Re: nu alltr e gw alltr?

["Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@clara.co.uk>]

At 8:16 pm +1300 12/11/98, Andrew Smith wrote:
>interesting message that one, is there enough evidence to suggest that
>Brithenig would develop features like nu-h-alltr and gw-h-alltr.  I like
>inclusive/exclusive marking as a language feature, but I would like a
>discussion before it is formally adopted.

Maybe - but almost unknown in European languages.  Although the Spanish
nosotros & vosotros may have developed from some suc distinctions, they are
not used that way in modern Spanish.  It's certainly not a feature either
of insular Celtic or of Gallic Romance so if the aim is still to present
Brithenig as a _plausible_ development from Brito-Romance then the evidence
is surely against any such development.

>some other thoughts going on at the moment:
>
>1. on the evidence of germination in Italian, should Brithenig prep. _a_
>be followed by aspirant mutation;
>
>ad + C > a + CC > a + Ch

Modern Italian merely perpetuates the habits of spoken Latin of more than
2000 years ago.  It's quite clear from spellings in Roman authors and from
what graffiti remain that the the -d at the end of ad was fully assimilated
to the following consonant, the /d/ being retain only before vowels.  This
is exactly the modern Italian practice - the only difference is that the
Romans & Italians used different spelling conventions.

So the question is: Do Latin geminated plosives generally shift to
fricatives?  I'm not aware of that in Romance generally or in Brithenig.

I thought the spirant mutation was caused, as in the modern Brittonic
languages, by the loss of syllable final /s/ which became [h] (as in modern
Andalusian & medieval French) before finally disappearing.  The prevocalic
[h] caused the mutation in both the modern Brittonic langs & in Brithening.

Thus Latin 'trans' would give 'tra'+ spirant mutation.  But I don't see how
a(d) would have caused that mutation (or, indeed, any mutation).

>
>2. with the loss of final plural -s, should Brithenig develop a more
>definite indefinite plural than just yn + aspirant mutation?

That's something I vacillate on.  Modern _spoken_ French is quite happy not
making the distinction, except for a very small handful of nouns like
'cheval' [Sval] ~ 'chevaux' [Svo], leaving number distinction to
determiners.  It is surely for this reason that the partitive article is
used so extensively in modern French, besides the indefinite & definite
articles.

I think if Brithenig were "happy" with the loss of final -s causing (most)
nouns to have the same form for both numbers, then a similar development of
distinct articles as in French would have to have developed.  Otherwise
some other way of marking plurals would surely have developed?

Ray.