strate neuters; and, sund, sīs, which demonstrate place and time; and fe in fe sin ipse, fade'sin is ipse, f'ade'sin'e plural, fa'ni sin nos ipsi.1 The interrogative pronouns are: ke, ki, kia, kid, ko, koix; ke is used in all genders; k-, prefixed to ē, sī, ed, distinguishes gender.2 The indefinite pronouns are: kax, kex quivis, nax aliquis, kextar uterque, nextar alter; 3 kax, when used absolutely as a noun, becomes kay. The Irish substantives ais, ois aetas, lin pars, lukt copia, kēle socius, soxuide multitudo, are often thought so lightly as to be equivalent to pronouns or pronominals; ais, lin, lukt, to, is qui, ii qui, kēle to alius, soxuide to nonnulli.* 115. The British personal pronouns are: 1 Singular: mi, me; Plural: ni; 2 ti, te; 3 em ef masculine neuter, hi feminine. Xwi, why; wynt, wy, i, masculine, feminine. They are strengthened either by being doubled or by taking -nneu, -teu. Zeuss supposes that in the old language they formed genitives mou, tou, ou, &c., and he instances ou.5 The roots of the personal pronouns are inserted in the verb to express the object, direct or indirect, in British as in Irish, but only between particles ending in vowels and the verb, not between the preposition and root of a compound verb. In the British manuscripts the infixed pronouns, with the particles to which they are subjoined, are written separate from the verb, and the possessives from their substantive which follows, while in the old Irish all are joined together." Only some of the British prepositions take up as suffixes the personal pronouns which they govern; and the only difference which distinguishes from each other the suffixes of the third person is that of gender. The Welsh dialect inserts between the preposition and the suffix certain letters or syllables, -n-, -hon-, -di-, -nad-, -dan-, &c., and corresponding elements were inserted in Cornish and Armoric. The suffixes of first person are, in singular, -f (= m), in plural, -m (Welsh), -n (Corn.), -mp (Arm.); of second singular, -t (Welsh, Arm.), -s (Corn.); of second plural, -x; of third singular masculine, -au (Welsh), -o (Corn.), -af (Arm.), -ei, i, feminine; of third plural, -unt (Welsh), -e (Corn.) The personal suffix also may be strengthened by subjoined elements. The possessive pronouns are, of first singular, my, vy (Welsh), ow (Corn.), ma (Arm.); of first plural, an (Welsh), agan (Corn.), hon (Arm.), a, aga, ho, being prefixed to the first plural n; of second singular, dy (Welsh), thy (Corn.), da (Arm.); of second plural, awx, yx (Welsh), agis (Corn.), hoz (Arm.); of third singular, y (Welsh), i (Corn.), e masculine, he feminine (Arm.); of third plural, eu (Welsh), aga (Corn.), ho (Arm.) And these may be strengthened by the pronoun, which corresponds to the possessive, following the noun.8 1 Zeuss, pp. 351-361, 372-374. 4 Ibid. pp. 370, 371. 7 Ibid. p. 383-368. 2 Ibid. pp. 361, 362. 3 Ibid. p. 366–369. • Ibid. p. 378. There are also in Welsh absolute possessives equivalent to the German der meinige deinige, &c. These are, meu first singular, teu second singular, which appear to have been originally genitives, viz., mou tou, ein first and second plural, eid third singular and plural; ein and eid seem to be nouns, for they take the possessives or the article before them, and after them the root of the pronoun suffixed as to a preposition; meu, teu also generally have the article.1 The roots of the possessives also are inserted between prepositions and substantives, generally written with the preposition and separate from the substantive.2 The separate relative is supplied in Welsh by a verbal particle; in Cornish and Armoric nep aliquis was used for a relative. The infixed relative is supplied in Welsh by a demonstrative, thus cum viro fuisti in domo ejus, for cujus. The British demonstratives are much less copious than the Irish. They may mostly be reduced to one root hunn (= hunt), Arm. hont, with various vowels and additions. In Welsh the demonstrative is hunn masculine, honn feminine, hynn neuter and plural. In Welsh the noun with the article precedes the demonstrative. The elements u, a, ma, man are added to express this, and akw in Welsh to express that. There is also in Welsh a demonstrative sef from isem.1 The interrogative pronouns are for persons, pui (Welsh), pu (Corn.), piu (Arm.); for things, pa, pi (Welsh), pe (Corn. and Arm.); pynnak (Welsh) = cunque; paup (Welsh), pub (Corn.), pep (Arm.) = quivis ; nep (Welsh and Arm.), neb (Corn.) = aliquis.5 The substantives re persona, dim res, sawl copia, kilid socius, are used like pronouns." The demonstrative hun hunan singular, hunein plural, is used, preceded by the possessive pronouns, to signify self.7 8 116. The primitive system of the Celtic verb is one and the same through all the dialects, which shows the great antiquity of its peculiar structure. It has three tenses called primary, namely, present, past, and future. The person endings of the present are attached to the stem of the verb; those of the past are generally preceded by s, which, however, is often omitted in the active voice, and always in the passive; those of the future are preceded by b or f. This s is evidently the same element as that which denotes the past in Sanskrit (27), Zend (56), Greek (70), and Latin (88); and the b or ƒ corresponds to the element of the future in the first and second conjugations in Latin and to Sanskrit bu. There are also three secondary tenses which have different person. endings from the primary, and which express a present, past, or future, in past time, or as object or condition of another fact, or as merely ideal. The secondary person endings by their reduced subjectivity express both affections, that of tense and that of mood, without distinguishing 1 Zeuss, p. 392. Ibid. p. 398-401. 7 Ibid. pp. 409, 410. VOL. II. 2 Ibid. p. 393. 3 Ibid. p. 397. M one from the other. There are also verbal prefixes which help the expression of tense and mood. There is no reflexive form of the verb, as there is no reflexive pronoun. The preposition im-, around, expresses the reflex in British, and once or twice in Irish.1 117. The prefixed particles are in Irish ro and no, in British ro. Sometimes in Irish do is found instead of ro, and mo instead of no.2 Both in Irish and British ro is used, compounded with substantives and adjectives, as an intensive prefix, and it signifies also completion. It seems to be akin to the Sanskit root ruh, to increase, come forth, be born, which has also a kindred root, tu, with similar meaning, and they both belong to the same ircle of roots and ideas from which most of the verbal elements have sprung (27, 86, 87). The other Irish particle seems to be of a pronominal nature, for no is the relative pronoun in Irish (114). And there are in British two pronominal particles, yd and a, used before the verb, of which Zeuss treats along with ro and no, though they do not correspond with either of these. 118. In Irish, ro-, which means completion, is used to help the expression of the past; as in Latin the perfect is used as an aorist, both languages tending to think the verb in its accomplishment. But ro- is sometimes omitted after particles which weaken the sense of verbal realisation, as the negative ni, and the preposition ō, from, used as a conjunction,5 and governing the verb as an object, so as to weaken its subjectivity. In this use ro- admits between itself and the verbal stem the infixed pronominal elements (114). Its vowel not only changes to a, u, ui, i, either of itself or by infection or assimilation, but is more frequently absorbed, as when the particle is followed by a verbal stem beginning with a vowel, or is preceded by another particle ending with a vowel, which takes up the r as a final consonant. 6 In Irish verbs, compounded with a single preposition, ro as the particle of the past intervenes between the preposition and the root; in verbs compounded with more than one preposition, it generally comes between the first preposition and the second, but sometimes follows the second. If the compound verb be affected with the interrogative prefix in or the negative nī, ro-, when it is used, follows these particles. In verbs compounded with one or more prepositions, the infixed pronominal elements are inserted before ro.7 8 But ro is used in Irish, not only in this sense of completion, but also prefixed to the third singular future of the verb substantive of the form bia, and after kon (ut) before a verb used in a subjunctive sense. In these uses it evidently expresses a sense of growth towards accomplishment, so as to strengthen the future or the aim and object of another verb.9 The particle no (sometimes nu) makes in Irish a present or future, which has the secondary person endings, to be relative to another verb as the object or condition of the latter, or relative to a past, so as to express an imperfect or a past future. It is used only with verbs which are not compounded nor preceded by another particle; for it is 1 Zeuss, pp. 412, 896. 7 Ibid. p. 415. 2 Ibid. p. 419. 3 Ibid. pp. 420, 833, 867. only the former that have sufficient unity to be taken into the correlation with another verb, and even they, if already affected with a relation, are not apt to be thought with sufficient unity to take this new relation, and if affected with no, are for the same reason not apt to take any other relation except the simple and most usual one, kon (ut).1 1 The infixed pronominal elements are taken in Irish after no as after ro, and sometimes no supplies the want of a preposition which would express the relation of the verb to the infixed pronoun, representing pronominally the verb as relative to the pronoun. latter use no may be preceded by a conjunction.2 In this 119. In the older British also ro (ry, re, ra) is used as in Irish, but in the later British it passed out of use.3 In the oldest Welsh ro occurs as the sign of the perfect. Afterwards ry denotes in Welsh not only the perfect and pluperfect, but also the future perfect and the perfect infinitive, being expressive of completion. It always adheres to the verb itself, and does not suffer a pronominal element to come between them. This particle, however, disappeared early, and then the only particles used with the verb were yd (y, ed, e) and a, which, being used with all the tenses, have nothing corresponding to them in Irish. 4 Yd, or (if followed by a consonant) y, precedes the verb when the verb begins the sentence, or when at least the verb precedes the subject, though certain adverbs and conjunctions may go before it; a precedes the verb if it follows subject or object.4 Yd is a demonstrative element pointing to the verb, and strengthening its assertion when it is in its natural place, according to Celtic syntax; a points to the verb as in relation with what has gone before when it is not in its natural place as thought absolutely, but follows another member with which it is thought as in relation; yd and a are both affirmative. Ny is the negative particle of the absolute sentence, na of the dependent sentence. Both yd and a admit after them the infixed pronominal elements, and these also may follow the primitive conjunctions, though yd and a cannot; yd and a are not used before the verb substantive when it is preceded by the predicate. These two particles are similarly used in Cornish and Armoric. They can scarcely be regarded as forming part of the structure of the verb, like ro and no. The verbal particle re is found in Old Cornish with the sense of the perfect; but it differs from the Welsh particle in admitting the infixed pronominal elements between itself and the verb.9 The particle ra in Old Armoric also admits after it the infixed pronouns; but it expresses not the perfect but rather the optative or future. 10 120. The personal inflection of the old Irish verb is given by Zeuss as follows, with the roots, kar love, gni do, ber bear, suidig 1 Zeuss, p. 417. 2 Ibid pp. 418, 419. 5 Ibid. p. 422. 8 Ibid. pp. 426, 427. 10 Ibid. p. 426. 3 Ibid. p. 420. 6 Ibid. p. 424. 9 Ibid. p. 425. Plural. Sing. put, each of which is a specimen of a series of verbs, the last with a deponent formation. The first series is the most numerous.1 The forms in parenthesis have not been found by Zeuss, but conjectured by him from analogy.2 The forms of the third singular without d are used when the verb, instead of being absolute and positive, taking the lead in the sentence, is construct or negative. In other persons too the vowel i subjoined to the root belongs properly to the absolute use of the verb, e or a to the dependent or negative use of it.3 After the person endings very frequently are added, both in the active and in the passive, the strengthening elements of pronouns, which are infixed; and often also in the active that of the person itself without regard to the infixed pronoun, if there be one.3 The first series differs from the others in having in the singular of the present a conjugational vowel subjoined to the root. This vowel is infected by the vowel of the person ending, and according as the latter is taken up by the former it is weakened and becomes superfluous in its original place. Thus the singular person endings mi, si, ti became m, 1 Zeuss, p. 430. 2 Ibid. p. 429. 8 * Ibid. p. 428. |