Skip to main content

‹‹‹ prev (113)

(115) next ›››

(114)
82 Ehels Celtic Studies.
separation to be effected. As further instances may also be ad-
duced llestri, Cornish, and Armoric, listri, which represent
Gaedhehc *lestir, while on the other hand dyn is the Gaedhelic
ddini. 3. Finally, the plurals in -au and -iau with their different
formations (Zeuss, 290, 122), also belong originally to this
category; e. g. tyreu (tiu'res), Cornish dethijoio^-Axvaorvc diziou
(dies) ; -au appears to have belonged originally to the M-stems,
the verbals in -at (-iat), -ad, pi. -adau also correspond to the
Gaedhehc abstracts (infinitive) in -ad, -iid, which take -a in
plural, so that -au may be very well explained from the Sanskrit
-avas. Pictet's {Op. cit., p. 135) comparison with the Sanskrit
-as, which changes into -o before sonants, although adopted by
Bopp and Kuhn also, is certainly erroneous. But afterwards
confusion came in here likewise, so that we see -au exactly like
the Slavonian -ov and the Greek -eu and other determinatives
appHed to other stems also, and hence even arose -iau. Besides,
all three suffixes occur in both genders, so that perhaps the -i of
the feminine may confu'm the above assumed Gaedhelic funda-
mental form of the nominative plural.
The second kind embraces especially n-stems, such as the ap-
parently anomalous ki (canis), the plural of which is in Welsh,
CUN, cwn, Cornish ken, and which corresponds exactly with the
Gaedhelic cii, plur. cuiji (the Gaedhelic ti is the Kymric i); and
ych=:ox, plur. y chain (ancient, ychen)= oxen; — further, Welsh
brawt, which has lost its final r, plur. hrodyr, (Cornish braud and
broder, while in the Armoric sing, breur, breer, the d has yielded,
plur. breuder).
Kuhn (p. 595) wished also to include vmder the third category
the -an of gen. cluasan (the ears), but in this word it belongs un-
doubtedly to the third, as cluas is evidently the old stem, which,
in the beginning, was treated in the declension hke dis.
To the third kind belong the following : 1. Many plurals in -au,
-iau, in wliich the ending is foreign to the word-stem proper, such
as penneu (capita), stem pinna (or pinda) = Gaedhelic cinna, from
which nom. cenn, dat. ciunn, or breicheu (brachia), stem breich,
instead of brechi ; 2, most words in -ion (or -on), e.g. — deneon,
dynyon (homines), from the stem dini (instead of dinia, as the
Gaedhelic duine shows), or meibion (fihi), along with which appear
likewise after numerals the forms meib, dyn, and all Welsh plural
adjectives, e.g. meirwon, along with rneiriv, from mario (mortuus)
= Gaedhelic marb, plural mairb (moirb). The -w consequently
takes exactly the same place here as in the German adjectives
and many feminines. 3. The endings -et, -ot, -ieit, -eit, and -ed, yd,
oed, which otherwise occur as derivatives, and in this respect have
been already compared above with the Gaedhelic -ad, -id, likewise

Images and transcriptions on this page, including medium image downloads, may be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence unless otherwise stated. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence