Sa, so, smo, and Southern Welsh

[peredur_glyn]

Having admittedly been away from Livejournal (at least, not posting) for about two months, and this without any particularly good reason, I return with a vaguely dull (to anyone who isn't gripped by Welsh linguistics) academic quandary. I'd be grateful if anybody who considers themselves either speakers of, or otherwise world experts on, a South

Comments

[dyddgu]

I always thought it was a contraction of the end of "does" (itself a contraction, of course) More obvious in "smo" does dim mo &c.

[peredur_glyn]

This what I surmise, but it doesn't work (from my pov) if you try and formulate something like:

*does mo fi 'n mynd

etc. But I don't know much about the 'mo' particle. Should check up on that, really.

Thnx.

[dyddgu]

Well, it doesn't, but I always thought it was just an extension of use, beyond the original logic of the thing, iyswim?

[dyddgu]

Oh, hold on, it can also be short for Basa, can it not? (as in baswn i &c)

[echoesreturn]

Wish i could help as a speaker of a SW dialect... but i don't think that i can. Until i read this, i'd never questioned 'Sa'i', but now i'm quite intrigued.

[peredur_glyn]

It is intriguing! What seems to be happening, IMO, in many dialects of SW is that the whole phrasal paradigm is being radically simplified. So e.g. fi cerdded adre is probably acceptable, with negatives formed with sa, e.g. sa (f)i cerdded adre. The yn is being lost in many positions, and there's no finite verb at all, and the subject holds initial position. This happens in some positions in NW, and I would expect it to spread to other parts of the grammar later. If, in 20 years time, there's a radical syntactic shift in Welsh, don't say I didn't warn you.

[echoesreturn]

only we'd say 'cerdded gatre' rather than adre' ... (i think)

[egg_shaped_fred]

As a native Welsh speaker (whose Welsh, I think, is probably far better than yours), I, of course, fully understand all these dilemmas and have a number of interesting and informative solutions I could offer you. But I'm not going to. S'there.

[peredur_glyn]

Still upset because the Germans beat you, then? (NB: the French did the same last week in a different game. In case you'd forgotten.)

[egg_shaped_fred]

We're luring them into a false sense of security...

[egg_shaped_fred]

Which, of course, is what Wales were doing to us a few weeks ago, no doubt.