Re: Plural Problems

[Padraic Brown <agricola@wam.umd.edu>]

On Thu, 6 Nov 1997, Raymond A. Brown wrote:

> At 16:11 5/11/97, Padraic Brown wrote:
> [......]
> >Point taken.  Could Brithenig borrow -n adjectives somehow?
> Yep - but I think the adj. would've been borrowed without the Old Eng. case
> endings.

Goes without saying; Standard Brithenig has no nominal cases (at least
none marked with endings).

> 
> >Especially
> >being in close proximity to the English; possibly in the same way English
> >has borrowed some bits of Irish grammar.

> 
> The progessive or continuous tenses in English are IMO likely to be
> influenced by native Celtic practice, but the influence must be Brittonic.
> Apart from peculiarities in AngloIrish which are not found elsewhere, I can
> think of no bits of Irish grammar in English.

These are what I was thinking of.  I wasn't aware they were Brythonic in
origin.

> 
> 
> No, not a just a fiat of Andrew's - he's thought the system out.  Indeed, I
> think Andrew's done a very good job of developing a "Brittonicized" Romance
> tongue in a credible way.

I understand that the system is well thought out.  (My original attempt at
a Romanoceltic language only included nasalisation, which is, truth be
told, the easiest of the three.)  I was simply commenting on the fact that
it ended up in a Romance language at all.  By the way, where is the fourth
mutation?  You mention softening, nasalisation and lenition (spirant). 
Are you counting umlaut, or is there some other deviously concealed
mutation I'm unaware of? 

> 
> Ray.
> 
Padraic.