Re: A few more Breathanach notes

[Padraic Brown <pbrown@polaris.umuc.edu>]

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, John Cowan wrote:

> 
> Padrig yscrifef:
> 
> > It looks like the Iberian Shuffle fails here.  I'd wager -nn derives
> > ultimately from -nd- while -nte comes from -nt-.  Rather than confuse the
> > two, Breathanach speakers seem to retain the true participle form (-nt-)
> > as an adjective; while the gerund form (-nd-) remains a noun.
> 
> And then again maybe it succeeds.  If the functions were swapped, and then
> nd lenited to nn, it would explain the Breathanach forms.

I don't get this...if the adjective had always been -nt, then how would
they be swapped?, since the adjective now is -nte.  Unless in some
historical levels of the language there were some double swaps.

>  
> > There's not enough information on Brithenig to form an opinion, as the
> > participle (sneakily) ends in -n (can't tell if it's from -nd- or -nt-,
> > though) and there's no mention of a gerund.  I could have sworn that last
> > week they ended in -nn (as evidenced by the Horse story, with participles
> > in -nn), which would indicate -nd- --> -nn, assuming that n follows the
> > same pattern as ng.
> 
> It did, but it's only a spelling change (which could have happened *there*,
> since nn and n are the same in Brithenig.

I thought I was remembering wrong for a moment!  Well, spelling reforms
are nothing new in Kernu either.  And they're not always simplifications!

Padraic.