body ' ; heb y Pwyll do. 4 ' said P.' ; heb 0/do. 2 ' said he ' ; heb ynteu do. 3 'said he'; heb hi do. 10 'said she'; heb wynt do. 27 'said they ' ; etc. Its use without an expressed subject is rare, and occurs chiefly where it repeats a statement containing the subject : Ac yna y dywat Beuno, mi a welaf, heb H..A. 126 'And then Beuno said, " I see," said [he] ' ; A gofyn a oruc i8aw, arglwyb, heb H.M. 1 79 ' and he asked him, "lord," said [he] '; heb ef. . . heb R.M. 96.
Mn. W. (N.W.) eb ni Ps. cxxxvii 4 (1588), eb ef B.CW. 8 ' said he', eb yr angel ib. ' said the angel', ebr ef do. 10, ebr ynteu do. 15, eb ej M.K. [i i], hebr efdo. [20] ; (S.W.) ebe Myrddin D.P.O. 4, eb un do. 97, ebe I.MSS. 154 ff. The N.W. dial, form ebr, e.g. ebr fi B.CW. 10, etc. is now re-formed as ebra.
Yn 61 Sion ni welais haul,
Eb Seren Bowys araul. T.A., A 14975/107.
' Since [I have lost] Sion I have not seen the sun, said the bright Star of Powys.'
ii. C. used hebaf and heb^t, see ex. ; P.M. imitating him (the two poems are addressed to father and son) wrote ny hebwn hebod M.A. i 394 ' I would not speak without thee'.
Ti hebofnyt hebu oe8 ten;
Mi hebot ny hebaf inneu. C., E.P. 1440.
' Thou without me it was not thy [wont] to speak ; I without thee I will not speak either.'
The compound atebaf ( < *ad-keb-af) ' I answer ' is inflected regularly throughout : 3rd sg. pres. ind. etyb, v.n. ateb. The rarer compounds gwrthebaf* I reply \gohebaf l \ say' (now 'I correspond') seem also to be regular : gohebych B.F. K.P. 1154 (Mn. W. 3rd sg. pres. ind. goheba, v.n. gohebu).
iii. In O.W. only hepp M.C. ( = heb 18 i) occurs, before a consonant in each case. In Ml. W. heb yr and heb occur before vowels, and heb y before consonants. Assuming that the original form in W. was *Jiebr, this would become either *hebr or heb before a consonant; the former would naturally become hebyr, later heby ; this seems to be the sound meant by heb y, the y being written separately because sounded y as in the article. Before a vowel *hebr would remain, and is prob. represented by heb yr (the normal Ml. spelling would be hebyr = hebyr). In S.W. heb and heby survived, becoming eb, ebe ; in N.W. heb and hebr, becoming eb and ebr.
If the above is correct, the original *hebr must be from a deponent form with suffix *-re added directly to the root ; thus *seq*-re, Vseq*- 1 say ' ; cf. gwyr 191 iii (i). In the face of the compound ateb = Ir. aithesc, both from Kelt. *ati-seq*-, Strachan's statement, Intr. 97,
that heb 'says' is of adverbial origin seems perverse. A sufficient
