seven of them’; ae ẟwylaw yll dwyoeẟ do. 39 ‘with both his hands’; uẟunt ell deu w.m. 182 ‘to them both’. In Mn. W. ni ’n dau ‘we two’, chwi ’ch tri ‘you three’, hwy ill tri ‘they three’, etc.
ii. Infixed pronouns, (1) The following stand in the genitive case before a noun or verbal noun; mutation is noted as before:
Sg. 1. ‑m, now written ’m [rad.]; 2. ‑th, ’th [soft]; 3. Ml. W. ‑e, ‑y, Mn. W. ‑i, now written ’i [m. soft; f. spir.]; pl. 1. ‑n, ’n [rad.]; 2. ‑ch, ’ch [rad.]; 3. Ml. ‑e, ‑y, Mn. ‑i, ’i, late misspelling ’u [rad.]. Also 3rd sg. and pl. ‑w, ’w after Ml. y, Mn. i ‘to’; see below.
The Ml. 3rd sg. and pl. ‑e or ‑y represents the second element of a diphthong; thus oe or oy ‘from his’ is simply o y contracted. The Mn. sound is ṓi (unacc. oi), and the late spelling o’i rests on the false assumption that the full form of the pronoun is ei. This contraction may take place after any word ending in a vowel, see § 33 v, and often occurs after final ‑ai and even ‑au. Similarly ’n, ’ch may occur after any final vowel or diphthong, as Duw ’n Tad, Duw ’n Ceidwad D.G. 486 ‘God our Father, God our Saviour’, since this is only the ordinary loss of unaccented ỿ, see § 44 vii.
But ’m, ’th stand on a totally different basis; these are not for *ym, *yth, which do not exist in the genitive.[1] But a’m, a’th are properly a m’, a th’ for *a my, *a thy with the old spirant mutation after a as in a mam, a thad; hence we find that in Ml. W. they occur only after a ‘and’, a ‘with’ (including gyt a, tu a, etc), na ‘nor’, no ‘than’, all of which cause the spirant mutation, and after ẏ ‘to’, o ‘from’, which caused gemination of the initial of a following unacc. word in Kelt., thus W. i’m, ym ‘to my’ = Ir. domm ‘to my’; see iv (2). In biblical Welsh this tradition is strictly followed. But in D.G. we already find yw ‘is’ added to the above monosyllables (if the readings are to be trusted), as yw’m serch 498, yw’m Selyf 522, yw’th gân 137, yw’th wên 497. After other words ’m and ’th are rare in D.G., and are possibly misreadings, as iddi’m traserch 498, yno’th ddwyn 478. After neu ‘or’ and trwy ‘through’, fy and dy are always used: neu dy ladd 264, trwy dy hoywliw 180, Dyro dy ben drwy dy bats 107. So after all ordinary words ending in vowels; the only non-syllabic forms of the pronouns being f’, d’ or the nasal mutation, see § i (1) above; as hwde f’anfodd 114 (not hwde’m anfodd), mae d’ eisiau 19 (not mae’th eisiau), mae d’ wyneb 107 (not mae’th wyneb), colli ’na 303 (not colli ’m da), gwanu ’mron 502 (not gwanu ’m bron). The insertion of ’m, ’th after all vocalic endings is a late misuse of these forms. The converse practice of using fy and dy after a, o, i, na (as o fy for o’m, i dy for i’th etc.) appears first in hymns to fill up the line, and is usual in the dialects; but it is a violation of the literary tradition.
- ↑ One or two apparent examples (as yth effeirẏat c.m. 57) seem to be scribal errors.
