(3) They are adjectives when they qualify nouns expressed or implied :
- Y gwr marw, e gdr morwyn
- Ddaear dy fedd er dy fwyn. T.A., G. 229.
' Dead man, a maiden loves the dust of thy grave for thy sake.'
- Ar 61 y marw yr wyli,
- Ar 61 y fyw'r wylaf fi. D.E., p 112/840.
' Thou weepest for him who is dead ; I weep for her who is alive ' ; lit. ' the dead ' mas. sg., ' the living ' fern. sg.
When following- yn with the soft mutation :
- Ni bu 'n fy w, cyd bo 'n i fedd,
- Ni bu 'n farw neb un fawredd. H.K.
' There has not been alive, though he is [now] in his grave, there has not been dead any one so great.'
Also when they are complements, without yn, of the verb ' to be', as byddfyw lit. ' be alive' i.e. live ! hwnmo afydd marw Ezec. xviii 4.
- Fy Nuw, pei cawn fy newts,
- Ni byddai fyw o'm bodd fis. D.Gr. 174.
' My God, if I had my choice, he would not be alive a month with my consent.'
Silvan Evans s.v. byw treats the word as a v.n. here ; but no v.n can stand in this position. We cannot say bydd rhodio for ' walk ! ' but we say bydd da or bydd dda ' be good ! '
(4) As adjs. they have pi. forms bywion E.P. PS. xxvii 13, Ivi 13, late and rarely used, and meirw, meirwon. In periphrastic conj. the pi. meirw is used for the v.n. when the subj. is pi., as y maenf wedi meirw, by a confusion of the v.n. and adj. ; cf. gwedy myfav M.A. i 228 for ffwedy mebwi pi. Compared : marwed'L.G.C. 218 'as dead', yn gynvywyet s.G. 77 ' as alive '; manoach, S.Ph. CY. ix 34.
(5) byw < *g*i-uo8 63 vii (3), which may be an adj. like Lat. vlvus, or a noun like Gk. /Si'os. marw < *m e ruos ( e r, not r, before u r 63 iii) similarly formed from 4/mer-; in Lat. mortuus<*mrtuos the t is intrusive according to Brugmann 2 II i 448.
§ 205. The v.n. is always mas. in construction. But many of the forms were originally fern., and some remain fern, when used as abstract nouns. Thus bod< *bhu-td is f. in hafod 189 iv (6); abstract nouns in -aeth are f. 139 ii ; gqfael noun is f., gafael
