{"title":"‘Dark’ and ‘Clear’\n Y\n in Medieval Welsh Orthography: Caligula versus Teilo","authors":"P. Sims‐Williams","doi":"10.1111/1467-968X.12205","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"A famous exception to the ‘phonetic spelling system’ of Welsh is the use of <y> for both /ǝ/ and the retracted high vowel /ɨ(:)/. This double use of <y> was almost universally adopted by c. 1330, when a grammarian labelled /ǝ/ and /ɨ/ as ‘dark y’ and ‘clear y’ and illustrated them with polysyllables such as ystyr /ˈǝstɨr/ ‘meaning’, in which the value of <y> was predictable from the position of <y> in the word. At that time the three-way system of < i> for /i(:)/, ‘dark’ <y>, and ‘clear’ <y> was two centuries old, being first attested in Braint Teilo (‘The Privilege of St Teilo’), c. 1130. Yet the ‘Teilo’ system is rarely attested before c. 1300; instead all three phonemes might be represented by < i> , as commonly before 1100, or by <y>; or <e> might be used for /ǝ/ and/or for /ɨ(:)/, as had sometimes occurred in Old Welsh as well. This article argues that one reason, apart from scribal conservatism, for the delay in adopting the ‘Teilo’ system was its failure to distinguish the value of <y> in proclitics such y /ǝ/ ‘the’ and y /ɨ/ ‘his/her’ and ‘to’. For this the ultimately abortive ‘Caligula’ system (c. 1250) had offered a solution.","PeriodicalId":44794,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1111/1467-968X.12205","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-968X.12205","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
A famous exception to the ‘phonetic spelling system’ of Welsh is the use of for both /ǝ/ and the retracted high vowel /ɨ(:)/. This double use of was almost universally adopted by c. 1330, when a grammarian labelled /ǝ/ and /ɨ/ as ‘dark y’ and ‘clear y’ and illustrated them with polysyllables such as ystyr /ˈǝstɨr/ ‘meaning’, in which the value of was predictable from the position of in the word. At that time the three-way system of < i> for /i(:)/, ‘dark’ , and ‘clear’ was two centuries old, being first attested in Braint Teilo (‘The Privilege of St Teilo’), c. 1130. Yet the ‘Teilo’ system is rarely attested before c. 1300; instead all three phonemes might be represented by < i> , as commonly before 1100, or by ; or might be used for /ǝ/ and/or for /ɨ(:)/, as had sometimes occurred in Old Welsh as well. This article argues that one reason, apart from scribal conservatism, for the delay in adopting the ‘Teilo’ system was its failure to distinguish the value of in proclitics such y /ǝ/ ‘the’ and y /ɨ/ ‘his/her’ and ‘to’. For this the ultimately abortive ‘Caligula’ system (c. 1250) had offered a solution.
期刊介绍:
Transactions of the Philological Society continues the earlier Proceedings (1852-53), and is the oldest scholarly periodical devoted to the general study of language and languages that has an unbroken tradition. Transactions reflects a wide range of linguistic interest and contains articles on a diversity of topics: among those published in recent years have been papers on phonology, Romance linguistics, generative grammar, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, Indo-European philology and the history of English.