- Péll-bell, ar draws pob hýll-berth,
- Po bellaf, gwaethaf yw’r gwerth.—G.Gl. m 146/154.
‘Very far, across every horrid bush [I have driven my flock]; the further, the less is their worth.’
In some cases the initial of the second adj. is not softened, so that the two do not constitute a formal compound; as Da da fu o grud hyd fedd W.Ỻ. 40 ‘very good was she from the cradle to the grave’; Drwg drwg Diar xx 14. Where the adj. begins with a vowel or an immutable consonant, there is, of course, no indication of the construction; e.g. isel isel Deut. xxviii 43.
ii. A cpv. is compounded with itself to express progressive increase in the quality denoted by the adj. When the cpv. is a monosyllable the compound is generally strict, as gwáeth-waeth ‘worse and worse’, lléi-lai ‘less and less’, lléd-led ‘wider and wider’, nés-nes ‘nearer and nearer’, mwy-fwy Phil. i 9 ‘more and more’. In present-day speech the compound is oftener loose, as llái lái. When the cpv. is a polysyllable, the compound is necessarily loose; see the ex. below.
- Ef â afon yn fẃyfwy
- Hyd y môr, ac nid â mwy.—L.G.C. 357.
‘A river goes increasing to the sea, and goes no more.’
- Gŵr a wella’r gwŷr 'wéllwell,
- A gwŷr a wna’r gŵr yn well.—D.N., f. 4, g. 161.
‘A master who betters the men more and more, and men who make the master better.’
A Dafydd oedd yn myned gryfach gryfach, ond tŷ Saul oedd yn myned wannach wannach. 2 Sam. iii 1.
The combination always forms a compound, for the second cpv. has always its soft initial.
mwy na mwy ‘excessive’, understood as ‘more than more’, is doubtless originally ‘more and more’, the n- of na being the final ‑n of the cpv. § 147 iv (3).
Derivative Adjectives.
§ 153. Derivative adjectives are formed from the stems of nouns, adjectives and verbs by the addition of the following suffixes:
(1) ‑adwy, ‑ediw, ‑edig, ‑awd verbal adjective suffixes, see § 206.
Ml.W. ‑awdɏr seems to be ‑awd with excrescent ‑r § 113 i (1):
