‘people’ basconn MC.012 ‘passion’

t > d das ‘father’ dastye (3 cases) ‘taste’

k > g golon ‘heart’ gryst (15 cases) ‘Christ’

b > v vyth ‘will be’ vody (11 cases) ‘body’

512 THE BRYTHONIC LANGUAGES

d > ð thu ‘God’ thama (5 cases) ‘mother’

g > ∇ allaf ‘I can’ alyle (7 cases) ‘Galilee’

m > v vyn ‘he will’ vercy (68 cases) ‘mercy’

gw > w welas ‘he saw’ wandre (10 cases) ‘wander’

tʃ > dʒ (not applicable) janjyas (BK38.11) ‘changed’

Spirantization

p > f fen ‘head’ faynys (3 cases) ‘pains’

t > θ thas ‘father’ themtya (3 cases) ‘tempt’

k > h holon ‘heart’ hothman (3 cases) ‘comrade’

Provection

b > p pewa ‘living’ (no examples found)

d > t tos ‘coming’ tesevya (TH50v) ‘deceiving’

g > k cul ‘doing’ cokya (BK04.83) ‘fooling’

gw > kw queles ‘seeing’ quandre (5 cases) ‘wandering’

Lenition- and- provection

b > f fo ‘may he be’ yn felen (OM2653) ‘horribly’

d > t tue ‘comes’ towtys (CW0797) ‘doubted’

g > h hallo ‘may he be able’ (no examples found)

m > f fyn ‘wishes’ fery (BM1901) ‘merry’

gw > hw whon ‘I know’ (no examples found)

Pseudo- mutation

Because [v- ] did not occur in Cornish other than as the result of lenition of [b- ] and [m- ],

loan- words containing [v- ] were sometimes interpreted as lenited forms; e.g. bylen <

MidE vylen < OldF vilein (ModE villain), LateC budgeth ‘face’ < MidE visage < OldF

visage (ModF visage); cf. ModB beskont ‘viscount’, ModW

ﬁ cer ‘vicar’.

Substitution of [b- ] in root forms

In Late Cornish, [b- ] was substituted for [m- ] in a number of words, no doubt as the result

of incorrect de- lenition of the forms in [v- ]; e.g.

Middle Cornish Late Cornish

melyn ‘mill’ belin

Melender (surname) ‘miller’ belender

*meskel ‘mussels’ besl

*menowes ‘awl’ beneuas

To these may be linked the substitution of [b- ] for [f- ] in Lhuyd’s beisdar for Middle Cor-

nish fenester ‘window’, which shows that the product of new lenition of [f- ] was indeed

the same as the product of old lenition of [b- ] (and [m- ]), viz. [v- ]; for a more detailed

survey of this feature and of pseudo- mutation, see Chaudhri (2007).

The nasal mutation

There is evidence for an initial nasal mutation [d- ] > [n- ] in only two words, after the

deﬁ nite article. These are an nor (and its compound an norvys) ‘the world’ from dor

‘ground’; and *an navas ‘the sheep’, from davas, found in the place- name Porranavas

1729 (modern form Port Navas), and strikingly conﬁ rmed by the reverse spelling cabm-

thavas for Middle Cornish *camneves ‘rainbow’, in which the second element ‘heavens’

CORNISH 513

has been mistaken for *navas ‘sheep’, and the more usual mutation thavas applied. The

same sound- change is seen in unnek ‘eleven’ = un + deg.

The triggering of mutations

Although mutations were originally phonological in nature, they may be treated grammat-

ically, and may be said to have been provoked in the following circumstances in Middle

Cornish.

Lenition occurred principally:

• after the deﬁ nite article an in all feminine singular nouns and in masculine plural

nouns denoting persons:

• in the ﬁ rst adjective following a feminine singular noun, or a masculine plural noun

denoting persons:

• after the particles a, na, ny, re (but not with the verb bos) yn un, and the preﬁ x om;

• after the possessives the ‘thy’, y ‘his’;

• in feminine nouns after un ‘one’;

• after the numerals dew and dyw ‘two’, which were themselves lenited by an;

• after the following words:

mar so a of pan when

pur very war on erna until

re too the to del as

dre through kettel as soon as

fatel how

• occasionally after hep ‘without’; e.g. hep wow ‘without a lie’

Spirantization occurred:

• after the possessives ow ‘my’, hy ‘her’, aga ‘their’;

• after the numerals tri and teyr ‘three’.

Provection occurred:

• after the present participial particle ow;

• after the conjunctions mar, a ‘if

’.

Lenition- and- provection occurred:

• after the verbal particle y and the conjunction may ‘so that’;

• after the words kyn ‘though’, maga ‘so’, ple, py ‘where’, pur ‘when’;

• after the particle yn, which forms adverbs from adjectives;

• after the possessive th ‘thy’ and object pronoun th ‘thee’ (modiﬁ ed form).

MORPHOLOGY

Articles

Having been en in Old Cornish and early Middle Cornish, the deﬁ nite article became an

c. 1400; phonemically this was /ann/, but being unstressed, was realized as [an]. In Late

Cornish, there was a tendency for the deﬁ nite article to be realized as [a].

514 THE BRYTHONIC LANGUAGES

There was no indeﬁ nite article, though un /ynn/ > LateC idden was used in the sense ‘a

certain’.

Nouns

The gender of most nouns was the same as that of their Breton and Welsh cognates; 77 per

cent of nouns were masculine and 23 per cent were feminine.

The only inﬂ ections were plural sufﬁ xes. Plurals were formed from singular nouns by:

i adding a sufﬁ x; the commonest plural sufﬁ xes are shown in this table:

Sufﬁ x Singular Meaning Plural

- ow lavar ‘saying’ lavarow

- yow ger ‘word geryow

- on lader ‘thief’ ladron

- yon gwas ‘servant’ gwesyon

- es pysk ‘ﬁ sh’ puskes

- yer pren ‘timber’ prennyer

ii internal change of vowel, e.g. davas ‘one sheep’, deves ‘several sheep’;

iii both (i) and (ii), e.g. mab ‘son’, mebyon ‘sons’.

Most loan- words from Middle English had plurals in - is, - ys or - s; e.g. tormentoris,

doctours; but some were sufﬁ ciently well assimilated to acquire native sufﬁ xes, e.g.

karpentoryon.

There was a tendency in Late Cornish to rationalize plural noun sufﬁ xes to -ow or to

- s, e.g. Middle Cornish meyn ‘stones’ was replaced by Late Cornish minow, *scryforyon

‘writers’ by screffars.

Singular nouns were formed from collective nouns by the addition of - en (morpholog-

ically //- enn//), e.g. guel ‘rods’, guelen ‘rod’. There were a few suppletive plurals, e.g. den

‘man’, tus ‘men, people’. Abstract nouns were formed using the sufﬁ xes –(y)ans, - ter/- der

and - neth (Geor

ge 1993).

Demonstratives

The singular demonstrative pronouns are given in Table 11.17. The shortened forms were

used before yv ‘is’ and o ‘was’. The plurals were an rema ‘these (ones)’, an rena ‘those

(ones)’

Table 11.17 Demonstrative pronouns

Gender Shortened form Full form

Middle Cornish Middle Cornish Late Cornish

‘this (one)’ m. hem, hemm hemma, helma hebma > ebah

f. *hom, holm homma, holma

‘that (one)’ m. hen, henn henna hedna > hedda

f. honna *hodna > hodda

CORNISH 515

The demonstrative adjectives were expressed using the sufﬁ xes - ma and - na, which are

reductions of omma ‘here’ and ena ‘there’; e.g. an bysma ‘this world’, an denna ‘that

man’. A third sufﬁ x, - hons ‘yonder’ is attested but is very rare.

Adjectives

Most adjectives followed the noun; those which preceded it (e.g. hen ‘old’, tebel ‘evil’)

caused lenition of the noun. Except for a few isolated cases (Padel 1979), adjectives were

invariant as regards number.

The superlative ending was - a < PrimC /’haμ/ < Brit. *samos; the [h] was assimilated

by the preceding consonant, causing unvoicing where appropriate. The comparative took

the form of the superlative, the latter being distinguished by the use of an; e.g. tek /tɛg/

‘fair’, tecca ‘fairer’, an tecca ‘fairest’.

Pronouns

The personal pronouns are displayed in Tables 11.18 and 11.19. The reduced unstressed

forms - ma and - ta arose from division of the double forms *- ma vy and -ta gy. The reduced

form - va also came from the double form.

In Late Cornish, the reduced form - ma was interpreted as - m- a, and upon loss of - a,

gave such forms as theram ‘I was’, ni ellam ‘I cannot’.

Table 11.18 Principal forms of personal pronouns in Middle Cornish

1 sg. 2 sg. 3 sg. m. 3 sg. f. 1 pl. 2 pl. 3 pl.

Independent /m

I/my,

/tI/ty, te /ɛv/ef, eff /hi/hy /ni/ny /hwi/why,

/i/y

Enclitic simple

stressed

vy, ve gy, ge sy,

sche

ef, eff hy ny why y

simple

unstressed

e, a y

double (re-

duplicated)

*me vy

evy

tegy eef hyhy ny ny whywhy *ynsy

reduced - ma - te, - ta - va, - fe

Possessive

ow, ov the, ʒe y hy agan agas aga

Inﬁ xed m th n s gan gas s

Table 11.19 Principal forms of personal pronouns in Late Cornish

1 sg. 2 sg. 3 sg. m. 3 sg. f. 1 pl. 2 pl. 3 pl.

Independent [‘miː]

mî, mee

[‘tʃiː]

chee

[‘ɛːv]

eave, e

[‘hej]

hei

[‘nej]

ny,

nei

[‘hwej]

why, hụei

[an’dʒej]

eye an

jye

Enclitic simple

stressed

vî, vee chee eave, e hei ny,

nei

why, hụei eye, gy an

jye

reduced - ma - ta - va

Possessive

a tha, de e e gun guz, goz go

Inﬁ xed m th n s gon ges, gis s

Note:

1 The possessive adjectives were often omitted in LateC.