Welsh morphology

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The morphology of the Welsh language shows many characteristics perhaps unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton.


Modern Welsh can be written in two varieties — Colloquial Welsh or Literary Welsh[1]. The grammar described on this page is for Colloquial Welsh, which is used for speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh used in the 1588 translation of the Bible and can be seen in formal writings. Currently, most Welsh writing, especially that found on the Internet is closer to the Colloquial form, but older Welsh texts may contain Literary Welsh usage.


Contents

[edit] Initial consonant mutation

Related article: Lenition

Initial consonant mutation is a phenomenon common to all Celtic languages. The first consonant sound of a word in Welsh may change depending on grammatical context (such as when the grammatical object directly follows the grammatical subject), or when preceded by certain words, e. g. i, yn, and a. Welsh has three mutations: the soft mutation, the nasal mutation, and the aspirate mutation:

Radical Soft Nasal Aspirate
p b mh ph
b f m
t d nh th
d dd n
c g ngh ch
g ∅* ng
m f
ll l
rh r

A blank cell indicates that the letter is not affected.

For example, the word for "stone" is carreg, but "the stone" is y garreg (soft mutation), "my stone" is fy ngharreg (nasal mutation) and "her stone" is ei charreg (aspirate mutation). The examples show usage in the standard language; the soft mutation is slowly supplanting the nasal and aspirate mutations as the mechanism behind the mutations ceases to be understood. These days, the aspirate mutation is only really carried out for words beginning with c in colloquial language and in some areas it is totally unknown (it is sometimes joked that a sign of hypercorrection amongst learners is to order "jin a thonic" in a bar). The nasal mutation is now only used in two circumstances and it is also being replaced by the soft mutation.

*The soft mutation for g is the simple deletion of the initial sound. For example, gardd "garden" becomes yr ardd "the garden".

[edit] Soft mutation

The soft mutation (Welsh: treiglad meddal) is by far the most common mutation in Welsh. When words undergo soft mutation, the general pattern is that unvoiced plosives become voiced plosives, and voiced plosives become fricatives or disappear; some fricatives also change, and the full list is shown in the above table.

In some cases a limited soft mutation takes place. This is the same as the full soft mutation, except that words beginning with rh and ll do not mutate.

Common situations where the limited soft mutation occurs are as follows – note that this list is by no means exhaustive.

  • feminine singular nouns with the definite article or the number one (un)
  • nouns or adjectives used predicatively after yn
  • adjectives following mor ("so") or rhy ("too")

Common situations where the full soft mutation occurs are as follows – note that this list is by no means exhaustive.

  • adjectives qualifying feminine nouns (including verbal nouns used as adjectives)
  • words immediately following most prepositions, such as i ("to"), o (preposition used before quantifiers) and wrth ("by" or "near")
  • adjectives used adverbially (after yn)
  • nouns used with the number two (dau / dwy)
  • nouns following adjectives (N.B. most adjectives follow the noun)
  • nouns after the possessives dy (informal your) and ei (when it means his)
  • an object immediately following the subject (typically after conjugated verbs)
  • in many cases, the second word in a compound
  • verb infinitives following an indirect object (e.g. rhaid imi fynd - it is necessary to me to go)
  • conjugated verbs in the interrogative
  • any word following a noun phrase

The occurrence of the soft mutation often obscures the origin of placenames to non-Welsh-speaking visitors. For example, Llanfair is the church of Mair (Mary), and Pontardawe is the bridge on the Tawe.

[edit] Nasal mutation

The nasal mutation (Welsh: treiglad trwynol) normally occurs:

  • after fy ("my") e.g. gwely ("a bed"), fy ngwely ("my bed")
  • after the locative preposition yn ("in") e.g. Tywyn ("Tywyn"), yn Nhywyn ("in Tywyn")
  • after the negating prefix an- ("un-") e.g. teg ("fair"), annheg ("unfair")
  • sometimes after saith ("seven").

[edit] Notes

1. The preposition yn becomes ym if the resultant nasal mutation causes the following noun to begin with m, and becomes yng if the mutation causes the noun to begin with ng. E.g. Bangor ("Bangor"), ym Mangor ("in Bangor") Caerdyyd ("Cardiff"), yng Nghaerdydd ("in Cardiff").

2. In words beginning with an-, the n is dropped before the mutated consonant, e.g. an + personol → amhersonol (although it would be retained before a non-mutating consonant, e.g. an + sicr → ansicr).

Under nasal mutation, voiced plosives become nasals, and unvoiced plosives become aspirated nasals.

[edit] Pronunciation

The aspirated nasals may appear at first hard for English speakers to pronounce. However, in fact they are generally pronounced as an aspirated nasal followed by h, and this does not in practice result in a large cluster of consonant sounds because it is preceded either by the vowel ending of fy, or a form of yn where the -n is possibly replaced with -m or -ng to match the first letter of the mutated word. For example:

  • fy + tadau → fy nhadau, pronounced as fyn hadau
  • yn + Caerdydd → yng Nghaerdydd, pronounced as yng haerdydd

[edit] Grammatical considerations

Note that yn meaning "in" must be distinguished from other uses of yn which do not cause nasal mutation. For example:

  • In the sentence Mae plastig yn nhrwyn Siaco, trwyn has undergone nasal mutation.
  • In the sentence Mae trwyn Siaco yn blastig, plastig has undergone soft mutation, not nasal mutation.
  • In the sentence Mae trwyn Siaco yn cynnwys plastig, cynnwys is not mutated.

Note also that the ’m form often used instead of fy after vowels does not cause nasal mutation. For example:

  • Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad. (not *i'm ngwlad)

[edit] Aspirate mutation

The aspirate mutation (Welsh: treiglad llaes) turns the unvoiced plosives into aspirated fricatives. It is easiest to remember based on an addition of an h in the spelling (c, p, t → ch, ph, th), although strictly the resultant forms are single letters which happen to contain an h as the second character.

The aspirate mutation occurs:

  • after the possessive ei when it means "her"
  • after a ("and")
  • after â ("with")
  • for masculine nouns after the number three (tri)
  • after the number six (chwech, written before the noun as chwe)

The aspirate mutation also causes an h to be added before words beginning with a vowel (e.g. oed = age, ei hoed = her age), although a / â before a vowel change to ac / ag and the word beginning with a vowel is itself unaffected.

[edit] Mixed mutation

A mixed mutation occurs when negating conjugated verbs. Initial consonants which change under the aspirate mutation do so; other consonants change as in the soft mutation (if at all). For example, clwyais i (I heard) and dwedais i (I said) are negated as chlywais i ddim and ddwedais i ddim.

[edit] The article

Welsh has no indefinite article. The definite article, which precedes the words it modifies and whose usage differs little from that of English, has the forms y, yr, and ’r. The rules governing their usage are:

  • When the previous word ends in a vowel, regardless of the quality of the word following, ’r is used, e.g. mae'r gath tu allan. This rule takes precedence over the other two.
  • When the word begins with a vowel, yr is used, e.g. yr ardd.
  • In all other places, y is used, e.g. y bachgen.

The article triggers the soft mutation when it is used with feminine singular nouns, e.g. tywysoges "(a) princess" but y dywysoges "the princess".

[edit] Nouns

Like most other Indo-European languages, all nouns belong to a certain grammatical gender; in this case, masculine or feminine. Aside from nouns whose gender is clear from the meaning (e.g. mam "mother" is feminine), there is no pattern, and gender simply must be learnt.

Welsh has two systems of grammatical number. Singular/plural nouns correspond to the singular/plural number system of English, although unlike English, Welsh noun plurals are unpredictable and formed in several ways. Some nouns form the plural with an ending (usually -au), e.g. tad and tadau. Others form the plural through vowel change, e.g. bachgen and bechgyn. Still others form their plurals through some combination of the two, e.g. chwaer and chwiorydd.

The other system of number is the collective/unit system. The nouns in this system form the singular by adding the suffix -yn (for masculine nouns) or -en (for feminine nouns) to the plural. Most nouns which belong in this system are frequently found in groups, for example, plant "children" and plentyn "a child", or coed "forest" and coeden "a tree". In dictionaries, the plural is often given first.

Genitive relationships are expressed by apposition. The genitive in Welsh is formed by putting two noun phrases next to each other, the possessor coming second. So English "The cat's mother", or "mother of the cat", corresponds to Welsh mam y gath — literally, "mother the cat"; "the man's car's windows" is ffenestri car y dyn — literally, "windows car the man". The thing possessed never takes the article.

[edit] Adjectives

Adjectives normally follow the noun they qualify, while some, such as hen, pob, and holl precede it. For the most part, adjectives are uninflected, though there are a few which maintain distinct masculine/feminine or singular/plural distinctions. After feminine singular nouns, adjectives receive the soft mutation.

Adjective comparison in Welsh is fairly similar to the English system. Adjectives with one or two syllables receive the endings -ach "-er" and -a(f) "-est", e. g. teg "fair", tegach "fairer", tega(f) "fairest". Adjectives with two or more syllables use the words mwy "more" and mwya "most", e. g. teimladwy "sensitive", mwy teimladwy "more sensitive", mwya teimladwy "most sensitive". Adjectives with two syllables can go either way.

These are the possessive adjectives:

Singular Plural
First Person fy (n) ein
Second Person dy (s) eich
Third Person Masculine ei (s) eu
Feminine ei (a)

The possessive adjectives precede the noun they qualify, which is often followed by the corresponding form of the personal pronoun, e.g. fy mara i "my bread", dy fara di "your bread", ei fara fe "his bread", etc.

The demonstrative adjectives are 'ma "this"' and 'na "that". They follow the noun they qualify, which also takes the article. For example, y llyfr "the book", y llyfr 'ma "this book", y llyfr 'na "that book".

[edit] Pronouns

[edit] Personal pronouns

The Welsh personal pronouns are:

Singular Plural
First Person (f)i, mi ni
Second Person ti, di chi
Third Person Masculine (f)e, (f)o nhw
Feminine hi

The Welsh masculine-feminine gender distinction is reflected in the pronouns. There is, consequently, no word corresponding to English "it", and the choice of e or hi depends on the grammatical gender of the antecedent.

The English dummy "it" construction in phrases like "it's raining" or "it was cold last night" also exists in Welsh and other Indo-European languages like French. Unlike other masculine-feminine languages, which often default to the masculine pronoun in the construction, Welsh uses the feminine singular hi, thus producing sentences like:

Mae hi'n bwrw glaw.
It's raining.
O'dd hi'n oer neithiwr.
It was cold last night.

[edit] Notes on the forms

Third-person masculine singular forms o and fo are heard in North Wales, while e and fe are heard in South Wales.

The pronoun forms i, e, and o are used as subjects after a verb. In the inflected future of the verbs mynd, gwneud, dod, and cael, first-person singular constructions like do fi may be heard. I, e, and o are also used as objects with compound prepositions, for example o mlaen o 'in front of him'. Fi, fe, and fo are used after conjunctions and non-inflected prepositions, and also as the object of an inflected verb:

Weloch chi fo dros y Sul?
Did you see him over the weekend?

Fe and fo exclusively are used as subjects with the inflected conditional:

Dylai fe brynu ti un newydd.
He ought to buy you a new one.

Both i, e, and o and fi, fe, and fo are heard with inflected prepositions, as objects of verbal nouns, and also as following pronouns with their respective possessive adjectives:

Wyt ti wedi gweld e/fe heddiw?
Have you seen him today?
Alla i ddim cael hyd i fy allweddi i/fi.
I can't find my keys.

The use of first-person singular mi is limited in the spoken language, appearing in i mi 'to/for me' or as the subject with the verb ddaru, used in a preterite construction.

Ti is found most often as the second-person singular pronoun, however di is used as the subject of inflected future forms, as a reinforcement in the imperative, and as following pronoun to the possessive adjective dy ... "your ...".

[edit] Ti vs. chi

Chi, in addition to serving as the second-person plural pronoun, is also used as a singular in formal situations. Conversely, ti can be said to be limited to the informal singular, such as when speaking with a family member, a friend, or a child. This usage corresponds closely to the practice in other European languages.

Further information: T-V distinction

[edit] Reflexive pronouns

The reflexive pronouns are formed with the possessive adjective followed by hun "self". There is variation between North and South forms.

Singular Plural
North First Person fyn hun, y hun ein hun
Second Person dy hun eich hun
Third Person ei hun eu hun
South First Person fyn hunan, y hunan ein hunain
Second Person dy hunan eich hunain, eich hunan
Third Person ei hunan eu hunain

Note that there is no gender distinction in the third person singular.

[edit] Emphatic pronouns

Welsh has special emphatic forms of the personal pronouns. They are not too common, though nevertheless alive in the language, especially in set phrases like a finnau "me too".

Singular Plural
First Person innau, finnau, minnau ninnau
Second Person tithau, dithau chithau
Third Person Masculine yntau, fintau nhwthau
Feminine hithau

The emphatic pronouns can also be used in place of the regular pronouns with possessive adjectives to add emphasis to the possessives.

[edit] Demonstrative pronouns

In addition to having masculine and feminine forms of this and that, Welsh also has separate set of this and that for intangible, figurative, or general ideas.

Masculine Feminine Intangible
this hwn hon hyn
that hwnnw, hwnna honno, honna hynny
these y rhain
those y rheiny

In certain expressions, hyn may represent "now" and hynny may represent "then".

[edit] Verbs

In Welsh, the majority of tenses make use of an auxiliary verb, usually bod "to be". Its conjugation is dealt with in Irregular Verbs below.

There are four periphrastic tenses in Welsh which make use of bod: present, imperfect, future, and conditional. All are formed in the same basic way: the appropriate form of bod, the complement marker yn (contracted to ’n after vowels), and the verbal noun. Thus "he thinks" (or "he is thinking") is rendered Mae e'n meddwl. "He will think" is bydd e'n meddwl. Welsh does not distinguish progressive actions.

Welsh does, however, distinguish perfect actions in all the periphrastic tenses by replacing yn with wedi. The perfect is then expressed with the present forms of bod, the pluperfect with the imperfect forms, the future perfect with the future forms, and the conditional perfect with the conditional forms. For example, "he has thought" is mae e wedi meddwl.

Welsh maintains inflected preterite, future, and conditional tenses, demonstrated here with talu 'pay'.

Singular Plural
Preterite First Person tales talon
Second Person talest taloch
Third Person talodd talon
Future First Person tala talwn
Second Person tali talwch
Third Person talith talan
Conditional First Person talwn talen
Second Person talet talech
Third Person talai talen
  • Notes on the preterite:
    • First and second singular forms may be written as talais and talaist, though there is no difference in pronunciation.
    • In some parts of Wales -s- may be inserted between the stem and plural forms.
    • In parts of South Wales forms like talws are heard for talodd.
  • Notes on the future:
    • di is used instead of ti, thus tali di, not *tali ti.
    • Forms like taliff may appear instead of talith in some southern parts of Wales.
  • Notes on the conditional:
    • -s- may be inserted between the stem and endings.

In the preterite, questions are formed with the soft mutation on the verb, though increasingly the soft mutation is being used in all situations. Negative forms are expressed with ddim after the pronoun and the mixed mutation, though here the soft mutation is taking over (dales i ddim for thales i ddim).

Periphrasitic constructions of the preterite, future, and conditional also exist. For all of these, the appropriate tense of gwneud "to do" (conjugated below) may be used with the verbal noun. The preterite may also be formed with ddaru "to happen", which does not alter its form.

[edit] Irregular verbs

[edit] Bod and compounds

Bod 'to be' is highly irregular. In addition to having inflected forms of the preterite, future, and conditional, it also maintains inflected present and imperfect forms which are used frequently as auxiliaries with other verbs. Bod also distinguishes between affirmative, interrogative, and negative statements for each tense.

The present tense in particular shows a split between the North and the South. King (2003) notes the following spoken variations in the present forms:

Affirmative (I am) Interrogative (Am I?) Negative (I am not)
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
North First Person dw dan ydw? ydan? (dy)dw (dy)dan
Second Person —, (r)wyt dach wyt? (y)dach? dwyt (dy)dach
Third Person mae maen ydy? ydyn? dydy dydyn
South First Person rw, w ŷn, — ydw? ŷn? (d)w ŷn
Second Person —, (r)wyt ych wyt? ych? — (ych)
Third Person mae maen ydy?, yw? ŷn? dyw ŷn
Affirmative (I am) Interrogative (Am I?) Negative (I am not)
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Preterite First Person bues buon fues? fuon? fues fuon
Second Person buest buoch fuest? fuoch? fuest fuoch
Third Person buodd buon fuodd? fuon? fuodd fuon
Imperfect First Person roeddwn roedden oeddwn? oedden? doeddwn doedden
Second Person roeddet roeddech oeddet? oeddech? doeddet doeddech
Third Person roedd roeddyn oedd? oeddyn? doedd doeddyn
Future First Person bydda byddwn fydda? fyddwn? fydda fyddwn
Second Person byddi byddwch fyddi? fyddwch? fyddi fyddwch
Third Person bydd byddan fydd? fyddan? fydd fyddan

Bod also has a conditional, for which there are two stems:

Affirmative Interrogative Negative
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
bydd- First Person byddwn bydden fyddwn fydden fyddwn? fydden?
Second Person byddet byddech fyddet fyddech fyddet? fyddech?
Third Person byddai bydden fyddai fydden fyddai? fydden?
bas- First Person baswn basen faswn fasen faswn? fasen?
Second Person baset basech faset fasech faset? fasech?
Third Person basai basen fasai fasen fasai? fasen?
  • ddim ("not") is added after the pronoun for negative forms of bod.
  • There are many dialectal variations of this verb.
  • Colloquially the imperfect tense forms are o'n i, o't ti, oedd e/hi, o'n ni, o'ch chi and o'n nhw. These are used for the declarative, interrogative and negative.
  • In speech the future and conditional forms often receive the soft mutation in all situations.
  • Welsh is unusual in having no fixed words for "yes" and "no". The relevant part of the verb bod is used instead e.g.: Ydych chi'n hoffi coffi? (Are you liking coffee? = Do you like coffee?) then either Ydw (I am = I do = Yes) or Nac ydw (I am not = I do not = No)

A few verbs which have bod in the verbnoun display certain irregular characteristics of bod itself. Gwybod is the most irregular of these. It has preterite and conditional forms, which are often used with present and imperfect meaning, respectively. The present is conjugated irregularly:

Singular Plural
First Person gwn gwyddon
Second Person gwyddost gwyddoch
Third Person gŵyr gwyddon

The common phrase dwn i ddim "I don't know" uses a special negative form of the first person present.

[edit] Mynd, gwneud, cael, and dod

The four verbs mynd "to go", gwneud "to do", cael "to get", and dod "to come" are all irregular in similar ways.

mynd gwneud cael dod
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Preterite First Person es aethon nes naethon ces caethon des daethon
Second Person est aethoch nest naethoch cest caethoch dest daethoch
Third Person aeth aethon naeth naethon caeth caethon daeth daethon
Future First Person a awn na nawn ca cawn do down
Second Person ei ewch nei newch cei cewch doi dewch
Third Person eith ân neith nân ceith câ daw dôn

The forms caeth, caethon, caethoch often appear as cafodd, cawson, cawsoch in writing, and in places in Wales these are also heard in speech.

In the conditional, there is considerable variation between the North and South forms of these four irregular verbs.

mynd gwneud cael dod
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
North First Person awn aen nawn naen cawn caen down doen
Second Person aet aech naet naech caet caech doet doech
Third Person âi aen nâi naen câi caen dôi doen
South First Person elwn elen nelwn nelen celwn celen delwn delen
Second Person elet elech nelet nelech celet celech delet delech
Third Person elai elen nelai nelen celai celen delai delen

[edit] Prepositions

In Welsh, prepositions frequently change their form when followed by a pronoun. These are known as inflected prepositions. Most of them, such as dan, follow the same basic pattern:

Singular Plural
First Person dana i danon ni
Second Person danat ti danoch chi
Third Person Masculine dano fe/fo danyn nhw
Feminine dani hi

There is some dialectal variation, particularly in the first and second person singular forms. In some places one may hear dano i, danot ti, or danach chi.

The majority of prepositions trigger the soft mutation.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ For a complete treatment of literary Welsh, see A Grammar of Welsh (1980) by Stephen J. Williams

[edit] References

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