The Negative Prefix <di> and its

Phonological Status in Bangor Welsh

Tomasz CzerniakThe John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

Institute of English Studiesczerniakto@gmail.com

LEXICON AND SYSTEM IN SYNCHRONIC AND

DIACHRONIC LINGUISTICS

LUBLIN 2014

The problem

• Fynes-Clinton (1995: sub voce)

– <di> should be treated as a word for it SOMETIMES bears full stress

– it is SOMETIMES short and SOMETIMES long

• Thorne (1993: 79), Williams (1980: 125) and King (2003: 17)

– <di> is an affix (un-, -less, without)

– It triggers Soft Mutation

Evidence from stress placementpronunciation spelling glossdA diDA da didda ‘good, without good’fAlX divAlX ffalch difalch ‘proud, unassuming’tu didu twyll didwyll ‘deceit, sincere’drug diDrug drwg diddrwg ‘bad, harmless’brAu divrAu braw difraw ‘terror, fearless’pris dibris pris dibris ‘price, reckless’

pronunciation spelling glossniwAd diniwAd niweid diniweid ‘injoury, innocent’kAlon digAlonni calon digalonni ‘heart, to make despair’blino divlino blino diflino ‘to tire, to rest’AXos diAXos achos diachos ‘cause, without cause’kwiliD digwiliD cywilydd, digywilydd ‘shame , shameless’

Evidence from vowel lengthpluk dibluk plwc diblwc ‘pluck, without pluck’ko digo coll digoll ‘loss, without loss’pon dibon peon diboen ‘pain, painless’

• Awbary (1984: 75 and 2010: 362)

– Long vowels never appear in unstressed syllables

– Long vowels never appear before clusters

– Long vowels appear only in the final syllable (NW)

• Williams (1989: 118)

– Tertiary stress falls on the pre-penultimate syllable

Evidence from vowel length

pobol dibobol pobl, di bobl ‘people, uninhabited’perig diberig perygl, diberygl ‘danger, harmless’trAmguD didrAmguD tramgwydd

didramgwydd ‘offence, inoffensive’trevn didrevn trefn, didrefn ‘order, chaotic’kwiliD digwiliD cywilydd

digywilydd ‘shame, shameless’provjAd dibrovjAd profiad

dibrofiad ‘experience, inexperienced’

Evidence from vowel length

blAs divlAs blas diflas ‘zest, uninteresting’blAs divlAs blas diflas ‘taste, tasteless’nod dinod nod dinod ‘mark, not marked’ nod dinod nod dinod ‘note, insignificant’

Evidence from frequencyShort vowel in the prefix Long vowel in the prefix

root affixed form occurrences root affixed form occurrences

blin diflin 49 0 cefn digefn 482 0

drwg diddrwg 235 0 coll digoll 47 0

balch difalch 140 1 cywilydd dicywilydd 29 0

braw difraw 21 1 plwc diblwc 21 0

da didda 1009 1 pobl dibobl 1440 0

pris dibris 98 2 poen diboen 83 0

nod dinod 131 5 trefn didrefn 315 0

twyll didwyll 12 7 perygl diberygl 108 1

pwys dibwys 130 18 tramgwydd didramgwydd 8 4

blas diflas 79 37 priod dibriod 91 5

byr difyr 156 42 profiad dibrofiad 329 5

Evidence from frequency

• Short <di> as more frequent

– Is it more productive?

• Long <dii> as less frequent

– It’s often hyphenated or spelt separately

– There are more hyphenated entries in the corpus than there are non-hyphenated

Evidence from frequency

• 170 hyphenated words in the CEG corpus

• over 360 occurrences in total

spelling gloss spelling gloss stem freq.

paid ‘don’t’ di-baid ‘unceasing’ 9

gwaith ‘work’ di-waith ‘unemployed’ 17

pen-draw ‘eventually’ di-ben-draw ‘endless’ 8

tor ‘break’ di-dor ‘unbroaken’ 12

Cymraeg ‘Welsh’ di-Gymraeg ‘non-Welsh’ 47

trais ‘violence’ di-drais ‘non-violent’ 9

enw ‘name’ di-enw ‘nameless’ 6

meth ‘fail’ di-feth ‘infallible’ 7

ffael ‘fault’ di-ffael ‘without a doubt’ 8

os ‘if’ di-os ‘without doubt’ 6

rhif ‘number’ di-rif ‘countless’ 6

Evidence from frequency

• Do these two graphic notations represent anylinguistic reality?– Stress

– Vowel length

– (simple as opposed to ‘idiomatic negation’?)

Evidence from semantics

priod dibriod ‘married unmarried’ <dii>perygl diberygl ‘danger non-hazardous’ <dii>gwaith di-waith ‘work unemployed’ <dii>

braw difraw ‘terror fearless’ <di>pris dibris ‘price reckless’ <di>calon digalonni ‘heart to make despair <di>byr difyr ‘brief entertaining’ <di>blas diflas ‘zest uninteresting’ <di>

• The negatives with the short <di>, though not always, tend to be more idiomatic in their negation

• The negatives with the long <dii> tend to be more straightforward

Possible solutions?• There are two instances of <di>

• [di:] is a particle which provides a negative meaning to Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives

• [di] is a derivational prefix which can be attached to a limited number of roots

• There is one instance of <dii> which is a negative particle

• Items with short <di> have become lexicalisedand no morphological boundary is recognised

OR

Competitive exponents?

• Why do we need two <di>s (a prefix and a particle)

a) since both introduce negation?

b) since both cause Soft Mutation?

c) since only one of them is productive?

• Why couldn’t we accept the lexicalised items

a) since they are fewer in numbers?

b) since they are more idiomatic?

c) (since the L users’ intuition about their inseparability isreflected in the spelling?)

CVCV evidence

• Lowenstamm (1999) Scheer (2004, 2008)

– The word (parametrically) begins with an empty CV

– The CV has to be Properly Governed

– It is a potential landing site for the melody of a clitic

– It is introduced there by Morphosyntax

[C V C V C V C V]

d i n o d

‘not marked’

[C V] [C V C V C V C V]

d i n o d

‘insignificant’

CVCV evidence

Is (Bangor) Welsh a #CV language?• Scheer (2004: 95-100)

• A language is CV-initial if:

a) There are no other initial clusters than TR (and sTR)

b) The initial vowel never alternates with ‘zero’

c) The initial consonant is in a ‘strong position’

• Fynes-Clinton (1995)

a) There are [gwl], [gwn], [gwr], [kn] and one instance of [md] (Nadolig ‘Christmas’) clusters

b) Some word-initial clusters are optional(dveTA dveTAdifetha ‘to waste’)

c) Welsh is not notorious for Initial Consonant Strength

[C V C V C V]

d i n o d

‘not marked’

[C V C V] [C V C V C V]

d i n o d

‘insignificant’

Isn’t (Bangor) Welsh a #CV language?

<di> as a prefix / word in a non-#CV-analysis

<di> as particle in a non-#CV-analysis

Conclusions• <dii> cannot be a clitic lengthened in the initial CV

(no initial CV)• <dii> cannot be a prefix

(doesn’t attract the primary stress, is long before clusters)• Phonologically <dii> is an independent domain• <di> can be either a prefix or a syllable in a

morphologically indivisible word (phonology doesn’t mind)

• <di> seems to have been lexicalised(unproductive and idiomatic)

• The two instances of <di> NEVER randomly change their behaviour(There are just two of them. ‘sometimes’ is out!)

Thank you

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