Welsh Phonology: Selected Readings

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Welsh Phonology : Selected Readings Ball, Martin J. University of Wales 0708308619 9780708308615 9780585253527 English Welsh language--Phonology. 1984 PB2128.W44 1984eb 491.6/615 Welsh language--Phonology.

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Welsh Phonology Selected Readings edited by Martin J. Ball and Glyn E. Jones

CARDIFF UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS 1984

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© University of Wales, 1984 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Welsh phonology. 1. Welsh language Phonology I. Ball, Martin J. II. Jones, Glyn E. 491.6'615 PB2128 ISBN 0-7083-0861-9 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press. Printed in Great Britain at The Pitman Press, Bath

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Foreword Students of the Welsh language, more than those of any of the other surviving Celtic languages, have suffered much from a lack of a good range of detailed textbooks on various aspects of the analysis of the language. This is all the more regrettable because so much good work has already been completed but still remains unpublished. The volume of readings now edited by Mr M. J. Ball and Mr Glyn E. Jones brings together a number of valuable contributions on Welsh phonology reflecting recent study of a wide range of topics in this field. Much of the strength of this exciting book derives from the fact that the editors have been able to include in it discussion of related subjects by scholars whose interests, training and approach vary a great deal. Critics may carp at the failure to pay more attention to some topics (e.g. processes of language change and language 'death', which are so imperfectly understood). But there is here a wealth of basic information and stimulating pioneer discussion of several aspects of the study of phonology. A good balance has been maintained between dataorientation and theory-orientation, between the more purely descriptive approach and concentration on the delicacy of language variation. It is well known that English-orientated linguistic analysis can be a blight on international linguistic research in general. These readings fortunately do not suffer from it. The work throughout reflects well the ferment that is clearly evident in the study of many aspects of the structure of the Welsh language today. It is heartening to find that so much good work is being done on the language in so many centres of learning. Several of the contributors to this volume bemoan what one of them describes as 'quite serious gaps in the available information'. I sincerely hope that this book of readings will encourage other workers to fill many of those gaps and will help to inspire gifted linguists to produce detailed and thorough-going studies of a number of neglected aspects of the structure of Welsh. Too many people fail to understand that linguistic analysis, properly controlled, is a supremely humane discipline. We are deeply grateful to the scholars

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who have written in this volume for their ready submission to that fine discipline. D. ELLIS EVANS JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD

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Preface The growing interest in Welsh linguistic studies has manifested itself in recent years in the increasing number of published papers that have appeared and in the research work being undertaken in the field (see Awbery 1981b, 1982). The last decade has also seen the publication of books on the syntax of Welsh. However, there has been no volume devoted to the phonology of Welsh. Those discussions and studies relating to Welsh phonology that have appeared are not readily available, being scattered in published and unpublished sources, the latter being usually dissertations for higher degrees. Whilst this general lack of ready availability of the materials is a hindrance to Welsh linguists, it is a severe handicap to students of Welsh linguistics. For linguists at large and for students of linguistics in general, it has meant only very limited access to information on the phonology of Welsh. This book was conceived of and arose out of the need to fill this void: it seeks to make available a selection of studies falling within the field of Welsh phonology conveniently collected together. All the contributions except one have been specially written for this volume. Whilst the subject matter will be of interest to students of Welsh linguistics in particular, it will also be of interest to a wider audience of linguists interested in the Celtic languages. No such comprehensive collection of studies in the phonology of any other Celtic language is available. It is with this wider public in view, some of whom may be unfamiliar with the language and with details of its status, and to whom the apparent concentration on 'localized' varieties of the language (arising simply from the lack of a codified standard spoken variety) may seem obsessive, a chapter has been appended surveying briefly the development of Welsh as a literary, standard and official language. The general principles underlying this collection of readings then, have been to make available basic information and details about the phonology of Welsh and also to reflect, in part at least, the nature and scope of the research undertaken on Welsh phonology. To this end the

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studies fall into two parts: those discussions which are broadly descriptive, examining various aspects of the phonology of Welsh phonetic details, segmental phonemes, phonotactic constraints, vowel alternations and intonation; and those discussions whose central concern is variation. Two views of variation are represented that of the traditional dialectologist and that of the sociolinguist. The former, concerned with the geographical distribution of variation, and specifically in these readings, with the correlation of dialect features and earlier administrative boundaries; the latter, concerned with the covariance of linguistic variation and independent variables such as age, sex, education, acculturation and language use. Many other topics of relevance to Welsh, such as bilingualism, minority language status, linguistic interference and language death, whilst not directly dealt with in these readings are nevertheless discussed in certain of these contributions. We acknowledge our thanks to our fellow contributors. Each contribution reflects its individual author's own views exclusively; editorial briefing and emendation has been restricted to essentials. Our thanks to the Director of the University of Wales Press for his unfailing courtesy and guidance and to Mrs Marian Garside, secretary at the Welsh Language Research Unit, University College, Cardiff, for her perseverance, patience and assistance. M. J. BALL G. E. JONES

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Contents Foreword

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Preface

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The Contributors

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Introduction

1

Phonetics for Phonology Martin J. Ball

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The Distinctive Vowels and Consonants of Welsh Glyn E. Jones

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Phonotactic Constraints in Welsh Gwenllian M. Awbery

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A Lowering Rule for Vowels and Its Ramifications, in a Dialect of North Welsh Alan R. Thomas

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Intonation and the Discourse Martin Rhys

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Welsh Phonology in Acquisition Wynford Bellin

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The Correlation of Dialect and Administrative Boundaries in Welsh: A Review 176 David A. Thorne

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Page x Linguistic and Non-linguistic Boundaries in North-east Wales Beth Thomas

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Variation in South Glamorgan Consonant Mutation Peter Wynn Thomas

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Change and Variation in the Welsh of Gaiman, Chubut Robert O. Jones

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Welsh as a Literary, Standard, and Official Language Glanville Price

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References

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Index

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The Contributors GWENLLIAN M. AWBERY, Department of Dialects, Welsh Folk Museum, St. Fagans, Cardiff. MARTIN J. BALL, School of Speech Therapy, South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, Cardiff. WYNFORD BELLIN, Department of Psychology, University of Reading. GLYN E. JONES, Welsh Language Research Unit, University College, Cardiff. ROBERT O. JONES, Department of Welsh, University College, Swansea. GLANVILLE PRICE, Professor, Department of Romance Languages, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. MARTIN RHYS, Ysgol y Strade, Llanelli. ALAN R. THOMAS, Department of Linguistics, University College of North Wales, Bangor. BETH THOMAS, Department of Dialects, Welsh Folk Museum, St. Fagans, Cardiff. PETER WYNN THOMAS, Welsh Language Research Unit, University College, Cardiff. DAVID A. THORNE, Department of Welsh, St David's University College, Lampeter.

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Introduction The readings in this book deal with the phonology of Welsh, the most vigorous of the Celtic languages today, and have been written by specialists in the various fields. Each author has included copious references to both published and unpublished material, thereby facilitating further research on behalf of the reader wishing to explore any of the topics more fully. Centring on Welsh exclusively and confined to the matter of its phonology, discussion of theoretical issues relating to phonology in general do not figure prominently in the contributions. However, various theoretical models of phonology are represented (the classical and the generative) and instances where the data has implications for theoretical questions are discussed, for example, in the first, fourth and sixth readings. It would be generally accepted that any phonological account from whatever theoretical standpoint relies to some extent upon phonetic data. The first reading in this collection therefore is concerned with phonetic studies into Welsh where these studies have direct relevance to phonological description. The author describes various instrumental phonetic studies (both previously published and some undertaken especially for this book) which will help determine phonological descriptions of vowel length, the nasal mutation and voicing distinctions in plosives and fricatives. A distinctive feature analysis of the vowel system, based on phonetic evidence, is also discussed. The second contribution is concerned with a description of the unit phonemes of Welsh. The phonemic system pure vowels, consonants and diphthongs is described in detail and reference is made to the major accent differences between North Welsh and South Welsh. The phonetic characteristics of the main consonant and vowel groupings are investigated, and the articulation of each segment is described. An account is given of allophonic variation and general distributional features. The third reading is directly complementary to the previous one,

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providing as it does information on structure. This account of phonotactic constraints in Welsh does not argue a particular theoretical framework, but rather gives a thorough account of syllable and word structure, concentrating particularly on the important differences of structure between accents. As well as the phonotactics of consonants and consonant clusters, the problem of vowel length is discussed in detail. The fourth author deals with vowel alternation in Welsh phonology, treating it from the theoretical standpoint of generative phonology. Vowel alternation is an important aspect of the phonology of Welsh, and the adoption of this framework provides an economical and insightful solution to the problem of how to characterize the process. Reading 5 in many respects closes the purely descriptive part of the book, with a description of the intonation patterns of Welsh. Viewed particularly within the field of discourse, the author presents an exhaustive account of the intonation of a south Welsh accent. The sixth reading can be seen as having a bridging function within the book, sharing aspects of the descriptive first part and the variation-orientated second part. The author is concerned with an account of how Welsh phonology is acquired by children learning the language as a mother tongue, and a description of various phonological processes is given. He is also concerned, however, with the effects the bilingual situation may have, and considers whether Welsh phonology in acquisition follows the patterns of the phonologies of other languages. He concludes his contribution with an investigation into aspects of the acquisition of consonant mutations. The seventh and eighth readings are both concerned with the description of dialect boundaries, falling therefore into the area of language variation. In the seventh the author reviews the literature concerning correlations between linguistic boundaries and medieval administrative boundaries. Due to the restricted nature of this research the areas concerned are confined to the south and west of Wales. The eighth presents an investigation into an area of north-east Wales, and a broader set of possible correlations is considered. The linguistic boundary in question is investigated in terms of various administrative units, geographical features, patterns of local trade and concepts of local loyalty. The next two readings both come within a sociolinguistic tradition reflecting the rapid growth in this field in recent times. The ninth investigates the use of consonant mutations in Glamorgan speakers through the use of archived tape material. The author is concerned with correlating this usage both with linguistic and non-linguistic factors. To

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achieve this aim the speakers are divided into groups according to their access to standard forms of the language, and their actual frequency of use of Welsh. The results show that these two factors are important in the realization of this set of linguistic variables. The tenth is also concerned with the correlation of linguistic and non-linguistic variables, in this case in the Welsh of Patagonia. The social and political background to the area is discussed, and particular attention paid to the bilingual situation with its resultant pressures on the language. The grouping of informants into the categories of age and status group (social background and cultural orientation) is described, and the use of a set of phonological variables is investigated in relation to these groups and to stylistic factors. Although there are a number of topics that we have not been able to include, we hope that this collection of readings will provide a useful introduction to the phonology of Welsh and show the range of interests in that field which have attracted Welsh linguists.

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Phonetics for Phonology Martin J. Ball Introduction How close a connection there should be between phonetics and phonology is a much debated point. Phoneticians are often unhappy about the degree of abstractness they see in some phonological analyses, or by statements that are not backed by phonetic experimentation or evidence. Phonologists on the other hand, may become impatient with what they might see as quibbling over minutiae when they can see the underlying patterns of a process. To some extent these views can be seen reflected in the 'how abstract/how concrete is phonology' debate of the late sixties and early seventies, even though this was basically an argument between phonologists as to how far it was permissable to go in setting up abstract underlying forms. To a phonetician of course this debate was always interesting. For example, many phoneticians would find it completely unjustifiable to set up an underlying segment // for English (Chomsky and Halle, 1968), as on a phonetic level the language (in most accents anyway) completely lacks any front rounded vowels. However, for Chomsky and Halle this was a useful device as part of a phonological description of English. There has always seemed to be less argument between phoneticians and phonemicists regarding the approach of classical phonemics, perhaps because in its earliest days the system was the product of the work of phoneticians. However, even this comparatively 'concrete' phonological system can call a phoneme such as word initial /b/ in Welsh a 'voiced bilabial plosive' when voicing is almost entirely lacking, or a variety of word final English /p/ a 'voiceless bilabial plosive' when plosion is entirely lacking. Different approaches to phonology in the context of the sound pattern of the Welsh language are to be found in this book, but it is not part of the author's intention in this chapter to compare or evaluate them. The topic has been introduced however in order to claim that whatever

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phonological theory is embraced, phonetics (and in particular experimental phonetics) does have a role to play in providing data for the phonologist to work on. Phonetic experimentation can test analyses already proposed, and trigger off new ones however abstract these analyses may be. To return to our opening point: there is a connection between phonetics and phonology, even if there is no agreement on precisely how close this connection should be. To illustrate this it would be especially useful to have collected together an account of various experiments of a phonetic nature which throw light on areas of phonological interest. It is the purpose of this chapter to provide such an account in the context of the Welsh language. Little work has been done of an experimental phonetic nature concerning Welsh. However some of it is of importance as regards phonology, although unfortunately much of this has not been readily available. Therefore it is intended to review some of these papers briefly, paying particular attention to the phonological relevance of their conclusions, as well as to describe some new experiments undertaken by the author. The Nasal Mutation In an experimental study published in the 'Phonetics Department Report 4' of the University of Leeds, Celia Scully conducted a study of the nasal mutations of Welsh. The main impetus to this study was the wish to obtain phonetic detail of this process which would help decide on a choice of alternative phonological descriptions. The problem involved the need to provide an economical phonological rule which can account for the nasal mutation the process whereby initial /b, d, g/ are converted to /m, n, / respectively (a change only in the feature of nasality); and initial /p, t, k/ are changed to (a change involving nasality and voicing, and the addition of /h/). Quoting Awbery (1973), she notes that from a phonological viewpoint, the most economical description of the nasal mutation considers it as a change in a single phonological feature only. Accepting this as desirable from the point of view of a phonological account, the author feels it is 'worthwhile to examine the articulation of the realisations of these phonological mutations in order to ask [two] . . . questions' (Scully, 1973, 57). The first of these questions involves investigating whether a single nasality feature is employed throughout this mutation in terms of a rule:

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The extra 'phonetic' characteristics of the voicing and addition of /h/ (involved when /p, t, k/ are subject to the mutation process) 'being produced automatically as a result of articulatory constraints' (Scully, 1973, 57). The second question poses an alternative strategy. If it is assumed that it is not possible to invoke a single feature to account for the mutation process, 'to what extent do articulatory and perceptual constraints determine the form taken by the two sets of consonants when they undergo the nasal mutation?' (Scully, 1973, 57). The experimental procedure followed was to design a set of relevant utterances, and to have the informant speak the utterances into an electro-aerometer. The utterances were designed to provide examples of unmutated nouns (six examples, starting with /p, b, t, d, k, g/ respectively); The nouns were placed in similar and the same nouns subject to the nasal mutation (therefore realised as phonetic environments. The aerometer equipment recorded the volume velocities of air flow through the speaker's mouth and nose, both ingressive and eggressive. Also recorded was the pressure drop across an alveolar or bilabial constriction. Traces from these sources were obtained on a U-V recorder, though uncalibrated. A duplex oscillogram was also obtained as a trace from a larynx microphone, showing both wave shape and the intensity of high frequency sound energy. Spectrograms were made from the mask microphone recordings, and checked later against spectrograms separately recorded when the subject was not wearing the face mask. The author points out the necessary limitations that must be placed on dicussion of the results presented due to the small number of tokens involved in the experiment, but feels that certain observable trends are present. She first examines the question noted above of 'whether a single ''nasality" feature of articulation can account both for the nasal mutation dn and for the nasal mutation tnh' (Scully, 1973, 64), and similarly for the other sounds in the series. Extrapolating from the data she presents a series of four diagrams showing the relationship between articulator movement, soft palate movement and voicing. Discussing these relationships the author states that 'd and n can be distinguished by only one articulatory action; in n the velum is lowered at about the same time as the tongue tip is raised towards the alveolar ridge' (Scully, 1973, 69). It is also noted that the tongue tip is lowered

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again before the completion of velum raising, with the result that the following vowel will be nasalized to some degree. The feature of voicing however does not significantly differ between d and n. In looking at the data concerning t and nh however, a more complex picture emerges. For t 'it seems likely that a deliberate extension of the closure phase may need to be made in order to ensure that the vocal folds have time to open before the oral release is made' (Scully, 1973, 69). Looking at nh it seems that the velum is lowered with the same timing relative to the oral closure as is n; and in this sense the same feature of 'nasality' does seem to be used when a nasal mutation applies to d or t. However, when the feature of voicing is looked at 'it is clear . . . that a definite change is made in the timing of the vocal fold articulation.' Opening of the vocal folds for t begins at the same time as the start of oral closure; but in nh the abduction of the vocal folds 'is delayed by about 40 ms with respect to the oral closure . . . ' This results in a 'clearly nasal, occlusive segment occupying about 60 ms . . . followed by a clearly aspirated segment, the first part of which is nasalized' (Scully, 1973, 69). These conclusions when applied to the first of the questions mentioned above tend to show that nh 'is not merely the automatic result of applying to t the same features of nasality as those applied to d in order to effect the nasal mutation to n' (Scully, 1973, 70). In looking at the second of the two questions, the author examines the various articulatory and perceptual constraints which may account for the particular forms used by the informant as the nasal mutation reflexes of p, t and k. In terms of articulation, the simplest reflex of t would be (n)nh. However, if it were not possible to keep oral pressure low, there would be the danger of a plosive burst being perceived at the oral release, i.e. The realization adopted by the informant, i.e. tnh 'enhances the perceptual clarity of the nasality while retaining aspiration' seems to be used by some speakers, but 'demands adjustments in the (Scully 1973, 70). An alternative realization articulation besides the addition of velum lowering' (Scully, 1973, 70). The author believes that the questions posed in her introduction have been to some extent answered in the discussion resulting from the experimental procedures undertaken; and from this phonetic information the phonological descriptions of the nasal mutation may be more closely related to their phonetic descriptions.

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Vowel Length G. E. Jones (1971, 1972) conducted a pair of experimental studies into vowel length in Welsh, to investigate the effect of syllable structure on this feature. House and Fairbanks (1953), Peterson and Lehiste (1960), and other studies in English have shown vowel length to be dependent on the structure of the syllable in particular as to whether it is an open syllable; closed with a fortis consonant; or closed with a lenis consonant. Whereas, from the standpoint of a description of the vocalic segments, this is a low-level allophonic property of the vowels, and thereby not necessary as part of a phonological statement; nevertheless it is important on a phonological level in terms of the descriptions of the consonant segments following. For in English, final fortis and lenis pairs of consonants are often distinguished solely by the length of the preceding vowel. Phonologically, the situation is somewhat different in Welsh. Here, apart from anomalies created by loan words, it is generally the case that the particular vowel phoneme of a stressed syllable predetermines which member of any fortislenis pair of plosives will follow. Conversely, it can be stated that whichever choice is made between fortis and lenis plosives for the final consonant in a stressed syllable, this choice will determine which of two sets of possible vowels will appear before the plosive. (See Awbery's contribution, this volume.) This obviously restricts the effect of allophonic vowel length differences as perceptual cues. Moreover, in the case of fricatives (where the above mentioned restrictions on plosives are not applicable; and where in English the effect of preceding vowel length is perhaps most important as a perceptual cue) there are only two fortis lenis pairs found in final position, and the lenis member of one pair is regularly deleted in the speech of many accents. 1 At this point the concept of vowel length in Welsh should be clarified, as the term can have two distinct applications. On the phonological level, many analysts divide the vowel system into two sets of monophthongs: the long vowels and the short vowels. However it is true to say that in many dialects there is also a qualitative difference between the two sets. It is therefore (as in English) up to the phonologist to argue for the supremacy of one of these two distinctions. In terms of symbolization then, the two sets can be represented as either: in terms of length; or: [i, i, e, , o, u] ~

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Length however, as investigated below, also plays a part on an allophonic level. Whatever its phonological length/quality, a vowel can differ significantly in length as an allophonic property dependant on the following consonant. To see how these two levels interconnect we will look at an example. In monosyllables final lenis plosives are always preceded by phonologically long (or tense) vowels. However, final fortis fricatives are also preceded by phonologically long vowels. Therefore it is possible to examine these vocalic phonological units to determine whether or not there are significant allophonic differences in length dependant on syllable structure. Therefore, it was decided by Jones to investigate this area in Welsh, to see whether differences existed, and if so to examine their nature. The investigations were published as two separate papers as noted above, but experimental design and method were the same. There were five subjects none totally linguistically naive one each from Y Bala, Caerfyrddin, Llangennech, Nantgarw and Llannerch-y-medd. The first study was an investigation of those vowels phonologically classed as long or tense: [i, i, e, , o, u]. The tokens chosen to illustrate these vowels were all accented monosyllables, and were divided into three groups: open syllables, syllables closed with a fortis consonant, and syllables closed with a lenis consonant. There were 18 tokens for each vowel, equally divided between these groups. Subjects were instructed to read each group with a normal list reading intonation, though the final item of each group was omitted from analysis due to its carrying a list final fall in intonation. The subjects were all . Each item was then subject to spectrographic analysis, and the recorded on a Revox A77 stereo tape recorder, recording at length of the vocalic segment was measured in milliseconds. The average results for all examples for the five subjects is shown in Table 1: Table 1 Vowel length in phonologically long vowels Open syll. Closed by lenis C Closed by fortis C Y Bala 314 276 229 Caerfyrddin 341 272 223 Llangennech 308 269 205 Nantgarw 315 268 215 Llannerch 274 249 224 These results show that for each speaker there is a marked difference in vowel length that depends on syllabic environment. Vowels are

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longest in open syllables, shorter before lenis consonants, and shortest of all before fortis consonants. The second paper deals with the vowels which are phonologically termed short or lax. These vowels are symbolized by Jones as although it is pointed out that variant pronunciations exist between northern and southern forms, necessitating two and [I]/[i]. For this experiment, due to phonotactic constraints ruling out short vowels in open 'hybrid' groups, namely syllables, the tokens were all accented monosyllables closed by a consonant: divided into two groups depending upon whether the final consonant was fortis or lenis. Each group contained seven tokens, the groups again being read with a list intonation, the final token again being omitted from analysis. The same method of recording and analysis was followed, and the same five subjects were used. The results again show that the average length of the vowels for each speaker varies according to the syllable structure. It is pointed out that it is the average figure that shows the difference in each case, for there are instances of 'overlap' in individual scores. 2 Some discussion then ensues into the discrepancy that the results show between the two groups of vowels which vary from the and [I]/[i]. The results of the two northern speakers (who would use the second sound in both cases dialect standpoint: two of the above) are as expected; but the southern speakers' results differ in the first of the two groups. In the group southern speakers have the reverse of what is expected: i.e. the vowel is longer before a fortis consonant than a lenis; and for the other subject the results are very close. However, in the other group, [I]/[i] (where of course the southern speakers use the same vowel, [I], as in the previous group), the results follow the expected pattern. Jones points out that the [I]/[i] group of words (both in this study and in the language in general) when followed by a fortis consonant are loanwords from English, and that the final consonant is most likely to be a plosive. On the other hand, in the group the words are generally not loan words, and in this study the tokens chosen tended to end in a fortis fricative rather than a plosive. Phonetic reasons are then proposed to account for the discrepancies in the southern speakers' treatment of the two [I] groups. It is pointed out that a vowel is longer if followed by a fricative than a plosive, due to the need for a greater degree of preparation by the vocal organs to produce a plosive, which impinges on the vocalic segment (viz. Delattre, 1962). This explanation would then account for the differences noted above.

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In Table 2 below is given the average length of the short vowels, measured in ms., for each subject for tokens followed by lenis or fortis consonants. TABLE 2 Vowel length in phonologically short vowels Closed by lenis C Closed by fortis C Y Bala 145 123 Caerfyrddin 132 104 Llangennech 135 114 Nantgarw 134 122 Llannerch 125 104 The results again show that on average the vowel is longer if followed by a lenis consonant, than if followed by a fortis one. These results should lead us to discuss the reasons for such vowel length differences. As mentioned above, they often play a major role in English as a perceptual cue to aid the discrimination of final fortislenis consonant pairs. However in Welsh, this feature is unlikely to be the only one available to aid discrimination in similar cases, because the quality or phonological length of the vowel often also gives information as to the following consonants, as noted previously. Of course, this does not necessarily rule out its function as one of a set of perceptual cues for consonant identification. It can be argued that even in the case of English, there are usually more cues to aid in the identification of the final consonant than simply allophonic vowel length. For example, in final stops, the fortis stop will often have glottal reinforcement, or be unreleased, or even released with slight aspiration. In the case of final fricatives, there can be some degree of voicing in the lenis example. Therefore we could claim that in Welsh allophonic vowel length is just one of a series of perceptual cues aiding the perception of final consonants. On the other hand, it could be argued that the phenomenon of vowel length is a universal or quasi-universal phonetic feature, which by chance has become an important perceptual cue in the case of English. Lehiste (1970) refers to this point, and while noting that experimental evidence shows that in English vowel duration is an effective cue in the perception of voicing, she states 'I am not aware of experiments performed to establish the perceptual significance of the relationship between vowel length and the voicing of the following consonant in languages other than English' (Lehiste, 1970, 26). Further, referring to

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House (1961), she adds 'House concluded that the shortening of vowels before voiceless consonants is due to an articulatory activity arbitrarily imposed by the phonological system of English, and constitutes learned behavior in English rather than a phonetic universal' (Lehiste, 1970, 267). However, Hyman (1975), referring to Chen (1970) claims that there is a phonological universal which is 'that vowels are universally longer before voiced consonants than before voiceless obstruents' (Hyman, 1975, 172). Chen believes that this universal tendency has been phonologized in English by exaggerating the degree of lengthening. The sort of length differences found in the above study suggests that something similar may have happened in Welsh. Voicing in Stops and Fricatives This discussion suggests a need to investigate further the phonetic characteristics of fortislenis consonant pairs in Welsh to see what differences may be noted. 3 In a preliminary study in this direction, G. E. Jones (personal communication) investigated voice onset time in initial stops, the results showing that initial fortis stops were followed by a longer voice onset time than the corresponding lenis stops. The difference in the duration of the noise interval appeared to be a sufficient distinguishing feature. This study also looked at the initial clusters orthographically represented by 'sb', 'sg' and 'st', and suggested that in terms of voice onset time these clusters would best be represented by /sb/, /sg/ and /sd/. It was decided to follow up this study with an investigation of initial and final fortis and lenis stops and fricatives in Welsh, paying particular attention to voicing. A series of tokens was chosen which included the relevant stops and fricatives in initial and final position. As far as possible two tokens were chosen for each sound, and also where possible the fortis and lenis sounds were illustrated by minimal pairs, so that the analysis would concentrate only on the essential differences. Only one token each was used to illustrate initial /q/ and /ð/, due to the rarity of these sounds in initial position in non-mutated words. The tokens are listed in Appendix A I. The tokens were randomized, and one extra token was included at the beginning of the list, and one at the end which would remain unanalysed. The list as it was read is shown in Appendix A II. Five subject were used in the study one male (Subject A), and four female (subjects BE). All were in their early twenties, first language Welsh speakers from the area of the old county of Carmarthen. The

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subjects were instructed to read the list as naturally as possible, and at a normal speed. They were, however, especially requested to pronounce word-final /v/, which in colloquial speech is often omitted. The subjects were recorded on a Tandberg 5100 tape The tokens were then analysed on a Kay Sonagraph, and wide band spectrograms were made of each recorder at a speed of one. Each group of sounds will now be examined in turn, with particular attention being paid to the role of voicing. Initial Stops Traditionally initial stops have been distinguished in terms of place, and of the two features voiced/voiceless and fortis/lenis. However, recent work (Fant, 1960; Ladefoged, 1967, 41; quoted in Ladefoged, 1971, 96) has suggested that the feature fortis/lenis (at least in its traditional definition of greater versus lesser force of articulation) cannot be verified through experimental work. Even if the feature were validated, it would be redundant for the stop category, for as Ladefoged points out (1971, 18) no known language has stop categories that cannot be specified by the voiced/voiceless and aspirated/unaspirated features. These features are directly related to the state of the glottis (i) during the closure stages of the stop (voiced/voiceless); and (ii) during and immediately following the release of the stop (aspirated/unaspirated). It was Fant (1960) who first maintained that these features of the stops are predictable consequences of the timing of events at the glottis. With regard to aspiration he pointed out that one of the crucial factors was the state of the glottis immediately following the release of the stop, and the duration of the time taken for the onset of voice, during what is called the noise interval. If voice follows on immediately after the release of the stop (zero or very low voice onset time) there can be no emission of air which characterizes the aspirated stop because there is no air available once the glottis is closed. All the air that builds up in the oral cavity is expended in the plosion and frication which occurs at the instant of release of the stop. Therefore the noise interval of the unaspirated stop is of very short duration during which no emission of pulmonic air takes place. If however there is a delay before the onset of voice following the release of the stop, there is far more air available, for the glottis being open, pulmonic air flows freely through the oral cavities. The traditional name for this flow of pulmonic air is aspiration. Therefore the noise

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interval of the aspirated stop is of a relatively long duration during which an emission of pulmonic air takes place. In Fant's terms then, aspirated and non-aspirated stops are purely a matter of duration of the noise interval and open/closed glottis. It was therefore decided to investigate the two series of Welsh stops in initial position (/p, t, k/ vs /b, d, g/) to determine the voice onset time (VOT) for each stop, and see whether this were a sufficient distinguishing feature between the series. The following table gives the results for each token, measured in milliseconds. 4 In this and subsequent tables, where two figures are shown for each phoneme, these show the scores of the two separate tokens.

/p/ /t/

Table 3 VOT in initial stop consonants Subject A B C D E 60 65 40 60 50 70 80 65 70 60 70

85 90

/k/

100

80 100

100 /b/

20

45

30

15 10 33

40 50

50 15

90

10

30

97

5

40

20 30

140

20

30

110 110

15

30

40 40

95

15

82

75 110

80

15

15 /g/

60

15

20

65 55

90

20 /d/

80

30 32

30 20

Average 62

45

These results clearly show that the voice onset time is a sufficient distinguishing feature between these two series of stops in initial position. Indeed, the voicing feature appears redundant, with /p, t, k/ being voiceless aspirated, and /b, d, g/ generally voiceless and unaspirated (see Fig. 1). It should be noted that the duration of the noise interval (or aspiration) varies according to place of articulation; this has been noted in other studies (e.g. Lisker and Abramson, 1964; Davidsen-Neilsen, 1969; Glyn Jones, personal communication). As mentioned above, it was decided also to investigate voice onset time in initial fricative plus stop clusters (i.e. /sb/, /sd/ and /sg/).

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Orthographically these are represented by <sb>,<st> and <sg> respectively, as if there were some confusion as to which series the stop element belonged to. 5 However, the results in Table 4, and the examples shown in Fig. 1, show clearly that in terms of the aspiration feature the stop elements belongs to the so-called lenis or voiced set /b, d, g/. Table 4 VOT in initial fricative plus stop clusters Subject A B C D E Average /sb/ 20 15 10 10 15 12 10 10 10 10 10 /sd/ 20 20 20 20 15 15 15 20 25 25 20 /sg/ 29 25 40 25 25 30 30 30 30 25 25

Fig. 1 VOT in initial stops and clusters: spectrographic evidence Final Stops In this study of stops in word final position the relation between the duration of the holding or closed phase of the stop, and the cessation of voicing has been examined. While it is true that aspiration can occur in word-final stops, this was difficult to measure in terms of voice onset

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time, as these tokens were not embedded in natural speech, therefore there are unnatural gaps between them which would distort results. In Table 5 below, the first figure in each column is the length of time in milliseconds before the release of the stop that voicing ceased. The second figure is the duration of the holding stage of the stop. Representative spectrograms are reproduced in Fig. 2. Table 5 Voicing cessation and stop duration in word-final stops Subject A B C D E Average /p/ 180:150 230:185 200:195 235:180 190:180 192:166 170:165 200:140 160:140 185:160 170:160 /t/ 202:169 170:155 190:170 190:165 230:165 225:190 210:190 190:160 160:140 215:150 240:200 /k/ 206:179 190:180 195:180 250:240 195:165 230:200 175:155 190:150 200:195 255:175 180:150 /b/ 68:115 40:90 60:105 30:65 110:140 60:95 70:115 35:125 70:95 125:175 80:140 /d/ 36:73 15:75 25:80 45:50 50:70 30:65 20:90 45:100 50:60 35:75 45:60 /g/ 55:84 40:95 60:80 60:70 70:105 80:100 0:50 55:65 80:90 60:105 50:80

Fig. 2 Voicing cessation and stop duration in word final stops: spectrographic evidence

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These figures show that on average for the fortis stops voicing ceases 29 ms before the holding phase of the stop begins (which could mean a certain amount of pre-aspiration is present); and that for the lenis stops voicing ceases on average 38 ms after the holding stage begins, therefore lasting for about 58% of the holding phase. In terms of voicing then, the fortis stops are definitely voiceless; and the lenis ones tend to be voiced for just over half the holding stage, but in no cases does the voicing last until the release stage. This suggests that the additional perceptual cues of phonological vowel quality and allophonic vowel length might indeed be necessary for thorough discrimination between the two series of stops. Initial Fricatives In the analysis of these sounds the onset of voicing was measured in respect to the start of the frication. However the notion of aspiration cannot properly be utilised with fricatives due to the lack of the plosive burst which accompanies the release of a stop. It should be noted in any case that the onset of voicing in the case of the fortis fricatives was always immediately following the cessation of frication. In the table below the figures refer to the amount of voiceless frication that was measured from the onset of frication. In the case of the lenis fricatives the second figure refers to the length of the frication itself (in the fortis fricatives this amount was identical with the amount of voiceless frication).

/f/ /v/

Table 6 Voicing and frication in initial fricatives Subject A B C D E Average 200 170 130 170 240 156 140 145 110 125 130 58 120:120 50:120 75:75 40:50 50:60 60:60 70:100 40:40 35:60 40:60

/q/

160

70

70

180

140

124

/ð/

100:100

20:60

15:30

0:30

45:90

50

It can be seen from these figures that two alternative strategies are employed by speakers to differentiate between the two fricative series in word initial position. In both cases a major difference is seen in the length of the fricative element (on average 140 ms for the fortes; and

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68 ms for the lenes). In one strategy (viz. subjects A and C) this difference appears to be all that distinguishes the two series, for at least in terms of the voicing feature they are otherwise identical (i.e. voiceless). The second strategy (subjects B, D and E) uses an additional perceptual cue, and a small amount of voicing does occur in the fricative components of the lenes series (cf. examples in Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Voicing and frication in initial fricatives: spectrographic evidence It appears from these results that the differences between the two series are slight. The reasons for this are probably to be found in their distribution. The only fricatives with a fortis/lenis distinction in Welsh are /f, v, q, ð/, and all four are comparatively rare in initial position (especially /v, q, ð/) in unmutated forms. Therefore 'radical' (i.e. unmutated) minimal pairs are a rarity. Where the fricatives are found in initial position due to mutation, the information provided by the grammatical context which triggered the mutation will often help in the identification of the original form, and thereby the mutated reflex. Final Fricatives In this analysis the cessation of voicing (the left hand figure in each column in Table 7) was measured in relation to the beginning of the fricative component. The length of this component was also measured and is shown as the right hand figure in each column in the table below. In the table, minus values indicate voicing ceased before the onset of frication; plus values that it ceased after the frication began. Fig. 4, below, shows some of the original spectrograms. Again it should be noted that the fricative element is consistently longer in fortis fricatives than in lenis (on average 207 ms against

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/f/ /v/ /q/ /ð/

Table 7 Voicing and frication in final fricatives Subject A B C D E Average 20:180 30:140 0:200 35:240 0:190 12:209 0:240 20:170 0:220 10:280 0:230 +30:123 +20:110 +20:120 +5:140 +5:140 +30:100 +15:130 +120:120 +35:100 0:170 +20:100 11:205 0:200 10:160 5:200 35:180 15:170 0:250 15:235 0:215 25:200 0:240 +14:117 +30:120 0:130 +10:120 0:140 +5:130 +30:140 +15:80 +30:130 0:100 +20:80

Fig. 4 Voicing and frication in final fricatives: spectrographic evidence 120 ms); and that two strategies can be seen at work. In the first strategy (subjects A, C, and E) voicing ceases at or just before the onset of frication for the fortis fricatives, but continues for about 20 or 30 ms into the frication for the lenis ones. In the second strategy (subjects B and D) voicing ceases about 20 or 30 ms before the onset of the frication in the fortes, but may cease at the onset of the fricative element in the case of the lenes (see Fig. 4). Although not as restricted as in initial position, the distribution of these sounds may have a part to play here. Not many final oppositions in the nature of minimal pairs are to be found, and final /v/ is regularly omitted in colloquial speech in certain accents in any case, with final /ð/ also being omitted in certain accents. However, the added perceptual

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cue of allophonic vowel length must play an important part in the discrimination of word final fricatives when such a discrimination is needed. This series of analyses has shown that to discriminate between the fortis and lenis series of stops and fricatives, consideration has to be paid to their position in the word; to the features of voicing and aspiration; and to the effects of phonological vowel quality and allophonic vowel length. Phonological descriptions should therefore be based on this information rather than on the traditional notions of voicing alone, or voicing plus a force of articulation feature. The North Welsh Vowels Photographic Study An attempt to give an instrumentally based description of the vowels of Welsh can be found in Magne Oftedal's paper, 'A New Approach to North Welsh Vowels' in Lochlann, 1969. It should be noted however that the first parts of the paper are concerned with providing a traditional description of the vowel system; it is only when this fails to account for one particular group of phonemes to his satisfaction that he attempts to obtain more concrete evidence. He also undertakes a spectrographic analysis of the vowels in order to classify them according to the Jakobsonian distinctive feature framework. It is unnecessary to examine the descriptions of the vowel system in the traditional terminology which Oftedal undertook at the and ' beginning of the paper. However, it is interesting to look at his descriptions of what he calls 'the difficult phonemes and in the transcriptions used in this chapter.) 6 Of he notes, 'Visual observation without X(Oftedal, 1969, 247); ray equipment brings us hardly anywhere beyond the fact that the sound is normally unrounded: the crucial part of the tongue is too far back to be observed with the naked eye' (Oftedal, 1969, 247). , he states that they are 'almost invariably described as retracted high-front unrounded or as high central Turning to unrounded . . . ' (Oftedal, 1969, 247). None of the descriptions of other phoneticians that he quotes 'is consistent with any . . . I have only rarely noticed variants of that would even remotely resemble the variety I have heard of North Welsh sounds described by the authors I have quoted' (Oftedal, 1969, 2489). In going on to give his descriptions of standard with

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, Oftedal falls into the trap of (presumably) not having auditory reference points

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Page 22 those of the IPA system. He notes, 'The first time I heard the North Welsh sound, my impression was that it was higher and more fronted than cardinal /i/' (Oftedal, 1969, 249). He admits that according to the IPA principles this is impossible, 'which define cardinal /i/ as the closest possible front vowel,' but confusing articulatory and impressionistic criteria, he continues 'judging from the sample of cardinal /i/ given on the IPA gramophone record, there are vowels which at least sound as if they were produced with a still higher or more fronted tongue position' (Oftedal, 1969, 249). . For this he made a photographic It is at this point that Oftedal tries to collate more objective data to aid his descriptions of study of informants uttering all the long vowels in isolation. The first of these studies is to ascertain the degree of lip-rounding and mouth aperture, and his conclusions are as follows: (a) The only rounded vowels, with the usual concomitant lip protrusion, are the two back vowels (b) and are produced with a smaller mouth aperture than the mouth but without anything like rounding.

and

.

, with a certain amount of tightening at the corners of

(c) . . . the size and shape of the mouth aperture are not essential in distinguishing between the articulations of and . The essential difference is clearly the position and shape of the tongue . . . (Oftedal, 1969, 250)

,

Oftedal feels that, from his observations, all the vowels can be described 'by using the conventional two-dimensional system of high-mid-low and front-central-back . . . The only serious difficulty lies in describing the difference between /i/ and /i/, which are both high-front-unrounded' (Oftedal, 1969, 252). He believes that this difference must be found in a third dimension, making the valid comment that 'it is obvious that the vocal tract, like any other space, has three dimensions; but most of us have become accustomed to overlook the third dimension' (Oftedal, 1969, 252). What Oftedal is suggesting therefore, is that tongue height and position in traditional terms are identical in /i/ and /i/, and in /I/ and /I/; and that the difference between the two pairs is to be found elsewhere in the vocal tract. A further series of observations and photographs was taken to ascertain these differences. As regards mouth shape, Oftedal reiterates 'that /i/ is pronounced with a smaller mouth opening than /i/, and that there is a certain tightening at the corners of the mouth' (Oftedal, 1969, 252). He then goes on to describe his second set of observations and photographs. The subject uttered the vowels in isolation, and when asked 'to exaggerate the pronunciation of /i/, she

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thrust the tip of her tongue far out of her mouth. I could then observe that the upper surface of her tongue was not flattened as in the production of /i/, but rather U-shaped when viewed from the front . . . ' (Oftedal, 1969, 252). Oftedal claims he noted this with all his subjects from east Merioneth. However, he does not produce photographs of this exaggerated position due to subjects' reluctance. He summarizes his conclusions as follows: that /i/ and /i/ differ 'in a narrowing of the foremost part of the vocal tract in the production of /i/, brought about (a) by a decrease of the mouth opening in connection with a tightening of certain muscles at the corners of the mouth, and (b) by raising the lateral rims of the tongue so as to let air pass only through a median groove' (Oftedal, 1969, 253). He devises descriptions on this basis as 'high-front-unrounded-constricted' for /i/ /I/; and 'high-frontunrounded-unconstricted' for /i/ /I/. It is interesting that Oftedal's Anglesey informant has neither the grooved tongue nor constricted mouth. 'My impression is that he produced an equivalent constriction of the vocal tract by pressing the tip of the tongue hard against the back of the lower teeth, thus forcing the blade of the tongue closer to the upper alveoli' (Oftedal, 1969, 255). At this point it is necessary to criticize some of the techniques which have led to these conclusions. While photographic studies are useful for descriptions of lip shape or position, it is completely invalid to rely on such evidence for tongue position or shape. Also, it cannot be right to rely on external observation, or to draw conclusions about the normal state of the vocal tract from observations of an abnormally exaggerated state. Finally it should be noted that all these observations have been made on vowels uttered in isolation, and it cannot be ruled out that this can have had some effect on the results. It was therefore felt that evidence produced in these ways could not be accepted. Thus, although we can accept that there is a slight difference in mouth shape between /i/ and /i/ for Oftedal's subjects, other differences must be investigated freshly. The main claims made which need to be substantiated, are that tongue position in the traditional two dimensional terms is identical for /i/ /i/ and for /I/ /I/; and that tongue shape (flat versus grooved) is different for the two sets of vowels. It was felt that the only way to investigate these claims satisfactorily was through the use of X-rays. The final sections of Oftedal's paper provide a spectrographic study of the vowels, followed by an attempt to use the results to assign the vowels features from the Jakobsonian distinctive feature framework. His reasons for this are to provide further backing to his claims over the status of the /i/ /I/ phonemes. This particular study is discussed in

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comparison with another spectrographic study of the vowel system carried out by the author, and described below. X-Ray Studies An X-ray study which follows on directly from the work of Oftedal described above, and the criticisms of methodology that were noted was undertaken by the author. 7 The first of these which was carried out was primarily designed to look at tongue position to ascertain whether Oftedal was correct when he judged the tongue position of /i/ /I/ to be identical (or nearly so) with that of /i/ /I/. The experiment was carried out in the X-ray Department of the Caernarfon and Anglesey Hospital, Bangor in July 1976. The equipment used was a 70 mm X-ray camera with a firing rate of three frames a second. The subject (Subject A) was a male in his early twenties, a native of Bangor, north Wales, and a first language speaker of the Bangor dialect of Welsh. The subject's tongue was coated with 'Microtrast' barium sulphate paste to enable the tongue surface to be defined more clearly on the resultant film. Due to the dangers inherent in experiments of this nature a minimum number of tokens was chosen (see Appendix B I). These were chosen to provide information about tongue position for all the close vowels, in both their long and short forms. The tokens were chosen to begin with bilabial consonants in order to reduce the possibility of disturbing the coating of barium sulphate paste. The subject was asked to utter the tokens at a normal speed but to ensure that each token was uttered separately; and the tokens uttered consecutively. It should be noted that lateral views only were taken. Two points should be made about this procedure. Firstly in respect to Oftedal's observations, the subject used was not from the same area (Bangor, as opposed to east Merioneth), so differences could be a result of differing dialects. Secondly, the speed of the camera (one frame every 33.3 csecs) is not sufficient to make certain a picture of the vowel at precisely the moment the experimenter may wish. However, it was felt that enough data could be observed (especially about the long vowels) to be able to make tentative statements about the general position of the tongue in the vowels in question. The following diagrams shows tongue positions calculated in the above manner for the vowels named, taken from the X-ray film. The frames chosen were those showing the highest tongue position for each vowel.

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Fig. 5 Tongue positions for [i], [i] and [u] calculated from the cineradiographic film Bearing in mind the limits on accuracy noted above, this diagram shows that for the speech of Subject A, the position of the tongue in producing the vowel /i/ is midway between the positions of the tongue when producing /i/ and /u/. The tongue positions for the short vowels were not so easy to distinguish, but appeared to be similar to their long counterparts. In this particular case Oftedal's hypothesis that there is an identical tongue position for the vowels /i/ and /i/ cannot be supported. However, Oftedal's second hypothesis that there is a contrast between a flat and grooved tongue shape could not be investigated from this experiment. Therefore it was decided to design a second X-ray investigation to look at this point, and also to look at the other monophthongs in the North Welsh vowel system. A second X-ray study was undertaken when it became possible to use more suitable equipment. Like the first study this was also carried out in the X-ray Department of the Caernarfon and Anglesey Hospital, Bangor. The subject chosen for the experiments (Subject B) was a male, in his mid-twenties. He was a first-language Welsh speaker, born and brought up in Bangor, but living in Llandudno for the previous three years. Two investigations were carried out during the study. The technique employed in these investigations videofluorography has been described by Bladon and Nolan (1977) following Ridgway and Thumm (1968, 431). Briefly, the main division in X-ray filming techniques is between direct (radiography) where the X-ray image is recorded directly onto film; and indirect (fluorography) where the X-radiation falls onto a fluoroscopic screen. The screen converts X-radiation into light energy, which is proportional to the rate of absorption of X-rays at each place on the screen at a given moment. Therefore it is possible to see on the screen the X-ray image, and its changes in time. It is usual with this technique to use an image intensifier to produce a brighter image which can then be recorded. In our case the recording

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apparatus used was a Philips Diagnost 70 X-ray unit, recording onto 1'' IVC videotape at a rate of 25 frames a second. Bladon and Nolan (1977, 187) note several advantages inherent to this system: lower X-ray dosage rate allowing longer exposure; live monitoring; instant playback facilities; and easy control of brightness and contrast. However one major disadvantage should also be noted: the inability to isolate single frames from which to take drawings or measurements. Due to the way in which information is stored on video-tape (unlike cine-film) the equipment necessary to fix a single, unblurred image taken at one point in time was not then available. Therefore the recording of results from these investigations had to depend upon repeated viewings of the film, and the recording on paper of only the most important details. The first experiment was designed to look at the shape of the tongue; in other words investigating Oftedal's claim that in producing /i/ the tongue is grooved. Due to the difficulty of reading front views accurately because of the density of the bone mass around the mouth, it was decided to record the three vowels /i/, /i/ and /u/ in isolation, to get a clear view of the vowel unaffected by its environment. Admittedly this goes against the insistence elsewhere on examining the vowels in the environment of a word, at least; but this method does provide a direct comparison with Oftedal's. The tongue was coated with two narrow bands of 'Microtrast': one on the blade, the other at the tip, running across the width of the tongue enabling these areas to be clearly seen on playing back the video-tape. The method of analysis of the film for both this and the subsequent investigation, depended primarily on the continued viewing of the film. A sketch was prepared of the 'static' portion of the film (in this case, a front view of the vocal tract without the tongue shape), and the appropriate tongue shape filled in after repeated playbacks of each token. In this first investigation, the results showed that, although the front views were not as clear as the side views, it was possible to distinguish the differing tongue positions of the three vowels; however it was not possible to distinguish any significant difference in tongue shape. The flatness of the tongue appeared identical for all three vowels, and there was no evidence of grooving. The second experiment was designed to look again at the tokens examined in the earlier cineradiographic study using this more accurate equipment, especially to attempt to ascertain whether Oftedal was correct when he judged the tongue position of /i/ /I/ to be identical with that of /i/ /I/. The chance was also taken to look at tokens

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exemplifying the other vowels of the system (see Appendix B II). The tongue of Subject B was coated all over with the barium sulphate paste, and side views were taken. Subject B was instructed to utter the tokens consecutively, but to separate each token clearly. In this case, analysis of the film was undertaken by marking tongue position and pharynx width on a basic 'frame' of a crosssection of the vocal tract. The main interest was in plotting the positions of the long vowels, /i/, /i/ and /u/; however the positions of the other vowels were also noted. The film plainly showed the movement of the tongue in producing these tokens. The results reinforced the earlier experiment. The position of the tongue for /i/ is clearly further back than for /i/; a little in front of a half-way point between /i/ and /u/. Also is slightly further back than /i/ and lower still. It is recognized that the production of speech is a it is noticeably lower. dynamic process, the use of the terminology 'the position of the tongue' merely signifies the highest point observed through which the tongue travelled in the utterance in question. The width of the pharynx was commensurate with these tongue positions. For /i/ the pharynx was extremely wide; it was significantly narrower for /i/, and slightly narrower still for , when its width was about half-way between its greatest and smallest extent. For /u/ it was extremely narrow. A pictorial representation of the tongue positions of the close vowels is given in Fig. 6. The positions of /e/, / / and /o/ were also noted and can be seen in Fig. 7.

Fig. 6 Tongue positions for the close vowels calculated from the videofluorographic film

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Fig. 7 Tongue positions for the open vowels calculated from the videofluorographic film The positions of the short vowels were not recorded, but it could be seen that /I/ and /I/ were slightly lower and retracted from noticeably lower their long equivalents; slightly lower and fronted; /e/ noticeably lower, and slightly retracted from /e/; and slightly fronted from /o/. /a/ seemed virtually identical in position to / /. The results of this second investigation though not pretending to be an accurate measurement of the vocal tract and tongue positions, nevertheless do clearly demonstrate that for Subject B tongue shape is identical in terms of flatness for all three close vowels, and tongue position is markedly different. Oftedal's conclusions, drawn from his photographic evidence and direct observations, concerning the status of /i/ /I/, have not been borne out by the experimental investigations described above. That these conclusions could not be maintained could be due to at least two factors: (1) Oftedal's conclusions were erroneous due to inadequate experimental design; (2) the different conclusions reached in the above experiments are due to the selection of subjects from different dialect areas; for Oftedal states that his Anglesey informant did not produce grooving, and his east Merioneth informants came from an area quite near the boundary with dialect areas totally lacking /i/ /I/.

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Spectrographic Studies As mentioned above, Oftedal also undertook a spectrographic analysis of the North Welsh vowel system. He obtained taperecordings of his informants pronouncing the long stressed vowels 'one by one in isolation . . . The short stressed vowels were obtained by having [the subject] pronounce each vowel followed by /t/' (Oftedal, 1969, 255). Spectrograms were made from these recordings, and the first and second formants of the vowels were located. The following table gives the results for the long vowels of two informants: Table 8 Vowel formant values: Oftedal Merioneth Anglesey F1 F2 F1 F2 Long (in isolation) 200 2300 180 2100 200

1900

180

1900

250

780

190

500

300

2050

300

2000

400

1100

400

1050

370

675

330

600

900

1350

700

1250

250

2250

220

2100

250

1800

200

1850

300

800

200

650

600

2000

400

1850

350

1100

350

1300

600

900

400

800

800

1200

720

1250

Short (before /t/) i i u e

o a (Oftedal, 1969, 259) The data from the two subjects are then arranged on two separate formant charts (viz. Oftedal, 1969, 2612; Joos, 1948, 50ff.). The main reason for this is to reinforce his claim to the similarity of /i/ /I/ to /i/ /I/; and the need to 'look elsewhere for a good acoustic explanation of the distinction /i/ /i/' (Oftedal, 1969, 263). He states, 'As far as our data can be trusted, and accepting Joos's theory that the logarithmic representation corresponds to a reality in the perception of vowel colour, [i] and [i], whether long or short, come so close together, in all the samples, that it would be impossible (or nearly so), to distinguish

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between them consistently if they were differentiated articulatorily only by their relative positions in a two dimensional plane' (Oftedal, 1969, 2623). This argument would perhaps be valid if the formant chart were designed to show articulatory differences (though it does bear a relation to these); but if it is connected with perception of vowel colour then Oftedal is implying that the difference in vowel colour between the front pair /i/ /I/ and the central pair /i/ /I/ is minimal. This is not the experience of most observers with speakers from the north of Gwynedd; though Oftedal admits he sometimes found difficulty in distinguishing between them in speakers from south Gwynedd (i.e. east Merioneth). The author decided to undertake a further spectrographic study to compare results with those of Oftedal. Oftedal himself admitted that his data collection technique was open to criticism, so in the fresh study tokens were embedded in sentences, and several recordings of each sentence were made to overcome any initial nervousness or overformality. Of the subjects recorded, the results in Table 9 below are from a male in his early twenties from Bangor. Wide band spectrograms (with the filter set at 300 Hz) were made from each token (see Appendix C for list of tokens used). The formants were measured in the same way as was done in Oftedal's study: 'each formant has a peak where it reaches its maximum intensity, and is best determined by locating this peak as exactly as possible' (Oftedal, 1969, 260). Table 9 Vowel formant values: Author (subject C) F1 F2 i 250 1850 I 300 1700 400 1100 450 1100 e 550 1300 e 650 1200 800 1350 a 700 1000 o 450 750 500 800 u 250 850 350 950 500 1000

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(Another subject was recorded speaking a larger number of tokens 67 in all to test the effect of different phonetic environments on the formant structure of the vowels. These differences however did not appear to be significant.) Comparing Tables 8 and 9, it is noted that while figures for some of the vowels are quite similar in both tables, there is a and /i/) in Table 8. noticeable difference between the formant values for /i/ and /I/ in Table 9, and the corresponding values ( Therefore if phonological analyses of the vowels are set up using spectrographic data, it seems likely differing proposals will result depending on which set of data is used. Using the data he obtained from his spectrographic study, Oftedal attempted a phonological analysis of the North Welsh monophthongs in terms of the Jakobsonian distinctive feature system (Jakobson, Fant and Halle, 1952; Jakobson and Halle, 1956). However, he does not give a complete specification of each vowel in terms of the features; but rather assigns only those features which are not redundant, that is to say only those which serve to distinguish the vowels one from another. The result of his analysis can be seen in the diagram he devises: Table 10 Distinctive feature analysis: Oftedal Acute Grave Plain Flat Diffuse i i u o Non-diffuse Non-compact e Compact a (Oftedal, 1969, 267) Oftedal reaches this conclusion by looking at the three sets of oppositions: Diffuse/Compact; Acute/Grave; and Plain/Flat. The opposition Compact/Diffuse is described as follows: 'Compact phonemes are characterized by the relative predominance of one centrally located formant region (or formant). They are opposed to diffuse phonemes in which one or more non-central formants or formant regions predominate . . . open vowels are the most compact, while close vowels are the most diffuse' (Jakobson et al., 1952, 27). Under these criteria, Oftedal classes /i/, /i/ and /u/ as [+diffuse]; and /e/ , / / and

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/o/ as [diffuse, compact]; and /a/ as [+compact]. With this first stage of his analysis the author's data agrees. (N.B. differences of vowel length will be disregarded in this phonological analysis, and symbols within slant brackets will be deemed to cover both long and short varieties.) Next he examines Grave/Acute. In Jakobson et al. (1952) this opposition is characterized as follows: 'Acoustically this feature means the predominance of one side of the significant part of the spectrum over the other. When the lower side of the spectrum predominates, the phoneme is labelled grave; when the upper side predominates, we term the phoneme acute . . . Gravity . . . characterizes . . . back vowels with a retraction of the tongue vs. front vowels with advanced tongue' (Jackobson et al., 1952, 2930). Oftedal feels 'It is evident that /u/ and /o/ must be grave according to this definition, and /i/, /i/ and /e/ acute. But where should /a/ and / / be placed in this dichotomy? The theory admits only one binary opposition here, but both /a/ and / / are apparently intermediate between grave and acute' (Oftedal, 1969, 265). Oftedal's answer to this problem is to disregard / /, for as it is the only [+compact] vowel in the system, he feels it would be unnecessary to allocate it further, redundant, features, He notes the advice of Jakobson et al. (1952): 'When [the second formant] is closer to the first formant the phoneme is grave; when it is closer to the third and higher formants it is acute' (Jakobson et al., 1952, 30). According to this definition Oftedal's / / should be classed as [+grave], but he comments, 'this is somewhat difficult to accept, for two reasons: (1) / / sounds as if it were a good deal closer to /e/ than to /o/ . . . (2) If we cannot class / / with the acute vowels we shall have to face some rather troublesome complications in the concluding phase of our analysis' (Oftedal, 1969, 266). Therefore he looked again at the formant heights this time measured in semi-tones and finds now the situation is reversed, and he can label / / as [+acute]. This illustrates the problem inherent in this system of distinctive features (as well as others): the lack of a means of characterizing central vowels satisfactorily. We will return to this problem below. The following table shows the formant differences mentioned above as obtained from subject C in the author's data: Table 11 Differences F1F2 and F2F3 for subject C a i I 700 650 550 300 500 F1F2 1400 1100 800 1000 1100 F2F3

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From this data we can see that the criteria noted by Jakobson et al. (1952) concur with the specification it is wished to propose. The differences between F2F3 are greater than those between F1F2 for all the vowels noted, thus allowing them to be classified as [+grave]. In this stage, considerable differences occur between the author's analysis and that of Oftedal. The final opposition considered is Plain/Flat. This is defined as: 'Flattening is chiefly generated by a reduction of the lip orifice (rounding) with a concomitant increase in the length of the lip constriction.' Acoustically this is seen as follows: 'Flattening manifests itself by a downward shift of a set of formants in the spectrum' (Jakobson et al., 1952, 31). Oftedal also notes the definition in Jakobson and Halle (1956): 'The former (narrow slit) phonemes in contradistinction to the latter (wide slit) phonemes are produced with a decreased back or front orifice of the mouth resonator . . . ' (in Oftedal, 267). Oftedal believes that 'The concept of "narrowed slit" versus "wider slit" corresponds exactly to what I have called "constricted" and "unconstricted" above.' (Oftedal, 1969, 267). For this reason, and for what he sees as a noticeable lowering of the upper formants of /i/ and / / as compared to /i/ and /e/, he classes /i/ and / / as [+flat]. This classification is rejected for the author's data on two grounds. Firstly, the videofluorography described above failed to verify the 'constricted' 'unconstricted' hypothesis of Oftedal for /i/ vs. /i/. Secondly, although a lowering of the upper formants is noticeable for /i/ and / /, the feature [+flat] is almost always associated with lip-rounding (indeed Hyman, 1975, 36, gives 'rounded vowels' as the correlation of [+flat]), and these vowels are not usually considered rounded. Also, if /i/ and / / are labelled [+flat] in this analysis, there will be no differently valued feature to distinguish them from /u/ and /o/ respectively. Therefore it is possible to construct a diagram to portray the classification of the North Welsh monophthongs which can be compared with that of Oftedal (see Table 9 above). This diagram is shown below as Table 12. Table 12 Distinctive feature analysis: Author Acute Grave Plain Flat Diffuse i i u o Non-diffuse Non-compact e Compact

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The acute vowels are also [+plain]. This system transfers almost directly into the more recent system of distinctive features, as proposed by Chomsky and Halle (1968). The following table exemplifies the use of this system to describe the monophthongs of North Welsh according to the author's analysis: Table 13 Distinctive feature analysis (Chomsky and Halle system) 8 o u i i e high + + + low + back + + + + + round + + This diagram again highlights the absence of any way to express the phonetic distinction of 'central' in reference to /i/, / / and / /. The reason for this is phonological, for as Ladefoged points out, 'I cannot find any clear cut cases of three vowels within a language which contrast just by being front, central and back, with all other features remaining the same' (Ladefoged, 1971, 76). But we have seen the difficulty, when using the Jakobsonian features, of using acoustic descriptions of a fairly detailed nature to assign a label which in fact is mainly abstract. Ladefoged goes on . . . there are a number of cases such as that of Ngwe . . . where it is certainly convenient to postulate the existence of a category central, which is neither front nor back. There are also often phonological reasons for saying that in languages which have a five-vowel system, and in many of those with a sevenvowel system, the lowest vowel is neither front nor back, and is therefore presumably central' (Ladefoged, 1971, 77). Whether phonological reasons could be found in Welsh phonology to justify such a change is an area worth further study. If this were so. Wang's ideas on vowel height (see Wang, 1968, 701) could perhaps be adapted to provide the following description: Table 14 Proposed distinctive feature analysis o i i e high + + low + front + + back + round +

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u + + +

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The adoption of both [±front] and [±back] features might be useful therefore; and it should be noted that the combination [+front, +back] would be ruled out as logically impossible. These studies of the North Welsh vowel system have then provided information for a phonological description. The videofluorographic study showed that phonetically /i/ is a close central vowel (though slightly lowered and fronted) and not a high front 'constricted' vowel at least in speakers from the Bangor area. The spectrographic study helped show that in terms of distinctive features the description of /i/ is more convincing as [+grave, +diffuse, +plain] rather than [+acute, +diffuse, +flat]. Conclusion This chapter has only covered a small area of the relationship between experimental phonetics and phonological description. Not all the studies that have been undertaken concerning Welsh are described here of course, due to reasons of space; however it is still true to say that much more work remains to be done, we have only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. It is to be hoped that the studies described in this chapter have shown that a thorough investigation of the phonetic background of a problem can provide valuable information for the phonologist in deciding upon the nature of a phonological description. Notes 1 This last refers to the fortis and lenis labiodental fricatives /f/ /v/. /z/ is added in certain southern dialects, producing minimal . pairs such as 2 E.g. the subject from Nantgarw had one example [a] before lenis of 112 ms; and one example of [a] before fortis of 150ms; although the average differences were 147 ms before lenis and 133 ms before fortis. 3 Throughout this study the terms 'fortis' and 'lenis' will be used as convenient labels to distinguish the two different series of stops and fricatives (fortes: /p, t, k, f, q/; lenes: /b, d, g, v, ð/. This is despite the fact that we will maintain that the fortis/lenis feature is of dubious phonetic worth. For their help in the author's study that follows, I would like to thank G. E. Jones and D. V. T. Morris. 4 Although spectrographic analysis is not perhaps the most accurate means of measuring small lengths of time (cf. DavidsenNielsen 1969), other similar studies have used it (see for example Lisker and Abramson 1964). Measurements to the nearest 5 ms were employed in this study. 5 For example, the Report of the Orthographical Committee of the Society for Utilizing the Welsh Language (1893) states: 'it seems that the dental is

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somewhat harder than the gutteral or labial . . . therefore . . . after the other spirants write t, b, g.' (21). 6 In quoting from Oftedal his transcription style is retained, although elsewhere the standard transcription is employed. 7 The author would like to acknowledge the help of the following in the X-ray studies that are described here: Professor M. A. A. Tatham, Ph.D., A. R. Thomas, M.A., R. A. W. Bladon, M.A., M.Phil., F. Nolan, B.A., and the staff of the X-ray Department, the Caernarfon and Anglesey Hospital. The studies originally formed part of an M.A. dissertation to the University of Essex (Ball, 1976). 8 A. R. Thomas (1977) proposes to split /i/ into two separate underlying phonological forms, symbolized by /y/ and /u/, to account for certain vowel mutations. /y/ is characterized

See also A. R. Thomas's contribution, this volume.

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Appendix A I 1. Initial stops pan/ban pêr/bêr teg/deg to/do cof/gof clo/glo 2. Fricative + stop Clusters sbon, sbâr; stad, stori; sgôr, sgîl. 3. Final stops map/mab twp/twb brat/brad dot/dod rhic/rhyg toc/teg 4. Initial fricatives ffi/fi y ffordd/y ford thus/ddoe 5. Final fricatives hoff/haf corff/corf llath/lladd byth/bydd II. List as read 1. llawn 2. pan 3. sbâr 4. hoff 5. dod 6. rhyg 7. sgôr 8. fi 9. lladd 10. map 11. teg 12. gof

13. bêr 14. corff 15. stad 16. twp 17. brad 18. ban 19. to 20. thus 21. bydd 22. stori 23. dot 24. mab

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25. do 26. rhic 27. ddoe 28. llath 29. toc 30. clo 31. cof 32. deg 33. brat 34. sbon 35. y ford 36. byth

37. haf 38. sgîl 39. pêr 40. twb 41. ffi 42. y ffordd 43. corf 44. glo 45. tref

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Appendix B I. Tokens used in first X-ray study Token pill pîb pump pûr mwng

mynd pys

Transcription

Meaning

/pI /

bit of poetry

/pib/

pipe, tube

/pImp/

five

/pir/

pure

/m

/

mane

/mug/

smoke

/mInd/

to go

/pis/

peas

II. Tokens used in second X-ray study Those listed above plus: /pen/ pen /pel/ pêl /mam/ mam /m m/ mân /f n/ ffon /fon/ ffôn / n/ yn /f r/ ffyr

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head ball mother small, fine stick phone in, at fur

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Appendix C Tokens used in the spectrographic study Token tîm cimwch du pump t llyn tê pen ffa mam to ton nhw cwm llygad

Transcription /tim/ /kIm x/ /di/ /pImp/ /ti/ / n/ /te/ /pen/ /f / /mam/ /to/ /t n/ /nhu/ /k m/ / gad/

Meaning team lobster black five house lake tea head beans mother roof wave they, them valley eye

/n rs/ nyrs nurse Each token was embedded in the sentence 'mae . . . yma' (/m I . . . ma/, 'there's (a) . . . here').

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The Distinctive Vowels and Consonants of Welsh Glyn E. Jones No recent description of some of the features of spoken Welsh is readily available in English, and it is hoped that this account may go some way in providing such a description. This contribution, then, will be concerned with an outline description of the auditory and articulatory features of the distinctive consonants and vowels of Welsh in that order. Although fairly comprehensive, this is by no means an exhaustive description of spoken Welsh, and whilst it is specifically a description of a variety of southern Welsh (SW) many references to features of northern varieties of Welsh (NW) 1 are included. The description is based on an analysis of the Welsh spoken in the Llanwrtyd area of south Powys in mid Wales. The system of contrasts that occur, however, operates in the variety of Welsh widely spoken in south Wales. It is marked as a variety of SW by / such features as the absence from its phoneme inventory of the high central vowel2 and the related diphthongs / which are characteristic of NW. Before proceeding with a description of this system there is one point to be borne in mind. Welsh, in common with all the other Celtic languages, exhibits the phenomenon of initial mutation which is a series of alternations affecting the phenomenon of initial mutation which is a series of alternations affecting the initial consonants of words. These mutations are classified traditionally as of three kinds, treiglad meddal 'soft mutation' (SM), treiglad llaes 'aspirate mutation' (AM) and treiglad trwynol 'nasal mutation' (NM).3 Because of this feature we have the occurrence of base or citation forms and what have been termed 'secondary' forms (Ternes, 1973, quoting Dorian, 1965), a usage we shall adopt here, secondary forms being those showing one of the alternations associated with a given mutation, e.g. /mraud/ is a secondary form of the base form /braud/ resulting from NM, /vam/ is a secondary form of the base form /mam/ resulting from SM, and so on. The Consonantal Phonemes There are 29 distinctive consonants in Welsh. They are arranged in Table 1 according to manner and place of articulation.

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Table 1 The distinctive consonants of Welsh

We will discuss them in the following order of sub-groups: plosives, affricates, fricatives, liquids, nasals, glides. The Plosives Welsh has a six-term system of plosives with three contrastive places of articulation: bilabial ~ alveolar (dental NW and some areas of west Wales) ~ velar. The series /p, t, k/ are aspirated and voiceless, whilst the series /b, d, g/ are unaspirated, and although frequently referred to as voiced, voicing is not a constant feature of their articulation. They are regularly unvoiced in 'finger', 'day', 'meat', 'son', and frequently so in a medial fully voiced word initial and final positions: 'soap', 'flowers', 'tens'. They may be partially voiced in all these environment, e.g. intervocalically: environments, but fully voiced occasionally in medial fully voiced environments only. Since aspiration/non-aspiration is the constant feature distinguishing the two series of stops, voicing may be considered redundant, and the contrast operates on the voice-onset axis, i.e. on the duration of the release stage of the plosives. The delay in the onset of voicing is consistently longer 4 for /p, t, k/ than for /b, d, g/; in Welsh, therefore, as in other languages (see Lisker and Abramson, 1964) aspiration is a concomitant feature of the delay in voice-onset time. The aspiration/non-aspiration contrast in stops is frequently claimed to have an accompanying difference in the force of articulation, /p, t, k/ being articulated with greater subglottal pressure (Chomsky and Halle, 1968, 326), or being 'more strongly articulated' (O'Connor, 1973, 127) than /b, d, g/, hence the former series are termed fortis and the latter, lenis. Experimental investigations do not support such claims. There is

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evidence (Davidsen-Nielsen, 1969) suggesting that where voicing is not a marked and constant feature of the contrast between the two series of stops, and such is the case in Welsh, there may well be no significant difference in the intraoral air pressure during the closure stage of the stop from the one series to the other (see further Ladefoged, 1971, 956). Until shown to be otherwise, we may assume that such is the case for Welsh. However, fortis and lenis are useful labels which will be adopted to include, in the case of the stops, differences in terms of aspiration and of voicing. Articulation 5 For the complete articulation of each of these plosives there are three stages: (i) the closure stage, during which the articulatory organs move together to form an obstruction to the pulmonic air, the soft palate being raised, sealing off the nasal cavity; (ii) the hold stage, during which egressive air is compressed behind the closure; (iii) the release stage, during which the articulators part rapidly, allowing the compressed air to escape. During the articulation of the fortis stops there will be no vocal cord vibration and following the release stage, there will be a delay in the onset of voicing for the adjacent sound; during this delay period there will be a flow of egressive air through the open glottis and the oral cavities which constitutes the feature of aspiration. For the lenis series there may be vocal cord vibration during the whole/part of the closure stage, depending on whether the stop is fully/partially voiced, onset of voice, however, immediately follows their release, i.e. there is no delay during which aspiration may occur. Distribution The plosives may occur initially, medially and finally in citation forms, e.g. /pant/ 'hollow', /tan/ 'fire', /kaq/ 'cat', /s p/ 'heap', /at/ 'to', /plIk/ 'a pluck', /kape/ 'caps', /ateb/ 'answer', /seki/ 'to thrust', /bid/ 'world', /dal/ 'hold', /garð/ 'garden', /kribe/ 'combs', /pedol/ 'horseshoe/', /brigIn/ 'twig'. Note that the occurrence of /p, t, k/ in a word final position is usually a mark of a borrowing from English (see J. Morris-Jones, 1913, 66). The fortis series are strongly aspirated initially and finally in the word, but have weaker aspiration medially. In secondary forms the lenis series alternate with the fortis series in SM, e.g. /ben, d d, gi/ are secondary forms of /pen/ 'head', /t d/ 'father' and /ki/ 'dog', respectively. Variants

The main variants are:

1. In the sequence obstruent + obstruent comprising of fricative + plosive, e.g. [s] + plosive, which in Welsh orthography is represented in the case of the bilabial and velar as 'sb' and 'sg' respectively,

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cosb 'punishment', ysgol 'school', but in the case of the alveolar / dental as 'st', eistedd 'sit', clust 'ear'. 6 Other fricative + plosive clusters (word final and medial only) are [f] and [ ] + alveolar, lloft 'bedroom', gwallt 'hair', and [ò] + velar, gwisg 'apparel'. In such clusters the plosive is neither aspirated nor voiced, hence the contrast between the fortis and lenis series is neutralized in this context and phonologically the stops could be assigned to either of the two. Although no perceptory experiments of the kind reported by Davidsen-Nielsen (1969) and Reeds and Wang (1961), for example, have been conducted for Welsh, it would seem that historically the plosives in such clusters have been interpreted as /b, d, g/, for in the centuries old alliteration rules of cynghanedd (metrical consonance in Welsh metrics) the stops in such clusters alliterated with those of the lenis series (MorrisJones, 1925),7 and we will adopt the traditional analysis in this description.8 2. Incomplete Plosives In clusters of two homorganic plosives (or the rarer plosive + affricate) the first stop has no audible release: [kareg galc] 'limestone', [deved dion] 'black sheep', [pob bl iðin] 'every year', [ò p bap re] 'newsagents', [tebot di] 'a 'a jugful'. However, when the cluster is of non-homorganic stops, the first is usually released audibly: black teapot', [kig blasI] 'tasty meat', [atgas] 'hateful', [pob tamed] 'every bit', [ agbrauv] 'preliminary test'. Frequently, however, the alveolar is assimilated to the following stop as in [plamp b c < [plant b c] 'little children', [n kkoci] < [n dkoci] 'to brand sheep'. In the last example there is assimilation of place and manner of articulation. Sometimes, a cluster of two homorganic lenis stops may be released as fortis and this seems to have been a marked feature of older speakers of NW (Fynes-Clinton, 1913, xxiii). In this variety of SW, however, a few instances only of such realizations have been noted, and the stops need not be homorganic, e.g. [ r inIk peq] < [ r inig beq] 'the only thing', [wi gwet tIm] < [wi gwed dIm] 'I'm not saying anything'. Note that the final stop in the above sequence is only very weakly aspirated. 3. Nasal Release In a sequence of stop + homorganic nasal, the stop usually has nasal release, i.e. the compressed air behind the stop closure is released through the nasal cavity by lowering the velum, no movement of the articulators takes place, Nasal release may occur both within words and at word junctions, e.g. [adnod] 'scriptural verse', [p bman] 'everywhere', [gw d neuIð] 'new blood', [k t nos] 'nightdress'. There are no examples of the nasal release of a velar stop since no [k, g] + [ ] sequence may occur.

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4. Lateral Release In a sequence of stop + homorganic lateral. [t, d] + [l, ], the stop is released laterally, i.e. one side of the tongue is lowered to allow the air to escape, the alveolar tongue-tip closure being retained. Lateral release may occur within words and at word junctions, e.g. [hadles] 'seed vessel', [hatlI ] 'half a farthing, mite', [pr dlon] 'prompt', [gwId Id] 'bloody', [bid m] 'destitute circumstances', [k t l id] 'a grey coat'. 5. Points of Articulation /t/ and /d/ normally apico-alveolar, have (i) post-alveolar contact when followed by /r/ which is postalveolar [ ] following [t] and [ ] following [d], e.g. [t o] 'turn', [d ug] 'bad'; (ii) lamino-dental articulation preceding (and sometimes following) /q/ and /ð/, e.g. 'quite well', 'dairy'. For the velars /k, g/, the point of contact on the palate 'dog', 'chin', and more retracted preceeding back vowels, e.g. [koc] will be more forward preceding front vowels, e.g. 'red', [gur] 'husband'. The Affricates Welsh has a two-term only system of affricates consisting of the palato-alveolar pair /tò, /. Apart from a handful of exceptions g/ 'jug', [d n un/ 'dungeon', /s / 'sage', /tòain/ 'chain', these affricates occur exclusively in borrowings from English, e.g. / / 'jocose', [pItò/ 'a hill', /b òur] 'butcher'. / The few occurrences not the result of borrowing are due to assimilation of [t/d] + [j], e.g. [kItòo] < [kIdjo] 'to grasp', [ aul] < [djaul] 'devil', [fIn o] < [fIndjo] 'to find'. Articulation The soft palate being raised sealing off the nasal cavity, a closure obstructing the egressive air in the mouth is made between the tip and blade and rims of the tongue and the upper alveolar ridge and side teeth; the front of the tongue is simultaneously raised towards the hard palate. The closure is slowly released, the air escaping over the central area of the tongue with friction occurring between the front of the tongue and the alveolar and the front section of the palate. There is a tendency to round the lips slightly during the articulation of these affricates. There is no vocal cord vibration during the articulation of /tò/, but during the whole or part of the articulation of / / there may be vocal cord vibration depending on whether it is fully / partially voiced. The stop element in these affricates has a quite marked duration in final and medial positions when preceded by a short vowel,

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Phonemic Status These affricates present the familiar problem of whether they be analysed as a biphonemic or monophonemic sequence. The arguments for the latter as opposed to the former are much the same as those outlined for English (see e.g. Gimson, 1962, 1668; Sommerstein 1977, 29), namely: Distributional Characteristics they distribute as single units since they may occur initially, medially and finally. Other clusters, e.g. stop + /l, r, n/ may only occur initially and medially and the clusters /r, l/ + fricative may only occur medially and finally. Communication Possibilities /t/ and /d/ are not commutable with any other unit for no other cluster is possible with /ò/ and / /; / / has no commutable possibilities and /ò/ may commute only with /r/, all examples being borrowings, e.g. /tòIp : commute with single phonemes only. /trIp/, otherwise /tò/ and / However, the most telling argument against the cluster analysis for Welsh is the fact that /tò/ and both enter into the in SM (see Watkins, 1961, 19), / 3 kled/, for example, being a secondary form of mutation system, /tò/ alternating with with /n / in NM9 (see R. O. Jones, 1967, 191). If the system /tòkled/. In some dialects of NW /tò/ alternates with /n h/ and treated them as biphonemic sequences, then only the first element in the sequence would show alternation; contrast the alternations involving the biphonemic cluster /tr/ as in /trod/ 'foot' in mutation, /drod, qrod, nrod/ all being secondary forms showing SM, AM and NM respectively. Not all dialects of SW, however, admit the affricates into the mutation system (see C. H. Thomas, 1964, 22). Note that in NW, in well established borrowings, tò/ 'sludge'. Recent borrowings, however, retain

is realised as /tò/, e.g. /kabaitò/ 'cabbage', /kaitò/ 'cage', /saitò/ 'sage', /sl , e.g. /frI / 'fridge', /be / 'beige'.

The Fricatives In terms of place of articulation, Welsh has a seven-term system of fricatives: labio-dental /f, v/; dental /q, ð/ ; alveolar /s, (z)/; palato-alveolar /ò/; lateral / /; uvular /c/ ; glottal /h/. It is a highly non-symmetrical system in that in only two (on /z/ see below) of the seven terms in the system are the fricatives paired, namely, the labio-dental and the dental, and because of their distributional characteristics (outlined below), minimal pairs showing a contrast between /f/ and /v/ and between /q/ and /ð/ are few.

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Within these paired sets, /f/ and /q/ are distinguished from /v/ and /ð/ by two features: (i) The length of the frication As Ball has shown (see pp. 1820 above) the duration of /f/ and /q/ is considerably longer in initial and final, positions than that of /v/ and /ð/. (ii) Voicing /f/ and /q/ are voiceless, but /v/ and /ð/ may be fully voiced when they occur between voiced sounds, but only partially voiced (or in the case of some speakers, they may be totally voiceless, see Ball, pp. 1820 above) in initial and final positions. Articulation The Labio-dental Fricatives /f, v/ The soft palate being raised sealing off the nasal cavity, light endolabial contact is made between the lower lip and upper teeth, i.e. the inner surface of the lower lip makes a light contact with the edge of the upper teeth, the escaping air producing friction. In emphatic speech, the contact between lip and teeth is frequently exolabial, i.e. the outer surface of the lower lip makes contact with the edge of the upper teeth. During the articulation of /f/, the friction is voiceless. On the voicing of /v/ and on the durational characteristics of both /f/ and /v/ see above. The Dental Fricatives /q,ð/ These fricatives have lamino-dental articulation, the front part of the blade and the rims of the tongue making light contact with the edge of the upper incisors and with the upper side teeth, the tip of the tongue slightly protruding between the teeth. The air escapes with friction between the blade of the tongue and the upper incisors. For /q/ the friction is voiceless. On the voicing of /ð/ and on the durational characteristics of both /q/ and /ð/ see above. The Alveolar Fricatives /s, z/ The tip and blade of the tongue make a light contact with the alveolar ridge and the side rims of the tongue make firm contact with the upper side teeth. The opening between the teeth is very narrow and the air escapes along a groove in the centre of the tongue with friction occurring between the tongue and the alveolar ridge. For /s/ the friction is voiceless; /z/ is partially voiced in initial and final positions, being fully voiced contexts, e.g. intervocalically. The Lateral Fricative / / The tip and blade of the tongue make a firm contact with the upper alveolar ridge and the rims of one side (usually the left side) of the tongue make total contact with the upper side teeth. The opening between the lips is almost as narrow as for /s/ and the air

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escapes with friction over the side of the tongue that has no contact with the upper molars. The friction is voiceless. The Palato-alveolar Fricative /ò/ 10 The blade of the tongue makes a light contact with the alveolar ridge, the front of the tongue being raised at the same time close to the hard palate and the side rims of the tongue being in firm contact with the upper side teeth; the tongue tip is behind the lower teeth. There is lip-protrusion in all positions. The air escapes diffusely over the front of the tongue causing friction between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. The palatalization aspect is more marked with some speakers than others. The friction is voiceless. The Uvular Fricative /c/ The back of the tongue is raised towards the soft palate and the uvular. The air escapes along the centre of the tongue causing friction between the tongue and the lower part of the soft palate and uvula, sometimes causing the uvula to vibrate slightly. The friction is voiceless. The point of articulation varies according to context, being more fronted in the context of a close front vowel, e.g. 'you', and more retracted in the context of a back vowel or labio-velar glide, e.g. 'ploughshare', 'to complain'. Some sources describe the fricative as velar (e.g. R. O. Jones, 1967; A. R. Thomas, 1958) which indicates that a less retracted variety than the kind occurring in the variety of Welsh described here is common. The Glottal Fricative /h/ The glottis being open, lung air is expelled into the oral cavities causing friction throughout the vocal tract, the upper part of which are in readiness for the articulation of the following vowel; the friction, therefore, has the characteristic resonance of that vowel, compare the quality of the fricative in [heb] 'without', [ho ] 'all' and [huc] 'sow'. The friction is always voiceless. Note that /h/ is absent from the phoneme inventory of the Welsh dialects of Glamorgan. Amongst some male speakers of NW I have observed occurrences of a pharyngalized variant to the glottal fricative described above, that is, a variety of Whilst the specific articulatory correlates of pharyngalization are difficult to isolate (involving as they do the retracting of the body of the tongue, or of the root of the tongue independently of the body of the tongue, as well as the possible constriction of the pharynx wall, see Laver 1980, 46, 47, 59), the 'strangulated' manner of speaking which speakers of SW claim to be characteristic of speakers of NW, reflects some mode of pharyngalization. This pharyngalization (rather than

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velarization) may account for the dark [ ] of NW (see remarks on the non-fricative lateral) and may well be a feature of the articulation of the central vowels [i] and [I] in NW (see note 11). Distributional Features (i) /v, q, ð, c/ may occur in medial and final positions but are rare in initial positions in citation forms, e.g. /vori/ 'tomorrow', /tavod/ 'tongue', /gov/ 'smith', /qIs/ 'frankincense', /peqe/ 'things', /p iq/ 'stich', /ðo/ 'yesterday', /bIðe/ 'churn', /b ð/ 'boar', /ci/ 'you', /b ce/ 'hooks', /merc/ 'girl'. In secondary forms /v/ occurs as an alternant of /b, m/, /q/ of /t/, /ð/ of /d/ and /c/ of /k/. (ii) /f/ occurs in initial, medial and final poitions in citation forms, e.g. /fetan/ 'sack', /krafi/ 'to peer', /klof/ 'lame'. It alternates with /p/ in AM, e.g. /fen, f rs/ being secondary forms of /pen/ 'head' and /p rs/ 'purse' respectively. (iii) /h/ occurs in syllable initial pre-vocalic positions in citation forms, e.g. /hen/ 'old', /h ilIs/ 'convenient, but may be prefixed to vowel-initial words in secondary forms, e.g. /aval/ 'apple', /i haval/ 'her apple'. In NW and some dialects of SW (R. O. Jones, 1967, 1824) it can be prefixed to initial /l-, m-, n-, w-/ (iv) /s, z, ò, / may all occur in initial, medial and final positions in citation forms. Note that /z/ occurs exclusively in borrowings from English, e.g. /zu/ 'zoo', /fezant/ 'pheasant'. It does not, however, occur regularly in this variety of SW, compare /lantrIz/ and /lantrIs/ 'swingle tree', occurring side by side. /z/ does not occur in NW, /s/ being substituted for it in borrowings, e.g. /su/ 'zoo', /sI k/ 'zinc'. The Liquids The liquids consist of the non-fricative alveolar lateral /l/ and the alveolar trills /r/ and / /. The Non-Fricative Lateral /l/ Articulation The lateral is articulated with the tip of the tongue making close contact with the upper alveolar ridge. There is unilateral tongue-rim closure and the air escapes over one side of the tongue; at the same time, the front of the tongue is raised towards the hard palate giving the lateral a slightly palatalized resonance, i.e. it is a clear [l]. Except where

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it is devoiced by a preceding voiceless consonant as in, e.g.

'ear',

'parish', the lateral is usually voiced.

Most descriptions of SW describe the non-fricative lateral as unilateral and clear (e.g. A. R. Thomas, 1958, 163) or 'neutral', being neither clear nor dark (e.g. Phillips, 1955, 11, 117 he symbolizes it or clear, adjacent to front vowels and neutral, adjacent to back vowels (C. H. Thomas, 1961, 72). In NW generally, the non-fricative lateral has a marked dark quality, [ ], which may be due to pharyngalization (see remarks on the glottal fricative). In final position, this dark quality occurs regardless of the nature of the vowel context, i.e. whether front or back, e.g. [mi ] 'thousand', [gw ] 'lair', [pe ] 'ball', but it is particularly marked in the context of the central vowels [i] and [I], 11 e.g. [pali] 'to dig', [gw ili] 'to become poorly', [si ] 'Sunday'; medially, however, in the context of the front vowels [i, e, a], the lateral is less dark, e.g. [e i] 'ointment', [me in] 'mill', [ha an] 'salt'. Distribution It may occur in initial, medial and final positions in citation forms, but its occurrence in initial position in these forms is usually the mark of a borrowing, e.g. /lamp/ 'lamp', /l mp/ 'lump', /galu/ 'to call', /melIn/ 'mill', /s l/ 'ill'. It occurs in secondary forms as an alternant of / / in SM, e.g. /l i/ and /lau/ are secondary forms of / i/ 'spoon' and / au/ 'hand' respectively. The Voiced Alveolar Trill /r/ Articulation The tip of the tongue is placed loosely against the upper alveolar ridge and the egressive air-stream causes it to vibrate against the alveolar ridge, two or three taps being usual. Except when it may be devoiced, partially or totally, by a preceding voiceless consonant, e.g. [p iò] 'price', [k aiq] 'scar', [f ] 'quarrel', the trill is usually voiced. Variants A post-alveolar frictionless continuant [ ] regularly occurs in the cluster /dr/ and a fricative in the cluster /tr/ as in 'to climb', [t i] 'three'. Some speakers may use [ ] in all positions, e.g. [ ail] 'rail', [ta o] 'to strike', [ti ] 'land', but widespread use of [ ] is reported as being a feature of the Welsh of parts of east Powys near the English border (L. Davies, 1971). Occasionally a flap is used, i.e. articulation is one tap only of the tongue tip against the alveoli. This articulation is common in medial inter-vocalic positions and when /r/ occurs in post-initial and pre-final positions in clusters, e.g.

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A uvular roll [R], or sometimes a uvular fricative , may occur sporadically, and is usually regarded as an impediment of speech in Welsh, being referred to as tafod tew, literally 'a thick tongue'. However, the Bala area of Gwynedd, north Wales, forms a pocket where the occurrence of the uvular roll is widespread. Distribution It may occur in initial, medial and final positions in citation forms, but its occurrence in initial position is usually a mark of a borrowing (except in those dialects which lack / /, see below), e.g. /r s/ 'race', /rosIn/ 'rose', /aros/ 'wait', / aur/ 'floor'. It occurs in secondary forms as an alternant of / / in SM, e.g. /r f/ 'rope' and /redeg/ 'to run', are secondary forms of / f/ and / edeg/ respectively. The Voiceless Alveolar Trill12 / / Articulation It is articulated in the same manner as /r/ with the tongue tip vibrating against the alveoli, two or three taps being usual, except when a flap may be used, in which case, one tap only occurs. Unlike /r/, however, it is completely voiceless and strongly aspirated. Distribution It occurs in initial position only in citation forms, e.g. / ið/ 'free', / an/ 'share, part'. In NW / / may occur medially, following /l/ and /n/, e.g. /an deðððððIs/ð 'honourable', / l ain/ 'to trace'. / / does not occur in those dialects of Welsh which lack /h/, but /r/ occurs where all + /h/ dialects have/ /. The Nasals There are three contrastive places of articulation: bilabial ~ alveolar (dental NW) ~ velar. There are two series of nasals (i) the . voiced nasals /m, n, / and (ii) the so-called voiceless nasals The Voiced Nasals /m, n, / Articulation The nasals are articulated with a complete closure within the mouth (at the lips for /m/, the alveoli for /n/ and the velum for / /) and a lowered soft palate which allows air to escape through the nasal cavity causing it to resonate. Except when they are partially devoiced by a preceding voiceless consonant, e.g. [k aiv] 'a shearing', [s ala] 'droll', the nasals are fully voiced. The alveolar nasal /n/ frequently assimilates to /m/ before bilabial consonants and to / / before velar consonants, e.g. /igem mInId/ ugain munud 'twenty minutes', /d igem p is/ deugain pwys 'forty pounds',

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Page 51 /meu kudIn/ mewn cwdyn 'in a bag'. Both /n/ and /m/ may assimilate to a labio-dental cam-farnu 'misjudge', ffwrn fach 'a ''dutch" oven'.

before labio-dentals, e.g.

Distribution In citation forms /m/ and /n/ occur in initial, medial and final positions, e.g. /maint/ 'size', /amser/ 'time', /tr m/ 'heavy', /nos/ 'night', /k nIg/ 'offer', /in/ 'one'. / / occurs in medial (syllable final) and final positions only, in citation forms, e.g. / e/ 'ships', /m / 'mane'; it may occur initially in secondary forms as an alternant of /g/ in NM, e.g. / arð/, / air/ secondary forms of /garð/ 'garden' and /gair/ 'word' respectively. The Voiceless Nasals These are unique amongst the consonantal phonemes in that they only occur as alternants of /p, t, k/ in NM, that is, they occur in secondary forms only, and as such form a parallel to the incidence of the voiced stops /b, d, g/ noted in some dialects of Scots alternate with /p, t, k/ in NM after the 1st. sing. possessive Gaelic by Ternes (1973). In this particular variety of SW pronoun / n/ only, e.g. / m en/ 'my head' < /pen/, / n d/ 'my father' < /t d, / 'my coat' < /k t/. These so-called voiceless nasals are phonetically a complex sequence consisting of a nasal and an aspirated segment, hence they are more aptly termed aspirated nasals (cf. R. O. Jones, 1969, 107). Their realization depends upon the timing of the release of the oral closure involved with the nasal and that of the opening of the vocal folds before the velum is raised during the articulation of the sequence. Some speakers open the vocal folds (i.e. cease voicing) before the oral closure for the nasal is realized, hence an initial voiced nasal segment is followed by a voiceless nasal with a voiceless aspirated segment following on the release of the oral closure and the raising of the velum, e.g. [n h]. Other speakers (see Scully, 1973)13 may delay opening of the vocal folds until after the oral closure is released, hence a partially nasalized aspirated segment follows the voiced nasal, e.g. The aspirated nasals do not occur in those dialects of Welsh which lack /h/ in their phoneme inventory. It will have been observed that the absence of /h/ from the phonemic system implies also the absence of / / and the voiceless nasals, therefore dialects may show quite substantial differences in their phonemic system those having the nine terms /h ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ r ~ m ~ n ~ / and those, correspondingly, having only the four terms /r ~ m ~ n ~ /. The latter dialects are, in the main, those of south-east Wales.

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The Glides There are two glides, the unrounded palatal /j/ and the labio-velar /w/. The Unrounded Palatal Glide /j/ Articulation It is articulated with the front of the tongue being raised towards the hard palate, its rims making light contact with the upper side teeth and moving away immediately to the position of the following sound. Except when devoiced by a it is usually voiced. preceding voiceless consonant, e.g. The actual tongue height for /j/ will vary depending on the adjacent sound, e.g. higher preceding the front half-close /e/ as in /jecId/ 'health' than the open front /a/ in /jard/ 'yard'. Lips will be rounded before the back half-close /o/, e.g. /jonor/ 'January', otherwise neutral. Distribution It occurs in syllable initial position only, e.g. /j c/ 'healthy', /jorug/ 'ivy', /k vjo/ 'to remember', /d ðje/ 'days'. In initial CC clusters, it occurs in post-initial position in one or two items only, e.g. /djaul/ 'devil', /gj r/ 'hen'. It may not precede front or back high vowels, i.e. /i, I, , u/. The Labio-velar Glide /w/ Articulation It is articulated with the back of the tongue being raised towards the soft palate between half-close and close positions, the tip and blade of the tongue behind the lower teeth, and moving away immediately to the position of the following sound. The lips are closely rounded. Except when it is devoiced by a preceding voiceless consonant, e.g. 'pane of glass', it is usually voiced. Distribution It may occur in initial position in citation forms, this being the mark, either of an earlier secondary from which has gained currency as a citation form as, e.g. /wedi/ preposition 'after', earlier gwedy, /wain/ 'hay meadow', earlier gwaun, or, of borrowings as, e.g. /wal/ 'wall', /wIrsen/ 'wire'. Otherwise, it occurs in post-initial position in initial CC and CCC clusters, e.g. /gwaiq/ 'work', /gwir/ 'truth', /gwliq/ 'dew', /gwricon/ 'sparks', and medially in syllable initial position, e.g. /klIdwer/ 'fuel store', /anwar/ 'wild'. In the Llanwrtyd area [w] is frequently elided in initial CCC clusters, hence, e.g. [gliq] gwlith 'dew', [graig] gwraig 'wife'. Note that where NW regularly has the CC cluster /cw/, SW has

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/hw/ 14 (except those dialects of SW which lack /h/), hence SW /hwiq/ 'left' = NW /cwiq/, SW /hwec/ 'six' = NW /cwec/. The Vocalic Phonemes The vocalic phonemes total 19 and consist of two sub-sets: (i) eleven unit vowels, /i, I, e, e, a, , , o, ,, u, /. (ii) eight vowel clusters or diphthongs, /ai, i, i, i, Iu, eu, au, u/ The Unit Vowels In articulatory height and front/back terms, they may be grouped into five paired sets: high front /i, I/, mid front /e, e/ low front / , a/, high back /u, /, mid back /o, /, and the unpaired / /. There is a marked qualitative and quantitative difference between the members within each pair, qualitatively, the first vowel in each instance being closer than the second, i.e. articulated with a higher tongue position. In the case of the pair / , a/, however, the difference is one of retraction, a slightly more retracted part of the front of the tongue being raised in the articulation of / / than for /a/. Generalizing these qualitative differences we may establish a 'close' series and an 'open' series of vowels, respectively /i, e, , o, u/ and /I, e, a, , /. The quantitative distinction operates between the two series of vowels in stressed syllables only,15 the close series being long, the open series short, and it is in stressed positions only that the two series of vowels are contrastive. Note that the unpaired / / is a short vowel.16 Lexical stress is mainly tied in Welsh, falling on the penultimate, but instances of stressed ultima are numerous. In absolute terms, the degree of length associated with close vowels is longest when they occur in monosyllables and stressed ultima, being much reduced when they occur in the penultima. As regards the place of this length factor in the phonology, it may be treated as a concomitant feature of the qualitative difference that marks the series of vowels termed 'close' above as distinct from those termed 'open' when they occur in stressed positions. That is the treatment accorded length in this description. Alternatively, this length factor has been treated as a feature of the stressed syllable in Welsh and hence given independent phonemic status (see A. R. Thomas, 1966, 120; see also p. 57 below). In (C) VC and (C) VCV (C) sequences, the length of the consonant following the stressed vowel is clearly dependent on whether the vowel is one of the open short series or of the close long series; if it is one of the former series, the consonant will be phonetically long; if it is one of

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the latter series, the consonant will be phonetically short. 17 Compare the length of the final consonants in the pairs Distributional Features18 The Short Vowels

They may occur in all positions in the word with the following exceptions:

/I, e, a, , / do not occur in open monosyllables; /I/ does not occur in open final unaccented syllables and / / and / / only occur sporadically in this position (see below); / / except for its occurrence in monosyllables in a small set of form words, e.g. / n/ preposition 'in', / n/ verbal aspect marker, is found only in the penultimate and prepenultimate syllables. Note, however, uniquely in an area on the south west coast of Dyfed, / / occurs widely in monosyllables where other varieties of Welsh have /I/ (see J. J. Glanmor Davies, 1934; E. J. Davies, 1955; G. Awbery, 1981a). The Long Vowels

They may occur in all positions in the word with the following exceptions:

/e/ does not occur in final unaccented syllables / / occurs only in stressed syllables /i/ may occur in closed final syllables, but this is rare. In non-stressed syllables (i.e. the pre- and post-penultima) where the open and close series of vowels do not contrast and the length characteristic of the close series does not obtain, both sets of vowels are in widespread free variation. This free variation is most marked in the pre-penultima in this particular variety of SW, e.g. /pedoli: pedoli/ 'to shoe', /gobiqo: g biqo/ 'to hope'. For examples of post-penultima variation in SW see Samuel (1970, 244) and Ruddock (1968, 12, 15, 1956) and for NW see A. R. Thomas (1966, 1212). Description19 /i/ A high front vowel articulated with the front of the tongue raised towards the hard palate in the close front region, and its rims making firm contact with the upper molars. The lips are spread. Examples: /ti/ 'house', /diva/ 'destroy', /t ili/ 'family'. It is frequently more open and less fronted in unaccented positions.

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Fig. 1 The vowels of SW /I/ A high front vowel articulated with a part of the tongue nearer to the centre than the front raised to a position slightly closer than half-close, the rims of the tongue making light contact with the upper molars. The lips are neutral. Examples: /bIr/ 'short', /sgIbe /, 'broom', /govId/ 'sorrow'. /e/ A mid front vowel articulated with the front of the tongue raised slightly below the front half-close position, the rims of the tongue making contact with the upper molars. The lips are spread. Examples: / e/ 'place', /sevI / 'to stand'. In monosyllables closed by /r/ it is realized by a more open and centralized vowel [ë], approximately between the half-open and half-close positions, e.g. [sër] 'stars', [mër] 'bone marrow', [gwër] 'tallow'. /e/ A mid front vowel articulated with the front of the tongue raised slightly above and behind the front half-open position. The lips are neutral. Examples: /ken/ 'dandruff', /melIn/ 'yellow', /efeq/ 'effect'. 'things' and 'shoe' respectively, whilst There is a tendency to use a slightly centralized vowel in the penultima in final open syllables a more close vowel is used 'heads' and 'eggs' respectively. /a/ A low front vowel articulated with the front of the tongue raised low in the mouth and behind an open front position. The jaws are quite wide apart and the lips are naturally open. Examples: /kam/ 'crooked', /glan/ 'bank', /tani/ 'to spread', /davad/ 'sheep'. There is some tendency to use a centralized [ä] in the penultima, e.g. [känoð] 'hundreds'. [änul] 'dear'. Regular centralization in the penultima, however, is a feature of the Welsh dialects of south-east Glamorgan.

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/ / A low front vowel articulated with the front of the tongue raised low in the mouth. It is very similar in quality to the noncentralized realization of /a/ above, but slightly less fronted. The jaws are wide apart and the lips neutrally open. Examples: /f / 'beans', / vi/ 'liver'. In the dialects of the south-east in the old county of Glamorgan this phoneme has a conspicuous positional allophone occurring in monosyllables and stressed ultima, being a front vowel which may vary in quality from slightly below half-open to mid-way between half-open and half-close, we will symbolize it [ae], i.e. in the monosyllable/stressed ultima position it has been markedly palatalized. 20 Examples: [taen] 'fire', [glaen] 'clean', [kanjatàed] 'permission'. In some areas it is heavily diphthongized towards [ ], i.e. [ae ], see Phillips (1955, II, 556). In these dialects [ae] and [ ] are in complementary distribution, [ae] in monosyllables/stressed ultima, [ ] in the penultima, e.g. [kaeq: k qa] 'cat/-s', [taed: t da] 'father/-s' etc. This vowel also occurs in mid Wales, see e.g. Sommerfelt (1925, 8), R. O. Jones (1967, 1056). In these areas it is the only realization of the phoneme which has the allophonic variants [ ] and [ae] in the south-east, but [ ] only in NW and SW generally. In mid Wales and NW, however, this same phoneme is distributionally restricted to monosyllables/stressed ultima. Note that for many speakers of NW this [ ] is almost of the same quality as cardinal vowel 4, [a]. / / A low back vowel articulated with the back of the tongue raised to approximately the half-open position. The lips are open rounded. /o/ A mid back vowel articulated with the back of the tongue raised slightly and advanced from the back half-close position. The lips are fairly closely rounded. / / A high back vowel articulated with a part nearer to the centre than back of the tongue raised to a position above half-close. The lips are closely but not tightly rounded. /u/ A high back vowel articulated with the back of the tongue raised below and slightly advanced from a full close back position. The lips are closely and quite tightly rounded. / / A central vowel articulated with the centre of the tongue raised between the half-open and half-close positions. The lips are neutral. A more retracted and close variety occurs when preceded by a velar consonant, e.g. k nIg] 'offer', [k reð] 'to arrive'. The NW unit vowels system shows marked differences:

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(i) Inventory Differences Its inventory includes two high central vowels which SW lacks: the long and the short . The short vowel is articulated with the centre of the tongue raised to a position above half-close and slightly in advance of centre. is articulated with the centre of the tongue raised towards the close position (see Ball, 1976, The lips are neutral. The long for a detailed analysis of its articulation); the lips are slightly spread but lip-rounding 21 is reported in some areas (R. O. Jones, 1967). The long vowel is sometimes diphthongized towards [ ] in monosyllables, particularly when heavily accented, e.g. 'finger, sour, narrow'. Some degree of pharyngalization seems to be a concomitant feature of the articulation of these vowels (see note 11). (ii) Qualitative Differences The clear qualitative differences between long and short vowels found in SW is far less marked in NW, indeed, some sources have maintained that the difference between the long and short vowels in NW is exclusively one of quantity, e.g. H. Sweet (1884) and cf. O. H. Fynes-Clinton (1913). A more recent account, R. O. Jones (1967) noted little qualitative difference between long and short in the high front, high central and in the open front vowel areas, but quite clear qualitative and quantitative differences in the mid-vowel area front and back, and in the high back vowel area. In Anglesey varieties of Welsh, however, the qualitative difference between long and short is on the whole slight (but see note 22) in all vowel areas and this, coupled with the limited distribution of the long vowels in NW (see next section) would argue for a phonemic statement of 7 vowel phonemes+an independent length phoneme, i.e. /i, , e, , o, u, / and / /.22 (iii) Distributional Differences The contrast occurring in SW between the long and short vowels in the penultima does not operate in NW, long vowels occurring in monosyllables/stressed ultima only in NW23, hence, e.g. /ton/ 'tune' and /t n/ 'wave' both have the homonymic plural /t na/ in NW and /t n/ 'fire' and /tant/ 'string' (musical) have the homonymic plural /tana/. Contrast SW /tone/ 'tunes': /t ne/ 'waves', /t ne/ 'fires': /tane/ 'strings' (musical). The Diphthongs Distributional Features

In terms of their distribution, the diphthongs fall into three broad groups:

(i) / i, i, Iu, eu, au/ They may occur in all positions in the word, but, with the exception of / i/, they either do not occur, or are very rare in stressed ultima.

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(ii) / i, u/ They are mostly confined to the penultima and prepenultima, being rare in monosyllables and stressed ultima. (iii) /ai/ It is confined mostly to monosyllables and stressed ultima rare in all other positions. Articulation For descriptive purposes it is convenient to classify the diphthongs according to their second element, which gives two subsets of four terms each: 1. Four diphthongs closing towards a high front vowel, [i], /ai, i, i, i/ 2. Four diphthongs closing towards a high back vowel, [u], /Iu, eu, au, u/ The length of the first element of the diphthong is usually short in SW but there are local exceptions to this general pattern (e.g. see C. H. Thomas, 1976, 349). Subset 1 /ai, i, i, i/

Fig. 2 The [i]-closing diphthongs of SW /ai/ The glide begins with a low vowel between the open front and centre positions and moves in the direction of a close front vowel, but the position the tongue reaches in the articulation of all the [i]-closing glides is well short of a fully close front vowel. There is a clear closing movement of the lower jaw and the lips change from a neutral to a slightly spread position. Examples: /tai/ 'houses', /mai/ 'May', /nesài/ 'draw near'. / i/ The glide begins with a low back vowel, slightly advanced from back, between open and half-open and moves in the direction of a close

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front vowel. There is a clear closing movement of the lower jaw and the lips change from open rounded to a slightly spread / 'to avoid'. position. Examples: /dvi/ 'two', /k iden/ 'tree', / / i/ The glide begins with a high back vowel, well advanced from back, between half-close and close and moves in the direction of a close front vowel. The lips change from closely, but not tightly rounded, to a slightly spread position. Examples: /m i/ 'more', /p ise/ 'weight', /t l iq/ 'kin'. Whilst the variety described above is common throughout SW, in the Llanwrtyd area, it is frequently in free variation in monosyllables with a glide which begins with a much closer back vowel articulated with tighter lip-rounding and having a degree of length associated with it, i.e. [ i], e.g. [ i] 'spoon', [p i] 'who', [ id] 'grey'. This realization of the glide may be presumed to increase as one moves northwards across the mid Wales area for Sommerfelt (1925, 14) noted [ i] as its only realization in monosyllables in the Dyfi basin area. Further north again the realization becomes [ ]. The occurrence in Llanwrtyd of the [ i] and [ i] realization in free variation marks the area as a transition zone, spanning the SW and emergent NW realization of this diphthong (digraphic 'wy'). / i/ The glide begins with a slightly fronted central vowel between the half-open and half-close positions and moves in the direction of a close front vowel. The lips are neutral throughout. Examples: /n id/ 'make, do', / ilud/ 'hearth', /s isnigo/ 'anglicize'. Some speakers occasionally realize this glide with a closer more fronted element having the quality of a centralized half-close [ë], e.g. [nëid] 'make, do', [fëin] 'fine'. Subset 2 /Iu, eu, au, u/

Fig. 3 The [u]-closing diphthongs of SW

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/Iu/ The glide begins with a high vowel articulated with a part nearer the centre than the front of the tongue raised slightly above half-close and moves in the direction of a close back vowel, but the position the tongue reaches in the articulation of all the [u]closing diphthongs is well short of a fully close back vowel. The lips change from neutral to a closely, but not tightly rounded position. Examples: / Iu/ 'colour', /brIuo/ 'to crumble', /menIu/ 'woman', /dIuj ldeb/ 'godliness'. /eu/ The glide begins with a front vowel slightly retracted from above the half-open position and moves in the direction of a close back vowel. The lips change from neutrally open to a closely, but not tightly rounded position. Examples: / eu/ 'lion', /heulIð/ 'streets', /teu ci/ 'to fatten'. There is a tendency to centralize the first element in the penultima, e.g. /au/ The glide begins with a low front vowel between the open front and central positions and moves in the direction of a close back vowel. There is a clear closing movement of the lower jaw and the lips change from neutrally open to a closely, but not tightly rounded position. Examples: / au/ 'hand', /kaus/ 'cheese', /audIrdod/ 'authority'. There is a tendency to centralize the first element of the glide in the penultima, e.g. [ äuer] 'many, much', [äuel] 'a breeze'. / u/ The glide begins with a central vowel between half-open and half-close and moves in the direction of a close back vowel. The lips change from neutral to a closely, but not tightly rounded position. Examples: /b uId/ 'life', /k ujon/ 'chicks', / u dreq/ 'government'. This glide is frequently in free variation with a glide having as its first element a highly centralized back rounded vowel between half-open and half-close, i.e. [öu], e.g. [p und:pöund] 'pound', [ un:öun] 1st, sg. past continuous of the verb 'to be'. In NW the diphthongal system is more complex than in SW. The main differences are: (i) Inventory Differences

NW has three subsets of diphthongs according to their second element.

1. a subset of three terms closing to [i], /ai, i, i/; 2. a subset of five terms closing to [u], /Iu, eu, au, u, iu/; 3. a subset of five terms closing to a high central vowel, [i], /ai, i, i, i i/. NW, therefore, has five more terms in its diphthongal system than SW. Subset 3, the [i]-closing diphthongs are shown in Fig. 4 below.

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Fig. 4 The [ ]-closing diphthongs of NW The two diphthongs /ai/ and / i/ are distinguished mainly by the length of the first element although the longer first element of / i/ may also be slightly more retracted than that of /ai/. The two diphthongs contrast in monosyllables only and the instances of minimal pairs are few, e.g. /hail/ 'sun', /h il/ 'generous', /kai/ 'shut', /k i/ 'field'. (ii) Positional Variation The diphthongs /eu, au, i, i/ have very conspicuous positional variants in monosyllables and stressed ultima, in open and closed syllables in the case of / i, i/, but in open syllables only in the case of /eu, au/. In these positions, the first element of the glide is long, and in the case of /eu, i, i/ closer, i.e. phonetically [e u, i, i], and in the case of /au/, longer and slightly more fronted, i.e. [ u], than in all the other positions in which they occur; in all other positions (which includes closed monosyllables for /eu, au/) the first element is short and more open/less fronted, e.g. compare /teu/ 'fat', /teuac/ 'fatter', phonetically [t u] and [teuac]; / au/ 'hand': / aun/ 'full', phonetically [ u] and [ aun]; /k id/ 'trees': /k idan/ 'tree', / 'spoon': / in g/ 'fox', phonetically / i] and [ in g]. phonetically /k id] and [k idan/; / Notes I am indebted to Martin Ball and Robert Owen Jones for many useful comments on this chapter. 1 The references to NW are in many respects tentative. There is as yet no detailed analysis of a given dialect of NW. The best available descriptions are H. Sweet (18824); O. H. Fynes-Clinton (1913, xxixxv); A. Sommerfelt

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Page 62 (1925); S. Jones (1926); R. O. Jones (1967). Where no sources are quoted, the remarks are based on my own observations. 2 See, however, note 21. 3 For a traditional account of the mutations see S. J. Williams (1980, 1746); for various treatments and interpretations see E. Hamp (1951); J. Ellis (1961); K. H. Albrow (1966); G. M. Awbery (1975). 4 Based on my own unpublished observations presented in a paper read at a meeting of the University of Wales Dialectologists at the Welsh Folk Museum, St. Fagans, Cardiff, April 1975. This initial study has now been superseded by M. J. Ball's reported in his contribution in this volume. 5 In the description of the articulation of all the distinctive sounds of Welsh in this chapter, excepting the nasals, and unless specifically stated to the contrary, it is assumed that the soft palate is raised sealing off the nasal cavity. 6 The orthographic convention of Modern Welsh was decided upon at the end of the nineteenth century by a committee of Welsh academics who sought to standardize the orthography after the havoc created by nineteenth-century etymologists. The members of the committee maintained in their report that in a fricative + stop cluster, ' . . . the dental is somewhat harder than the gutteral or labial.' (Welsh Orthography, 1893) and hence interpreted the bilabial and the velar as of the lenis series, but the dental as of the fortis series. 7 Exceptionally, though, the stop could be interpreted as of the aspirated series, see J. Morris-Jones 1925, 20810. 8 Alternatively, a simpler phonotactic statement would argue for assigning the stops in the clusters to the fortis series, the statement being (as for English in this instance, see A. H. Sommerstein, 1977, 22) that when an obstruent ( = fricative) precedes an obstruent ( = stop) the two agree in the value of the feature voicelessness, hence /sp, st, sk, ft, t, òk/. 9 For a discussion of the treatment of the affricates in NW, see T. D. Griffen, 1974. 10 Ignoring its occurrence due to borrowings from English, the palato-alveolar fricative has developed in Welsh from the assimilation of [s] + [i] and some analyses have treated it as such a biphonemic sequence, e.g. A. R. Thomas (1967) and cf. J. C. Wells (1979). 11 Some degree of pharyngalization would seem to be a concomitant feature of the articulation of the central vowels, for all adjacent consonants have this dark quality, e.g. in [bis] 'finger, [ in] 'picture', [ In] 'lake', [tIn] 'tight', [klin] 'thigh'. This is a feature of NW which requires detailed investigation. 12 This phoneme has been variously analysed as a biphonemic sequence of /r/ + /h/ e.g. S. Jones (1923, 15) and of /h/ + /r/ e.g. R. O. Jones (1967, 1024). 13 Earlier kymographic tracings made by J. J. Glanmor Davies (1936, 31214, see also H. A. Rositzke 1940) had shown that the nasal could be partially or totally voiced. 14 D. A. Thorne (1976, 1, 87) treats this cluster as a monophonemic unit economy and pattern

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The cluster analysis is preferred on grounds of

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congruity: it does not add another unit to the phoneme inventory and other C + /w/ clusters do occur: /k, s, t/ + /w/; neither does it complicate the allophonic distribution of /w/ which is always devoiced when preceded by a voiceless consonant. 15 My colleague, Mr Peter Wynn Thomas, informs me that he has observed instances of the length factor being omitted in the penultimate which suggests that of the qualitative and quantative features which mark the close long vowels it may be that it is the qualitative which is primary. 16 It may occur long in the quotation forms of two form words, the definite article / / and the 2nd. sg. possessive pronoun /d /. 17 This is contrary to the traditional view of Welsh grammars which maintained that vowel length was dependent on the following consonant. See note 22. 18 The distribution described here applies exclusively to the Llanwrtyd variety of SW. For a more detailed treatment of the distribution of the long and short vowels and the phonotactic constraints involved see G. M. Awbery's contribution in this volume. 19 Only conspicuously marked allophonic variants are noted in the following section. 20 This palatalization had occurred by the mid-seventeenth century at least, for John Wallis in his Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae identified the 'slender' or palatalized 'a' of contemporary English with the Welsh 'a' (see J. A. Kemp, 1972). 21 Historically, Welsh had two central vowels, one rounded and one unrounded. The orthography reflects this historical contrast with 'y' representing the historically unrounded /i/ and 'u' the rounded /u/, thus llus 'bilberries' and llys 'court' or tu 'side' and 'house' originally consitituted minimal pairs. By the fourteenth century it would seem that both vowels had merged in final unaccented syllables but continued to be contrastive in monosyllables up to the sixteenth century (see J. Morris-Jones, 1913, 13) but even in this position it would seem that they approximated one another very closely in phonetic space and sometimes overlapped, (see G. E. Jones, 1982). By the present day /u/ and /i/ have merged in NW whilst in SW the central vowel has further merged with /i/. I have, however, observed a few sporadic occurrences of both rounded and unrounded central vowels in a small lexical set in the Llanwrtyd area of mid Wales, a dialect area, where, with the exception of the occurrences noted, the central vowel has completely merged with /i/. The speakers could not, however, as far as I could gather, perceive any distinction between the central [u/i] and [i], thus providing an instance of speakers retaining a productive but not a perceptual control over the sounds in question. For instances of similar cases, see Labov (1974). Given the circumstances of the occurrence of the central vowels in this dialect of SW they would seem to constitute what Sommerstein (1977, 18, n.6) has termed 'half contrasts' and have not been included in this description of SW. Central vowels, rounded and unrounded, have been recorded in some Glamorgan dialects, see Studia Celtica X/XI, 19756, 2767.

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22 For the mid front /e/, however, two clear contextual allophones need to be specified in the penultima: a half open [e], when [i, , u] occur in the ultima, e.g. [telin] 'harp', [pec d] 'sin', [meðu] 'drunk'; a much closer mid front vowel, between half open and half close, [ ], when [i, a] occur in the ultima, e.g. [ li] 'ointment', [gw a] 'to improve'; compare [melin] 'yellow' and [m lin] 'mill'. 23 Traditional grammars maintain that vowel quantity in Welsh was dependent on the following consonant (see J. Morris-Jones, 1913, 6573; 1921, 239); in the penultima, for example, the vowel was always short when followed by /p, t, k, m, , , s/ which were all geminates, and 'medium' when followed by /b, d, g, f, v, q, ð, c/ which were all single consonants, /l, n, r/ could be either geminates or single consonants. Orthographic convention consistently distinguished between single and geminate 'n' by writing the latter double and the former single, e.g. canu 'to sing', cannu 'to bleach'. By the nineteenth century as far as NW was concerned, all vowels in the penultima had become short. Sweet in his description of a Gwynedd dialect stated, 'Strest vowels ar long and short in monosyllabls . . . always short when an unstrest syllabl follows, so that two such words as (ton) ''wave" and (toon) "tune" both have the same plural (tona)' (1884, 14). Compare also Sommerfelt's remarks (1925, 47). The change was clearly reflected in the failure to observe the orthographic convention of distinguishing between single and geminate 'n' (see T. A. Watkins, 1961, 83 for an example). However, O. H. Fynes-Clinton (1913, xxv) seems to have maintained that a contrast between single and geminate consonants was retained in NW and several instances of minimal pairs showing a contrast between /n/ and /nn/ can be gleaned from his lexicon of NW, e.g. he cites [anos], comparative of [anoð] 'difficult' and [annos] 'to set upon'; [tana] plural of tân 'fire' and [tanna] plural of tant 'string' (musical). It seems, however, that present day speakers of NW can no longer make this distinction; some elderly speakers of NW from Anglesey to whom I presented some of these potential minimal pairs, which included [mana] superlative of [m n] 'fine' and [manna], plural of [man] 'place', and [glana] superlative of [gl n] 'clean' and [glanna], plural of [glan] 'shore', failed to perceive any difference between them (cf. T. A. Watkins's remarks, 1961, 22, 26, 84). An occasional instance of fluctuation between [n] and [nn] is given in Fynes-Clinton's lexicon, e.g. [tany] and [tanny] are given for tanu 'to spread', indicating that the geminate was not in fact consistently adhered to.

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Phonotactic Constraints in Welsh Gwenllian M. Awbery In any language there are limitations on the ways in which basic phonological units may combine to form longer sequences. Thus in Welsh we can easily establish that /p/ and /l/ are contrastive units from the minimal pair /pan/ 'when' and /lan/ 'up'. But these units cannot combine freely in all positions in the word. In initial position the sequence /pl/ is acceptable, as in /plant/ 'children', but the reverse sequence /lp/ is not. No such form as /*lpant/ is found in the language. In final position on the other hand /lp/ is acceptable, as in /talp/ 'lump', but not /pl/. There is no such form as /*tapl/ in the language. /plant/ /*tapl/

/talp/ /*lpant/

Just as languages vary in their choice of contrastive units, so too they vary in the ways they permit these to form longer sequences. In this chapter we shall try to establish what restrictions are characteristic of Welsh, 1 looking in turn at simple vowels, consonants and diphthongs. Simple Vowels The full range of simple vowel phonemes found in the Welsh of south Wales is / , I, , e, , a, , , , , /. hey fall clearly into two sets long vowels and short vowels, and this distinction will prove central to the restrictions on how they may combine with other units to form words. In some contexts the full range of vowels, long and short alike, may appear freely; other contexts are limited to long vowels only, and others again are limited to short vowels only. In monosyllables2 the crucial consideration is what immediately follows the vowel, be it a particular consonant, a cluster or zero. Where for instance the vowel is followed by a single sonorant consonant, a nasal or liquid, we find both long and short vowels appearing freely. /d n/ 'man', /h n/ 'old', /t n/ 'fire', /s n/ 'speak', /s n/ 'noise'

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/gwIn/ 'white', /pren/ 'tree', /man/ 'place', /br n/ 'breast', /gr n/ 'ridge of ploughland' Where the following consonant is an obstruent however the vowel must in most cases be long. This is true of voiced stops, of voiced and voiceless fricatives, 3 and of the voiceless lateral / /.

Only before a voiceless stop do we find a short vowel. /jet/ 'gate', /at/ 'to', / k/ 'sheepfold', /kr t/ 'boy' There are two further context types which must be taken into account. If there is no following consonant at all only long vowels are possible. /k / 'dog', /

/ 'place', /d / 'good', /t / 'roof', /

/ 'oath'

And if there is a following cluster only short vowels are possible. The identity of the consonants making up the cluster is irrelevant; all that matters is that there should be a cluster of some kind. /pInt/ 'pound', /gwerq/ 'value', /plant/ 'children', /g lc/ 'wash', /k sk/ 'sleep' The position is summarized in Table 1 below. Table 1 Vowel length in monosyllables in south Wales Vowel followed by: SHORT Voiceless stop SHORT Cluster LONG, SHORT Nasal LONG, SHORT Liquid LONG Voiced stop LONG Voiced fricative LONG Voiceless fricative LONG Voiceless lateral LONG Zero

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It follows from this account that there are many forms which do not turn up in the language. We do not for instance find forms like /*kI/ where a short vowel is followed by zero, nor forms like /*p nt/ where a long vowel is followed by a cluster. These are systematic gaps, ruled out by general principles governing the language. Neither /*kI/ nor /*p nt/ could possibly be an acceptable word in Welsh. They sound strange and foreign to the native speaker. Such systematic gaps must be clearly distinguished from accidental gaps. Consider for example the items listed below. /pInt/ 'pound', /pant/ 'valley', /p nt/ 'bridge' Three of the short vowels appear in the context /pnt/, but not the remaining two. We have no /pent/ or /p nt/. These forms are not however objectionable in the way /*p nt/ was. They could be adopted to express some new meaning without any change in the system. Indeed it would be no great surprise if it turned out that they did exist already in some technical context previously unfamiliar. They are possible but unexploited slots in the language. Usually the distinction between systematic and accidental gaps is clear, but there are occasions when it is blurred, and we cannot be sure which of the two we are dealing with. For example, it was claimed above that both long and short vowels may appear freely before a single sonorant consonant, and indeed /n/, /l/ and /r/ do allow the full range with only a few accidental gaps. When we turn to the remaining sonorants /m/ and / / however the position is unclear. Short vowels may appear in this context.

Long vowels are a different matter. Very few long vowels appear before /m/; no long vowels at all appear before / /. /b m/ 'I was' How should this be handled? There are two possible approaches, both of them unsatisfactory. We could say that there is a systematic restriction which rules out sequences consisting of a long vowel and /m/ or / /, but there is no explanation for why nasals split up in this way when other classes of consonants do not. We do not for instance find /d/ behaving differently from /b/ and /g/ with regard to restrictions of this kind. On the other hand it is equally unsatisfactory to treat the lack of

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long vowels before /m/ and / / as purely accidental since this disguises the clear patterning involved. Space limitations unfortunately preclude our exploring this interesting problem more fully here. Accidental gaps will be ignored in the body of this chapter; we shall as far as possible concentrate on systematic gaps and the principles which govern them. The discussion so far has all been in terms of monosyllables. What then of longer forms? In most polysyllables word stress falls on the penultimate syllable, and here the pattern of restrictions is very similar to that described above for monosyllabic forms. The crucial consideration once again is what immediately follows the vowel. Before a single sonorant consonant we find the full range of vowels.

All other contexts limit the choice to either long vowels only or short vowels only. On the whole the pattern of choices found in monosyllables is replicated in stressed penultimates. Long vowels appear before voiced stops and fricatives, and before the voiceless fricatives /f/, /q/ and /c/. Long vowels appear too where there is no following consonant.

Short vowels appear before voiceless stops and consonant clusters. /'jete/ 'gates', /'ateb/ 'to answer', /'g ter/ 'stream' /'mI tir/ 'mile', /'ebri / 'April', /'da gos/ 'to show', /'g rmod/ 'too much', /'g ndun/ 'meadow' So far so good. The parallellism breaks down however at two points, over /s/ and / /. In monosyllables we find long vowels in this context, in stressed penultimates short vowels. /'mesir/ 'measure', /'lasog/ 'gizzard', /'h son/ 'sock' /'dI ad/ 'clothes', /'a an/ 'out', /'k i/ 'to lose'

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These are comparatively minor changes. The overall structure of the restrictions is the same, but in two contexts where a choice must be made between long and short vowels monosyllables and stressed penultimates chose differently. The position is summarized in Table 2 below. Table 2 Vowel length in monosyllables and stressed penultimates in south Wales Vowel followed by: Monosyllables Penultimates SHORT SHORT Voiceless stop SHORT SHORT Cluster LONG, SHORT LONG, SHORT Nasal LONG, SHORT LONG, SHORT Liquid LONG LONG Voiced stop LONG LONG Voiced fricative LONG LONG /f/, /q/, /c/ LONG LONG Zero LONG SHORT /s/, / / What emerges from this is that the restrictions on vowel length are sensitive to two factors. The first of these is what immediately follows the vowel be it sonorant or obstruent, zero or a cluster of consonants. The second is its position in the overall word. It is not enough to know that a vowel is immediately followed by /s/ or / /. We must also know if it is in a monosyllable or in the penultimate syllable of a longer form. Only then can we tell if the vowel is to be long or short. There is in fact a third relevant factor stress. In unstressed syllables only short vowels may appear, regardless of what immediately follows. There is no trace here of the patterning found in stressed syllables and summarized in Table 2 above.

It might appear that we could describe these restrictions without reference to stress, relying only on the position of the vowel in the word. Penultimate vowels undergo one set of restrictions, finals and ante-

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penultimates another. It is irrelevant that penultimates alone are stressed. So far this position is plausible, but its inadequacy becomes clear when we look at those items which have word stress exceptionally on the final syllable. In such forms the penultimate syllable is unstressed and, like other unstressed syllables allows only short vowels. The stressed final syllable however displays the same kind of patterning as we find in other stressed syllables. Before a single sonorant for instance both long and short vowels may appear, but before zero we find only long vowels, and before a consonant cluster we find only short vowels. /pe 'gl n/ 'knee', /Iwc'ben/ 'above' /ma 'g / 'grandmother' /wiq'k rn/ 'spider's web' There is in fact a particularly close link between stressed finals and monosyllables, since both require a long vowel before / / whereas stressed penultimates require a short vowel in this context. /gw

/ 'better', / m'h

/ 'far', /'dI ad/ 'clothes'

Clearly stress is an important factor here. It is not enough to know if a vowel is in the penultimate or final syllable; we must also know if this is stressed or unstressed. We must then take into account three factors in formulating the restrictions on vowel length stress, the position of the vowel in the word, and what immediately follows it. Of the three stress is basic; an unstressed vowel must be short, while a stressed vowel may be either short or long. The two other factors apply with equal weight to stressed vowels; we need to know both where in the word a vowel appears, and what immediately follows it. Note that the position of the vowel in the word is framed in Fig. 1 as a binary choice between final and nonfinal. 'Final' covers both stressed finals and monosyllables, and 'nonfinal' covers penultimates. This choice will recur throughout the chapter, and clearly constitutes an important opposition in the language. Dialect Variation The discussion so far has all been in terms of the Welsh of south Wales. Northern dialects have two additional vowel phonemes, the high central pair /i/ and /I/, hence the full range of simple vowel phonemes occurring in the Welsh of north Wales are . North and south differ then as to the number of contrastive vowel phonemes they can draw on. Do they also differ as to the

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Fig. 1 Factors determining vowel length in south Wales phonotactic restrictions that govern the distribution of these phonemes? The answer appears to be yes. There are clear points of divergence in both the restrictions that hold of monosyllables, and those that hold of stressed penultimates. On the whole monosyllables are subject to the same restrictions in the north as in the south. In two contexts only is there disagreement. Before the voiceless lateral / / we find long vowels in the south, short vowels in the north. South /gw / / /

North /gwe / / a /

'better' 'other'

This then is a simple reversal. The second point of disagreement is a little more complicated. In the south we find a short vowel before all

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consonant clusters, but in the north the rule varies according to the identity of the consonants which form the cluster. If it consists of a fricative followed by a stop then the vowel must be long; with any other cluster the vowel must be short.

Fric + Stop Other Clusters

South /k sk/ /s t/

North /k sk/ 'sleep' /s t/ 'shilling'

/t rq/ /kant/ /barn/

/t rq/ 'loaf' /kant/ 'hundred' /barn/ 'opinion'

In both cases we are clearly just tinkering with the details. Minor arbitrary choices are reversed but the overall pattern of restrictions remains the same. Table 3 Differences between north and south in monosyllables Vowel followed by: South North LONG SHORT Voiceless lateral SHORT LONG Fricative + Stop SHORT SHORT Other clusters What is perhaps surprising, given that these are rather arbitrary divergences, is that the changeover from the southern to the northern pattern occurs in the same part of mid Wales for both of them. The boundary is shown on Map 1. 4 North Cardiganshire and north Breconshire align with the south, while the Dyfi basin and Llanfair Caereinion in Montgomeryshire are clearly northern. Even more striking is that this tallies very closely with boundary established by Darlington (1901) and Sommerfelt (1925) between areas in the north which have the high central vowels /i/ and /i/, and areas in the south which lack them. In this region then we find several phonological boundaries clustering together though there is no obvious connection between them. The question of why they should do so is an interesting one, which unfortunately cannot be explored here. Let us now turn to the second, and more serious difference between north and south. We have seen that in the south all stressed syllables monosyllables, penultimates and finals behave alike. Before a single sonorant vowel length is contrastive; elsewhere the choice of a long or short vowel is predictable from what immediately follows. In the north however this parallelism is lost. Monosyllables and finals preserve the southern system, with the minor adjustments for / / and clusters

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Map 1 Vowel length in monosyllables: differences between the north and the south

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already noted. But in penultimates this whole system breaks down. Long vowels are ruled out completely, and only short vowels may appear regardless of what immediately follows. Table 4 Stressed syllables in north and south Wales Monosyllables South North LONG, SHORT LONG, SHORT Finals LONG, SHORT LONG, SHORT Penultimates LONG, SHORT SHORT For instance, in the south the long vowel in /' ra / contrasts with the short vowel in/'kareg/, but in the north both have a short vowel. South /' ra / /'kareg/

North /'ara / /'kareg/

'other' 'stone'

And similarly, in the south the long vowel in /'k der/ is predictable from the following /d/, just as the short vowel in /'ateb/ is predictable from the following /t/. In the north the vowel is short in both cases. South /'k der/ /'ateb/

North /'kader/ /'ateb/

'chair' 'to answer'

The factors relevant to restrictions on vowel length in the north are summarized below in Fig. 2. Compare this with the equivalent decision tree established for the south in Fig. 1. We still need to know if the vowel is stressed or unstressed, and if it is in a final or non-final syllable. It is only at the lowest level of choice that we see a difference, where we need to take note of what immediately follows in word-final syllables only. The geographical spread of this characteristically northern system is unclear, though it certainly holds in the north-west. What we can say for certain is that between it and the southern system is a buffer zone extending across mid Wales and probably up into the north-east, as on Map 2. In this buffer zone we find a third system, distinct from both those discussed so far. This third buffer system is summarized in Fig. 3 and this pattern, with long and short vowels in free variation in stressed penultimates of all types, can be seen as an interesting blend of northern and southern features.

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Fig. 2 Factors determining vowel length in north Wales Mid Wales /' ra /~/'ara / /'k reg/~/'kareg'/ /'k der/~/'kader/ /' teb/~/'ateb/

'other' 'stone' 'chair' 'to answer'

In mid Wales as in the north, the parallelism is lost between penultimates and other stressed syllables. Monosyllables and stressed finals continue to display a complicated pattern of contrast and neutralization with the choice of a long or short vowel determined by what immediately follows; in penultimates however it makes no difference what follows the vowel. On the other hand, in allowing long vowels to appear in the penultimate as well as short vowels, this mid Wales system aligns itself with the south.

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Map 2 Vowel length in penultimate syllables The Central Vowel Only one vowel fails to participate in the complicated patterning described above. This is the central vowel / / which has no long equivalent, and is always short regardless of what follows. 5 /' skavn/ 'light', /'k van/ 'whole', /'k nar/ 'early'

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Fig. 3 Factors determining vowel length in mid Wales Interest here centres rather on two major restrictions which are unique to this vowel, affecting no other in the language. The first of these is that the central vowel may appear only in nonfinal syllables. In the examples given above it appears in stressed penultimates, but it is equally acceptable in unstressed penultimates and in antepenultimates. /k m'r g/ 'Welsh', /k 't n/ 'agreed' /k 'neja/ 'harvest', /k 'meejad/ 'character' If the syllable is word-final however it is ruled out, and we see that once again here monosyllables and the final syllables of longer forms are grouped together. In neither is the central vowel possible. The second restriction on the central vowel is that it may not appear, even in a nonfinal syllable, immediately followed by another vowel. It must always be followed by a consonant or a consonant cluster, as in the examples already given. There is no equivalent of forms like /' ol/ 'rule' with a central vowel in the penultimate syllable. What immediately

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follows is therefore important here too, as with vowel length, but only at the crudest level. We must be able to distinguish between a following consonant and vowel, but do not need to know the identity of the consonant in any detail. It might be argued that the central vowel is, ruled out of this environment as it is one characteristic of long vowels, but this argument does not stand up to closer examination since / / appears freely in other environments which normally require a long vowel as in /'k van/ 'whole' or /' bið/ 'warning'. This restriction must then be formulated separately. The factors determining whether the central vowel may appear or not are shown below in Fig. 4. The distinction between final and nonfinal syllables and the sensitivity to what immediately follows are both reminiscent of factors relevant to vowel length, though the details of course vary. The one major difference is that stress is not invoked here at all, while it was central to the discussion of vowel length.

Fig. 4 Factors determining if the central vowel is acceptable There is one clear set of exceptions to this pattern, the grammatical items listed below. / r, / 'the', / n/ 'in', / n/ 'adj. particle', / n/ 'aspect marker', /d / 'thy', /v , n/ 'my' All are monosyllabic, and therefore word-final. Three of them have no consonant following the vowel. To some extent their monosyllabic status is in doubt since they always appear prefixed to other full lexical items, but there are difficulties with this approach too, and it seems better to regard them as straightforward exceptions. The system described above holds for most of Wales, with the north and south for once in agreement. In one region however, covering much

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of south Cardiganshire and stretching over into north Pembrokeshire, the restrictions on the central vowel are marginally relaxed. Here it may appear in monosyllabic forms, in contrast to the normal ban on it in this environment. /b q/ 'ever', /b r/ 'short', /m nd/ 'to go' The other restrictions still hold good; it may not appear in the final syllable of a longer form, nor may it appear immediately followed by a vowel. This modified system is summarized in Fig. 5 below.

Fig. 5. Factors determining if the central vowel is acceptable (south Cardiganshire) A rather different variation on the normal patterns arises in the rest of Pembrokeshire, west of the area just discussed. As one moves west-wards the central vowel all but disappears from the dialect; lexical items which in the rest of Wales contain the central vowel here have one of the high vowels. Most of Wales /'k van/ /'b guq/ /'k nar/ /'p dri/

Pembrokeshire /'k van/ /'b guq/ /'kInar/ /'p dri/

'whole' 'to threaten' 'early' 'to rot'

We are approaching a situation here then where the restrictions on the central vowel are irrelevant since this vowel simply does not exist in the dialect. This however has not yet happened, and the residual examples of the central vowel which do occur still observe the normal restrictions summarized in Fig. 4 above. It is merely that the role of these restrictions is considerably more limited than in the rest of Wales. These two variant patterns are shown on Map 3.

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Map 3 Restrictions on the central vowel It seems possible however that the central vowel is not the only one banned from final syllables. Earlier in this discussion it was claimed that the full range of short vowels may appear in unstressed final syllables. /'amgilx/ 'around', /'a en/ 'need', /' va k/ 'young', /'kalon/ 'heart', /'askurn/ 'bone' This pattern is indeed characteristic of the north-east and of the

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south-west. In the north-west and the south-east the position is rather different; there the vowel /e/ is regularly replaced by /a/, so that the contrast between the two is lost. NE/SW /'a en/ /' va k/

NW/SE /'a an/ /' va k/

'need' 'young'

This modification can be very simply accounted for if we assume that in these two areas /e/, like the central vowel, is banned from final syllables. The ban does not extend to stressed finals since forms such as /Iwc'ben/ 'above' are still acceptable. This distribution is shown in Map 4, which highlights the rather odd way nonadjacent areas group together for this feature. Why this should happen is not at all clear. Consonants The full range of consonantal phonemes in Welsh is: 6 Voiceless stops Voiced stops Voiceless fricatives Voiced fricatives Nasals Liquids

/p, t, k/ /b, d, g/ /f, q, s, , ò, c, h/ /v, ð/ /m, n, / /l, /

Ignoring /h/ for the present, we find that different positions in the word allow different ranges of single consonants to appear. Medially, between vowels, the full set is possible.

In word-final position too we find the full set. There is a tendency in most dialects to drop a word-final /v/ or /ð/ which is present in the standard language, but this in no case amounts to a ban on these consonants.

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Map 4 The merger of /e/ and /a/ in unstressed final syllables in the north-west and the south-east

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In initial position however choice is much more restricted, and this in a somewhat idiosyncratic way. The position is summarized in Table 5 below, where those consonants which may not appear in initial position are circled. 7 Table 5 Consonants in word-initial position

Stops, both voiceless and voiced, are acceptable but fricatives vary. Two out of three nasals are acceptable, and both liquids. /pant/ 'valley', /t / 'roof', /kaws/ 'cheese', /b d/ 'world', /d r/ 'water', /garð/ 'garden' /f rð/ 'road', /'q ma/ 'theme', /s n/ 'noise', /ò r/ 'county', / awn/ 'full', /vel/ 'like' /merc/ 'girl', /n s/ 'night' /lan/ 'up', / an/ 'part' These restrictions cannot be expressed in terms of natural classes of consonants. For instance / / is ruled out but not the other two nasals. One of the velar consonants is ruled out but not /k/ and /g/. All we can say is that the difference between initial position and medial or final is clearly important, with these rather arbitrary restrictions limited to initials. The examples given so far in this section have all been taken from the Welsh of south Wales, but in fact the restrictions described hold equally of the north. There is widespread agreement even over apparently arbitrary details. Only in the industrial valleys of the south-east does this consensus break down, as shown on Map 5. In this area we find a unique

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Map 5 The devoicing of medial stops in south-east Wales

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set of restrictions on voiced stops. They continue to appear freely in most positions but are banned medially in the word if they immediately follow the stressed vowel. In such cases they are replaced with voiceless stops. Most of Wales /' bol/ /'k der/ /' gor/

South-east /' pol/ 'foal' /'k ter/ 'chair' /' kor/ 'to open'

The same replacement pattern is found if the stop is immediately followed by a nasal or a liquid. Most of Wales /'admod/ /'eglus/

South-east /'atnod/ 'Bible verse' /'eklus/ 'church'

Note that although the contrast between voiced and voiceless stops is lost here, a residual marker of the contrast remains. A medial voiced stop required a preceding long vowel, and this long vowel is retained even when the voiced stop is replaced by a voiceless one. Thus the long vowel in /' bol/ is retained in /' pol/. In the normal way a voiceless stop required a preceding short vowel, as in /'ateb/. The opposition normally carried by voicing in the stop is therefore now carried by length in the vowel. /'kapel/ 'chapel' /' pol/ 'foal' /'ateb/ 'to answer' /'k tar/ 'chair' /' kor/ 'to open' /t'ekil/ 'kettle' Turning back to /h/, we find that it is much more restricted than the other consonants. It is basically limited to two contexts. It may appear in word-initial position. /h n/ 'old', /'h nes/ 'history' And it may appear medially if it immediately precedes a stressed vowel, and follows either another vowel or a nasal consonant. /o'herwið/ 'because', /gwa'h n/ 'apart', /k n'heja/ 'harvest', / 'h d/ 'together' In other medial positions and word-finally /h/ is ruled out. Once again then the difference between initial, medial and final position is important, but so too are stress and the immediate segmental environment. 8

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Consonant Clusters A wide range of consonant cluster types are possible in Welsh a sequence of two obstruents, two sonorants or one of each in either order. O + / agvir/ 'December', /'backen/ 'boy' O S + /'gormod/ 'too much', /'marlat/ 'drake', /'k mni/ S 'company' S + /'da gos/ 'to show', /'hamðen/ 'leisure', /ardal/ 'district', O /'m rqul/ 'hammer' O + /'kadno/ 'fox', /'ebri / 'April', k nta/ 'time', /'k vlog/ S 'salary' There are however certain restrictions on possible combinations. In almost every case a nasal and a following stop must be homorganic. /'g mpas/ 'around', /'ambe / 'some', /'k nta/ 'first', /'g ndun/ 'meadow', /'wI ki/ 'weasel', /'da gos/ 'to show' There are occasional exceptions to this rule, such as /'amkan/ 'guess' and /'amfilc/ 'around', but they are rare. There is no similar requirement for a nasal and a following fricative to be homorganic. Obstruent clusters are also restricted, but in this case the two consonants must agree in voicing; either both are voiced or both are voiceless. /'g ðge/ 'necks', / agvir/ 'December', /'askurn/ 'bone', /'k psi/ 'top of corn stack' There are no other restrictions on clusters of two consonants. Clusters of three consonants however are highly constrained. There are two basic types. The first consists of /s/ followed by a stop and then a liquid. /' sprid/ 'ghost', /'kaskli/ 'to collect' The second consists of a nasal consonant, again followed by a stop and then a liquid. /'òendler/ 'candlestick', /'mentro/ 'to dare' All these constraints on clusters hold throughout Wales without dialectal variation. Clusters however are not only internally restricted in the ways shown above, but are also like single consonants sensitive to the position in the word where they appear. Medially all four combinations of obstruents and sonorants are possible, as can be seen from the examples given above. In initial and final position the range of choices is

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narrower. Initially two cluster types are ruled out completely, S + S and S + O. The other two types are acceptable. O + /'sk dan/ 'herring', /'st mo/ 'to bank up the fire' O O + S /knaj/ 'nuts',/dr d/ 'expensive', /fr k/ 'part of a pigsty' In final position only O + S clusters are ruled out; the other three types are all found. O + O/pask/ 'Easter', /gwa t/ 'hair' S + S /darn/ 'piece', /ferm/ 'farm' S + O /pImp/ 'five', /b rd/ 'table' /balc/ 'proud' This clear three way split is shown in Table 6; medial position allows the full range, while initial and final differ in the restrictions they impose. Table 6 Consonant clusters in different positions in the word O+O Intial Medial Final Yes Yes Yes S+S No Yes Yes S+O No Yes Yes O+S Yes Yes No One point of difference between initial and final positions can be seen as a mirror-image constraint. In initial position we find O + S clusters, and in final position S + O clusters. This could be interpreted as a general constraint that in a cluster which consists of an obstruent and a sonorant the obstruent must be the outermost element, next to the word boundary. Table 7 Initial and final clusters S+O Initial Final No Yes O+S Yes No There is a further interesting difference between initial and final positions. If a cluster is ruled out word-initially then it simply does not appear, and that is the end of the matter. Word-finally however things are rather more complicated. If we add a suffix to a monosyllable we change it into a disyllabic

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form. The cluster which was word-final in the basic monosyllable is now word-medial. Normally this is a completely straightforward process. /merc/ 'girl' /'merced/ 'girls' /'d rni/ 'to thresh' /d rn/ 'fist' /plant/ 'children' /'plentin/ 'child' Sometimes though there are complications. Consider these inflected forms. /'gwadne/ 'soles' /'kevne/ 'backs' /'p dri/ 'to rot' /' cri/ 'to side' We might expect that these inflected forms would correspond to basic monosyllables as below. /*gwadn/ 'sole' /'gwdne/ 'soles' /*kevn/ 'back' /'kevne/ 'backs'

However the clusters in these cases are all of the type O + S, which is not acceptable in word-final position. Nor surprisingly the monosyllables are ruled out. What is interesting is that this is not the end of the story. They are not just dropped, but replaced by disyllabic forms where the unacceptable final consonant cluster is split up by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel identical to the original vowel of the monosyllable. /'gw dan/ 'sole' /'k ven/ 'back' /'p dur/ 'rotten' /' cor/ 'side' In this way morphemes which contain unacceptable clusters are enabled to conform to the phonotactic restrictions of the language. The picture is similar if the monosyllable contains a diphthong. There is no difficulty where the cluster is acceptable in final position. 'bench' /'ve kið/ /vaj k /pownd/ 'pound' /'pownde/

'benches' 'pounds'

Where the cluster is not acceptable in final position an epenthetic vowel breaks it up. /' jbir/ /'sowdul/

'path' 'heel'

/' jbre/ /sowdle/

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The epenthetic vowel here is closely related to the glide of the diphthong /i/ if the glide is /j/, /u/ if the glide is /w/, and in north Wales /i/ if the glide is /j/. The examples discussed so far have all been monosyllabic. Where the unacceptable cluster occurs at the end of a longer form then a different strategy is adopted. /fe'nestri/ 'windows' /*'f nestr/ 'window' /*'anadl/ 'breath' /a'nadli/ 'to breathe' Here one of the consonants of the cluster is dropped, sometimes the first and sometimes the second. /'f nest/ 'window' /'anal/ 'breath' We thus end up with a simple final consonant corresponding to a medial cluster. It turns out in fact that some examples of O + O and S + S clusters are not acceptable in final position. They are modified by vowel epenthesis or consonant deletion in the same way. /'helmi/ 'cornstacks' /'h lem/ 'cornstack' /'amal/ 'often' /'amlac/ 'more often' /'g ðge/ 'necks' /'g ðug/ 'neck' /sa'd rne/ 'Saturdays' /'s dun/ 'Saturday' Only S + O clusters are never affected. Table 8 Epenthesis and deletion in final position O+S Obligatory O+O Sometimes S+S Sometimes S+O Never The patterns described above hold for south Wales. What then of the north? The restrictions on initial position hold of the north too, but those on final position do vary. Basically the north is more relaxed, and a number of O + S clusters are acceptable there though ruled out in the south. South /' von/ /' vir/

North / vn/ / Ivr/

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The newly acceptable clusters are those where the obstruent is a fricative. Clusters formed of a stop followed by a sonorant are still ruled out, except in a very few exceptional cases such as /'banadl/ 'broom'. Table 9 O + S clusters in final position Fricative + Nasal South North No Yes Fricative + Liquid No Yes Stop + Nasal No No Stop + Liquid No No The boundary between north and south for this is shown on Map 6. Note that it is considerably to the north of the corresponding boundary shown on Map 1 for vowel length in monosyllables. This time mid Wales is firmly in the southern camp. The two strategies of vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion are found in the north as in the south, but they are invoked to deal with narrower range of forms. There are in fact two other strategies, though they are limited in scope both geographically and in terms of the clusters affected. In north-east Wales there are cases where the two consonants of the clusters /vl/ and /vr/ are switched around. North /s vl/ /gavr/

North-east /s lv/ 'stubble' /garv/ 'sheaf of corn'

In Pembrokeshire on the other hand, if the consonant of a cluster is /v/ then there is a tendency to replace it with /w/. South /'k ven/ /'s vol/

Pembrokeshire /kewn/ 'back' /sowl/ 'stubble'

This change is not limited to final position, and we do find it retained in inflected forms. /kewn/ 'back' /'kewme/ 'backs' Diphthongs The full range of diphthongs in the Welsh of south Wales is shown below; one set closes towards the front glide /j/ and the other towards the back glide /w/.

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Map 6 Consonantal clusters: differences between the north and the south

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Fig. 6 The diphthongs of south Wales Turning to north Wales we find a rather different, expanded set of diphthongs. The additional central vowel /I/ gives the extra diphthong /Iw/, as the additional glide /j/ gives a third set of diphthongs closing in this direction.

Fig. 7 The diphthongs of north Wales

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Unlike simple vowels diphthongs are indifferent to what immediately follows, and may appear freely in any context. In the examples below for instance /aj/ is followed by zero, by a wide range of simple consonants, and by consonant clusters. / aj/ 'less', /majn/ 'thin', /gaj / 'chisel', /gajr/ 'word', /sajl/ 'foundation', /kajb/ 'mattock', / ajd/ 'need', /krajg/ 'rock', /gwrajð/ 'root', /gwajq 'work', /brajc/ 'arm', /klajs/ 'bruise', /naj / 'the one', /majnt/ 'size', /vaj k/ 'bench' On the other hand diphthongs are sensitive to their position in the overall word, and as with the restrictions on the central vowel we find that the difference between final and nonfinal syllables is crucial. Two diphthongs in particular are affected, and interestingly they react in opposite ways to this distinction. The first diphthong affected is /aj/. We have already seen that it can appear freely in monosyllables and it is also found in final syllables, both stressed and unstressed. /kanja'taj/ 'to permit', /glan'haj/ 'to clean' /'damwajn/ 'accident', /'e rajft/ 'example' It does not however appear in nonfinal syllables, though all the other diphthongs which close towards /j/ may do so. 9 /'ejra/ 'snow', /' jri/ 'to get cold', /'bl jðin/ 'year' Only this one factor is relevant in determining if /aj/ may appear or not.

Fig. 8 Factors determining if /aj/ is acceptable The examples given above were in their southern form, but the restriction holds equally in the north, and is indeed extended there to

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cover the additional diphthongs /aj/ and / j/. They appear in monosyllables and final syllables only /hajl/ 'sun', /gw jd/ 'blood' /kanja't j/ 'to permit' We find the reverse pattern for / w/, the second diphthong affected. It may appear freely in nonfinal syllables, both stressed and unstressed. /'t wið/ 'weather', /'kl wed/ 'to hear' /t w'haj/ 'to fatten' It may not appear in monosyllables or in the final syllables of longer forms, even though other diphthongs closing towards /w/ may do so. / Iw/ 'colour', /tew/ 'fat', / awn/ 'full', /brown/ 'brown' /'h ðIw/ 'today', / Id'rew/ 'frost', /'j nawr/ 'January', /pr n'hawn/ 'afternoon' The north and south agree in this, and again only one factor is relevant in determining if / w/ may appear or not.

Fig. 9 Factors determining if / w/ is acceptable Diphthongs Reconsidered So far the diphthongs have been treated without comment as single phonemic units. It appears however that the restrictions might be more simply formulated, in some cases at least, if they were seen as a sequence of two phonemes a vowel followed by a consonantal glide. Take for instance the restrictions on / w/ just discussed, and compare them with the restrictions given earlier in this chapter for the central vowel / /. Both the diphthong and the vowel may appear only in nonfinal syllables. As things stand at present this is as far as we can go, since / / must be followed by a consonant, while / w/ clearly need not since such forms as /'t wið/ are acceptable.

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Table 10 Restrictions on In nonfinal syllable only With following consonant only

and Yes Yes Yes No

On the revised view of diphthongs this discrepancy disappears. The diphthong / w/ now consists of the vowel / / followed by the glide /w/, and the form /'t wið/ is directly comparable to /'k nar/ since in both we have / / in a nonfinal syllable immediately followed by a consonant. No specific restriction is needed to account for / w/, since it is now merely a special case of the restrictions on the simple vowel / /. There is further evidence pointing in the same direction. Welsh, both in the north and the south, lacks the diphthongs /*Ij/ and /* w/. If diphthongs are regarded as unitary phonemes then we have here merely arbitrary and unrelated gaps in the set. Nor can we relate these gaps to the fact that the phonotactic rules of the language rule out certain sequences of glides and vowels /*j /, /*jI/, /*w /, /*w /. If on the other hand we assume that diphthongs consist of a vowel followed by a consonantal glide then all these disparate facts can be brought together very simply in one symmetrical restriction. The glide /j/ may neither precede or follow a high front vowel, and in the same way the glide /w/ may not precede or follow a high back vowel. This can be phrased more generally, to say that a glide may not stand adjacent to the high vowel which is most closely related to it. Table 11 Symmetrical restrictions on vowels and glides Vowel + Glide Glide + Vowel *Ij *ji: , *jI * w *wu: , *w In the north this restriction is extended in a natural way to the glide /j/ and the high central vowels /i / and /I/. There is no diphthong /*Ij/, nor do we find the sequences /*ji / and /*jI/. Table 12 Restrictions on combinations of vowels and glides in the north /j/ /j/ /w/ /i:/ , /I/ No No Yes No No Yes /i:/ , /I/ Yes Yes No /u:/ , / /

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It is clear however from Table 12 that the restriction is taken one stage further in the north. The glide /j/ may not appear next to one of the high central vowels, nor may the glide /j/ appear next to one of the high front vowels; the diphthongs /*Ij/ and /*Ij/ are ruled out, as are the sequences /*ji /, /*jI/, /*ji / and /*jI/. The distinction between high front and high central vowels and glides is irrelevant to this restriction. They behave identically to each other in opposition to high back vowels and glides. A third point concerns the length of the vocalic element in diphthongs. In north Wales the first element of a diphthong may be either a long vowel or a short one.

Only one pair, /aj/ and / j/, display a direct contrast of length as in /gw jd/ and /hajl/. The other long diphthongs / j/ and / j/ have no short form in direct contrast. In addition a complication exists which is not immediately apparent from Fig. 7. Two diphthongs are regularly realized with a short allophone if followed by a consonant, and with a long allophone if there is no following consonant. These are /ew/ and /aw/. [kaws] 'cheese', [ w] 'hand' [mewn] 'in', [t w] 'fat' The status of the diphthongs with a long first element varies considerably then. But some clear points emerge over their distribution. First it is clear that a long vowel is found only before the glides /j/ and /w/. There are no instances of a long vowel before /j/. This pattern with the length of the vowel dependent on what immediately follows is reminiscent of the rules for the length of simple vowels established earlier in the chapter. Some consonants required a preceding long vowel, others a short vowel and others again allowed both long and short. This similarity can be expressed very simply if the diphthongs are analysed as a sequence of a vowel and a consonantal glide. It is tempting to align the glides with the sonorant consonants, the nasals and liquids. Phonetically they are closest to the glides, and they form the only other set of consonants which allow both long and short vowels to precede them. /h n/ 'old', /t r/ 'land', / jr/ 'cold', [t w] 'fat' /pren/ 'tree', /er/ 'although', /hajl/ 'sun', [mewn] 'in' It might be thought that the restriction of the glide /j/ to short vowels

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would undermine this parallelism, but in fact we have already seen that a similar restriction holds of two of the nasals, /m/ and / /. /mam/ 'mother', /

/ 'ship', /gajr/ 'word'

In fact the restrictions on length in simple vowels summarized in Fig. 2 are almost exactly replicated in Fig. 10 which gives the restrictions on length in diphthongs. Only in monosyllabic forms and stressed finals do we need to take account of what immediately follows the vowel. / jr/ 'cold', / / 'calves' /kanjs'ta j/ 'to permit', /para't j/ 'to prepare' In unstressed syllables and stressed penultimates the vowel is always short.

Fig. 10. Factors determining vowel length in diphthongs in north Wales The situation in the south is different. Here the first element of the diphthong is always short, and glides appear to side rather unexpectedly with voiceless stops and consonant clusters which also require that a preceding vowel be short at all times.

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The boundary between the northern and southern patterns runs across mid Wales, and appears to follow the line shown on Map 1. This line marks another split between north and south in two contexts, before / / and before certain types of consonant cluster they have differing requirements as to vowel length. The fact that the same boundary holds in the case of vowel length in diphthongs further underlines the usefulness of regarding them as a sequence of a vowel and a following consonantal glide. North /gwe / /s t/ / jd/

South /gw / 'better' /s t/ 'shilling' / jd/ 'grey'

It is still unclear why these three sets of restrictions on vowel length should share a common boundary, but at least they can be seen to be restrictions of the same general kind. Glides Having established the consonantal nature of glides, it is worth looking more closely at how they compare with other consonants in patterns of distribution. Let us look first at the Welsh of south Wales, which has only the two glides /j/ and /w/, returning afterwards to any points where the northern system diverges. Glides appear freely in initial, medial and final position as single consonants. /jet/ 'gate', /w di/ 'after' / eja/ 'smallest', /dewis/ 'to choose' / j/ 'to give', / aw/ 'hand' When we turn to clusters however the position of the cluster in the word is important. Medially, as usual, we find a very full range of clusters. Two glides may form a cluster. /dIwjol/ 'godly', /d jwajq/ 'twice' Or a glide may form a cluster with any other consonant, sonorant or obstruent, and this consonant may either follow or precede the glide. /bejdi/ 'cowshed', /'sowdul/ 'heel', / ejni/ 'those', /'dowlad/ 'loft' /d ðjad/ 'date', /dedwar/ 'four', /' rje/ 'hours', /enwog/ 'famous' The choice in initial and final positions is much more restricted. A

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cluster of two glides is ruled out in both positions. A glide may however combine with another consonant, the possible combinations in initial position being the mirror image of those in final position. Table 13 Glide clusters in different positions in the word Initial Medial Final G+G No Yes No G+C No Yes Yes C+G Yes Yes No Word-finally then a glide may be followed by either a single consonant or a cluster. /krajg/ 'rock', /kawl/ 'soup' /bejrð/ 'poets', /awst/ 'August' Word initially we find the reverse case. A glide may be preceded by a single consonant. /hw c/ 'six', /djawl/ 'devil' And a glide may also be preceded by a cluster, though here the position must be argued in a little more detail. There are no obvious straight forward examples of this type; what we find rather are curious forms such as the following. /glwl d/ 'country', /gwrajð/ 'root', /gwnejd/ 'to do' These clusters /gwl/ , /gwr/ and /gwn/ are unique in the language in having a glide between two other consonants, the whole forming a single cluster. If we assume that a fairly abstract level of analysis these should in fact be represented as /glw/ , /grw/ and /gnw/ they can be seen to correspond very neatly to the clusters found in word-final position. /bejrð/ 'poets', /awst/ 'August', /majnt/ 'size' /*glwl d/ 'country', /*grwajð/ 'root', /*gnwejd/ 'to do' In initial position such clusters must be adjusted, the glide being attracted to a position in between the other two consonants. No such adjustment is required in final position, hence the surface asymmetry. The claim that the restrictions on initial and final position form a mirror image system should not however be pushed too far. In final position a glide may be followed by any consonant, but in initial position there are quite stringent restrictions on what may precede the glide. In

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most of south Wales only /h/ , /k/ and /g/ may precede /w/ and only /d/ may precede /j/. /hw c/ 'six', /gwIn/ 'white', /'kw rel/ 'window pane, /djawl/ 'devil' The /dj/ cluster is very marginal and is often replaced by the affricate to give for instance / awl/. Only in one area is there a general relaxation of these restrictions on initial position. In north Pembrokeshire a much wider range of consonants can appear preceding a glide to form an initial cluster.

In this same area a glide may similarly be preceded by a wide range of clusters. /krw n/ 'skin', /klw d/ 'to hear', /trw d/ 'foot' Only in Pembrokeshire then is it fair to say that we have a truly symmetrical relationship between initial and final position. Elsewhere the relationship is lopsided, with initial position considerably more restricted than final. The main points of this account hold for the north too, with one minor adjustment and one more serious one. First the minor adjustment: where south Wales has the initial cluster /hw/, north Wales has instead /cw/. The range of choices is no wider; the two areas vary only in the identity of the few acceptable initial clusters. South /hw c/ /hwajn/

North /cw c/ /cwajn/

'six' 'fleas'

The boundary between north and south for this comes in much the same position as that shown on Map 6 for variations in final clusters. Interestingly the boundaries for consonantal matters group together at this point, just as the boundaries for vowel length grouped together as on Map 1. The second difference between north and south concerns the extra glide /j/ present in the north. This differs somewhat from /j/ and /w/ in its distributional possibilities. Specifically, it may not appear alone in initial position nor may it immediately follow a consonant. It can appear freely alone medially and finally.

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/'geja/ 'winter', /daj/ 'two' And it may appear freely preceding a consonant. /ejlod/ 'member', /hajl/ 'sun' This does not undermine the overall pattern established above for the south. It merely imposes some idiosyncratic restrictions on clusters containing /j/. At an earlier stage in the discussion of diphthongs it was suggested that glides were not only best analysed as consonants, but as sonorants, similar to nasals and liquids. The data just presented requires us to modify this view somewhat. Let us ignore medial position and concentrate on the restrictions that show up in initial and final clusters. Recall that sonorants follow obstruents in initial clusters, and precede them in final clusters. This gives us a hierarchy with the obstruent regularly appearing next to the word boundary, and the sonorant between it and the vowel. # O + S + Vowel + S + O # With glides we appear to be adding a third level to this hierarchy of consonantal types. Any other consonant, be it an obstruent or a sonorant, appears closer to the word boundary than the glide, giving the following pattern: # O + S + G + Vowel + G + S + O # Note that the final cluster of such forms as /majnt/ 'size' and /bejrð/ 'poets' fits this pattern. So do the suggested underlying forms of the initial clusters, that is /glw/, /grw/ and /gnw/, though their modified eventual realizations /gwl/, /gwr/ and /gwn/ do not. This hierarchy clearly describes the distributional patterns of the various classes of consonant, but it can also be interpreted as expressing a drift from consonantal to vocalic elements. Glides are on the divide between the two. They are clearly consonantal in many of the restrictions they undergo, but they have strong links too with the vowels. Not only do we have the phonetic similarity between glides and high vowels, but of all the consonants only the glides enter into distributional restrictions relative to the vowels. There is nothing to compare with the restrictions on /*Ij/ or /*w / for other consonants. Glides alone look both ways and participate in both consonant and vowel systems. Conclusions In this chapter we have tried to outline the main phonotactic restrictions operating in Modern Welsh, and at the same time to indicate where the

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dialects differ in the restrictions they impose. A comparatively small number of factors have emerged repeatedly as relevant in determining these restrictions the position of the item in the word, stress, and the immediate segmental environment. As these combine in various ways so the complexity of the resulting patterns increases. As so often in language an intricate pattern is created from very simple materials. A number of questions however remain unanswered. At a very basic level there are quite serious gaps in the available information. Considerable fieldwork is needed to establish reliably where the boundaries tentatively sketched in on the maps in this contribution do in fact run. Is the apparent clustering of boundaries shown on Map 1 a mere artifact of the inadequate data base, or is it genuine? What is the nature of the transitions? In drawing a clear line on a map we imply a sharp switch from one pattern to another, but it is equally possible that the changeover is gradual, with one pattern slowly giving way to another in an area of some confusion. This is what we find with other phonological boundaries such as when we are dealing with the addition or loss of a phoneme. Only fieldwork can establish if it is true also in the case of phonotactic constraints. It is also unclear if the assumptions on which this account is based are the most satisfactory possible. For instance we have phrased the whole account in terms of the word as a unit. What would be the effect of adopting a different unit of analysis, such as the syllable, morpheme or phrase? We have assumed that the opposition between long and short vowels is basic. To a considerable extent however, particularly in south Wales, consonant length covaries with vowel length. A short consonant follows a long vowel, as in /'k ni/ 'to sing', and a long consonant follows a short vowel, as in /'kareg/ 'stone'. What would the effect of turning the analysis on its head, and taking consonant length as basic? More drastically, what would be the effect of reconsidering the data presented here in terms of archiphonemes, prosodic analysis or generative phonology? A third angle which has not been explored here is the question of change. How has the current pattern evolved in the past? Which dialectal variants are innovatory and which reflect earlier stages of the language? In what ways is the language evolving now? Probably the most important single influence on it at present is the widespread borrowing from English. In the past loans appear to have been integrated into the native system, but this no longer seems to happen. They are used unchanged even when their form conflicts with the normal requirements of Welsh, for instance over the vowel length appropriate in a particular context. What effect will this have on the

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native system? Will it undermine the existing patterns, or merely coexist alongside the native vocabulary in an uneasy compromise? Clearly this chapter has done no more than open up the issue of phonotactics for serious consideration. In order to take it further we need both careful fieldwork and imaginative reanalysis of the available information. Notes 1 Data relating to Pembrokeshire derives from my own fieldwork, and I am indebted to Glyn E. Jones and Beth Thomas for information about the Llanwrtyd area and the Clwyd valley respectively. For convenience a phonemic framework is adopted here, with restrictions framed in terms of which phonemes may appear in particular positions. This should not however be taken as implying that further insights would not be derived from other approaches, and indeed some of the data discussed here is reanalysed in generative terms in Awbery (in press). 2 In this discussion we omit consideration of recent monosyllabic loans from English as they are not integrated into the native vowel length system, and obscure its clear patterning. A fuller treatment would of course need to examine the implications of this large-scale borrowing for the native patterns themselves. 3 There are some exceptional forms where a voiceless fricative is preceded by a short vowel, as with / s/ 'if', /dr s/ 'over' and /bIq/ 'ever' but such items form a very small minority of cases. 4 The boundaries drawn on all the maps in this chapter are perforce hesitant since the studies on which they are based are unevenly distributed. Further work is necessary to establish exactly where the boundaries run. 5 In north Pembrokeshire there are traces of the normal length patterning with the central vowel. In environments which normally require a long vowel it is sometimes found long, as in /'k van/ 'whole'. Where the environment normally allows both long and short vowels or normally requires a short vowel then it is consistently short, as in /'k nar/ 'early' or /' skavn/ 'light'. 6 There are a further three marginal consonants which do not fit the normal patterns. The two affricates /tò/ and freely alone, but do not form clusters with other consonants.

appear

/ Iw/ 'an exclamation', /skI e/ 'shoes' /r tò/ 'rubbish' The third consonant /z/ appears only in loans from English such as /z / 'zoo' and /w lz/ 'wheels'. Note that / / has the allophone [r] in medial and final position in the word: [ an] 'part', [' ra ] 'other' [m r] 'sea'. 7 Note that we are referring here only to the basic unmutated forms of words. Where mutations have applied then of course a rather different range of consonants is permitted.

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8 The south-east is once again out of step with the rest of Wales. In most areas there is a contrast between /h/ and zero, as in /'h nes/ 'history' and /' val/ 'apple'. In the south-east this contrast is lost. Both forms may appear with initial /h/ if stressed, as /h nes/ and /h val/ and equally both may appear without /h/ if unstressed, as /' nes/ and /' val/. This difference in the status of /h/ does not however affect the restrictions on where it may appear; it is still limited to word-initial position and the few medial contexts discussed in the text. 9 There is one exception to this claim, since the diphthong /aj/ may appear in the prefix /ajl/ 're-', as in /ajl'nejd/ 're-do'. Prefixes are however exceptional from the phonological point of view in other ways as well, for example in the stress patterns they impose, and do not seem to form as closely integrated a part of the overall word as do suffixes. The exceptional behaviour of /aj/ forms one puzzle among many.

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A Lowering Rule for Vowels and Its Ramifications, in a Dialect of North Welsh* Alan R. Thomas The dialect of the Vale of Alun, in the old county of Flint, has a surface phonetic vowel system which is typical of varieties of North Welsh: 1 i i e

u o

This is the maximal system evidenced in the dialects, and varieties which depart from such a system do so principally by 'losing' one vowel (those southern ones which have no [i] or [ ]). I will be concerned with varieties which depart from this maximal system only to the extent that they have immediate relevance to the argument. Feature-Specification of the High Vowels My concern will be with the high vowels, and with the relationship of the vowels [i] and [u] with the central vowel [ ]. There are two questions to which I will address myself: 1. whether the distinctions carried by the surface segments [i], [i], [u] adequately reflect the structural contrasts within the phonology, and 2. whether the central vowel [ ] exists at all as an independent unit of structure within the phonology of the dialect. My aim, in this first section of the paper, is to show how the internal structure of this fragment of the phonology of one dialect can be clarified once we cease to concentrate on the phonetic units which are the surface structure of the phonology and, instead, build an analysis on the structural relationships which underlie them.

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The three close vowels which concern us are exemplified in forms such as the following: [i]

[m n] [gw n] [i] [tin] [p r] [u] [kum] [trum]

min, 'edge' gwin, 'wine' tyn, 'tight' pur, 'pure' cwm, 'valley' trwm, 'heavy'

Their phonological features would seem to be adequately specified if we use vowel-features like those proposed in Chomsky and Halle (1968) as follows:

This specification squares with the traditional phonetic descriptions of these vowels in that is conventionally viewed as sharing with front [i] the feature [round], and with [u] the feature [+back] hence the traditional label 'high mixed' for it. The linking of [i] and [u] (through the shared feature [+back]) seems to be further justified when we examine an extended set of forms, in which [i] and [u] before a consonant occur in the same alternation, in which each is lowered to [i] when a monosyllabic word is extended by suffixation, and the vowel of the monosyllabic base becomes that of a penultimate syllable:

This is the alternation known as vowel mutation; there are some exceptions to the change [u  ], but they are mainly predictable and accounted for by rule: we will consider one subset of them shortly. I will not pursue all the details of these alternations, but simply present those facts which are of immediate relevance to the argument. There are, however, a substantial set of forms with [i] which resist the alternation, examples are:

These forms which resist the alternation form too large a set for one to be content simply to label them as exceptions; also, the orthography

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reflects the fact that those instances of [i] which undergo the alternation are historically distinct from those which do not: those that undergo the alternation are written y, and those that do not are written u. Despite the fact that both sets of forms are substantial in number, it might still be argued, at this point, that we have few grounds for acceding to the orthographic hint of the distinctiveness of the two [i]'s: it might well be argued that we should do no more than include the appropriate marking in the feature-specification of those instances which resist the alternation, such that they would carry some such feature as [ i  ]. However, consider another pair of vocalic alternations. There is a set of adjectives whose forms have a contrast between masculine and feminine. Examples are:

Again, the vowels which undergo the alternations are [u] and [i], [u] alternating with the back vowel [o], and [i] with the front vowel [e]. And again, the only instances of [i] which undergo the alternation are those which have an orthographic y. There are no instances of either the front vowel [i] undergoing such an alternation, nor of [i] doing so when it is orthographically u. It is significant, too, that many of those adjectives which undergo the masculine-feminine alternation have related plural, nominal or verbal forms which undergo vowel-mutation, alternating with [ ]. Thus:

Furthermore, instances of [i] which have an orthographic y can form the environment for an alternation [a  e] in a preceding syllable.

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Instances which have an orthographic u do not provide an environment for the rule [a  e], however: 2 [m b] mab 'son' but [gl s] glas, 'green'

 [m bid] mebyd, 'youth'  [glasi] glasu, 'become green'

These facts have two implications for an analysis of the interrelationships of the high vowels in this and other dialectally similar varieties of Welsh: 1. The surface phonetic segment [i] seems to represent two distinct underlying forms; the case for making a distinction between them rests not on their history, nor on the orthographic practice of writing the invariant one as u and the alternating one as y but on the distinct places which they occupy in the structure of the contemporary language. A significant distinction would surely be lost if we were to confuse those which have a complex phonology with those which do not. 2. It is clear, too, that those instances of [i] which undergo the alternations must share with [u] a feature which will identify them for the purpose of the centre-lowering rule which will specify the alternation

It is equally clear that these instances of [i] must have a feature which will distinguish them from [u], so that the alternation which generates the feminine forms of adjectives will lower each one appropriately to front or back,

To establish the phonological vocalic forms which underlie the phonetic segments [i], [i], and [u], we can reconsider the tentative feature matrices which were proposed earlier. It seems that we need to specify four underlying vowels, /i/, /u/ and two distinct sources for the phonetic segment [i]. The forms underlying [i] and [u] are properly specified in the original schema: in splitting the sources for [i], however, we must take account of the need to identify it with [u] (for centre-lowering) and to distinguish it from [u] (for peripheral lowering): the following feature-marking schema (in which /i1/ generates the instances

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of [i] which undergo the lowering alternations, and /i2/ those which do not) does that in a plausible way:

Now, [i1] and [u] are distinct in terms of the feature [±back], and alike in the feature [+round]. It is interesting to note that the assignment of roundness to /i1/ and not to /i2/ is contrary to the accepted historical analysis, which interprets /i2/ (written u) as being rounded, and /i1/ (written y) as being spread. Note, too, that /i2/ has the feature-specification which, as we saw earlier, is traditionally associated with the phonetic segment [i], being both [+back] and [round]. The distinction between /i1/ and /i2/ is purely abstract: it is reflected in the surface phonetics only in the participation or otherwise of the segment [i] in the lowering alternations. The distinction, then, will be maintained in the grammar only so long as it is necessary to block /i2/ from undergoing the lowering rules. For convenience, we can identify /i1/ with IPA symbol /y/ (back unrounded): in other words, we do roughly what the orthography does (front rounded) and /i2/ with IPA symbol

The merger of /y/ with , rule

will produce the feature specification which will ultimately be expanded into that of phonetic [i] by a

What we find then, is that a surface phonetic segment [i] is derived from two distinct underlying forms; the justification for distinguishing the underlying forms is their participation or non-participation in two alternations which involve lowering. Now I shall look more closely at the one lowering alternation which is phonologically conditioned that of vowel-mutation, 4 in which

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Some Contexts of Vowel-Mutation Vowel-mutation operates over the pre-final syllables of polysyllabic words. As is shown by the examples quoted earlier, it can occur when the syllabic structure of a word is extended by suffixation: [tin] [kum]

[t ni] [kemoð]

The contexts in which [i] and [u] alternate with [ ] are all prefinal syllables [ ] never occurs, either in a (phonologically) stressed monosyllabic nor in the final syllable of a polysyllabic word. Thus, the alternation occurs regularly between forms which are related morphologically, one of them morphologically non-complex, like [tin], and the other complex like the derived form [t ni]. There are instances, however, in which [ ] occurs in words which are not morphologically complex. Examples are: cybydd, 'miser' [k bið] [m munudd, 'mountain' nið] [k cyfarth, 'to bark' varq] [s din]sydyn, 'sudden' (interestingly, an English loan absorbed into the indigenous system) all of which are morphologically non-complex forms, which have related complex forms, e.g. [k b ðjon] pl. [m n ðoið] pl. [k varqjad] n. [s d nruið] n. The problem is to determine whether these forms should be interpreted as having an independent underlying / / in the first syllable. Since the forms are non-complex, there is no evidence from phonological alternation; but note that there is the same contextual restriction on the occurrence of [ ] in these words as there was on its occurrence in the morphologically-complex examples: it can occur only in non-final syllables. It would seem desirable, then, to capture that generalization by generating these instances through extension of the scope of the rule(s) that bring(s) about vowel-mutation, to include morphologically non-complex forms: we could then cover such instances as these, which have a [ ] which is not involved in any alternations in surface phonetics, but is simply always [ ]. We may label it a primary [ ] in contrast with the secondary [ ] which appears only through alternation.

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In that case, what is the underlying source form for these instances of [ ]? There is a clue in the orthography they are all written 'y', and, although an original orthographic 'w' would also be written 'y' had it undergone mutation, there is every reason to interpret these instances of [ ] as being derived from an underlying /y/. Comparative data from other dialects shows that, in varieties in which the vowel mutation system has eroded, forms like these most typically have a front vowel [i]. Dialects which have no high mixed vowel [i] in surface phonetics have regularly merged it with the high front vowel [i], and we can safely assume that those dialects which have [kibið], [minið], [kivarq], [siden] retain the underlying vowel of the pre-final syllable, without application of the lowering-rule to it, and have an [i] which corresponds with an underlying /y/. We propose, therefore, that in non-complex words, [ ] is the mutated realization of underlying /y/ and of /y/ alone. Instances of underlying /u/ in non-final syllables in non-complex words, then, do not undergo mutation. Words which have /u/ in the non-final syllable fall, mainly into two groups. One is exemplified by such forms as swper, 'supper' [super] [turne] [turne] 'lawyer'. They are borrowed from English and, in these, /u/ does not alternate with [ ], even when the word which contains it is extended and becomes morphologically complex, as is shown by the related forms swpera, 'to take supper' [supera] twrniod, pl. [turniod] They can be marked in the lexicon as resisting mutation. There is another set, however, which provides an interesting near-parallel of forms like [m nið] (which has a primary [ ]). These forms are exemplified in morphologically complex forms derived from non-complex forms like the following: cwmwl, 'cloud' [kumul] cwmwd, 'commote' [kumud] bwrlwm, 'gurgling' [burlum] in all of which there are sequences of identical vowels [u . . . u]. Although the pre-final /u/ of these forms resists lowering, when they

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are made morphologically complex by inflection or derivation both vowels are mutated, to give such forms as [k m lai] cymylau, pl. [k m dog] cymydog, 'neighbour' [b rl mi] byrlymu, 'bubble over.' They are near-parallels of the set exemplified by [m nið], in that the latter, too, can acquire a sequence of two [ ] when their forms are morphologically extended, thus [m n ðoið] mynyddoedd, pl. [k b ðlid] cybyddlyd, 'miserly'. How, then, can forms like these be best interpreted? They differ in that members of the set exemplified by [m nið] have, in their primary [ ], a mutated vowel in non-complex words which provides a stepping-stone in the progression from /y . . . . y/  [

... . ]

so that the relationship between underlying representation and surface phonetics might be represented as /y . . . . y/  / . . . . y/  [ . . . . ] /mynyð/ /m nyð(+)/ 5 /m n ð + oið/ On the face of it, however, it seems that, for the set represented by [kumul], the step from underlying representation to surface phonetics must be taken without the intervening mediating form, /u . . . . u/  [ . . . . ] /kumul/ [k m l + ai]. The problem for the phonologist is to capture two factors: 1. the fact that both /y/ and /u/ mutate in the penultimate syllable in complex words, and 2. the difference between the two sets of complex forms which have vowel-mutation in the pre-penultimate syllable; in this case those derived from underlying /u/ must have [ ] in the penultimate syllable as well as in the pre-penultimate e.g. [k m lai] ¬ /kumul + ay/ while those derived from underlying /y/ may or may not have it. e.g. [m n ðoið] ¬ /mynyð + oyð/ ¬ /byðar + y/ but [b ðari] 'byddaru', to deafen.

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Rules for Vowel-Mutation There is progression through the apparently cumulative modifications in the forms /mynyð/  [m nið]  [m n ðoið] which reveals the dynamics of the strategy underlying the series of modifications insofar as they apply to /y/. They can be given a structural basis if we formulate a lowering rule which applies twice; first in a context bounded by morpheme boundary /+/, and secondly in one bounded by word boundary / # # /: such a rule might be

If we assume that the rule applies conjunctively in each environment, and that the relevant boundary is deleted when it has been used, it will successively generate the following forms:

Applying in the first environment, the rule generates the pre-penultimate [ ] of complex forms, and in the second one the penultimate [ ] of both complex and non-complex forms. There is an obvious similarity in the process involved in the alternation [u] [ ], and the product in each case is phonetically identical. However, /u/ cannot simply be added as input to the rules because the second environment would incorrectly apply the lowering rule to non-complex forms and generate *[k mul] ¬ # # kumul # #. The rule must make explicit the fact that it applies before the word-boundary to /y/ alone, insofar as it applies to non-complex forms: at the same time, it must register the fact that the cumulative modifications produced by progressive application (successively, in each environment) to complex forms apply alike to both /y/ and /u/. This can be expressed by modifying the proposed rule 1 to cater for mutation in complex words (which require both /y/ and /u/ as input), and setting up a separate rule 2 to cover mutation in non-complex words (which require only /y/ as input). Since rule 1 must explicitly apply to complex words only, the

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Page 114 environment which specifies word-boundary must also specify an obligatory morpheme-boundary. The rule can now be written thus:

For monosyllabic bases, the rule applies once, in the contextC + C0VC0 # # to give # # d n + jon # # ¬ # # dyn + jon # # # # k m + oyð # # ¬ # # kum + oyð # # For disyllabic bases, the rule applies twice, in the contextCVC0 + C0VC0 # #, to give # # m nyð + oyð # # ¬ # # mynyð + oyð # # # # k mul + ay # # ¬ # # kumul + ay # #, and in the contextC + C0VC0 # #, to give # # m n ð + oyð # # ¬ # # m nyð + oyð # # # # k m l + ay # # ¬ # # k mul + ay##. Rule 2 applies exclusively to non-complex words, and accepts only /y/ as input. It can be written 2. y  CVC0 # #, and generates # # m nyð # # ¬ # # mynyð # #. Forms like /kumul/ now are simply unaffected by any rule, and so emerge without lowering of the vowel of the penultimate syllable. Additionally, we acknowledge the fact that, although the simple form [m nið] has the phonological shape to make it a plausible intermediate form between the complex form /mynyð + oið/ and its realization [m n ðoið], it cannot be generated as part of the same process: the gap in the system, represented by the non-existent form *[k mul] forces us to distinguish instances of lowering which apply in non-complex forms from those which apply in complex ones. We distinguish primary [ ] from secondary [ ] in the forms we have looked at so far. At this point, I have made two suggestions: 1. that surface-phonetic [i] is derived from two distinct sources, represented as /y/ and

;

2. that one of these underlying forms /y/ , and /u/ are sources for surface-phonetic [ ] in penultimate and pre-penultimate syllables in this variety of Welsh. 6

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We have looked at vowel-alternation in two contexts: 1. where we have a primary [ ], in morphologically non-complex citation forms; 2. where we have a secondary [ ], deriving from phonological alternations attested in the contemporary language. Vowel-mutation, as a phonological alternation, is clearly a process which is related to the extension of the syllable structure of words, and so far we have considered only instances in which the extension is to the right where a base-form is extended by suffixation. However, what happens to the left of a base also has implications for the rules which specify vowel-mutation, and I will turn now to consider one such instance. [ ] in Monosyllabics It is usually said of [ ] in Welsh that its distribution is restricted to pre-final syllables of polysyllabics (in some of which, as we have seen, it is best analysed as a derived form, having no independent source in underlying representations), and in a small set of monosyllabics. The monosyllabics in which [ ] occurs are the following: [ n] [d ] 7 [ c] [ n] [ (r)]

fy, ein, dy, eich, yn, y(r),

1 s., pl. poss. pron. 2 s. poss. pron. 2 pl. poss. pron. prep. in def. art. the

They are all proclitics and spelt with y again with the exception of the spurious orthographic classicisms ein and eich. Furthermore, it is the case, as we have seen, that dialects of south Wales typically have a front vowel [i] for underlying /y/ in many contexts, and it happens that the dialect of Tyddewi in Dyfed, at least, consistently has the front vowel [i] in these forms; so we can safely surmise that the surface phonetic [ ] of proclitics such as these derive from an underlying representation /y/. It seems plausible to suggest that we need only to extend the domain of the rule, so that it applies not only over 'words', but over 'phrasal' units which include the relevant proclitics. Examples are: # # yn + het # #  # # n + het # # fy het, 'my hat' # # yn + kyvlog # #  # # n + k vlog # # fy nghyflog, 'my salary'.

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(We will, for convenience, ignore the discontinuous 'supportive' personal pronominal which normally accompanies the possessive pronouns in speech, i.e. [ n het i], [ h vlog i]. The environment of the vowel of the proclitic, which occurs in the syllable immediately preceding the morpheme boundary / + /, does not always match the environments of rule 1 which, in each case, specifies as input the vowel which is two syllables to the left of / + / and / # # / respectively. In fact, the environment will fail to match that of the rules wherever the head-word of the 'phrase' has more than one syllable. A proclitic boundary, however, is likely to have different effects than a boundary between stem and suffix, and so I propose to establish a proclitic boundary / # /, which will provide the environment for lowering of /y/ in a syllable immediately preceding it. / # # / now mark the boundary of this larger unit over which the rules operate. The rules operate within a domain bounded by a unit which includes both the lexical word and any proclitics which are associated with it. Since /y/ alone is involved, these forms might best be handled by extending the environments for rule 2, by adding proclitic boundary. Thus:

Rule 2 will generate # # n # k vlog # # in two stages: first, in the environmentC # # # n # kyvlog # # ¬ # # yn # kyvlog # # and then, in the environmentC0VC0 # # # # n # k vlog # # ¬ # # n # kyvlog # #. The phrase [

h vlogi] ¬ # # yn # kyvlog + i # #

fy nghyflogi, 'to employ me' is derived by application of rule 1, to give # # yn # k vlog + i # # and of rule 2, to give # # n # k logi # #.

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Further modifications will introduce the appropriate consonantal mutations and assimilations in each of the above two cases, and for the verb phrase [

k vlogi]

yn cyflogi, 'is employing' the derivation is identical with that of the immediately preceding one, but with additional assimilations alone. The rules for stress-assignment are of glancing interest to the topic of this paper, since they provide support for distinguishing proclitic boundary in that it enables us to explain another 'exceptional' phenomenon in Welsh. Word-stress in indigenous words is usually described as being regularly located on the penultimate syllable, but exceptionally on the final syllable in a set of words exemplified by

These words are all adverbs, derived from a sequence of proclitic and nominal or adjectival base. Their underlying representations might be

If we assume that primary stress will be assigned to the base-form, then proclitic boundary is defined as one which will not allow primary stress to its left, i.e. will not allow any stress-assignment rules to move primary stress across it, even when the penultimate syllable is to the left of it. Thus, we can express the fact that there is no deep-structure irregularity about these forms; the base element is stressed in the regular way, and movement of primary stress to the penultimate syllable of the complex word which forms around the base is blocked. Proclitic boundary, then, is in some sense a 'stronger' boundary than morpheme-boundary, and both vowel-mutation and stress assignment behave untypically with regard to it. In fact, this phenomenon accounts for a considerable number of final-syllable stressed adverbs derived from sequences of preposition + base, in which vowel-mutation is not an operative factor:

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It is also worth noting that instances of the reflexive particle [ m-] seem to belong with the proclitics as far as its relationship with stress and vowel-mutation is concerned rather than with other prefixes. Words of two syllables containing the reflexive particle [ m-] are, exceptionally, stressed on the ultimate syllable.

Words of more than two syllables are, of course, regularly stressed on the penultimate:

have primary stress on the final syllable of a polysyllabic by virtue of a late phonetic rule of syllable reduction, whereby two contiguous syllabic vowels can diphthongise when the first is stressed, thus: / m-b -'ha-i/  [ m-b -'hai] The rules for vowel-mutation, re-ordered so that the less general applies first, read thus

The boundary markers are most conveniently retained until all segmental modifications have been carried out, since morpheme boundary is an obligatory component of the word-final environment for rule 2. It would seem that, in proclitics, too, [ ] is a derived segment for this variety of Welsh.

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Raising to [ ] There is one other vocalic alternation with [ ] which occurs in this dialect and in others to varying degrees. The phonetic modification involved is, in fact, not lowering, but raising. For all dialects, it affects the first element of diphthongs closing to [i] or [i] when the element is [a]. (For this untypical interpretation of the alternation [ai, ai  i, i] cf. A. R. Thomas (1966), Allen (1975)). Examples are:

This [ ] also occurs as a primary form in the citation forms of words like [t ili] teulu, 'family' [g iav] gaeaf, 'winter'. There is the same restriction on the distribution of [a] in these forms as there was with [i] ¬ /y/ and in some instances with [u] it never occurs in non-final syllables. The environments of primary [ ] in these examples, and of the alternation [a - ], more or less match those previously established, insofar as they relate to /+/ and /##/: we need to expand them, however, to specify a following /i/ or for /a/  / /.

which have vowel-mutations in the syllable before the pre-penultimate, the context needs adjustment to the extent of adding an optional / + / to the existing optional syllable, and preceding that with an identical construct. Thus, rule 2 becomes

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By this rule (ignoring the need to specify consonantal alternations), # # ym + pe +ha + y # #  # # m + pe + ha + y # # # # kyvy + der + ai # #  # # k v # # ai + av + riv + oið # #  # #

+der + ai # # i + av + riv + oið # #.

Thus, the rules can be rewritten

A secondary development, at least in allegro speech, for this dialect is elision of [ ] ¬ /a/, with compensatory lengthening of the final element; this development gives the surface alternations

The interest of these forms is two-fold: 1. they illustrate yet another path along which surface phonetic [ ] finds its way into the dialect; 2. they point up the function of [ ] in this instance as the vehicle for a process of vowel-reduction, in which an open vowel is raised to central position, before it disappears. These examples bring out a fact about the character of alternations with [ ] which the examples previously discussed do not obviously concede. In those other instances, the underlying vowel and its surface realization as [ ] stood alone, immediately before a consonant. In these present examples, however, there is a following vowel which, in a sense, 'dominates' [ ] in surface structure, and can take over syllabic function on its own.

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In other words, [ ] is seen, in these latter instances, as the instrument in a weakening process. It points up an apparent anomaly, since in the examples we have examined, [ ] was realized regularly in the penultimate syllable (and sometimes in prepenultimate syllables). This, of course, is the stressed syllable of a polysyllabic word. It never occurs in a stressed monosyllabic (but only in monosyllabic proclitics). Again, [ ] never occurs in the final, unstressed syllable. There seem to be two groups of instances of [ ]: 1. those in proclitics, which are weakly stressed in surface structure; these are the circumstances in which one expects vowels to centralize (by either lowering or raising); 2. those in the penultimate syllable of polysyllabics, which take primary stress. This latter is the anomalous instance, and is accounted for by a striking feature of the structure of Welsh that the so-called stressed syllable, in polysyllabics, is not necessarily the most 'prominent'. I used the word 'prominent' in a loose sense, because I am not yet in a position to define the acoustic properties which it is meant to represent, although it is highly likely that pitch plays a 'prominent' perhaps the 'most' prominent role. It seems clear that lowering to [ ] from /y/ and /u/ in non-final syllables was originally a weakening process resulting from location of primary stress on the ultima (cf. Watkins, 1961, 73). Subsequent shift of primary stress to the penultimate syllable did not, however, lead to weakening to [ ] of the vowel of the new weakly stressed ultima. The final syllable clearly has prosodic properties which inhibit vocalic weakening. It seems that although what one might call the rhythmic stress, the 'beat', falls on the penultimate syllable, pitch-prominence occurs separately from it, on the final syllable. There have been some references to this phenomenon in the literature, 8 and one interesting illustration of vowel-weakening in a southern dialect which is directly related to it.9 I will not involve myself in the controversy over the source of this phenomenon nor attempt, today, to account for its phonetics; but simply note the fact that, for Welsh, we may have to recognize two types of realization of accent: rhythmic stress on the penultimate syllable, pitch-prominence on the ultimate syllable. And the ultimate syllable is often (perceptually) the stronger of the two, and always structurally the stronger: that is why we get this odd phenomenon of vowel reduction in a so-called 'stressed' syllable.

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Description and Explanation This analysis has followed convention in handling vowel-mutation in positional terms, though the landmarks which the rules recognize are different in being boundaries of various kinds rather than simply final and non-final syllables (as in Watkins, 1961, 73, for instance). The use of morpheme boundaries refines the analysis considerably, in particular by facilitating the essential distinction between morphologically complex and non-complex forms. Similarly, re-definition of the word-boundary / # # / as the boundary of higher level surface structure constituents, such as Prepositional Phrase, Verb Phrase or Noun Phrase reflects the fact that the domain of the rules is in fact more extensive than that of the lexical word. Though such an analysis describes the operation of vowel-mutation well enough, it is clear that one which took account of the prosodic role of the final syllable would offer explanation as well. The only modification required to the rules would be the assignment of a prosodic feature, say /prominence/, to the vowel of the final syllable (which is also needed for the assignment of intonational features). The / # # / boundary then merely marks the domain over which vowel-mutation is operative, though morpheme / + / and proclitic / # / boundary are essential contextual features. Deletion of the boundary markers would be accompanied, where appropriate, by operation of any rules for consonantal mutation and assimilation. * This paper has previously appeared, in differing versions, in Dónall P. Ó. Baoill (ed.) Papers in Celtic Phonology, Occasional Papers in Language and Linguistics No. 6, The New University of Ulster, 1979; and in John R. Costello (ed.), Studies presented to Professor Robert A. Fowkes on the occasion of his retirement, 1979, Word 31, 1. I gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint, in the latter case, from the International Linguistic Association. Notes 1 Cf., for instance, Sweet (1884), Fynes-Clinton (1913), Sommerfelt (1925). I ignore contextual variants like [i, , e, ] which have no relevance to my argument. 2 A detailed analysis of the phonology of this dialect will appear elsewhere in due course. 3 The rule is drawn up thus for convenience; in fact, there is a component of narrowing (akin to rounding) in the phonetic realization of [i]. The realization

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of the phonological feature 'rounding' in combination with frontness is described as narrowing of the front part of the vocal tract by Oftedal (1969, 253) for another dialect: . . . narrowing of the foremost part of the vocal tract in the production of [i], brought about (a) by a decrease of the mouth opening in connection with a tightening of certain muscles at the corners of the mouth, and (b) by raising the lateral rims of the tongue so as to let the air pass only through a median groove. However, Ball (1976) is critical of Oftedal's approach. The precise nature of the tenseness or 'tightness' of the vocal apparatus in the production of [i] has yet to be determined. Knudsen (1973) which has come only recently to my notice, offers an essentially similar analysis of [i]. His account of vowel-mutation differs in significant respects from that given here: but although the rules suggested seem inadequate to account for the data, they do capture the essential distinction between complex and non-complex forms. 4 Although they occur under the same conditions, and are usually classed as instances of vowel-mutation, I will not take account of the marginal set of forms which alternate [au o], as in

They would simply be added as input and output to the rules in their final form, and the few forms which undergo the alternation marked in the lexicon. 5 Morpheme-boundary is signified by / + / and word-boundary by / # # /. Square brackets denote only that the form enclosed by them has the vowel(s) with which we are concerned in surface-phonetic shape. 6 In one phonological environment, /y/ is frequently resistant to mutation, though I see no clear-cut pattern following the semivowel /w/, in complex forms like /gwyntoyð/ ¬ /gwynt/ gwyntoedd, gwynt, 'winds' 'wind' and non-complex ones like /gwyneb/ wyneb, 'face'. It similarly resists mutation in the prefixes cyd and /kyn/ cyn, when they are more strongly stressed than is usual for retains its vowel length in such cases a feature associated with whatever syllabic position they have (note, also, that primary stress in Welsh):

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7 [d ] is an exception in that the mutated [ ] is not followed by the obligatory consonant: it must be marked in the lexicon. The definite article [ ], on the other hand, can be derived by rule from [ r] in all cases. 8 Particularly, Jones (1949); but also see Watkins (1953). 9 Watkins (1976).

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Intonation and the Discourse Martin Rhys This contribution is concerned with a description of the phonology of intonation in Welsh and its communicative functions within the discourse. Two different levels of communication are involved in any discourse. At the 'deep' informational level we have the message the totality of the communication from speaker to listener. The message is expounded by the text. The text comprises the linguistic and paralinguistic features of communication. Phonologically, the text is made up of a series of utterances, an utterance being the uninterrupted contribution by one interactant. 1 Message and text are not, however, in a biunique relationship. If we were to ask what the listener needs in order to understand the message, text would not be enough. We then need to ask what the listener needs in order to decode the text into a message. For this he needs a background of situational context and shared experience. Whilst the text, then, is a linguistic and paralinguistic representation of the message, the message is not understood solely in terms of the text. Rather, the listener decodes the message via the text against the background of situational context and shared experience. Tonality As a text is divided into a series of utterances, so is an utterance divided into a series of intonational units or tone-groups. We take the tone group to be the basic structural unit of intonation in Welsh. The way in which an utterance is divided into tonegroups makes up the phonological system of tonality. Tonality on the phonological level expounds the system of information distribution on the informational level, which concerns the division of the message into information units.

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Level

System

Superordinate unit within which system operates Phonological Tonality Utterance InformationalInformationMessage distribution

System concerned with division of superordinate unit into Tone-group Information Unit

For instance, the utterance in (1) is made up of one tone-group, whilst that in (2) is made up of two tone-groups (a tone-group boundary and that of an information unit is procedurally marked by a double diagonal bar //):

Example (1) gives us one piece of information, that we can buy one at the market, whilst (2) divides the message into two pieces of information: firstly that we can buy one, and secondly where we can buy it. Information distribution, realized by tonality, can therefore be said to display a demarcative function within the discourse. Tonality can also help distinguish between differing deep structures which have the same syntactic surface structures:

Example (3a), which consists of one tone-group, means that the fact that he knew most, was not the reason why he was not speaking. It would probably be spoken with a rising tone on /m ia/ (most), and be followed by an explanation of the real reason why he wasn't speaking.

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Example (3b), on the other hand, which consists of two tone-groups, states that the reason he was not speaking was because he knew most. We have two information units: (i) that he was not speaking, and (ii) why he was not speaking.

Here tonality defines the scope of the adjective. In (4a), both chair and bed are red. In (4b), only the bed is red.

Example (5a) is a simple sentence containing a relative clause / d i ðim n g b d et / (I don't know yet) which defines /peq ara / (another thing). Example (5b), where the tonality is different, there being two tone-groups, consists of a compound sentence or two separate sentences.

In (5a), / pr geq r // (the preacher) has the function of qualification, whereas in (5b), where it takes its own tone-group, it is merely in apposition. In (7a), the dinner is definitely on Friday, whereas in (7b), this is not necessarily the case it could be earlier in the week.

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Example (8a), which is made up of one tone-group, shows the two clauses in a clear syntactic relationship of subordination where the noun clause /beq rq gem hin / (what this game is) functions as object to the main clause /dwed rq vi/ (tell me). Example (8b), where each clause has a separate tone-group, shows the clauses to be in a paratactic, 'side-by-side' arrangement (Bolinger, 1975, 1701). Tone-group Structure Each tone-group has one syllable phonologically more prominent than the others. This syllable is the tonic syllable, and it is an obligatory constituent of the tone-group. A tone-group may frequently consist of the tonic syllable alone:

or the tonic syllable may be preceded by a pretonic and/or proclitic element, and optionally followed by a post-tonic element. The internal structure of a tone-group may be diagrammatically represented thus: (proclitic) (pretonic) tonic syllable (post-tonic). These elements of tone-group structure may be defined as follows: tonic syllable: the point of main phonological prominence in the tone-group; pretonic: the element of tone-group structure preceding the tonic syllable which comprises the first salient syllable in the tonegroup up to but not including the tonic syllable; proclitic: the element of tone-group structure which comprises any non-salient syllables in the tone-group which appear before the pretonic, or, if there is no pretonic, before the tonic syllable; post-tonic: the element of tone-group structure which comprises any syllables in the tone-group which follow the tonic syllable:

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Tone-group Boundaries Each tone-group contains certain phonetic cues as to the location of its boundaries. These cues fall into three separate but potentially combinatory categories: (a) the pause-marker, 4 (b) the length-marker and (c) the pitch-marker. (a) The pause-marker normally co-occurs with the boundaries of large syntactic units, such as the sentence or the clause. (b) The length-marker on its own denotes cases where the final syllable of the tone-group is lengthened, so that there is no pause between post-tonic and following proclitic/pretonic, such a potential pause having been filled (substituted) by the final lengthened syllable. (c) The pitch-marker entails a difference in pitch between the end of one tone-group and the beginning of another, a pitch deviation in either upward or downward direction. For instance, if a salient syllable begins a foot which immediately follows the 'tonic foot' (the foot which contains the tonic syllable), then the question is whether that foot constitutes part of the post-tonic or the beginning of a new pretonic. In the absence of pause- and length-markers, for it to be part of the post-tonic, it must fulfil one of two conditions: (i) it must continue at the pitch level reached by the last syllable in the tonic foot, e.g.

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(ii) it must carry on the pitch direction displayed in the tonic foot in a smooth flow, e.g.

If it violates these conditions by being too great a step in the same direction, or a step in the opposite direction, then it forms the first foot of the pretonic of the following tone-group:

The pitch-marker operates in the same way when it occurs on a non-salient syllable. In violating (a) or (b) above, the relevant non-salient syllable is taken as (part of) the proclitic of the following tone-group. 5 The tone-group is an isochronous unit in Welsh (I would humbly suggest the same holds for English). That is to say, the tonegroup is the unit within which isochrony (the regular incidence or beat of salient syllables) operates as a feature of the rhythm. Procedurally, this gives us a further cue as to the identification of tone-groups, though of course not their boundaries, in that we initially look for areas of rhythmic regularity. Take for instance the following utterance:

The intervals between the feet in the first tone-group differ a good deal from the interval between the feet in the second tonegroup. (Electroky-mographic evidence supporting this perceptual statement is to be found in Rees (1977, 212), along with further arguments supporting the isochrony of the tone-group.)

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Tonicity Selection of the tonic syllable makes up the system of tonicity. On statistical grounds, we distinguish between a marked and an unmarked form of tonicity. Unmarked tonicity occurs where the tonic syllable is the lexically stressed syllable 6 of the last lexical item in the tone-group (which is the case around 80% of the time). Marked tonicity comprises the following locations: a) where the tonic syllable is the lexically stressed syllable of a lexical item which is not the final lexical item in the tone-group (henceforward a non-final lexical item):

b) where the tonic syllable is the lexically stressed syllable of a non-lexical item:

c) where the tonic syllable is a syllable which is not lexically stressed. For instance, whilst teaching Welsh as a foreign language, the author frequently found it necessary to correct students' reading of the orthographic symbol 'u', which is South Welsh has the quality [i] or [i]. This resulted in inevitable exchanges such as:

The student's utterance in (15) gives us an example of unmarked tonicity, since the tonic syllable is the lexically stressed syllable in the final lexical item in the tone-group. In the teacher's utterance, in order to correct the learner's mistake in pronunciation, the teacher switches the tonic syllable, not to another item, but to a non-lexically stressed syllable the syllable containing the sound in question within the same item.

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Focus In order to state what determines the location of the tonic syllable, and thereby show its function within the discourse, we must move from the phonological level to the informational level and study the system of information focus. The relationship between information focus and tonicity can be diagrammatically represented thus: Level

System System concerns location of Phonological TonicityTonic syllable InformationalFocus Focal Information Constituent

Unit system operates in Tone-group Information Unit

At the phonological level, then, we have the tonic syllable as that level of tone-group structure which is phonologically most prominent. Corresponding to this, and expounded by it, at the informational level we have the focal information constituent which is informationally the most prominent element within the information unit. There is, however, no biunique relationship between these two that is to say, the tonic syllable will not necessarily correspond to the focal information constituent. 7 A selection from the system of information focus is considered to be marked or unmarked according to whether or not that particular selection involves what we will call a discoursal presupposition. Information focus is marked if it involves a discoursal presupposition, that is if a particular selection signals that information has preceded, or is to follow, in the discourse. In this respect, it plays a similar role to syntactic cohesive devices such as pronouns, articles etc. (see Hassan, 1968), but care must be taken not to confuse where the responsibility lies (i.e. focal or non-focal) for a particular discoursal presupposition. For instance, in (16)

the use of the personal pronominal /e/ (he) suggests that its referent may be derived from what has preceded or what is to follow in the discourse. However, it is the use of the pronominal alone which suggests this the function of signalling the presupposition in this case is not achieved by

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the focal information constituent. Were we to replace the pronominal with a proper noun, there would be no discoursal presupposition:

Example (17) could in fact be the initial information unit in a discourse, focus in such cases being characteristically unmarked, i.e. involving no discoursal presupposition. 8 Generally speaking, the presupposition involved by marked lexical focus (i.e. when a focal information constituent is realized by a non-final lexical item) is the specification of a particular part of the information unit (usually that which follows the focal item) as given information. Given information is defined as that which the speaker considers to be derivable for the addressee from the discourse. This information can either have been explicitly mentioned:

/dewr/ (brave) is specified as given in the second information unit due to its post-focal position. It has already been mentioned (though as an adjective, not an adverb) in the first information unit.

This example (where the final /saiq/ (seven) is given, having just been mentioned) points to an interesting feature of counting. Take, for example, the number /trideg pimp/ (thirty-five). If counting in ones, say from thirty-one to forty, /pimp/ (five) would be the tonic syllable. If counting in fives, say from twenty to sixty, /trideg/ (thirty) would contain the tonic syllable //trideg / pimp//. This is because, when counting in ones, the 'ten' set is given (at least for nine numbers, when it

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changes), and the unit is new, whilst when counting in fives, the ''five" is always given, and it is the 'ten' set which is new. It is not always necessary for the given information to have been explicitly mentioned:

/h il g/ (sunny) is specified as given in (20), yet it has not been explicitly mentioned. What has been explicitly mentioned is the (in this case) synonymous /fein/ (fine). At the level of the message, what is given is a piece of information an information constituent. This information constituent can be realized syntactically (at the level of the text) in more than one way. The information constituent realized by /h il g/ (sunny) in (20) is treated as given information because it has already appeared in an alternative syntactic realization viz. /fein/ (fine). The presentation of information as given, when, in fact, it is not derivable by the speaker from anything that has preceded in the discourse can be used as a stylistic device designed to instil attention and interest in the addressee. Example (21) could open a discourse:

I'm beginning to get tired of dogs. This morning

If one were to speculate on the psycholinguistic factors underlying such a procedure, a mechanism such as the following could be postulated: 1. Addressee perceives the treatment of such and such an item (as /gun/ (dogs) in (21) as given. 2. Addressee has no means of deriving this information from what has preceded in the text or from the situational context. 3. Addressee perceives irregularity in this treatment of information as derivable, and

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4. Awaits the next part of the speaker's message as a means of clarification. In short, this not infrequent stylistic device comes under the category of cataphorically derivable information. One area of exception to the general rule of unmarked focus falling on the final lexical item comes under what Bolinger (1974) called 'Relative Semantic Weight'. One of his examples: (22)(a) // I have a / point to / make // (b) // I have a / point to / emphasize // Example (22b) has unmarked tonicity and unmarked focus, i.e. the tonic syllable is in the final lexical item and there is no discoursal presupposition. Example (22a) has marked tonicity but unmarked focus, i.e. although the tonic syllable is in a non-final lexical item, there is still no discoursal presupposition, since nothing is specified as given from the rest of the discourse. What has happened in (22a) is that the final lexical item (make) is semantically empty in relation to its neighbouring lexical item 'point'. The same cannot be said of 'emphasize' in (22b). An example of Susan Schmerling's (1974) can be handled similarly: (23)(a) // This is the / man I was / telling you about // (b) // This is the / doctor I was / telling you about // where 'telling' in (23b) loses focus to the semantically fuller 'doctor'. Where, in (23a), we have two relatively empty lexical items ('man' and 'telling'), unmarked focus goes to the final one in the information unit. It is interesting to note that a change of context in (23b) to a hospital would possibly send focus back to 'telling'. Some Welsh examples along the same lines:

(Example (24a) could in fact drop / n mind/ (going) altogether with little or no change in meaning.)

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The focussing of empty /peqe/ (things) in (25b) in fact changes its meaning. In (25a), it meant 'She's so good with children and things like that (that sort of thing),' whereas in (25b) it changed to 'She's so good with children and so good with things (as well)'. A similar feature is observable with the item /b c/, which can be used in three ways: (a) as a vocative, a term of endearment; (b) as a semantically empty adjective; (c) as an adjective meaning 'little'. The vocative need not concern us as it is never focal unless alone in the information unit. The difference between (b) and (c), however, is perceived through focal behaviour. If /b c/ is focal, it takes its full semantic content of 'little' or 'small':

In (26a) it is the fact that the child is small (very young) which means a lot of work. Example (26b) just means a child means a would probably be weakened.) lot of work and the adjective is empty. (Note that in (26b) the nuclear vowel in When the focal information constituent is realized by a non-lexical item, it has the function of implying the existence of another element in the discourse, that element being derivable by contrast with the focal element. 10 This is a general characteristic and NOT a rule under which non-lexical focus operates. It does not operate, for instance, in Max Boyce's account of the time he found his car had been painted green outside a pub in Rhuthin, because he had made the mistake of ordering his drink in English during Eisteddfod week, when everyone must speak Welsh. On re-entering the pub, he says:

Whereupon 'a bloke stood up in the corner, eight foot six, shoulders like tallboys, and tattooed across his chest "Cymraeg". "Fi wnaeth e'," meddai fe.' We take this reply as our example:

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The focal pronominal in (27) has no contrastive implications. No other element in the discourse is implied which can be derived by contrasting it with the focal pronominal. Rather, /vi/ (I), already given as speaker of the utterance (derivable deietically from the context), becomes new information, and thereby focal, as perpetrator of the artistic deed. The only discoursal presupposition involved is the specification of postfocal /n q/ (did) as given, derivable from the immediately preceding part of the discourse. Where non-lexical focus does involve a contrastive presupposition, as is generally the case, the contrast element (that element whose existence in the discourse is implied) need not be restricted to the same set as the focal element as Halliday (1967) and Crystal (1975) claim is the case in English. That is to say, if the focal element is a personal pronoun, the contrast element need not also be a personal pronoun it may be, but it doesn't have to be. Some examples:

In (28), the focal personal pronoun /ci/ (you) indicates the derivability from the discourse of the other personal pronoun /nu/ (they), i.e. 'is that the team that you, as well as they, would choose?' The contrast element may be a pronoun referent:

The focal pronoun /ti/ (you) indicates the contrastive derivability of /nest/ (Nest). Note that the factor of Relative Semantic Weight moves the focus

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away from the final empty lexical item /dw id/ (say) in the first information unit. The contrast element may have nothing to do with pronouns or their referents:

The contrast here is not between /e/ (he) and somebody else, but rather the section he dealt with and some other section. A similar treatment can be accorded to the quasi-idiomatic:

The contrast is not between what I knew and what some other person knew, but between what actually happened (the next thing I knew) and what was expected to happen. Presumably if what was expected to happen in fact had happened, then it would be pointless to make use of the prefatory // . . peq / nesa on / in gwb d //.

The contrast element implied by the focus in the second information unit is not another pronoun or pronoun referent. That is to say, there is no question of going in the car with anyone else. Rather, the contrast lies between going in the car and going by train. Contrast may be oppositional ('not this but that') or additional ('this as well as that'). Examples (29), (30) and (32) were oppositional, while (31) was additional. Additional contrasts may be of positive or negative status two pluses or two minuses, as is mathematically obvious a plus and a minus, as it were, would of course entail an oppositional contrast. The additional contrast relationship then can be of an 'as well/too' or an 'either' type: 'I thought so too,' or 'I didn't think so either.' This type of contrast can be explicitly marked with adverbs like /hevid/ (as well,

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too) or /cwaiq/ (either). It is usually the case that these markers take an information unit on their own. Our examples hitherto have all starred personal pronouns as the focal elements. The contrastive characteristic applies to most other focal non-lexical items, though each class has its own interesting features. For instance, when the possessive determiner appears at tonic position, the focal information constituent may be realized by the possessive plus its head (the noun it qualifies), the implied element then being derivable by contrast with the nominal group, and not merely the possessive:

The focal information constituent in (33) is realized by the nominal group /i qr njeq e/ (his philosophy), and not merely the possessive, although tonic falls on the latter. The oppositional contrast lies between his philosophy and its incompatibility with what they wanted to do. As well as involving a contrastive presupposition, the reflexive pronoun and aspect marker can, when focal, be used for emphatic purposes:

The focal aspect marker / n/ in B's reply in (35) merely reiterates more forcibly the sentiments expressed in A's statement. It is, in effect, an emphatic agreement, and the presupposition is the given status of A's statement, since it must have already been expressed before B's can occur.

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The focal aspect marker in (36) can be seen to involve a 'double contrast', as it were:

'If he wants to learn the Welsh language' entails 'he has not learnt it yet'. The focal aspect marker /wedi/ in B's reply 'he has learnt it' contradicts this, involving a polarity contrast (which is generally the case with focal aspect markers). Superimposed on this polarity contrast, however, is a tense contrast in the 'will have to / already has' opposition. Demonstrative pronouns can be problematic that is, if one tries to fit them into the general trend of focal non-lexical items in that, when a focal demonstrative pronominal is final in the information unit, it frequently involves no discoursal presupposition at all. Utterances like (37) and (38):

involves no discoursal presupposition other than the knowledge that the demonstrative must have a derivable referent, and that has nothing to do with the focus. It would be unacceptable to claim a focal contrast, of the type we have been discussing, in (37) to the effect of 'that, as opposed to something else,' or in (38) to the tune of 'this one, as opposed to that one'. We may as well say that in 'Did you see the News?', the News is in contrast to the caterpillar, the yeti, Superman, etc. There is opposition, certainly, but that opposition is a basic

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linguistic one, as de Saussure stated: 'The entire mechanism of language . . . is based on opposition . . . and on the phonic and conceptual differences that they imply' (de Saussure, 1966, 121). Any linguistic choice made by the speaker stands in contrast or opposition to the other candidates for selection at that particular point, and it is also understood in terms of such an opposition. This is not, however, the type of contrast with which we have been dealing in examples like (28) (33) (see note 10). Focal demonstrative determiners, on the other hand, generally do involve a contrastive presupposition, whereby another element is implied which is derivable by contrast with the focal information constituent. A possible reason for focal demonstrative determiners implying a contrast whilst the demonstrative pronoun does not is that when a determiner qualifies an item it implies that there are other similar items, whilst the pronoun need not imply any such thing. So / kar n / (that car), / ki hin/ (this dog), / verc h n/ (this girl) presuppose the existence (physically, not discoursally, speaking) of other cars, dogs, girls a presupposition not inherent in the use of /h n/ (this), /h na/ (that) etc.

The presupposed element in cases of focal demonstrative determiners will generally be another item such as that qualified by the focal determiner, but in a contrastive relationship with it, so that:

implies 'but not that one, others, etc.' There do seem to be two areas of possible exception with regard to the contrastively focal demonstrative determiner. One involves the use of the determiner as a quantifier:

The other is where the governing head noun is a 'time' noun, like / bl iðin / (year), / qn s/ (week), /miò/ (month), /n sweq / (evening), /bore/ (morning), /pr nha n/ (afternoon) etc. When coupled with the demonstrative determiner, these can be split into two groups: those

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which in citation form would have the tonic syllable at the demonstrative, e.g. //bl iðin / hin// (this year), // qn s / hin// (this week), //miò / hin// (this month), and those which would have the tonic syllable at the time noun, e.g. //bore m // (this morning).// pr n/ ha n m // (this afternoon), // n sweq m // (this evening). In the case of the latter, a contrastive presupposition involving the determiner is easily implemented simply by making it the tonic syllable, e.g. //bore / m // immediately implies a contrast with some other morning. With //bl iðin / hin//, the same does not follow. It can mean 'this year' or 'this year', depending upon the discourse at that point and choice of tone, which will be discussed shortly. Informational Prominence at Pretonic Informational prominence in the information unit may also be found at pretonic: via rhythm, and via the 'pitch peak'. The pitch peak can be summarily described as a residue, a 'leftover' on the final syllable of a polysyllabic word when stress was shifted from the final to the penultimate syllable around the eleventh century. Before this time, stress and pitch were cooccurrent on the final syllable; after the eleventh century, stress was moved to the penult, but the pitch peak remained on the final syllable. 12 This phenomenon has been retained up to the present day and is now exploited in a modified form in a subtle interaction of stress and intonation. It is, in fact, one of the most recognizable features of Welsh intonation, and indeed WelshEnglish intonation, as any Welshman will witness, who has been cruelly exposed to the generally excruciating efforts of the compulsive mimic. Although the pitch peak is explicable diachronically only in terms of its occurrence on the final syllable of polysyllabic words, its synchronic use is in no way thus confined. It can, for instance, be continued from the final syllable of a polysyllabic word to all the non-salient syllables within that foot:

In fact, the presence of a polysyllabic word (or part of one) is not at all

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necessary (historically, has become unnecessary) for a pitch peak to occur:

In short, the pitch peak may occur on the non-salient syllables of any foot in the pretonic. The pitch peak may now be said to be the norm, in that it is a much more frequent occurrence than having the non-salient syllable on the same pitch level as the salient syllable which begins the foot. How then can it feature as a means of prominence at pretonic? This it does by reaching a higher peak than usual a 'marked' pitch peak, as opposed to a neutral pitch peak, the latter involving no difference in meaning from the absence of a pitch peak. In musical terms, a neutral pitch peak will generally be within or around a major third of the pitch level taken by its preceding salient syllable. Choice of points along this scale of neutrality are seen as being in free variation, not involving any informational significance. The choice of pitch peak level does become significant in its marked form, where the interval between it and the preceding salient syllable is normally more than a fifth. The question of how to deal with a pitch peak of between a third and a fifth does not really arise, for the choice of a marked pitch peak as exponence of informational prominence is a positive choice requiring a noticeable deviation from the norm. To speak of the meaning associated with a marked pitch peak is not a profitable direction to take, for according to that part of the discourse in which it appears, its function could be linguistic or paralinguistic. On the one hand it could be discoursally effective signalling contrast or emphasis, whilst on the other hand and probably much more frequently it may aid the signalling of a number of attitudes on behalf of the speaker, e.g. surprise, anger etc. As in most cases concerning attitude, there are far too many other variables to take into account for any sort of concise statement to be made. Analysis of the marked pitch peak is best handled on an 'ad hoc' basis. Rhythmic neutrality is attained when the lexically stressed syllable of a lexical item is salient. This is informationally viable, as well as being statistically accurate, since it is the lexical items which can be said to carry the main information load of a message. We may note two

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deviations from this norm: where a non-lexical item becomes salient, and when a lexical item loses salience. The loss of salience to a lexical item has a corresponding function in the informational component, viz. that it specifies that non-salient item as given. Compare the following:

Focus being unmarked in (43a) and (43b), then taking nothing else into consideration in either information unit, what precedes the focal item is unspecified as to informational status. But if we examine the rhythm, we see that the lexical item / gwerqi/ (sell) in (43b), which would normally be salient, is non-salient, and it is this which specifies it as given. Finding a textual context, we could propose (43a) as an answer to:

and (43b) as an answer to:

The tendency among salient non-lexical items is to reflect the situation at focal level. Where the focal non-lexical item usually involved a contrast, such is generally the case when that item is merely salient:

i.e. what she's doing as opposed to what I haven't decided to do.

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Page 145 Tone Tone in Welsh falls into four broad categories: fall, rise, rise-fall and level. The fall can take a number of forms, depending (apart from pitch-range) on whether the tonic syllable is alone or followed by a post-tonic, and the vowel length of the tonic syllable nucleus:

(a) represents the tonic syllable only; (b) represents a long tonic syllable followed by post-tonic syllables; (c) represents a short tonic syllable followed by post-tonic syllables, where the fall is realized by the pitch differences between each syllable level. The rising tone mirrors the falling tone, though one procedural problem does arise in the rising version of (45c), viz. how to tell a rising tone from a pitch peak at pretonic. This difficulty is soon resolved, however, for the pitch level of the tonic syllable in such cases is lower than that which would be expected from a salient syllable at pretonic. Take, for example, a 'stepping' pretonic: the salient syllables step down at relatively regular pitch intervals:

A tonic syllable at the end of this pretonic sequence would take a lower pitch level than would be expected of another pretonic salient syllable:

The rise-fall has, understandably, more variation again in terms of its phonetic exponence:

14

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The level tone has no pitch movement as such. It maintains a level pitch from the tonic syllable to the end of the tone-group. It is crucial to bear in mind at this stage that any phonological statement as opposed to plain phonetic regarding tone is made solely with regard to the particular function(s) of tone which one is examining at a given time. In this chapter, we are concerned with intonation and the discourse, and to this end we ascribe, at the primary degree of delicacy, two terms to the tonal system: Tone 1 fall (comprising falling and rising-falling tones). Tone 2 rise (comprising rising and level tones). This initial dichotomy is made on the very much overgeneral functional principle of 'resolving' and 'non-resolving'. 15 Tone 1 is seen as generally resolving, whereas Tone 2 is generally non-resolving. It cannot be too much emphasized that this is a gross over-simplification, as two minutes of normal conversation will throw out a number of exceptions. There are many other features to take into account before the issue of resolving and non-resolving is, as it were, resolved, e.g. pitch-range, choice of key, co-occurring syntactic and discourse categories, tempo, accompanying verbal and non-verbal paralinguistic features, etc. Aside from a general resolving function, a marked form of Tone 1 has a further discourse function similar to that already associated with marked non-lexical focus: but first, we need to explain what is meant by marked Tone 1. Instances of unmarked Tone 1 are taken to be where the onset of a simple falling tone is either at or below the pitch level of the last syllable of the pretonic of that tone group (symbol: 1). The marked form is therefore defined in terms of two remaining broad categories of phonetic exponence: (a) where the onset of a simple falling tone is at a pitch level above that of the final syllable in the pretonic (or, where there is no pretonic, the pitch onset of the fall is high key) (symbol: 1+) (b) where the pitch direction is a rise-fall (symbol: +1) This can be diagrammatically represented as follows:

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We have already noted that the general discourse function of marked non-lexical focus was to involve a contrastive presupposition. It is not unusual to find marked Tone 1 co-occurring with this type of focus. In these cases, the tone is seen in the role of 'supporting' the contrast the contrast would have been present whether the tone was marked Tone 1 or not. The discourse function associated with marked Tone 1 is that it generally involves a contrastive presupposition. 16 It can display this function in three ways, depending on the focus: 1. Supportingly as has just been mentioned, when the contrast is already operative through marked non-lexical focus. 2. Discriminatingly marked Tone 1 can discriminate between marked and unmarked focus when tonicity does not. In this sense it does more than merely support the contrast because without marked Tone 1 it would not be clear whether the contrast was operative or not. For instance, we saw earlier that focal demonstrative determiners, while on the whole involving a contrastive presupposition, lacked this characteristic in certain contexts, as with certain 'time' nouns:

Although tonicity is marked in the second tone-group in (46), focus may be marked or unmarked, depending on what is included in the focal information constituent. The focal information constituent would be syntactically realized by /hav hin/ (this summer) if focus were unmarked, and by /hin/ (this) alone if it were marked. Tonicity in these cases does not discriminate between marked and unmarked focus. Tone, however, does. Use of marked Tone 1 in the second tone-group in (46) would signal marked focus, the focal information constituent being syntactically realized by the demonstrative determiner alone, and another element is implied which is derivable by contrast with it: 'I won't break my heart if I don't get a job this summer, but I shall be most upset if I don't get one next summer.' 3. Independently the independently contrastive function of marked Tone 1 means that the choice of tone has a contrastive function in the discourse independent of the focus, which means in effect that focus in such cases does not involve a contrastive presupposition. This differs from the previous two contrastive functions in that the tone here does not merely support a contrast already operative, nor does it discriminate

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in cases where there is a potential contrast here the contrast is the direct responsibility of marked Tone 1. This becomes interesting when we examine focal lexical items, for instance. Focus per se, when the focal item is lexical, does not appertain to relations of contrast within the discourse (with possible exceptions: see Rees (ibid.) 5.3.3.). Yet a focal lexical item can appear in contrast to another element in the discourse, and in many cases can be signalled as doing so. One way of realizing this signalling device is by use of marked Tone 1.

(The tone number is placed at the beginning of the tone-group the symbols are explained on p. 146.) In (47), /ire/ (words mutated) is in contrast with /d n ðjeq/ (intonation mutated). This contrast, nothing to do with focus which is unmarked (except in the first information unit where /d i jaiq/ (two languages) is signalled as given), is signalled by marked Tone 1, having its point of origin at the tonic syllable /i (re)/. Lexical contrast of the type we have discussed is discourse dependent, so that when marked Tone 1 signals a contrast which involves lexical focus, it also signals the fact that, for the participants, at this particular point in the discourse there are two or more items operating in a uniquely structured closed set determined by that particular part of the discourse, which outside the discourse would merely be terms in a vast open set. In other words, the discourse arranges at any given time according to the subject matter a number of items which for the interactants move towards the formation of a closed system and are thus in potential contrast with each other. Obviously one would expect these items in the majority of cases to be semantically related in some way, as is the case with /t n ðjeq/ (intonation) and /gire/ (words) in (46). Key The notion of 'key' goes back to Henry Sweet: 'Besides the separate inflections of which it is made up, each sentence, or sentence-group, has

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a general pitch or key of its own.' (Sweet, 1906, 70). 'Change of key has . . . a purely logical significance. Thus questions are naturally uttered in a higher key than answers, and parenthetic clauses in a lower key than those which state the main facts. In all natural speech there is an incessant change of key' (1906, 701). Sweet figured that 'for ordinary purposes it is enough to distinguish three keys' high, mid and low, and this suits the approach outlined here. The key is redefined as the pitch setting of a tone group as indicated by the first salient syllable of that tone-group. The first syllable of the pretonic will set the key for that tone-group. In the absence of a pretonic, the key will be defined in terms of the pitch onset of the tonic syllable. Brazil (1975) also makes use of the notion of key in positing a phonological unit of higher rank than the tone-group. This unit has the structure: (High ' . . . n) Mid (Low ' . . . n) The value of such a suggestion for our approach to intonation lies in the implication it has for the discourse functions expounded by key. As Brazil puts it: 'Any occurrence of a high-key tone-group can be thought of as being . . . bound to a succeeding tone-group; any low-key tone-group as bound to the preceding one. The former carries the implication: ''There is more to follow"; the latter: "This is said in a situation created by something that went before." In discourse, we can say that one sets up expectations, the other has prerequisites' (1975, 10). High key, then, signals the beginning of a new unit in the discourse, a departure from what has gone before in semantico-pragmatic terms a conceptual paragraph, as it were (see Rees and Urquhart, 1976). Low key signals the continuation of such a unit. Use of low key becomes interesting when it appears in utterance-initial position, for there it signals a continuance of the unit begun (or continued from someone else's initiation) by the preceding speaker. It implies: 'What I am saying now is a continuation of the last utterance. I feel there is more to say about the subject.' Instances of key function are appreciably difficult to demonstrate, since large chunks of conversation are necessary. A much briefer surrogate is to examine the co-occurrence of key with what Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) have called 'frames', which function to indicate boundaries in the discourse e.g. /na r/ (now), /na rte/ (now then), /r it/ (right) etc. Frames can fulfil an initiating or a terminating function: that is to say, it can signal the beginning of a new topic, or the end or completion of a particular topic. Some frames, by their semantic nature, can fulfil only one of the two

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functions./ r it/ (right) is one which can do both. 17 Consider the following example, which could form part of a history lesson:

Low key with / r it/ here would mean: 'That's all I'm going to say about that.' High key would signal the fact that the teacher is about to begin a new topic. This view is supported by the anomalous effect on the audience if a high key frame was followed by silence, or perhaps the teacher's departure. They would be left 'up in the air', as it were, waiting for the speaker to go on to his new topic.18 A speaker may use high key when it is obvious there is no structural change to a new conceptual paragraph. In many cases, this is a strategic device by the speaker. If the structural use of high key signals the beginning of a new conceptual paragraph, it carries with it the advice to the listener to pay attention in view of the fact that a new unit is beginning: 'Don't miss this because it's the introduction of a new topic, and therefore important you should grasp it.' Strategic use of high key where there is no structural change in evidence then merely signals the fact that the speaker considers what he is communicating to be important for the hearer. As far as the structure of the discourse goes, strategic use of high key expounds no function: it carries only the residual implications of high key when the structural function has been extracted, as it were: 'Don't miss this because I, as the speaker, consider what I am going to say now to be important for you.' Strategic use of high key can therefore be seen as designed to create in the listener a similar awareness/ anticipation/ attention as does its structural use but without the latter's implications for the structure of the discourse. Low key can be used in a similar way. If structural use of low key signals a continuance of the current conceptual paragraph, strategic use of low key, where it is evident that what is being said would be more suited to a new conceptual paragraph than that which immediately preceded it, amounts almost to a deception by the speaker. It may be used for a number of reasons: 1. Bringing the topic back to something that had been left not long ago. A preface of the sort, 'Going back to what you were saying about . . . ' is not unusual in cases like this. 2. Introducing a new topic which is in some way connected to what preceded but not sufficiently so to be part of the same

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conceptual paragraph. The speaker may wish to get it in without showing he is in effect changing the topic, possibly to suit his story. 3. Taking over the speaker role as unobtrusively as possible, possibly because of a shy personality. If high key brings attention, he sticks to low. 4. The speaker starts off with something that appears to be a break, but wishes to assure his audience that he is keeping within the general topic. The strategic function of low key is therefore close to its structural function, the difference being that whereas the latter genuinely signals a continuation of the conceptual paragraph, the former fabricates the issue in order to present the appearance of continuation. Sweet's observations, quoted above, can be handled within this approach. One of them is what parenthetic clauses 'take a lower key than those which state the main facts.' The parenthetic information can be set against its surrounds by means of a different choice of key selection. Choice of high key would be taken in the main to be inappropriate (though not totally unacceptable it could be strategic), because the last thing that parenthetic information is likely to constitute is a structural change in the discourse. A question most frequently fulfils the role of what Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) call an 'elicitation', which is often an initiatory move in a conceptual paragraph, and therefore takes high key. This need not always be the case, however we are not dealing with a rigid set of language rules and if the speaker sees the question as being closely bound to what has gone previously, or alternatively wishes to present it so for certain tactical reasons, he has the option of using low key in its structural or strategic role. A worthwhile answer is of course bound to the question which elicited it, and a choice of low key would not be surprising. On the other hand, the speaker may consider his answer to be a significant contribution to the discourse, and as such worthy of drawing the listener's attention to it by using strategic high key. Within the broad area of question and answer, choice of key plays a significant role in exhibiting the degree of confidence expressed by the speaker in expectancy of confirmation. Take the following example:

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Example A2, spoken with unmarked Tone 1, is a request for confirmation (Tone 2 (rising) would make it a question, despite the declarative form). Labov (1972a) found "many cases where speakers will not let the conversation continue unless a yes or no answer is given to . . . statements.' He goes on to explain, 'The rule which applies here is one of the simplest invariant rules of discourse. Given two parties in conversation, A and B, we can distinguish as "A-events" the things that A knows about but B does not; as "B-events" the things which B knows about but A does not; and as "AB-events" knowledge which is shared equally by A and B. The rule then states: If A makes a statement about a B-event, it is heard as a request for confirmation. This rule contains the social construct of "shared knowledge'' which is not normally part of a linguistic rule' (p. 254). In (49), A2 is seen as a statement about a B-event (that B went by car to Cardigan), and therefore A's request to B for confirmation. Choice of key would show how confident A is about receiving confirmation from B. The higher the key, the less confident the speaker is of gaining confirmation. A request for confirmation in low key shows the speaker is highly confident of the correctness of his assumption. Frequently in such cases no neutral confirmation is given by the interactant, and this lack of communication is itself taken as an assent, as it were: for instance, where A's (low-key) assumption about the B-event is considered so obvious that it does not require verbal confirmation. Sometimes a nod of the head suffices; sometimes not even that is necessary. The higher the key A uses for his request, the more pressure is put on B either to confirm or contradict. If B remains uncommunicative after a mid or high key request, A may well continue with a prod of the type // . . wel / oð e // (well, was it?) The key used for actual confirmation depends a good deal on the key the request was made in. Confirmation, when given, will normally be low key. When confirmation is refused that is, when confirmation turns to contradiction then a low key request will frequently get a higher key response: a kind of reprimand for showing confidence in a wrong assumption.

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Notes 1 A text may of course consist of only one utterance: for instance, if Wil meets Dai walking down the road and says 'Hello', but gets no reply, this would constitute both an utterance and a text. 2 The phonological representation is of the dialect of Welsh spoken in south east Dyfed. The second line contains, where possible, word for word equivalents. The abbreviations Aux. (auxiliary), asp. (aspect marker) and neg. (negative) follow the model of Welsh grammar laid out in Jones and Thomas (1974). The third line is the English translation. 3 Our unit of rhythm is the foot, as described in Halliday (1967) and Rees (1977). The foot boundary is marked by a single bar /. The syllable following the foot boundary will be salient (rhythmically prominent where the beat falls, as it were), and any other syllables in the foot will be non-salient. A tone-group boundary is also a foot boundary, so that the first syllable of a tonegroup will be salient unless signalled otherwise by the diacritic . . . , which means the following syllable is non-salient, and the tone-group therefore contains a proclitic element. The tonic syllable is always underlined. 4 To be read as the phonetic category of 'pause' which demarcates the boundary of a certain tone-group, and not as the phonetic cue which marks a category 'pause'. Length-marker and pitch-marker are to be read likewise. 5 The implications of this last paragraph involve a radical deviation from Hallidayan theory and are dealt with more fully in Rees (1975) and Rees (1977). 6 In any Welsh word of more than one syllable, one of the constituent syllables will have the property of lexical stress. This is to say that, when a word of two or more syllables is uttered in isolation, one of the syllables will stand out as being salient. That syllable is taken to be the lexically stressed syllable of that word. It follows that stress, as referred to here, is a property of the lexicon. A lexically stressed syllable may be seen as the potentially salient syllable when the item of which it forms a part is contained in the utterance; but this is not to say that only that syllable which is stressed may be realized as salient. This is the reason for its specification as a condition for unmarked tonicity. 7 The term 'information constituent' means 'a constituent of the information unit,' in much the same way as the tonic syllable is a constitutent of the tone-group; but whereas the relationship between the tone-group and its elements of structure can be displayed on phonological/phonetic grounds, no such claims can be made for the relationship between the information unit and its information constituent(s). No claim is therefore being made at this stage for the validity of the information constitutent as a psycholinguistic entity. It is put forward as a formal unit at the informational level (which is equally formal), and will be intuitively delimited ad hoc by means of appeal to its exponence at the syntactic level, so that the focal information constituent (to which our interest here is confined) may be realized by a word, a phrase, etc. The smallest syntactic unit which can act as the exponent of a focal

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information constituent is the word the word which contains or comprises the tonic syllable. The syntactic unit may be larger than the 'tonic word', so there is a non-biunique relationship between tonic syllable and focal information constituent. 8 It is important to emphasize that the type of presupposition with which we are concerned is indeed discoursal, and this needs to be distinguished from presuppositions of a semantic nature. (17) does contain semantic presuppositions (for the message to be meaningful the interlocutors would have to have the shared knowledge of who Wil is, for instance), but it does not contain a discoursal presupposition, i.e. no information is signalled as being derivable from some other part of the discourse, as was in (16) by use of the pronominal. Henceforward in this discussion, when presuppositions are mentioned, they will be understood to be discoursal, unless otherwise stated. 9 /gun/ (dogs mutated) in such an utterance may be a minor focal information constituent, in which case it is still treated as given (see Rees (1977) 6.1. 6.1.2). 10 The notion of contrast is important here: if a non-lexical focus involves a contrastive presupposition, the relationship between the focal information constituent and the element whose existence is implied by virtue of that focal information constituent must be seen to be semantically contrastive and not merely basically linguistic, as seems to be the case in most (English) intonation studies. This point is given fuller attention in Rees (1977) 5.2.1. 11 To complete the story, Max Boyce's understandably timorous reply to the paint-spraying giant was, 'Well it's dryin' lovely.' Max Boyce: 'Live at Treorchy', E.M.I. record label, No. OU2033, stereo OC 0540 05564. 12 The hypothesis of the pitch peak as a residue of the accent shift is put forward by Jones (1949), whilst that of the accent-shift and its mechanics can be found in Jackson (1953) p. 265ff., p. 664ff., p. 682ff. There seems to be a measure of disagreement among scholars as to the actual time of the accent shift (Watkins (1972), for instance, puts it in the ninth century; Jackson's (ibid.) arguments for putting it in the eleventh century are on p. 6857), but this need not concern us. 13 The horizontal lines in these and similar examples are taken to represent the speaker's tessitura, or pitch range during normal conversation. 14 I have noted interesting cases in connection with the rise-fall, where the tonic syllable could genuinely be called a silent for 'thank you' in English (Jones (1957) p. 227). The stress, working in much the same way as the well attested following constructed example shows the point more clearly. If in answer to the question:

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the speaker replies apologetically:

the listener perceives this as a rise-fall (plus rise) which is the choice of tone generally associated with the meaning to be conveyed (apologetic and qualificatory), although what he hears in a physical sense is a fall (plus rise), which would entail a different shade of meaning. (Obviously I am not suggesting that every native speaker has an inbuilt analytical knowledge of his intonation system. We are basically speaking in terms of "competence".) He physically hears a fall because the tonic , so that the first syllable consists of the unreleased voiceless velar plosive /k/, word /liken/ (would like) is contracted to which does not carry pitch. Without a salient syllable preceding /ken/, then, a rise-fall would not be possible. Therefore through comprehension of the speaker's intention not only do we make a decision on the tone which is involved and thereby accept the presence of a syllable preceding /ken/ which the theory requires to be salient (the tonic syllable is by definition a salient syllable), we also make a judgement about the relative pitch of the syllable, placing it on a level below the beginning of the fall on /ken/. 15 These terms are borrowed from music, where a chord may be resolved by a following chord, or it may be left unresolved. For instance, if playing in the key of C, we had the following sequence in a phrase: CGCGFGC the final C chord (the 'tonic' in musical terms) resolves the preceding G chord (the 'dominant'), and gives a sense of completion to the phrase as a whole it could be the end of a song, as it were. If, on the other hand, the above phrase were repeated without the final C chord i.e. if it ended on the third G chord then that final G chord would be left unresolved. The phrase would need either another (resolving) chord, or a following phrase, in order to avoid leaving the listener with a sense of its being incomplete. 16 It is not claimed that it always does so, nor that this is its only function. 17 When a frame is spoken in mid-key, it is not specifically initiating or terminating. One could in fact attribute it an ambivalent status in that it may fulfil both functions simultaneously: 'not only have I completed what I have to say about that particular (part of the) topic, but I am now also going to begin another (part of the) topic.' 18 It would, of course, be possible to bring the lesson to a close if we followed the high key frame with something like, 'We'll leave it there for today,' or, 'We'll carry on from there next time.' Such markers of finality are in fact fresh units.

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Welsh Phonology in Acquisition Wynford Bellin Two Questions Two questions come to mind immediately when considering the acquisition of Welsh phonology. 1 How much is the acquisition of Welsh phonology like the acquisition of phonology in other languages? Can the study of Welsh phonology acquisition come up with results that might not be obtained from investigating other languages? A result that might not be so clearly obtained with other languages will be presented in order to answer the second question. Any answer to the question whether the acquisition of Welsh resembles acquisition in other languages begs further subsidiary questions. Can Welsh phonology acquisition be discussed separately from children's bilingualism? If there are to be comparisons of stages of development, how far is division into stages justifiable? It is well known that children's receptive abilities outstrip their productive abilities, but how much better is phonological reception? These issues can be considered with examples from the speech of the writer's own children and one of their cousins. To show what might be less easily obtained with children who speak other languages, there will be a description of results from a formal test conducted in an area with a high proportion of Welsh speakers. The Social Context Is it legitimate to discuss the acquisition of Welsh phonology apart from children's bilingualism? There is no corner of Wales where the pressure of 'yr iaith fain' (English) are not felt. Data from the 1971 census2 can illustrate the range of social contexts for the acquisition of Welsh. Tables 1 and 2 contain percentages calculated from the census data (Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys, 1973). Although the overall percentage of Welsh speakers in any age cohort is small, there are areas where the vast majority of children speak the language. Peer support might well be considerable in such areas, but much weaker in

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Table 1 Percentages of Welsh speakers at different ages in widely differing areas and overall All Wales Cardiff C.B. All Caernarvonshire Gwyrfai RD % % % % Age in years 7 2 56 82 34 13 59 3 64 92 16 1014 6 65 89 15 1524 5 56 82 17 2544 5 65 83 23 4564 5 65 83 29 65+ 6 58 83 Table 2 Percentages of Welsh speakers who could not speak English according to the 1971 Census Percent of total Percent of Percent of Percent of Welsh population of Cardiff Caernarvonshire speakers in Wales Welsh Welsh speakers Gwyrfai RD Age in years 16 50 61 34 4 13 14 18 59 1 10 4 4 1014 1 7 5 4 1524 1 7 4 4 2444 1 6 5 6 4564 1 8 7 8 65+ 2 somewhere like Cardiff which has many Welsh speakers even though they form a small proportion of the total population. From the figures for the number of people who speak Welsh, but not English, percentages like those in Table 2 can be calculated. McLaughlin (1978) and researchers in Europe like Wode (1977) divide children in bilingual situations into tidy categories. They distinguish between simultaneous acquisition and successive acquisition of languages. Should discussion of Welsh phonology acquisition be confined to children in a district, like Gwyrfai, where the census figures suggest that acquisition may be successive? Five children from Gwyrfai were used in the formal test to be described, but looking down the age range in Table 2 suggests that

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only the very youngest are in a situation unlike that of children elsewhere in Wales. The difference between the youngest and second youngest age groups in the last column of the table is much bigger than the corresponding difference for Cardiff. Such a drop in the difference for an Anglicized area accords with a distinction between simultaneous and successive acquisition. Yet when the unchanging proportion of monolingual Welsh speakers down the age groups is considered, even the figures for three to four year olds lose much of their face validity. It is worth questioning researchers who use tidy categories about how they would classify children such as those in Gwyrfai. When television and other influences are taken into account, simultaneous acquisition of Welsh and English seems the most appropriate category (Wode, personal communication) whatever the size of the Welsh speaking majority. It must be relevant that the children given the formal test lived on the main road. Working out further implications of their situation for categorizing their bilingualism is left as an exercise for the reader. The language questions in the census are asked only in Wales. There are no figures for Liverpool, Manchester and London where exiles are numerous. Harrison and Thomas (1976) emphasize the importance of consistency in the language behaviour of parents where the acquisition of Welsh is concerned. As far as pre-school development goes, it may be perfectly legitimate, therefore, to discuss the speech of the writer's own son, Ioan, and daughter, Eirlys. Both have always lived in the southeast of England. Mention will also be made of their cousin, Huw, whose home is in the suburbs north of Cardiff, since his age was very similar to Ioan's and he therefore provided a basis for comparison. The home situation is that both parents speak Welsh consistently. They would address the children in Welsh in the presence of others. However, in an English conversation with others, the children might well be included. Parental consistency must have been responsible for indications of a separation of the two languages. For instance, Huw used [l] for /r/ regularly, giving [dl g] for drwg 'bad' after 3;6 when the cluster was not reduced to [d]. 3 Ioan's substitutions after 3;10 depended on syllable structure. Where /r/ followed a vowel at the end of a syllable, Ioan would substitute [v], giving [k v] car 'car' and [davflen] darllen 'read'. Huw stuck to liquid replacement in such contexts as in /d d i ful/ dod i ffwrdd 'come away' where Ioan would say [fuv]. When speaking Welsh, Huw would say [k l] for car, and Ioan would say [k v]. However, when speaking English, Huw would say [k ]. Ioan had distinct vowels for English and would always say [k ] in English. One of Ioan's earliest words was [p s] pys 'peas'. At 1;8. However, in this third year he came to substitute [q] for /s/. All the time he lisped,

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he had no trouble with the non-lateral fricatives in forms like llaeth 'milk' or meddwl 'think'. His renderings were [flaiq] and [meðul]. At 3;10 the lisp disappeared in an 'across the board' change, and he went too far. Adult forms with /q/ were pronounced with [s] as in [flais] llaeth 'milk'. Forms like meddwl 'think' were pronounced with [z] as in [mezul]. During the period when he substituted [s, z] for /q, ð/ in Welsh, he showed a [f] for /q/ substitution only when speaking English, as in [fI s] things. One reason why substitution processes would be separate for such contrasts is phonological structure. In Welsh initial /q/ and /ð/ would occur in forms showing mutation, rather than citation forms of words. However, parental consistency must enable the linguistic input to be sorted out. So it seems to be legitimate to discuss Welsh phonology acquisition in its own right, in spite of the nature of the social context, provided that children with consistent linguistic input are under investigation. Stages of Development Fig. 1 distinguishes stages of vocal development as outlined by Stark (1979) following research on the earliest stages, and Dore et al. (1975), Ferguson and Farwell (1975) and Smith (1973) on stages up to about two

Fig. 1 Stages of vocal development years of age. What was remarkable about Eirlys was the orderliness with which she proceeded through such stages. She began to babble with CVCV patterns at nine months, showing a strong preference for a voiced alveolar sounding like [d] in the consonant positions. At eleven

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months she would utter [ta] when taking things for herself or accepting them from others. But this usage was tied closely to specific interactions with the family. Over a Christmas period, during her twelfth month, saying [ta] and babbling ceased, and [ta] was not used again for three months. (With the onset of other spoken forms, her mother began modelling diolch 'thanks'.) The first attempts to follow adult spoken forms began when she was 1;1. She would utter [ba] when held to see her own reflection in a mirror as well as for her own photograph. Within the month [ba] gave way to [baba] and she would utter [b i] botymau 'buttons' when fingering the buttons of someone carrying her. The use of [ma] to call her mother came in the thirteenth month. At 1;2 she would utter [dIdi] esgidiau 'shoes' when bringing her shoes to have them put on. A little later in the same month [dadi] began to be used to call her father. From then till 1;10, she used a limited set of spoken forms, fitting what Ferguson and Farwell (1975) describe as a fifty word stage. Her use of phonetically consistent forms like [p s] for dirty nappies and hot things, where the adult model is not easily determined, came with the first fifty words, rather than the previous stage. The most frequent early forms, apart from the examples given were: [dada] dafad 'sheep' [leli] 'jelly' [lulu] dwr 'water' [l l ] dwdldw 'cock-a-doodle-do' [lIli] doli 'dolly' [l li] lori 'lorry' [ i] wy 'egg' [wIwI] wyau 'eggs' [p itò] 'pushchair' [wauwau] for dogs [mu mu] for cows [me me] for calves [g n] gone for having finished food and all disappearances. Why these examples are given is because they suggest partial conformity to a 'universal' progression for the development of phonological contrasts, which Jakobson (1941/1968) put forward. What would please Jakobson would be the hint of a silent period before the onset of speech proper and other indications of discontinuity between babbling and meaningful speech. The progression between 1;1 and 1;4 was close to the following suggested order:

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1. labial stop followed by a low vowel 2. opposition between oral and nasal stops 3. low as opposed to high vowels (See Kiparsky and Menn, 1977 and Ferguson, 1978.) The indications of discontinuity with babbling were delay before using forms like [dIdi] in spite of using [d] in babbling, and 'water' and [lIli] doli. If there was a carry-over from the use of [d] in babbling, the assimilation shown in forms like [lulu] why was assimilation to the second consonant rather than the first? Another characteristic of those early words was a strong preference for a CV or CVCV syllable structure. This was most clearly shown by reluctance in the face of social pressures to attempt her brother's name, Ioan, with its 'glide + VVC' structure. The dislike of the form could be verified using her brother's photograph. A large photograph which always attracted her attention could not be used to elicit his name, even though questioning about other people's photographs readily elicited names with deformations. There was no reluctance to utter [h ] for Huw, her cousin's name. The preferences in syllable structure accord with Jakobson's suggestions. After the age of 1;10, constraints on syllable structure were relaxed. Forms like [ k l] ysgol 'school' were uttered, and [g n] gave way to [mInd] mynd 'go' in spite of the final consonant cluster. There was a rapid expansion of vocabulary. At 2;1, after ten days of using [wowo] for Ioan, she settled into calling him [woan]. Even though Eirlys followed an orderly progression in terms of Fig. 1, she seems to have jumped a 'stage'. As far as development of contrasts goes, her brother and cousin with very early use of apicals certainly did not follow Jakobson's progression, and they would have been very difficult to place along Fig. 1. With word shapes, Ioan used CVC patterns from the beginning. Huw's version of Ioan's name before two was [ m] and his own sister's name Llinos was pronounced [ s]. So he did not avoid VC patterns. The way lines are continued with dots in Fig. 1 is meant to indicate that every stage may overlap with others. The way bolder lines (XXX) cover the same time span is intended as a reminder that there is no need to pass through one stage to get to the next. Variation between Children and Internal Variation There was considerable variation between the three children observed, but there is also considerable internal variation in any one child. This becomes obvious after the fifty word stage. An indication of the extent

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of internal variation that can occur was Ioan's problem with the lateral fricative / /. The following examples show how Ioan treated the lateral fricative up to 3;10: [fl ] llo 'calf'; [davflen] darllen 'read' [alax] arall 'other'. (Substitution of [fl] initially and at the onset of syllables after a consonant and [x] at the end of words was regular.) [gaqli] gallu 'be able'; [k qlex] cyllell 'knife' [k xli] or[k xi] colli 'loose' (Intervocalic substitutions were very variable.) The question about internal variation is whether it makes division into stages problematic even for the individual child. At 3;10, when Ioan gave up lisping and began to substitute [s, z] for [q, ð] there was an obvious dividing point. However, even with gradual and variable changes it is possible to detect movement towards adult spoken forms. The change at 3;10 affected substitutions for / /. Forms like gallu 'be able' tended to be pronounced with [sl] as in [gasli]. However, many of them did not. He changed to saying [k xex] cyllell 'knife' and used [k xi] for colli 'lose' more often. The change to [gasli], still with a cluster, indicates that his problem with the adult lateral fricative was in establishing its status as a segment. If so, the more extensive substitution of [x] in a context where it had not been used before represents a move towards more consistent treatment of / / as a segment. In the terminology of Grunwell (1981), he showed 'progressive internal variation'. Welsh and Other Languages The variation between children that seems to be the case for Welsh is only to be expected from results of large scale studies using English. Sander (1972) summarizes studies using large numbers of children. What comes out are estimates of the age when a speech sound will be in use by half of the children, and how long it takes for that speech sound to be used by 90% of children. The length of time for 50% use to improve to 90% use can be compared with the age for 50% use by means of a schematic plot (Fig. 2). It can be seen that there is no straightforward relationship between the two indicators of difficulty. From Fig. 2 it can be inferred that some consonants take a long time to reach use by the large majority of children in spite of early use by half of the children. Examples are /t/ and / /. A number of consonants

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Fig. 2 A schematic plot showing the relation between two ways of indicating how soon consonants appear (from Sander, 1972)

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other than fricatives appears early and reach 90% use quickly. Such 'easy' consonants appear in the bottom left hand area of the figure. Difficulty for some children but not all results in a low right hand position for a consonant. All English consonants used by Welsh speaking children are shown. Although Fig. 2 summarizes cross-sectional data, it is clear that there must be plenty of children who do not follow Jakobson's progression for phonological contrasts. Just as early as labials comes /n/, which is apical. The low position of /t/ means that some children will produce it as soon as /k/, although its distance to the right means that many others will fit the progression. The fact that it is further to the right than the homorganic fricatives /q/ and /ð/ means that some children will still have trouble with /t/ when Jakobson would not expect them to. Ingram (1976) re-examines diary studies to show that longitudinal evidence supports the absence of any universal progression in acquiring phonological contrasts. What is very clear on Fig. 2 is a general difficulty with fricatives. They are all higher and to the right of stops. So variation between Welsh-speaking children in acquiring contrasts and problems with the lateral fricative are just what would be expected from studies using English and other languages. The main features of development which parallel what has been reported by others are: differences between children in syllable structure preferences (see Ingram, 1976); avoidance strategies as early as the fifty word stage (see Ferguson, 1978) some across the board changes (see Smith, 1973); progressive variation as well as more striking changes (see Grunwell, 1977); gradual simplification of relations between child and adult spoken forms; considerable superiority of reception over production. There were two substitution processes observed in Ioan, which are not listed by Ingram. Ioan's substitution of [v] for /r/ in certain contexts has been mentioned. He also substituted [l] for /w/ in clusters with velar consonants as in [gleld] gweld 'see'. Ingram allows that some substitution processes will be more likely to occur in one language rather than another. The way relations between adult and child spoken forms simplify in development has been carefully studied by Smith (1973). An appreciation of what happens can be obtained from Table 3 which presents changes in Ioan's deformations of teganau 'toys'. As is argued by Smith (1973), children do not fail to make distinctions between adult spoken forms which they find problematic. Huw gave opportunity for a convenient check. Throughout his fourth year he

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Table 3 Ioan's deformations of an adult word form at different ages, indicating phonological processes Adult formAge Processes Pronunciation teganau 'toys' 2;103;7 1. metathesis across /e/ 2. voicing an intervocalic consonant 3. /e/ influenced by /g/ [ged'anai] 3;74;6 /e/ influenced by /g/ [tug'anai] 4;4 [teg'anai] onwards (correct pronunciation) showed 'fronting' (substituting a dental or alveolar consonant for a velar). In his speech, he made no distinction between cacen 'cake' and taten 'potato'. It was simple to verify at table that he made the distinction in reception. Controversies about Children's Abilities In stating that Welsh phonology acquisition is very much like phonology acquisition in other languages, a number of issues have been glossed over. Reception certainly outstrips production enough to ensure that children do not confuse adult spoken forms which are not distinguished in their own speech. But avoiding confusion can be achieved in a number of ways. It does not require accurate segmentation and full appreciation of phonological structure. (For differences of opinion here, see Smith, 1973; Braine, 1976; Bellin, 1979 and compare Ingram, 1979.) Ioan's problem with the lateral fricative / / was explained as inconsistent treatment of whatever he perceived. He seemed undecided between treating what he perceived as a segment and treating it as a cluster. Regarding what he perceived as indeterminate takes sides with what Braine calls the 'partial perception hypothesis'. There is also the assumption that the child has an interest in establishing what are the phonological units and what is the structure. Can such analytical activity be attributed to a child in his fourth year? An area where Ioan was more obviously engaged in analytical activity was morphophonology. If he

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engaged in analysis into linguistic units in morphophonology, why not assume that he did something similar for phonology? Morphophonology Table 4 shows the seven ways of forming the plural in Welsh (see Morris-Jones, 1913). Examples of Ioan's plural forms are given. They were collected over a period before he started nursery education. The examples reveal a very strong preference for the very common realization of the plural a suffix -au added to a base form. However, many nouns have the distinction between singular and plural realized in an alternation of stem vowels. The strength of Ioan's resistance to stem vowel alternation was shown in the following exchange with his mother:

(Ioan used [f nai] as the plural of ffon. His mother corrected to the adult form /fIn/ ffyn 'sticks'. Ioan says no and persists with his own version.) What seems to be happening is that he does not regard the adult form ffyn 'sticks' as belonging to the same lexeme as ffon 'stick'. He regards it as a form of some other lexeme. So he rejects the correction. Why so? Looking at the range of examples of his plural forms, it is clear that he expects the possibility of analysis into units within the word. This is shown by the way he gets the analysis wrong quite often. In an indirect way, he shows awareness of the existence of more than one suffix, even if they are not all available. Although he persists with the -au suffix when he should use -i and -od, -od does occur. For the anomalous form cwn 'dogs' he might well have tried [kiai] on the analogy with his incorrect plural [tiai] for tai 'houses'. But he chose the suffix -od, perhaps because this is a common plural suffix for animal names. There is a failure to acknowledge exponence of the singular. There seems to be no breakdown of mochyn 'pig' into 'stem = moch- + exponent of singular = yn'. However, the occurrence of [kakenai] for the plural of cacynen 'wasp' suggests that the presence of a morph or formative has been registered. It is not yet appreciated as an exponent

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of the singular. Registration does not amount to much, however, since there is also the form [kak nenai] which reflects plain underanalysis. What is being attributed to Ioan here is no more than MacWhinney (1978) attributes to Hungarian and other children. MacWhinney insists that rote learning and analogy have a place alongside analysis into linguistic units in acquisition. In Table 4 the unerring stress assignment Table 4 Plural marking of Welsh nouns with examples from Ioan collected between 2;1 and 3;7 Stem Vowel No change Change No suffixation bachgen/bechgyn 'boy(s)' Ioan:[baxg 'enai] No examples ty/tai 'house(s)' Ioan: [t 'iai] ffon/ffyn 'stick(s)' Ioan: [f ' nai] mochyn/ moch cacynen/ cacwn One suffix for singular 'pig(s)' 'wasp(s)' Ioan: [m x ' nai] Ioan: [kak 'enai] or [kak n 'enai] cacen/ cacennau cwch/ cychod 'boats' One suffix for plural 'cake(s)' Ioan: [k 'uxai] Ioan: [kak 'enai] het/ hetiau 'hat(s)' Ioan: [h 'etjai] Iori/ loriau 'lorry(ies)' Ioan: [l ' riq] parsel/ parseli 'parcel(s)' Ioan: [pavq 'elai] geneth/ genethod 'girl(s)' Ioan: [gen 'eq d] eliffant/ eliffantod Ioan: [elifant ' ag d] 'elephants' One suffix for singular and cwningen/ cwningod cerdyn/ cardiau 'cards' 'rabbit(s)' Ioan: [k 'erdjai] one for plural Ioan: [b ' uniq] Separate No examples ci/ cwn 'dog(s)' stems Ioan: [k 'i d]

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on the child's own forms, and the palatalization or gliding in /hetjai/ 'hats' presumably result from analogy with correctly reproduced adult forms. There is an example which is very difficult to interpret, namely [elifant'adod] for eliffantod 'elephants'. But along with simple absorption of structure, there is attention to linguistic units. If so, attention to structure at the level of phonology acquisition must not be regarded as implausible. Replicating Findings with Other Languages There is a usefulness in merely checking that phenomena found in other languages also occur in Welsh. Replication sometimes prompts a re-interpretation of the original result. Ioan showed behaviour described by Smith (1973) and labelled by Kiparsky and Menn (1977) as 'displaced contrast'. At the time when he regularly substituted [fl] for / / at the beginnings of words and [x] at the ends, he used a deformation where the lateral fricative could be heard. His regular deformation of twll 'hole' at that time was [ x]. On the other hand, if asked to say the adult form llwch, that is / x/, 'ash' he would come out with [fl x]. So in spite of being able to make the articulatory movements for llwch 'ash' he did so only in a deformation of a different adult form. Smith and others see a great theoretical significance in displaced contrasts, but this case can be dealt with quite simply if it is assumed, that the child was undecided as to how to regard the adult segment / /. Grant that he could monitor his own output well enough to realize that there was a lateral fricative beginning his deformation of twll 'hole'. Since he was undecided about what he perceived where the adult segment / / occurred, why should he connect his own deformation of twll with anything but the adult counterpart? The failure to make any connection follows from indecision about the status of the segment / / and the lowly status children give to their own spoken forms. (Smith himself describes the perplexity caused by repeating them back.) It is thought-provoking to go back to the original English examples which caused excitement about displaced contrasts. They involved sounds which occur upwards and to the right on Fig. 2. In other words, the phenomenon might be amenable to reinterpretation in terms of partial perception generally, as well as in this particular case. Mutations The hallmark of Celtic languages is their mutation systems. There are also in Welsh mutation rules which have no parallels in other Celtic

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languages (see, for example, Ellis, 1965). The most notable of such rules is the one whereby the object of a finite verb form shows the soft mutation. In a sentence like Fe wneith Mam de 'Mother will make tea' the form de 'tea' shows the soft mutation because it is governed by the finite verb form wneith 'will make, will do'. (The citation form of the object noun would be te 'tea'.) The form wneith 'will make' itself shows the soft mutation (with /g/ becoming /Ø/) because of the presence of the particle fe, but such a mutation rule is easily paralleled in other Celtic languages. Direct object mutation raises questions that can only be investigated using Welsh. When a speaker follows such a mutation rule, does he or she merely conform to a pattern? The answer for adults is plain. Failure to follow the rule offends the 'clust' (ear). There are contexts and rules where speakers may differ, but never about direct object mutation. What children do is not clearly understood. The question is one like that faced by Gleitman, Gleitman and Shipley (1972). As they would put it, do children know more about mutation rules than the spider knows about its web weaving, or do they just conform to a pattern? Gleitman and others used a sentence imitation task to investigate children's sense of grammaticality. The task included ungrammatical sentences for imitation. Older children will make changes in sentences they find unacceptable, and so inferences can be made about their sense of what follows a linguistic rule. To probe intuitions about direct object mutation, sentences had to be included which did not normally occur in the dialect spoken by the children. The domain of application for the rule covers a range of sentence types distinguishable on a semantic basis, and not all those kinds of sentence would be used in any particular dialect. This need not be problematic, since studies with English find that children convert unfamiliar sentences to make them conform to their own dialect (see, for example, Jordan and Robinson, 1972). Table 5 lists six sentences which differ in a number of ways. There is periphrastic and an inflexional realization of the future tense (when aspect is not marked as imperfective). In the village where the text was conducted, periphrastic realizations of tense oppositions were preferred. However, what is not obvious from Table 5, the direct object mutation rule applies where dalu 'pay' and de 'tea' show soft mutation. The reason is that both stand in the same grammatical relation to the finite verb form wneith 'will make, will do', in spite of semantic

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differences. It so happens that the word for 'tea' is both the direct object the grammatical object, and the goal of the action the logical object. But the word for 'pay' is a direct object and the intransitivity of the sentence need not affect its grammatical status. Forms like talu 'pay' are known traditionally as verb nouns. The direct object mutation rule applies to verb nouns as well as to other nominal forms. The preference for periphrastic futures in the village extended to the use of Wneith Mam wneud te 'Mother will make tea' rather than the inflexional alternative. Here the verb noun whose citation form is gwneud 'make, do' shows the soft mutation. (In a dialect described by C. H. Thomas, 1974, preference for a periphrastic future which gwneud was true of children but not adults.) Whatever the preferences wneith . . . de 'will make tea', wneith . . . dalu 'will pay' and wneith . . . wneud te 'will make tea' all belong to the domain of application of the same mutation rule. To a writer about mutations like Morgan (1952) the domain of application for the rule is obvious, irrespective of dialect differences. Morgan would explain the structure for wneith . . . wneud te by literally translating the direct object wneud te as 'the making of tea' (see p. 231). In such cases the direct object is an expanded noun phrase with a verb noun as head and the goal of the action te 'tea' as a modifier of that head, or, in Morgan's terminology, a 'dependent genitive'. It is all very well for a Welsh grammarian, but what about children acquiring mutation rules with linguistic input which reflects local dialect preferences? Conducting the Sentence Repetition Test Five children were recruited for the sentence repetition test. 4 Their ages were 3;10, 4;4, 5;2, 5;11 and 6;8. Even the youngest had begun full time schooling. The medium of instruction in the village school was Welsh as well as being the language of the home. The anonymity of the children can be preserved by referring to them by means of their ages. The main aim of the test was to find out what range of reactions could be obtained, rather than what normally happens. So only these children were used. The situation was ideal, since the test was administered by their teacher, who was also a neighbour. The teacher also helped select the vocabulary for the sentences. It was decided to use examples with the alternations /p, b/, /t, d/ and

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Table 5 Welsh sentences such as were used in the repetition test Intransitive Transitive Present tense: Mae Mam yn talu Mae Mam yn gwneud te (is) (mother) (am) (is) (mother) (am) (make/making) (paying/paying) (tea) 'Mother is paying/pays' 'Mother is making/makes tea' Future tense: Wneith Mam dalu Wneith Mam wneud te Periphrastic (will-do) (mother) (will-do) (mother) realization: (pay/paying) (make/making) (tea) 'Mother will pay' 'Mother will make tea' Fe dalith Mam Wneith Mam de Inflexional (part.) (will-pay) (mother) (will-do) (mother) realization: (make/making) (tea) Notes am aspect marker part particle which is not always present.

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/k,g/ apart from including gwneud 'make, do', which brought in the alternation /g,Ø/. To include other alternations from the mutation system would have made the test longer. Moreover, the alternation of voiced stops with their unvoiced counterparts fitted well with phonological processes regarded as 'natural'. Although reactions to ungrammatical items were sought, eight of the sixteen sentences were grammatical. This allowed grammatical and ungrammatical sentences to be paired in presentation. Three native speaker judges were used for transcription of the children's recorded responses. The judges had no expectations about the outcome. All three had to agree before a consonant was transcribed as being different from that in the model sentence, irrespective of correctness by adult standards. The range of reactions to ungrammatical items can be described without listing all the model sentences and attempts at repetition. A full transcription of repetitions with the model sentences in presentation order is available as Appendix 5A of Bellin (1976). The most consistent behaviour was shown by the two youngest children who did make model sentences conform to their dialect, as often happens in English studies. They converted them even when grammatical by other standards. For instance, when asked to repeat Wneith Mam dân (will-make) (mother) (fire) 'Mother will make fire' the children aged 3;10 and 4;5 said [neiq mam neid t n] showing appreciation that the tense was future in the model sentence, but preferring their own dialect's construction. The three older children followed the direct object mutation rule, even though it would have been understandable if they had not. They repeated the sentence correctly with the form [d n]. When given the ungrammatical sentence Wneith Mam *te (will-make) (mother) (tea) 'Mother will make tea' the younger children converted it to the equivalent with a periphrastic construction (as in Table 5). Two of the older children repeated it as given, but the one child aged 5;11 said [neiq mam de ]

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This child showed remarkable consistency in making ungrammatical sentences with inflexional futures conform to the mutation rule. The oldest girl aged 6;8 joined her for Fwytith Mam *pys 'Mother will eat peas' which they both corrected to [vuitIq mam b s]. Likewise with Fwytith Mam *cacen 'Mother will eat a cake' they said [vuitIq mam gaken] The three children over five corrected Yfith Mair *te 'Mair will drink tea' by saying [ vIq mair de ]. What was impressive in these corrections was their occurrence in spite of the opportunity to convert to sentences with periphrastic futures like wneith . . . fwyta 'will eat' and wneith yfed 'will drink'. When the two youngest children converted to periphrastic futures, there was no mutation of the forms meaning 'eat' as the rule required. They also failed to substitute [dal ] for talu when asked to say Wneith Mam *talu 'Mother will pay' The three older children had a very strong intuition for the sentences from their own dialect. They substituted [dal ] and they also gave a response which convinced the investigator that the procedure was such an affront to their intuition that it should be avoided subsequently. The first ungrammatical item was Wneith Sam *prynu afal 'Sam will buy an apple' The older children reacted by repeating the item as Mae Sam yn prynu afal 'Sam is buying an apple' They preferred to believe that the adult had intended a different tense, rather than to drop a mutation. The differences between the older and younger children suggest that before about five, the rule for direct object mutation might be followed,

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but without a strong intuition. At around five, not only do children have a strong linguistic intuition about the rule, but they can go beyond their own dialect in recognizing the domain of application for the rule. Going further than their dialect does not result in a highly consistent appreciation of where the rule applies. The fact that any of them corrected sentences with inflexional futures at all was something that had been thought to be conceivable by the investigator, but not anticipated with any confidence. Welsh Speaking Children and Theories about Phonology Acquisition There is a general theoretical interest in the discovery of the children's linguistic intuition about the scope of the direct object mutation rule. Theorists like Smith (1973) and Kiparsky and Menn (1977) place their emphasis on the child's contribution to phonology acquisition. But the pendulum has swung in the other direction. Derwing (1977) can dismiss their suggestions on the grounds that they rely on an analogy between the child's contribution to learning and the linguist's theoretical activity. Derwing says 'it is hardly obvious that the child ever sets out to learn a ''linguistic system" at all . . . the child's concern is simply one of understanding what is said to him and making himself understood to others'. Derwing adds 'we should not really be surprised if the language learner were to "miss a generalization" now and again'. No-one who speaks Welsh to children will want to underestimate the contribution of adults and the outside environment to language acquisition. But they need not swing as far in the other direction as Derwing. What of the young child's avoidance strategies? Does not the slightly older child's behaviour reflect improving awareness of what phonological units and morphological units can be distinguished, and a growing awareness of structure? The behaviour of the children in the formal test shows much more than a concern with communication. It suggests an appreciation of the common structure in kinds of sentence that differ according to semantic criteria. Were they not on the way to an implicit grasp of generalizations which Welsh linguists try to make explicit in their theoretical formulations? Notes 1 I am most grateful to the editors for helpful guidance on this contribution. 2 Unfortunately, detailed data from the 1981 census was not available at the time of writing.

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3 Children's spoken forms are enclosed in square brackets and adult spoken forms in angled brackets. The transcription for the children's forms is broad. Stress is indicated only in Table 4. Otherwise it is predictable from the adult stress assignment. 4 I am most grateful to Mrs Menna Roberts, of the Ysgol Feithrin, Pentyrch, for assisting with the sentence repetition test.

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The Correlation of Dialect and Administrative Boundaries in Welsh: A Review David A. Thorne Writing in 1905 that renowned Celtic historian the Revd A. W. Wade-Evans suggested that the major dialect boundaries of south-west Wales would be discovered along the borders of the ancient patria or gwledydd of Ystrad Tywi and Dyfed (see Map 1). Ancient Dyfed was ruled over by a line of kings who claimed descent either from one Dimet or from a branch of the royal house of the Deisi, an Irish tribe from County Meath, and also from Magnus Maximus (Macsen Wledig of Welsh tradition), the Spaniard in the service of Rome who declared himself ruler of Britain and attempted in AD 383 to seize Imperial power from his former friend Gratian. Ystrad Tywi, however, had been penetrated by the family of Cunedda who in the fifth century had migrated to Wales from the Strathclyde area of Scotland. Seisyll, prince of Ceredigion, subsequently united Ystrad Tywi with his own kingdom (AD 730) giving his name to the new kingdom of Seisyllwg. In the tenth century Elen, daughter of Llywarch, Prince of Dyfed, married Hywel ap Cadell ap Rhodri Mawr. Hywel Dda, and under him Ceredigion and Dyfed and Ystrad Tywi were joined under one rule. Notwithstanding all this, these three gwledydd remained quite distinct, and it was Wade-Evans's theory that we should for this reason expect pronounced variations in the dialects of Dyfed, Ystrad Tywi and Ceredigion. A year later, Wade-Evans was able to develop his theory further (Wade-Evans, 1906) to take in the whole of Wales, and argued that important dialect boundaries would also concord with the smaller administrative divisions of cantref and cwmwd whilst minor dialect boundaries would correlate with parish boundaries (see Map 2). Indeed another cleric, the Revd John Griffith, had a few years earlier (Griffith, 1902) presented a similar theory regarding the dialects of south-east Wales. Professors Edward Anwyl (n.d.) and John Rhys * (1897) seem to have been the first to propose a correlation of dialect and administrative boundaries in a Welsh context. In his recent word geography of Wales Alan R. Thomas (1973, 80) concludes:

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Comparison of the speech-areas . . . with the boundaries of the gwledydd of the Middle Ages suggests a persisting correspondence between the medieval administrative boundaries and the present-day speech-area boundaries . . . and correlations with the geographically smaller areas of cantrefi can be ascertained . . . This paper attempts in the light of this theory to assess material not available to Wade-Evans and John Griffith, and which was beyond the

Map 1. Medieval administrative boundaries

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scope of A. R. Thomas's reference-work for the most part dissertations on individual dialects presented for the degree of M.A. or Ph.D. of the University of Wales. The gwlad was the most important administrative unit of early medieval Wales. It was a political region with definite boundaries (see Map 1) subject to single rule and a single royal dynasty. In each gwlad the king exercised certain rights and privileges, maintaining at his court

Map 2. Cantref and Cwmwd boundaries

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a royal household of senior officers and retainers such as the distain (or steward), the judge, the hebogydd (or falconer), the court priest and the court poet as well as the king's personal bodyguard. For more effective government these gwledydd 1 were divided into cantrefi (see Map 2) and each cantref in turn into two or more cymydau. In each cantref and in each cwmwd2 the king had a lesser court house which transacted the daily business of the area. Local affairs were in the hands of local administrators: the rhaglaw held the court, the maer collected the dues of bondmen and the rhingyll those of the freemen. Bond and free was an important division between two classes of men in medieval Wales. Firstly there was the free-born Welsh tribesman, the Cymro bonheddig, a member of a particular kindred which could trace its ancestry back to a common ancestor, a man who held his land as a member of the kindred, and whose descendants could in their turn claim their share. This was the aristocracy, an upper class minority compared with the other class of bondmen. Presumably the latter were descendants of an earlier conquered and enslaved population. They were the labourers who lived together in hamlets on the maerdref or the home farm of the local lord under the supervision of maer y biswail.3 Twice a year the prince and his entire court went on progress round his cymydau, staying at the local court house in each district, scrutinizing the work of local officials and deciding cases of appeal. On such occasions the Welsh freemen of the cwmwd made a contribution of food and drink known as the gwestfa, while the bondmen maintained the court house and provided fuel and a certain proportion of the food. Reference to such a royal circuit by Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, is to be found in the Mabinogi (Williams, 1930, 25). Gradually, however, the princes ceased to go on progress except on special occasions, and in such circumstances the food dues were paid in money, thus representing the beginnings of a system of taxation with local communities contributing to the cost of centralized administration. The Welsh freemen occupied scattered homesteads throughout the cwmwd. They were organized in clans and maintained a close family allegiance. These free communities within each cwmwd tended to be grouped into special units, the gwestfa or maenor rural districts with clearly demarcated boundaries for the payment of gwestfa dues.4 It is difficult to judge why Wade-Evans and Griffith concord the main dialect boundaries with the major medieval units of gwlad, cantref and cwmwd but concord minor dialect boundaries with those of the parish an ecclesiastical rather than a secular unit of administration until the modern period.5 But there is evidence that the gwestfa and maenor unit

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Page 180 are in many instances more or less co-extensive with the boundaries of parishes (Jones Pierce, 19569, 274; Thorne, 1976, 56). 6 The remainder of this paper will explore the relevant published and unpublished linguistic data available on the gwledydd of Morgannwg, Ystrad Tywi, Dyfed and Ceredigion, and attempt to assess its implication as regards this theory. This data does not, for the most part, seek to examine or establish linguistic boundaries but rather to describe the phonetic, phonological and lexical features of the ageing, settled population of particular communities. Morgannwg In his discussion of the main features of the Welsh dialect of Hirwaun, G. E. Ruddock (1968, 295) reports: The main phonetic feature that differentiates the dialect of Hirwaun from neighbouring dialects is that the vowel sound /æ/ (a front half-open vowel) does not occur as part of its regular phonetic system.7 (my translation) The front half-open vowel is, however, a feature of the Welsh dialects of Nantgarw, Merthyr Tudful, Tafarnau Bach and Fochriw. According to Ruddock this vowel also occurs in districts neighbouring on Hirwaun namely Aberdâr, Cwmdâr, are said to occur in free variation in monosyllables in examples like Trecynon and Llwytcoed (see Map 3), although /æ/ and [tæd] 'father', in these areas. Ruddock adds (1968, 295): I noted a few examples of /æ/ in the dialect of Hirwaun but they were few and far between8 . . . this relates the dialect of Hirwaun to the dialect of Penderyn and Rhigos and suggests an isogloss between Hirwaun and neighbouring southerly areas. (my translation) Ruddock is undoubtedly correct, but in the light of the thesis being examined here it is necessary to note that an important administrative boundary separates Hirwaun in cwmwd Glynrhondda, cantref Penychen from Aberdâr, Cwmdâr, Trecynon and Llwytcoed in cwmwd Meisgyn, cantref Penychen (see Map 4). In respect of this feature at least, cwmwd Meisgyn certainly possesses all the marks of a transitional area, as is indicated by the frequency of 'doublets'9 (C. H. Thomas, 1976, 352). Ceinwen H. Thomas's study of phonological variation in the tonic and post-tonic syllables in the dialects of south-east Wales (C. H. Thomas, 1976) shows many differences between the two neighbouring dialects

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Map 3. The Cymydau of Cantrefi Penychen and Senghennydd, Gwlad Morgannwg of Hirwaun and Rhigos. Unfortunately there is little published evidence on the minor divisions of cwmwd Glynrhondda, but the scant evidence that is accessible does suggest that Hirwaun and Rhigos do belong to different minor divisions within cwmwd Glynrhondda. (Richards, 1969, 92, 2, 140, 187). The feature of provection is an important characteristic of the Welsh of Morgannwg. It is realized by the devoicing of voiced plosives at the end of the tonic syllable 10 either (a) between simple vowels and, marginally, between the diphthong / i/ and a simple vowel, i.e. in a VCV context; or (b) between a vowel and a voiced consonant, i.e. in a VCCV context. The voiced consonant may be: the sonants /r, l, n/ and, in some dialects only, /m/ the glides /j, w/ the voiced labio-dental fricative /v/. Over its area of distribution, provection is realized in more than 700 items, but the actual lexical set varies from area to area. For example, the set showing provection in the context VCCV for Hirwaun totalled 36 and for Rhigos, 42. Mary Middleton (1965, 12937) was able to note several differences between the Welsh dialect of Tafarnau Bach and the Welsh dialect of

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Trefil. As was previously noted the front half-open vowel is a feature of the dialect of Tafarnau Bach; it is not present in the dialect of Trefil. Both /I/ and /e/ occur in tonic syllables in Tafarnau Bach but only /e/ in Trefil. For example, Trefil

Tafarnau Bach

'stones'

[kerig]

[kIrIg/kerIg]

[kefIl]

[kIfIl/kefIl]

'horse'

[k -] can occur in pre-tonic syllables in Tafarnau Bach, only [k -] in Trefil: [k m'ræg] [k m'dokon]

[k m'ræg]

'Welsh language'

[k m'dokon]

'neighbours'

Post-tonic /a/ and /o/ in Tafarnau Bach are realized by /e/ and / / in Trefil:

Trefil and Tafarnau Bach are a mere three miles apart: Tafarnau Bach in cwmwd Machen, cantref Gwynllwg *, gwlad Morgannwg, and Trefil in cwmwd Ystradyw, cantref Talgarth, gwlad Brycheiniog (see Map 3). Evidence of the correlation of linguistic boundaries and administrative divisions in cwmwd Nedd, cantref Gwrinydd, gwlad Morgannwg (see Map 2), though inconclusive in nature, has been presented by C. B. H. Lewis (1932, ii) and assessed by D. A. Thorne (1976, 16). Dyfed In his dialect notes, already referred to, Wade-Evans (1906) notes differences between the dialect of Fishguard and the dialect of Moylgrove. Both Fishguard and Moylgrove are in cantref Cemais (see Map 2); the former in cwmwd Uwch Nyfer and the latter in cwmwd Is Nyfer. Wade-Evans also suggests that evidence should also be sought from places as near each other as Fishguard and Llanychaer (Llanychaeth).11 Both villages are in cwmwd Uwch Nyfer: Fishguard in Maenor Cefnllymwydd and Llanychaer in Maenor Mynydd Melyn.12

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Ystrad Tywi Ceinwen H. Thomas (1976) shows differences between Dyffryn Llwchwr, cantref Gwyr *,13 and the dialect of Llangennech in cwmwd Carnwyllion, cantref Cedweli (see Maps 2 and 4). The feature of provection is interesting here. In Dyffryn Llwchwr fifty-one provected forms have been noted, see Fig. 1. Context VCV: C = /p/ /t/ /k/ VCCV: CC = /p/ + /r/ /l/ /t/ + /r/ /l/ /n/ /m/ /j/ /w/ /k/ + /r/ /l/ /n/ /j/

No. of occurrences 3 1 4 3 8 11 3 1 1 3 3 1 4 2 3

Fig. 1 Instances of provection in Dyffryn Llwchwr At Llangennech, however, not only is provection numerically reduced to a set of thirty-three items, but the system also contracts so that the VCCV pattern is only chosen preceding /l, j, w/. Both Llangennech and the area designated as Dyffryn Llwchwr are in gwlad Ystrad Tywi: Llangennech in cwmwd Carnwyllion, cantref Cedweli and Dyffryn Llwchwr in neighbouring Gwyr* Is Coed (see Map 2).14 A study of the sub-dialects of cwmwd Carnwyllion (Thorne, 1976) resolved to look at linguistic differences in the ancient cwmwd in the light of the administrative boundaries of the maenorau (see Map 4) Maenor Berwig, Maenor Hengoed, Maenor Llan-non, Maenor Llanedi.15 It was possible to show that changes occurred in an orderly progression at the boundaries of the maenorau of Carnwyllion and thus a systematic linguistic description of the sub-dialects of the cwmwd was achieved.

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Map 4. The Maenorau of Cwmwd Carnwyllion, Cantref Cedweli, Gwlad Ystrad Tywi Within the space at my disposal I will note some of the phonetic and phonological features of Carnwyllion. Carnwyllion has an overall vowel inventory of twelve unit vowels and nine vowel clusters. The unit vowels are: (i)

which are phonologically long. which are phonologically short.

The vowel clusters are: (i) 5 closing to (ii) 4 closing to /u/: au, eu, ou, Iu/ Informants from Maenor Llan-non consistently produced vowels of a more open quality than other informants in the cwmwd. In Maenor Llan-non /o/ and vary in the penultima, e.g. /govin: only the half close /o/ was chosen in these forms.

'to ask', /movin:

/ 'to fetch'. In the other maenorau

A characteristic of the dialects of south Wales is that the half closed vowels of the south-east are realized as half open vowels in the corresponding forms in the south-west. Although the exact patterning of

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the feature is hitherto far from clear the progression on a phonetic and phonological level is to be seen in a sub-dialect of Carnwyllion. Maenor Berwig has an inventory of twenty-two consonants and two semi-vowels:

Maenorau Llan-non, Maenor Llanedi and Maenor Hengoed have in addition:

In Carnwyllion provection loses ground rapidly. The study at Llangennech (which is within Maenor Berwig) noted a set of thirty-four provected forms. The set is reduced to nineteen in Maenor Llanedi, to twelve in Maenor Llan-non, to seven in Maenor Hengoed. The system also contracts further as Fig. 2 illustrates. Of the thirty-four items displaying provection in Maenor Berwig sixteen are doublets; in Maenor Llanedi sixteen of the nineteen occurrences are doublets; in Maenor Llan-non eight of the twelve occurrences are doublets; in Maenor Hengoed six of the seven occurrences are doublets. The only forms to occur in all four maenorau without an unprovected doublet are [epri ] 'April' and [kerðetwin] 'whinnock'. Attention has already been drawn to dialectal patterning in post-tonic syllables. /-a/ in post-tonic syllables is a feature of the dialects of the south-east. 16 The dialectal realization of the graphological allomorph '-aeth' in Dyffryn Llwchwr is /-aq/. In Carnwyllion both /-aq/ and the south-westerly /-eq/ occur; /-aq/ was noted in seven items in Maenor Berwig, in four items in 'a row' Maenor Llanedi; in two items in Maenor Hengoed and in one item in Maenor Llan-non. Apart from (which was noted only in Maenor Berwig and Maenor Llanedi) all items in /-aq/ occurred as doublets to forms in /-eq/.17 Resources unfortunately did not permit the examination of the

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Fig. 2 Instances of provection in the maenorau of Carnwyllion. MB: Maenor Berwig; MLLi: Maenor Llanedi; MLLn: Maenor Llan-non; MH: Maenor Hengoed dialects of the cymydau neighbouring on Carnwyllion but the examination of the dialects of Carnwyllion was certainly an interesting exercise. It has not been possible, as yet, to follow up this line of research adequately and establish whether the distribution of other dialectal features elsewhere in Wales can be related to the ancient minor divisions. 18 One cannot but wonder whether the complex picture of the Dyfi Basin presented by the late Alf Sommerfelt (1925) could not be partly explained in this way. Ceredigion Evidence pertaining to cantref Uwch Aeron and cantref Is Aeron (see Map 1) has been presented by W. Beynon Davies (1952), Evan J. Davies (1955), and J. J. Glanmor Davies (1934), but the nature of the evidence is inconclusive and is assessed by D. A. Thorne (1976, 710). Conclusion Current opinion on geographical variation tends to discredit the traditional notion of self-contained dialect areas. The present discussion

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indeed supports such a view. Nevertheless amongst the continuously shifting mass of transition phenomena which always constitutes the dialectologist's data in any spatial study, certain features undoubtedly have an identifiable area of distribution. What is difficult is the comparative 'weighting' of these features. How does the dialectologist assess the comparative importance of isogloss bundles? A. R. Thomas (1978, 1980) has sought to devise procedures to do just this, and his results correspond closely to the account of the speech areas previously given in his word geography of Wales (1978, 632). Imperfect and incomplete as the dialect map of Wales may be, and whilst the distribution of linguistic forms is also attributable to other than geographical or historical factors, an examination of the correlation of linguistic and administrative boundaries is an aspect which the dialectologist cannot afford to ignore. Notes 1 Gwlad: noun fem. sing. Gwledydd: noun plural. 2 Cantref: noun masc. sing. Cantrefi: noun plural. Cwmwd: noun masc. sing. Cymydau: noun plural. 3 biswail: (cow) dung. 4 Map 4 shows the maenorau of the cantref of Carnwyllion, cwmwd Cedweli, gwlad Ystrad Tywi. 5 The parish was of little or no importance in the administration of civil affairs until a 1555 Act made every parish responsible for the highways passing through it. 6 A far fuller account of the administration of medieval Wales may be found in Lloyd (1939) and Rees (1924). 7 The absence of a front open vowel in the Welsh dialect of Hirwaun and in the Vale of Neath had already been reported in Anwyl (1901, 40). 8 9 [The variable referred to in this paragraph has two variants and [æ]. Another variable referred to in the course of this reading is provection which also has two variants: [+] provection and [ø] provection. In this chapter of Thorne's and in the C. H. Thomas 1976 study to which he makes frequent reference, any lexical item which may occur amongst the tokens of a given variable instancing both variants of that variable is termed a 'doublet'. Editors' note.] also in a VCV context. A few examples of provection at the end of 10 There are a few instances of devoicing the affricate modrybedd 'aunts'. the pre-tonic syllable have also been noted, e.g.

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11 On the forms Llanychaer/Llanychaeth see Richards (1969, 143) and Owen's Pembrokeshire, Part II, p. 313, footnote 3, Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1897. 12 Richards (1969, 38, 70, 143, 162). 13 This is a designation given to the area studied by E. C. Rees (1958) Tafodiaith Rhan Isaf Dyffryn Llwchwr, M.A. Dissertation, University of Wales, and includes information collected chiefly from Penclawdd and Casllwchwr in Gwyr * Is Coed. See Map 2 and Richards (1969, 282). 14 Differences also exist in the morphology of Llangennech and Dyffryn Llwchwr, see Thorne (1971, 2645). 15 For a discussion on the boundaries of these maenorau see Thorne (1976, 56). I am indebted to the late Emeritus Professor William Rees for his interest in this aspect of my work and for his assistance in delimiting the maenorial boundaries. 16 [The variable referred to here has the variants [a] and [e]. The [a] variant occurs in north-west Wales as well as in the southeast. The remainder of the country from the south-west to the north-east is characterized by the [e] variant. Editors' note.] 17 Differences also exist in the morphology and lexis of the maenorau of Carnwyllion. See Thorne (1976, 21826). 18 Thomas (1981) describes part of her hitherto uncompleted research to locate the boundary of the (e/a) variable in North Wales and attempts to explain its location by considering historical and social factors. An earlier attempt to plot this boundary is recorded in Anwyl (1901, 40).

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Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Boundaries in North-East Wales Beth Thomas This contribution has two aims, the first being to describe the nature and location of a linguistic boundary, and the second, to explore the extent to which it coincides with historical boundaries, geographical features, and patterns of social interaction in the area. The Linguistic Boundary In the Welsh dialect of north-east Wales, the orthographic forms '-e, -au, -ae, -ai' in word-final syllables are regularly realized as [e]. In the dialect of north-west Wales, these same forms are realized as [a]. 1 e.g. caseg 'mare' pethau 'things' cyrraedd 'to arrive' cadair 'chair'

North-east [kaseg] [peqe]

North-west [kasag] [peqa]

[k reð]

[k rað]

[kader]

[kadar]

This study covers the northernmost part of this dialectal boundary (see Map 1). The original plan was to choose four villages more or less equidistant from each other along the foothills of the Denbigh Moors. From each of these four villages Llanelidan, Cyffylliog, Llannefydd and Llangernyw five informants were interviewed, using an informal interview schedule.2 The informants were all at least sixty years of age, were natives of the area, and from an agricultural background. Both men and women were recorded. As the work progressed, and as the exact location of the transition zone became clearer, informants from the villages of Llanfair Talhaearn (Llanfair TH), Llansannan, Gwytherin and Pandy Tudur were added to the study. Contrary to expectations, the transition zone was not an area of gradual change from the use of one variant to the other. As I will attempt to show, there was very little middle ground between the two variants. Geographically, the transition from a situation where the [a] variant dominated to a situation where [e] was dominant was very

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Map 1. The study area abrupt. Percentage scores for the [a] variant for each informant in each village are shown in the histogram in Fig. 1. The scores for each individual were calculated by dividing the total of his [a] variants by the total of his tokens for the (e/a) variable, and multiplying by 100. 3 It can be seen that the informants from Llanelidan and Cyffylliog are almost unwavering in their use of the [e] variant. There are very few examples of [a] in word-final syllables, and very little variation between speakers. The informants from Llannefydd and Llansannan however seem more inclined to use the [a] variant, their scores ranging from 2.6% to 18%. There are no obvious factors that could account for the variation between informants. The two Llansannan speakers with the highest [a] scores, for example, come from opposite sides of the Llansannan area. Three of the Llannefydd informants are related 3 and 4 being brothers, and 4 being married to 5 but this is not reflected in their varying [a] scores. It must be noted, however, that [a] still plays a minor

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Fig. 1 [a] scores for each informant in each village

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part in the speech of these villages. Not one of the informants has a [a] score that exceeds 18%. The situation is reversed in Llangernyw and Pandy Tudur. Although they are only five miles away from Llansannan, the informants from these two villages have extremely high scores for the [a] variant. The most interesting scores come from Llanfair Talhaearn and Gwytherin. In Llanfair Talhaearn, four of the informants behave very similarly, having high scores for [a]. Speaker 1, however, although of the same age and background as the others, behaves very differently, much preferring [e] in word-final syllables. In Gwytherin, too, one of the five informants behaves very differently from the others, preferring the [a] variant while the others, in varying degrees, prefer [e]. Although geographical factors could account for the highest [a] scores in the Gwytherin sample speaker 5 being from the far western side of Gwytherin, and speaker 4 having spent much of his life there there are no such obvious explanations for the oddity in the Llanfair Talhaearn sample. Only a detailed sociolinguistic study of these two villages can hope to account for these exceptions in Llanfair Talhaearn and Gwytherin. The striking thing is, however, the lack of middle ground in the choice between the two variants. Although the transition area for this feature does, in a sense, stretch from the upper reaches of the Clwyd to the Conwy Valley, the use of the [a] variant does not increase gradually and constantly. There is, at the most, only six miles between the villages of Llannefydd and Llansannan, where the informants have [a] scores of 18% and under, and villages such as Llangernyw and Pandy Tudur, where the informants have [a] scores of over 90%. Only in Llanfair Talhaearn and Gwytherin is there much variation between informants, and even here, the choice seems extreme, with only one speaker anywhere near a balance between [e] and [a]. Figure 2 consists of a series of graphs comparing the [a] scores of informants from pairs of neighbouring villages in the study area. The informants in each village are arranged along a continuum according to their scores. What emerges in each graph is a rough sigmoid or S-curve. This pattern is typical of growth curves, and is common in studies of lexical diffusion. As pointed out by Chambers and Trudgill (1980, 177), ' . . . it happens that changes almost never are found in the middle of their time span around 50% and are most often found at one of two extremes above 80% or below 20%'. So it seems with the (e/a) variable. There is no transition area of gradual change from one realization of the variable to another. Rather, the area can be subdivided into zones:

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1. Llanelidan and Cyffylliog, where the occurrence of [a] in wordfinal syllables is rare. 2. Llannefydd and Llansannan, where [a] is more common, but the scores still do not exceed 18%. 3. Llanfair Talhaearn and Gwytherin, where variation between speakers from the same village is extreme, individuals having moved over from low to high percentage scores for [a]. 4. Llangernyw and Pandy Tudur, where informants have consistently high scores for [a], but where the [e] variant is to some extent still present. As I have mentioned before, although the transition zone as a whole covers a large geographical area, the actual change from a situation where the [a] variant is in the minority in the speech of informants to a

Fig. 2 Graphs comparing [a] scores of neighbouring villages

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situation where it is very much in the majority is geographically quite abrupt. It is the historical and social factors determining the location of this sudden transition which I will attempt to investigate in the second part of the paper. 4 Historical Boundaries The suggestion of correspondence between linguistic and administrative boundaries arises frequently in dialect studies, a well known example being the reflection of past political and ecclesiastical boundaries in the isoglosses of the Rhenish fan. Welsh dialect studies have also presented similar findings. Thomas (1973, 81) in his study of the word geography of Wales, saw a correlation between medieval Welsh administrative units and present-day speech areas: There are some instances of close territorial correspondence of the gwledydd with the distribution-areas of particular words . . . and correlations with the geographically smaller areas of cantrefi can be ascertained . . . More striking and more numerous are instances of correlations of speech-area boundaries with the medieval administrative boundaries . . . It would thus seem reasonable to postulate the medieval gwledydd as being co-terminous with significant dialect-areas in the same period. The gwledydd and cantrefi referred to above were the native Welsh administrative units which had evolved by the early medieval period. previous to the Norman conquest. The gwlad was a region subject to the rule of a single dynasty. Each gwlad was divided into cantrefi, and each cantref into cymydau, or commotes. The commotes, in their turn, had been built up from a number of townships, both free and bond, which were sometimes grouped into units called gwestfau or maenorau for the payment of royal dues. Thorne (1976) goes so far as to maintain that linguistic boundaries in eastern Carmarthenshire correspond to the boundaries of the four maenorau within the commote of Carnwyllion. Problems, such as those of locating the boundaries of these minor administrative units, make it difficult to replicate Thorne's work in this area.5 However, the possibility remains that major dialect boundaries follow the boundaries of the larger administrative units, such as cantrefi. With this in mind, the position of medieval and early modern boundaries in this area of Clwyd was explored. In medieval times, the study area formed part of Gwynedd Is Conwy, which consisted of the four cantrefi of Rhos, Rhufoniog, Dyffryn Clwyd

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Map 2. Medieval administrative units of Gwynedd Is Conwy and Tegeingl (see Map 2). 6 These cantrefi were further sub-divided into the commotes of Uwch Dulas and Is Dulas in Rhos; Uwch Aled, Is Aled and Ceinmeirch in Rhufoniog; Collion, Dogfeiling and Llannerch in Dyffryn Clwyd; and Rhuddlan. Prestatyn and Coleshill in Tegeingl. Gwynedd Is Conwy was always a frontier zone. Until appropriated by Gwynedd in the Middle Ages, the four cantrefi were disputed territory between the native kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys. And because they offered access to Snowdonia, Gwynedd and Powys. And because they offered access to Snowdonia, Gwynedd's stronghold, the four cantrefi also acted as a buffer state between Gwynedd and the Normans. From the period of Gruffydd ap Cynan in the eleventh century to the fall of Llywelyn the Last in 1282. Gwynedd Is Conwy was the scene of much bitter fighting, and was continually changing from Welsh to Norman hands. Following the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, the new Norman lordship of Denbigh was formed from the old cantrefi of Rhos and Rhufoniog, and

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the lordship of Rhuthun from the cantref of Dyffryn Clwyd (see Map 3). 7 Denbigh was granted to the Earl of Lincoln, and Rhuthun to Lord Grey as recognition of their services to Edward I in conquering Wales. The former cantref of Tegeingl became the shire of Flint, under the charge of the King's Justice of Chester. Despite the creation of new administrative units, however, the old boundaries remained largely unchanged. The boundaries of the new lordships were former cantref boundaries, and the commotes were kept as administrative units within the lordships.

Map 3. 1284 the new lordships of Denbigh and Rhuthin With the Act of Union in 1536, the marcher lordships became shires. Denbighshire was created from the lordships of Denbigh, Rhuthun, Bromfield and Yale, and Chirk. Each shire was divided into hundreds, in the English manner. Some of the old administrative units were therefore lost but many old boundaries remained. The hundred of Is Dulas was, to all purposes, the former cantref of Rhos; the hundred of Is Aled was the old Rhufoniog; and the hundred of Rhuthun coincided

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with the former lordship of Rhuthun, or the old cantref of Dyffryn Clwyd (see Map 4). 8

Map 4. Denbighshire after the Act of Union in 1536 Every hundred was divided into parishes. From the Elizabethan period onwards, the parish was the smallest unit of local government, and was important in the administration of the Poor Law. According to Richards (1965, 206), 'Parish boundaries were probably based on those of a group of townships during the twelfth and/or thirteenth centuries. This partly explains why some parish boundaries overlapped into two or even three commotes'. It is interesting, however, that the boundary between the parish of Llanfair Talhaearn and the parishes of Llangernyw and Betws-yn-Rhos seems to follow the same course as the old boundary between Rhos and Rhufoniog. What then is the relationship between the above-mentioned historical

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Map 5. Distribution of the [a] and [e] variants. boundaries and the linguistic boundary described earlier? It can be seen in Map 5 that the transition area most closely coincides with the boundary between Rhos and Rhufoniog. This is an administrative boundary which has remained constant from medieval to early modern times. Can this boundary account for the geographical distribution of (e / a) in final syllables? If this historical boundary were significant, one would expect communities within the cantref of Rhos to use the [e] variant. Llanfair Talhaearn alone fails to match the boundary. Despite the single exception in the sample who preferred the [e] variant, it seems that the [a] variant has taken firm hold in the village. Llanfair Talhaearn, however, is in the cantref of Rhufoniog, while Llangernyw and Pandy Tudur, the other two villages where informants preferred [a], are in the cantref of Rhos. The five speakers from Llansannan, on the other hand, firmly favoured the [e] variant even though Llansannan and Llanfair Talhaearn have continuously over the centuries been in the

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same administrative units as each other. (Even in modern times, they were in the same rural district). How significant therefore is the boundary between Rhos and Rhufoniog? Is Llanfair Talhaearn the exception that proves the rule, or an indication that there are factors other than historical administrative boundaries influencing the linguistic boundary? An examination of another section of the boundary of Rhos provided data which suggested that other influences had to be investigated. An attempt was made to discover how far along the coastlands into Flintshire the [a] variant was distributed. If [a] is found in places such as Rhuddlan, Dyserth, or Prestatyn, on the eastern side of the River Clwyd, then the present distribution of [a] does not coincide with the cantref of Rhos. The eastern side of the river has always been in a different administrative unit. The river formed the boundary between the cantref of Rhos and the cantref of Tegeingl. Tegeingl became the shire of Flint in 1284, and the area around Bodelwyddan added to it to ensure that the land across the river to Rhuddlan castle would be in the hands of the Crown only. It was this boundary that eventually became the boundary between Flintshire and Denbighshire after the Act of Union in 1536 (see Map 4). It was not my intention to study this area in detail, but only to indicate whether the [a] variant was much in use on the eastern side of the river or not. The speech of a number of informants, from different points in the study area, was analysed, and their [a] scores calculated. (See Map 6 and Fig. 3). It can be seen that high [a] scores were obtained from informants all along the northern coast, as far as Prestatyn. Thus it appears that the geographical distribution of the [a] variant does not completely coincide with the cantref of Rhos. Social and Geographical Factors It is quite conceivable that the correspondence between the historical and linguistic boundary might have been closer when the old administrative boundary was socially meaningful. If so, other more recent factors have succeeded in changing the geographical distribution of the variants. When interviewing informants in the study area, I was struck by their loyalty to certain market towns. Four market towns serve the study area, namely Llanrwst, Abergele, Denbigh and Rhuthun. For the surrounding rural areas, these towns provided goods, services, and a centre in which to sell their produce. They have a long history as market

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Fig. 3 [a] scores of individuals from villages along the coast centres, going back to the Conquest and the establishment of Norman boroughs. In those early days, the market areas of boroughs were clearly defined by royal charters, each borough claiming complete control of the trade of its surrounding countryside. By more modern times, the market town to which one owed allegiance was determined by distance, or travelling time this being especially important in the informants' younger days, when motorized transport was not widely available. People traded at their nearest market centre, regardless of administrative boundaries. First impressions thus pointed to the possibility that the geographical distribution of (e / a) could coincide with the spheres of influence of these towns, i.e. that those villages that looked to Llanrwst and Abergele favoured the [a] variant, while those that frequented the markets at Denbigh and Rhuthun favoured [e]. First impressions, however, proved to be misleading (see Map 7). The inhabitants of Llanelidan, and the southern and eastern side of Cyffylliog, go to market at Rhuthun. The northern part of Cyffylliog and Llannefydd use the market at Denbigh. Llansannan is miles from anywhere the tendency is for the eastern side to go to Denbigh, and the northern side to Abergele. Llanfair people give their allegiance to Abergele, while

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Map 6. The distribution of the [a] and [e] variants on the north-east coastlands. Llangernyw is split between Abergele and Llanrwst. The inhabitants of Pandy Tudur and Gwytherin without exception consider Llanrwst to be their market town. One could argue that there is some correlation between Denbigh's sphere of influence and the distribution of the [e] variant, as none of the villages who go to market at Denbigh have informants with high scores for [a]. On the other hand, this does not explain why the neighbouring villages of Pandy Tudur and Gwytherin, with the same market town, should behave so differently as regards the (e / a) variable. Nor does it explain why informants from Llansannan, who differ in their choice of market town, should behave so similarly in their choice of variant. Apart from the market towns, the informants also felt an allegiance to a more local centre, known sometimes as the llan. In an area where much of the population is scattered in isolated farmhouses, the llan, or local village, is important as a social centre for the surrounding area, covering a radius of approximately three miles. This was even more true in the younger days of the informants. The youths and young farmhands of the district would congregate in the llan. Concerts, societies and,

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Map 7. Market Towns occasionally, eisteddfodau were held there. The village to which one owed allegiance was decided by the time taken to travel there. People would walk to the nearest centre. Two of the informants (Llanfair Talhaearn 5 and Llansannan 2) were raised on neighbouring farms, midway between Llanfair Talhaearn and Llansannan. However, one was slightly nearer Llanfair and the other slightly nearer Llansannan, so the two informants turned to different villages for their social life. In the words of the Llansannan informant, 'Llansannan was our llan, you see. And it's been that way all along somehow. Llansannan. Although I'll say about Llanfair Talhaearn that it's a fine little village. But Llansannan is our home, if I can put it like that' (my translation). The other informant considered Llanfair to be his llan. And as can be seen in Fig. 1, they differ in their choice of variants. Thus it seemed possible that this allegiance to the llan could promote

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uniformity between speakers with the same local social centre, even though they were drawn towards different market towns. This could account for the lack of variation in Llansannan, and might have reinforced the theory that the distribution of [e] ends with the sphere of influence of Denbigh, were it not for the results from Gwytherin. Although Gwytherin people look to Llanrwst as their market centre, and have no connection with Denbigh, the majority of the informants had high scores for the [e] variant. The five informants from Pandy Tudur also look to Llanrwst, but have high scores for the [a] variant. This cannot be explained by the spheres of influence of different market towns. There are, of course, other factors that must be considered when trying to account for the distribution of (e / a). An obvious consideration is how the distribution of two variants is affected by the physical geography of the area. There is some evidence that of the two variants, it is the [a] form which is the innovation. In Welsh, certain word-final consonantal clusters are regularly broken up by the insertion of an epenthetic vowel identical to the original vowel of the lexical item. When an inflection is added so that the cluster is word-medial no such epenthetic vowel is needed: e.g. [gwadan] [ c r]

'sole' 'side'

[gwadne] [ cre]

'soles' 'sides'

If we consider cases where the original vowel is [e], then a crucial difference emerges between the dialects of the north-east and the north-west. In the north-east the epenthetic vowel is [e] as expected, while in the north-west we find that the epenthetic vowel is [a]: llestr 'vessel'

NE [ esder]

NW [ esdar]

This data, although at first puzzling and inconsistent, can easily be explained if we assume that the [a] form is an innovation, originating in the North West. Thus the epenthetic [a] in such items as [ esdar] is the result of an innovative rule which replaces [e] in word-final syllables with [a]. i.e. llestr  [ esder] (NE) llestr  [ esder]  [ esdar] (NW) It is natural that innovations when spreading geographically should follow the path of least resistance. It is therefore easy to understand how the [a] variant could have spread eastwards along the coast. But why should the innovation reach Pandy Tudur, Llangernyw and Llanfair

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Talhaearn, but no further inland? One thing those villages have in common is the fact that all three are situated on the main road from Llanrwst to Abergele. This road follows a natural routeway through the hills that separate the Conwy Valley from the course of the River Elwy. This was the route taken by drovers from Caernarfonshire on their way to the cattle market at Abergele. As I have already mentioned, the road follows the course of the River Elwy for much of its extent. It is interesting to note that the greatest inconsistency between the lingustic boundary and that of the cantref of Rhos happens to be where the historical boundary departs from the course of the Elwy and veers northwards, avoiding Llanfair Talhaearn. Gwytherin and Llansannan, on the other hand, are off the beaten track. As a native of Pandy Tudur said, 'The only reason for going to Gwytherin is to go to Gwytherin. It's not on the way to anywhere' (my translation). Yet Gwytherin and Llansannan are not totally isolated. They have strong connections with neighbouring villages. There would be much coming and going between villages on certain occasions, such as the local eisteddfodau. It was very common for people to meet prospective husbands and wives at these affairs. Gangs of youths would follow the girls home from the eisteddfod. There was thus considerable intermarriage between villages. One also has to consider the effect of the migration of families from one village to another as the tenancies of farms were changed. One of the Pandy Tudur informants (Pandy Tudur 5) is a good example of this. The informant was the youngest of fourteen children. His father was the tenant of two farms one in Gwytherin and the other in Pandy Tudur. The older children were raised in Gwytherin, and farmed for their father there. The younger children were raised in Pandy Tudur, the informant and one of the younger brothers eventually taking over the farm there. Half of the family went to the chapel and school in Gwytherin, the other half to chapel and school in Pandy Tudur. Considering factors such as these, it is difficult to see how Gwytherin and Llansannan should have withstood the influence of their neighbouring villages in the Elwy Valley. A matter that cannot be overlooked, however, in the study of (e/a), is the fact that speakers in the transition area are very conscious of the variable. Informants from Gwytherin, in particular, were very ready to draw attention to the fact that Pandy people 'sounded the ''a"', whereas they themselves 'sounded the "e"'. The following extract comes from an interesting article by R. Dewi Williams in Y Drysorfa (1955, 1245): . . . Sometimes there is an obvious difference in the speech of two neighbouring districts, and even between two neighbouring

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parishes. This was true of the district in which I was raised, and the district next to it Pandy and Gwytherin near Llanrwst. Gwytherin sounded the 'e' like the vicinity of the town of Denbigh, while Pandy sounded 'a' as they do Caernarfonshire way. It was gwartheg in Gwytherin, but gwarthag in the Pandy: defed in Gwytherin, and defad in the Pandy. Pandy's Primary School stood on the boundary between the two districts, and many of the children who really belonged to the district and chapel of Gwytherin came to Pandy's School out of convenience; and occasionally a battle between the two districts would break out especially at the end of the day when the children parted company some in the direction of Gwytherin, and some in the direction of the Pandy. Perhaps the battle would commence with one of the Gwytherin children bleating ma-ma like a lonely old ewe only to annoy the Pandy children; and that would be answered at once by half a dozen Pandy children bleating me-me like lambs calling for their mothers . . . . R. Dewi Williams goes on to describe how the battle would end with both sides hurling stones at each other. But the article ends with the following words: Although this war went on for years, and was passed on carefully from one generation to another, I did not hear of any serious injury befalling anyone, nor of anything other than goodwill flourish between the two districts (my translation). It is therefore possible that the [e] variant in Gwytherin is used to mark village solidarity, and to keep the distinction between Gwytherin and its neighbouring village, Pandy Tudur. Conclusions To conclude, many questions remain unresolved. As has been shown, there is a striking correspondence between the linguistic boundary and an old administrative boundary, namely that between the cantref of Rhos and Rhufoniog. However, the relationship is not necessarily causal. There may be other factors underlying both the linguistic and the historical boundary. One cannot foresee, for instance, which historical boundary will be linguistically significant on the basis of administrative importance alone. Why should this linguistic boundary follow the boundary between Rhos and Rhufoniog, and not the apparently more important boundary between Gwynedd Uwch Conwy and Gwynedd Is Conwy? One also has to take into account the possibility that the distribution of the innovative form has extended since medieval times. Thomas (1973, 812) found clear instances of post-medieval dialect

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movement in his study of the word-geography of Wales some, interestingly, enough, in the Conwy-Clwyd area. If there are other factors influencing both the historical and linguistic boundaries, pinpointing them, and discovering how they are significant is a difficult matter. There is an obvious correlation between certain geographical factors and the linguistic and historical boundaries, namely that they all follow the course of a river. This geographical factor however is not a barrier to communication. Neither are there obvious explanations for linguistic behaviour in the social connections between villages. Answers to many of these questions might be found in a detailed sociolinguistic study of villages such as Gwytherin and Llanfair Talhaearn. Variables such as age, social background and stylistic differences could then be taken into account, and factors such as social networks and movements of population considered. A study of this sort could indicate whether the innovative form is still spreading, and if so, which elements in the community are leading the change. Notes 1 There are some exceptions. In some cases, the orthographic form '-ai' is realized as [i], e.g. eraill 'others' [eri ] bychain 'small' [b cin] Such cases were omitted from the study. 2 Owing to financial and time restrictions on fieldwork, it was not feasible to use random sampling procedures in the selection of informants. I cannot therefore claim statistically that the informants selected are representative of a population. The method used to contact informants was roughly the network method the interviewer being passed on from one individual to another. 3 A half hour tape of an interview with each informant was analysed and [a] scores calculated. The number of tokens for each informant varied from 89 to 262, the average number being 158. 4 It seems more meaningful to try to explain the location of this sudden transition, rather than the extreme limits of the distribution of each variant. Although infrequent, examples of [a] occur in eastern Clwyd, and the [e] variant is occasionally heard in areas far to the west of the transition zone. 5 Thorne's conclusions are weakened by the fact that he restricts his study to communities within the administrative units he claims are significant. He does not venture outside the commote of Carnwyllion because he assumes prematurely that the more important administrative boundaries will be even more

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linguistically significant than the minor boundaries he studies in his thesis (1976, 50). 6 Adapted from Rees (1972, plate 28), Richards (1965), and Richards (1969, 261). 7 Based on Rees (1972, plate 56). 8 Based on Rees (1972, plate 57) and Richards (1969, 262).

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Variation in South Glamorgan Consonant Mutation Peter Wynn Thomas Introduction Consonant mutation the interchange of certain word-initial consonants under specific grammatical conditions is arguably the most notorious feature of Welsh: it has prompted scholars to theorize and moved learners of the language as they vainly scan dictionaries for seemingly non-existent words to despair. In Standard Welsh, mutation is generally triggered either (a) by the grammatical function of an item, e.g. [gwel ð k ] lit. 'saw-he dog' i.e. 'A dog saw' but [gwel ð g ] lit. 'saw-he dog' i.e. 'He saw a dog' where the mutation of the initial consonant of the noun following the inflected third person singular (S3) verb in the second example signifies that the noun has objectival rather than subjectival function; or (b) by a preceding item, e.g. plant] [ 'between children' but [am blant] 'about children' where the mutation of the noun is triggered not by grammatical function but by the specific preceding preposition. 1

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Identical surface forms may trigger different or no mutations, e.g. [k q] 'cat' [i k q] 'their cat'

[i g q] 'his cat' [i x q] 'her cat'

The representation in a grammar of such phonetically identical segments as the above pronouns is an issue of particular theoretical interest which will not be pursued here. 2 Most descriptions of Welsh focus on the features of the standard written language and in the main pay little attention to spoken varieties. Thus, while the past vicissitudes of the mutations have been copiously charted (Morgan, 1952), the prescriptive nature of most recent grammars (e.g. Williams, 1980) tends to preclude discussion of ongoing variability. That certain features of the mutations are subject to regional and stylistic variation has been commented upon (Ashton, 1950; Watkins, 1961, 626) and recent pedagogical grammars (e.g. Jones, 1977, 1058, 3316; Uned Iaith Genedlaethol Cymru, 1976, 1202) have instanced some of the divergencies between varieties. However, the numerous but non-quantitatively orientated dialect monographs3 tend to ignore the general sociolinguistic variability of these features, and the investigation of the stylistic variability of the mutations has barely begun.4 In this paper I shall present a quantitative appraisal of the variability shown by the consonant mutations in certain linguistic environments in the speech of a sample of speakers from Glamorgan. The Sample The description is based on data extracted from 16 tape-recorded extended interviews drawn from the archives of the Welsh Folk Museum, St Fagans, and the Welsh Language Research Unit, Cardiff.5 The speakers are all non-mobile workers from a non-industrial background and are natives of a relatively homogeneous dialect area which may be called South Glamorgan (Thomas, 1982). All the speakers left school at the age of 13 or 15 and the only formal instruction they received in Welsh was at Sunday School during their childhood. Many considerations have been cited as being of central importance to the evaluation of sociolinguistic data; among these may be noted the influence of setting and interlocutor on the linguistic performance of

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speakers. The issues raised by these and related considerations are compounded when dealing with archived interviews, the content and collection of which the researcher cannot control. In the present case not only were the materials collected by two different researchers over a period of almost 30 years the earliest recordings were made in 1953, the latest in 1980, with ensuing differences in the real and comparative ages of the speakers but they were originally intended for quite different purposes, to provide either specialist knowledge about specific oral traditions or examples of local vernacular speech. They are also geographically dispersed. 6 However, while features such as the formality of the situation or the effect of the interviewer have been shown to be of crucial importance in the evaluation of linguistic behaviour in certain communities (Labov, 1972a, Trudgill, 1974), it need not follow that this is necessarily the case. Most of the available quantitative descriptions of sociolinguistic phenomena deal with industrialized English-speaking societies in which may be found a hierarchy of social classes, the highest of which may include individuals who maintain certain prestige variants. In our rural bilingual English- and Welsh-speaking society, on the other hand, the formal code associated with an upper class was not likely to be a prestige variety of Welsh: it was more typically a variety of English, so that while Welsh may have been the language of home, work, and recreation, the language of officialdom was English. The one exceptional setting in our society where the high variety was a variety of Welsh and not English, was the chapel, and this institution emerges as being of central importance not only in the maintenance and perpetuation of a formal variety of Welsh, but also in its production, this activity falling only to the part of those who led devotions or associated secular activities. Contact with prestige varieties of Welsh was for our sample, therefore, generally confined to chapel-goers; the opportunity to produce these varieties was further confined to an elite within this subgroup. One of the aims of this paper will be to consider the consonant mutation of speakers who had access to the prestige variety in their communities. Recent work on the consonant mutation of Scottish Gaelic (Dorian, 1977; 1981) has shown that tendency to mutate in this language may be correlated with overall linguistic proficiency and that decreasing realization of mutation may be a factor associated with language death.7 The archives afford many examples of the speech of individuals who were the last surviving speakers of Welsh in their respective communities and a sample of these speakers will also be considered below. The speakers are divided into four groups on the basis of the frequency and function of their interaction in Welsh.8

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Group I The speakers of this group were born in 1873, 1880, 1884, and 1907, and although 34 years separate the oldest from the youngest, the cohesiveness of the group is derived from the fact that all four were not only prominent public figures in their respective communities, but were also lay preachers, roles which necessitated their frequent use of Welsh to address gatherings of people. They were well versed in the archaic Welsh of the Bible and the formal language of theological tracts and had published their own work either in religious journals, or, in the case of one speaker, an autobiography in the form of a book. Also, three of the four had broadcast on the radio or television in Welsh, one who had also attended various classes through the medium of Welsh at a theological college over a period of 11 years having contributed regularly for three years to a religious radio programme. It may be argued, therefore, that the efforts of these particular individuals to cultivate their use of the written language to the point of having their original prose and poetry published in recognized journals, together with their access to the standardized norms of the written language and their motivation to acquire knowledge and instruction in a specialist academic field had in many ways compensated for their lack of formal education. The status accorded to the members of this group by the community is perhaps best encapsulated in the words of one of the speakers:

'Perhaps I was cut out to be a public man, a man with a tongue. My brother wasn't Ifan was a worker, he was a worker and a farmer . . . I became a man, at one time, I can look back on that, I used to count a bit in this county.' It has been suggested (Milroy, 1980, 245) that the generality of the tape-recorded interview and the tendency to associate such a speech event with the production of formal variants may present a major methodological stumbling block to the researcher interested in stimulating the production of a speaker's vernacular. However, since the ability of this group to produce nonvernacular forms is one of the points to be investigated in this paper and since it would appear that formal varieties of spoken Welsh were for our sample generally produced only in the formalizing context of public speaking, the tape-recorded interview together with the solidarity which such speakers would appear to feel

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with an educated interviewer representing a national institution, may be considered to be the only available surrogates for a formalizing context. Group II The speakers of this group were born in 1875, 1877, 1879, and 1894. Their distinguishing feature is that they lived for most of their lives in predominantly Welsh-speaking communities, using Welsh as their habitual language of communication not only with their elders but also with their peers. In contrast to the first group, the influence of the tape-recorder and interviewer as formalizing agents is doubtful in this case. The first three speakers were recorded in the 1950s and early 1960s before tape-recording machines became commonplace, and in the opinion of the interviewer the speakers were hardly if at all aware of the purpose and function of the recording equipment which he installed before commencing the interview (V. H. Phillips, personal communication). The fourth member of this group was recorded by myself and has been known to me for some eight years. My long association with him has resulted in close friendship so that other members of the Old People's Home where he now resides have assumed me to be his nephew, a relationship which he does not refute. I rarely visit this speaker without a tape-recorder and over the years have recorded some 200 hours of interaction with him. I am unable to detect any tendency on his part to produce formal speech variants in my presence. These speakers may serve as a reference group with which we may compare the linguistic performance of the other groups. Group III For the individuals in this group, born in 1875 and 1888, Welsh functioned mainly as a means of communication with older members of the family. They were brought up and lived in anglicized communities, the frequency of their use of Welsh decreasing with the years. At the time of their recording, therefore, to converse in Welsh was a comparatively rare event. It may be expected that the linguistic performance of these speakers will exhibit either or both of opposing tendencies: first, since their use of Welsh was mainly with an older generation, they may retain certain features which are not typical of their generation, or may choose an archaic variant more frequently than might otherwise have been the case; secondly, we may expect to find that, compared to the second group, they apply certain complex rules such as consonant mutation less frequently.

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Group IV The speakers in this group were born in 1904, 1908, 1909, and 1910. Like the members of Group III, their use of Welsh was confined mainly to interaction with older members of their families, and opportunities to use the language in what is now a predominantly monoglot English community are rare. One of the speakers, for example, was confined to sporadic conversation with an incomer to his village if he wished to speak Welsh; another reported that prior to his interview he had not spoken Welsh for some four years. Since these speakers were a generation younger than those in Group III, and had, even in their youth, less contact with Welsh speakers, it is to be expected that consonant mutation will be found least frequently of all in their language. The Mutations of Standard Welsh and South Glamorgan The Spirant Mutation Under the conditions of this mutation, the three voiceless plosives are replaced by homorganic fricatives. These changes are summarized in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 The spirant mutation The formal properties of this mutation are shared by all varieties of spoken Welsh, divergencies appearing only with regard to phonetic detail: [t] is, in common with other southern varieties, alveolar in South Glamorgan, contrasting with the dental sound of northern varieties. The fricative counterpart to [k] tends to be velar in articulation, although the uvular [c] is also attested. The exact status of the velar and uvular fricatives is not at present known, but the variation between them would appear to be part of an on-going change. 9 The Nasal Mutation Under the conditions of the nasal mutation, both voiceless and voiced plosives are replaced by homorganic nasals. [h]-full varieties of Welsh

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may replace voiceless plosives either by voiceless nasal counterparts or by homorganic nasals + [h], the former sounds apparently receding. In the [h]-less South Galmorgan dialect area both voiced and voiceless plosives are replaced by homorganic voiced nasals. 10 The changes which are brought about by the nasal mutation are summarized below, Fig. 2.

Fig. 2a The nasal mutation in standard spoken Welsh

Fig. 2b The nasal mutation in South Glamorgan The Soft Mutation Nine consonants [p, b, k, g, t, d, , m, ] may be affected by this mutation in [h]-full varieties of Welsh. Since one of these nine is [ ], a segment which does not have phonemic status in our dialect area, only eight consonants may be affected in South Glamorgan under the conditions of this mutation. Phonologically, this is the most complex of the three mutations, with different classes of consonants being subject to different changes. Voiceless Stops Voiceless plosives11 are replaced by their voiced counterparts, i.e.

Fig. 3 The soft mutation of voiceless plosives

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Voiced Stops The voiced plosives [b] and [d] are replaced by their fricative counterparts; [g] is deleted. 12

Fig. 4 The soft mutation of voiced plosives Others The voiceless lateral fricative, [ ], is replaced by the voiced lateral continuant, [1]. The voiced bilabial nasal, [m], is replaced by the voiced labio-dental fricative [v].13 [m] is the only nasal to be affected by mutation. In [h]-full varieties of Welsh only, the voiceless alveolar tap [ ] or trill [ ] is replaced by the voiced counterpart. The Realization of Consonant Mutation in South Glamorgan In this section I shall consider the tendencies of the various groups to realize mutation in the following eight environments:14 The Spirant Mutation a. following the S3f pronoun [i] ei 'her' b. following the conjunction [a] a 'and' c. to the initial consonant of negated verbs The Nasal Mutation a. following the S1 pronoun [ n] fy 'my' b. following the preposition [ n] yn 'in' The Soft Mutation a. following the S3m pronoun [i] ei 'his' b. following prepositions c. to the initial consonant of negated verbs Instances of the environments in which certain mutations may be triggered are comparatively rare in the corpus. Thus, when inter-group differences may be a function of sample size, no particular inferences will be drawn.

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The Spirant Mutation [i] ei 'her' This S3f pronoun has two functions: (a) as a possessive pronoun preceding a noun, and (b) as the logical object of a verbal noun. In both contexts the spirant mutation may be triggered. Examples

The general incidence of the S3f pronoun [i] in the above environments is low in the sample. However, preceding nouns, in all 32 instances attested for Groups I, II, and III, spirant mutation is realized. Group IV alone offers an example of lack of mutation. This information is displayed in Fig. 5. Preceding verbal nouns, however, we find that the triggering of the mutation is not categorical for any group, and besides examples such as: [mai di xlaði n b ð na] lit. 'is-she after her-burying in-the grave that' i.e. 'She has been buried in that grave' [oð a ðIm m in q rI ðI] lit. 'was he not wanting her-breaking her' i.e. 'He didn't want to break it' where, although the relevant S3f pronoun is elided, the mutation is realized in the initial consonants of the verbal nouns [klaði] and [t rI], we find also instances such as: [mai dI klaðIn an] lit. 'is-she after burying-in Llan' i.e. 'She has been buried in Llan' [I ges I k nI gIda ni] lit. 'she had her raising with us' i.e. 'She was brought up with us'

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Fig. 5 Spirant mutation triggered by S3f pre-posed pronoun [i] ei [on Im ga I klIuad I] lit. 'was I-not able hearing her' i.e. 'I couldn't hear her' The small number of tokens for each group (15, 18, 13 respectively) precludes the attaching of any particular significance to any apparent differences between the first three groups. As may be seen from Fig. 5 however, the contrast between these groups and the fourth is marked, the latter choosing to mutate in this environment in only 14% of all possible instances. [a] a 'and' Examples [a] + [p pIq]  [a f pIq] 'and' 'everything'

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[a] + [t na]  [a q na] 'and' 'there' [a] + [kaus]  [a xaus] 'and' 'cheese' From Fig. 6 it may be seen that the overall incidence of the spirant mutation in this context is low, and that while formal speakers do exhibit a stronger tendency than other groups to realize the mutation, they nevertheless do so in only 40% of all possible cases. Comparing

Fig. 6 Spirant mutation triggered by conjunction [a] a 'and' Group I with Group II, we find a 15% reduction in the instances of mutation. A further, but slight reduction between Groups II and III is followed by another 15% decrease between Groups III and IV, with the mutation realized in only 7% of all possible environments in the case of the latter group. An inspection of the individual items whose initial consonants undergo the change in this environment reveals that for speakers in Groups II,

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III, and IV, the mutation is realized in only a small sub-set of all possible items. This sub-set is shared by Group I, and includes compound numerals, e.g. [trIkan a fImp] lit. 'sixty and five', i.e. 65; the common binomials [bara xaus, kefIl a xart, poni a qrap] 'bread and cheese, horse and cart, pony and trap', and a number of frequently occurring items: [kaus, kwartar, k b l, k p l, k mId, pam, p q, p b, pobIn, p pIq, pr d, tr , t ma, t na] 'cheese, quarter, all, couple, as much, why, thing, every, everyone, everything, when, three, here is, there is'. Speakers in Group I are unique in that in addition to the items from the above set, they may also mutate other items: [kani, kar'd ð, karjad, kIrx, k id, krevIð, kreftwaiq, pem b nt, texn leg] 'singing, Cardiff, love, oats, trees, religion, craftsmanship, Bridgend, technology', the last item, at least, being learned rather than vernacular. The incidence of the spirant mutation in the sub-set which is common to all groups is graphed in Fig. 6. From the graph it may be seen that while the exclusion of invariant non-mutating items and the various items which are attested with mutation in Group I only has, as might be expected, resulted in a general upward shift of the graph, we are still not left with an invariant set. Rather, the first two groups show almost identical tendencies to realize the mutation, whilst its incidence declines as we move from the second group to the third, and again from the third to the fourth. In other words, whereas the frequent users of Welsh show remarkably similar tendencies in this context, realization of the mutation would appear to progressively decrease with decreasing use of the language. Negated Verbs Examples

Whilst the initial consonants of negated verbs with radical [p, t, k] may show spirant mutation, they may also have no mutation or soft mutation. As may be seen from Fig. 7, the mutation may be realized in this context by Groups I and II only; both groups of infrequent users show no tendency to choose the spirant mutation in this environment.

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Fig. 7 Spirant mutation to initial consonant of negated verbs However, whereas it would appear that the feature is thus marginal in the language of the habitual users of the language who are not formal speakers (i.e. Group II, who have only 13% realization of the mutation), and that it has become redundant in the case of the infrequent users (i.e. Groups III and IV), the evidence of Group I, which exhibits a tendency contrary to that of the general trend, would suggest that, as in the case of the conjunction [a] 'and', mutation in this context may also be a marker of formality, and that Group I differs from the other groups in that its members are able to control the use of the mutation in this context to a certain degree. The Nasal Mutation This mutation may be triggered by only two syntactic environments: following the S1 pronoun [ n] fy 'my' and the homophonic preposition [ n] yn 'in'. As is the case with the S3f pronoun [i] considered above and, indeed, with all the pronouns of this paradigm the S1 pronoun

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may function either as a possessive pronoun or as the logical object of a verbal noun. This mutation is interesting from a phonological point of view as it is the only one which may be considered to reflect synchronic assimilation, the place of articulation of the final nasal of the triggering item being assimilated to that of the following consonant, and the manner of articulation (and voicing in the case of voiceless plosives) of the plosive being assimilated to that of the nasal. The resulting segment would appear to have the length of a single short segment. Examples [ n] + [k v]  [ ' v] 'my' 'memory' [ n] + [dala]  [ 'nala] 'my' 'catching' 'catching me' [ n] + [pem'b nt]  [ mem'b nt] 'in' 'Bridgend' Figure 8 shows that while the nasal mutation is almost categorically realized by Groups I, II, and III in the environment [ n] 'my' + noun, in no case is it categorical for Group IV; indeed, the nasal mutation has not been noted in two of the environments [ n] 'my' + verbal noun, and [ n] 'in' + noun at all for this group. It may also be seen that there is a general tendency to realize the mutation more frequently in the environment of a noun than a verbal noun following the S1 pronoun, and that, with the exception of Group IV, the mutation is likely to be realized more frequently in the context S1 pronoun + verbal noun than in the environment preposition [ n] 'in' + noun. The tendency of Group III to realize the mutation in the contexts S1 pronoun [ n] + verbal noun and preposition [ n] + noun more frequently than Group II, would suggest that we may here have an instance of an ongoing change, with the infrequent users preserving an older tendency while the habitual users realize the mutation less frequently in these environments. The relative formality of Group I is again observed in the tendency of this group to realize the mutation in these latter contexts more frequently than other groups. The Soft Mutation S3m prefixed pronoun [i] ei 'his' and prepositions

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Fig. 8 Nasal mutation Examples [i] + [pen] [i 'ben] 'his' 'head' [o] + [kenol] [o genol] 'from' 'middle' [i] + [margam][i vargam] 'to' 'Margam' [ q] + [ anu]  [ q lanu] 'by' 'filling' The general tendency of the four groups to realize the soft mutation in the above contexts is shown in Fig. 9. It will be noted that mutation is categorical in only one of the four environments S3m prefixed pronoun [i] + noun and for the first two groups only; in all other contexts, it is variable, there being a general tendency for the frequency of the mutation to decrease with decreasing users of the language.

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Fig. 9 Soft mutation following S3m pre-posed pronoun [i] ei and prepositions In the case of the Soft mutation, we are able to make a linguistic distinction not only between triggering items, as is the case with the other mutations, but also between the classes of items which may be mutated. Following prepositions, the mutation is realized more frequently by all groups in the initial consonants of common nouns than in those of proper nouns. In the contexts S3m possessive pronoun + common nouns and prepositions + common nouns there is little difference between the first two groups, both having categorical or near categorical realization of the mutation. In the context S3m prefixed pronoun [i] ei + verbal noun, however, Group I differs from Group II, for whereas the latter tends to realize the mutation in only 77% of all possible occurrences, the former has a more standard realization of 86%. In the context preposition + proper nouns referring to places, on the other hand, Group I unexpectedly realizes the mutation less frequently than Group II. The tendency for proper nouns to resist

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mutation has been recorded elsewhere (Morgan, 1952, 4447), Jones (1977, 106) suggesting that it has arisen 'probably under the influence of non-Welsh place-names like Timbuctoo'. Notwithstanding the possibility of North-west African interference in this context, it may be that this particular tendency of proper nouns may be attributed to a move to formalize and stabilize linguistic forms which serve to identify and distinguish individual and unique places, and that this tendency may be associated with similar trends in formal styles. 15 If this is so, it may be that the discrepancy between Groups I and II may be attributed not only to the decreasing application of a vernacular rule on the part of both groups, but also to the concurrent adoption on the part of Group I of a more formal tendency not to mutate proper nouns. Negated Verbs Examples

A different inter-group tendency is evidenced by the realization of the Soft mutation in the initial consonants of negated verbs.16 In this case, as may be seen from Fig. 10, while the mutation is almost categorical in the case of Group I, but infrequent in the case of Group IV, the tendency of the third group is contrary to expectation in that, as in the case of the Nasal mutation in certain contexts (see above), they mutate in this context more frequently than Group II. Once again, it may be suggested that the infrequent users of Group III have preserved an older feature, whereas we see in Group II a vernacular development away from this tendency. I shall return to this point below. The Spread of the Soft Mutation In the contexts of Soft mutation described above where the expected mutation is not realized, we find instead non-mutation. This is generally

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Fig. 10 Soft mutation to initial consonants of negated radical [b, d, g, m,

verbs

also the case with regard to the Spirant and Nasal mutations, but there are several examples where the Soft mutation is apparently chosen instead. For example:

This phenomenon needs further investigation, but it is suggested that what we may have here is not necessarily displacement of the Spirant mutation by the Soft following [a] 'and', but rather the variable relexification of certain items, so that whereas they formerly had voiceless plosive initials, they are in the process of acquiring instead the voiced counterparts. A similar process would appear to be working in

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Page 226 the case of certain other items with initial consonants which are subject to Soft mutation: these seem frequently to have , gekIn] 'people, bellows, woman, table, kitchen'. 17 untriggered 'mutated' initials, e.g. [bobol, vekIn, vInIu, There are two particular contexts, however, where we do seem to have the spread of the Soft mutation into new environments: yn 'in', and to the initial consonants of declarative verbs. following * yn 'in' The frequencies of Soft mutation and no mutation following this preposition are shown in Fig. 11. The Nasal mutation is also shown, for

Fig. 11 Mutations triggered by the preposition

yn

purposes of comparison, but it should be noted that the frequencies for this mutation are not directly comparable with those for Soft and no mutation, as the latter two include [ ] and [m] initial radicals, whereas Nasal mutation does not.

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It will be seen from Fig. 11 that whereas Group I marginally favours Nasal mutation in this context, but with some Soft mutation and non-mutation also, the other groups favour non-mutation and have relatively little Nasal mutation. However, while the incidence of both mutations decreases and non-mutation increases as we move from Group III to IV (i.e. with decreasing users of the language), the frequencies with which Groups I and II choose Soft mutation and no mutation are very similar. It would appear that for these latter groups (and to a lesser degree for the other groups, III and IV), the Soft mutation is in competition with non-mutation in this context. Declarative Verbs The competition between the Soft mutation and radical non-mutated consonants may be further exemplified by reference to the initial consonants of declarative verbs. In this context there is no lexical or functional trigger for mutation, but as Fig. 12 shows, all groups except the fourth have more than 70% Soft mutation in this environment.

Fig. 12 Soft mutation of initial consonants of declarative verbs

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Examples

Discussion Of the environments considered above, categorical or near categorical realization of the mutations is attested for all four groups in three contexts only: S1, S3m, or S3f prefixed possessive pronouns + nouns. When these same pronouns are chosen preceding verbal nouns, however, all groups have a similar tendency to mutate less frequently, Group IV showing the greatest intercontextual variation, and no mutation at all in the environment S1 pronoun + verbal noun. These tendencies are shown in Fig. 13. The tendency to mutate verbal nouns less frequently than nouns in the above contexts may be linked to a number of complex grammatical features; any suggestions made below in this respect must remain tentative until a much larger corpus is available. The possessive pronouns may be realized as single, unstressed pre-posed elements, e.g.

or as two disjoint elements, the second of which may receive primary stress or not, e.g.

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Fig. 13 Possessive pronouns + nouns and verbal nouns Detailed work on this feature has yet to be done, but it would appear that there is less tendency to choose the unstressed postposed pronouns in some contexts than in others, e.g. it is rare to find them with certain sub-classes of nouns such as those referring to members of the family or parts of the body. 18 Thus:

is an acceptable utterance in South Glamorgan Welsh, whereas

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is not: the addition of a post-posed pronoun is necessary to render the construction acceptable

It will be noted that the pre-posed S3f pronoun is elided in the above example; such elision is frequently the case, e.g.

In these examples, the logical object of the verbal noun 'remembering' is realized (a) by the mutation to the initial consonant, and (b) by the post-posed pronoun. In the case of verbal nouns which have non-mutatable initial segments (including vowels), the logical object may be realized solely by the post-posed pronoun, e.g.

Examples such as

where the expected Soft mutation to the initial consonant of the verbal noun is not evidenced, may be due to a generalizing of the above tendency to suppress the pre-posed pronoun in the case of verbal nouns which have non-mutatable initials. With the post-posed pronoun as the sole exponent of the logical object of the verbal noun, as in examples

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such as the above, it would appear that we have, in effect, a major syntactic change, the stages of which may be represented as follows:

As a consequence of this apparent change, the logical object of a verbal noun has the same shape as the object of a simple verb, cf.

where the sole, identical exponent of the object in both cases is the pronoun [a]. A similar progression may be outlined for the other pre-posed and post-posed pronouns of the paradigm, and examples of each stage may be found in the speech of all the speakers studied, suggesting that the phenomenon is part of an ongoing change, so that, as Awbery (personal communication) points out, pronominal objects pattern in a similar way to nominal ones, cf.

In contrast to the above developments, examples such as

are found in the speech of Group IV speakers only. Such constructions would generally be regarded as baby-talk and substandard (cf. Jones and Thomas, 1977, 1712; Watkins, 1977, 157), and it is significant that they are found only amongst the least frequent users of the language. For the other groups, there is little indication of the beginning of any change in the context possessive pronoun + noun similar to that found in the environment of the verbal noun. + verbal noun, may, it would appear The tendency not to realize the Nasal mutation in the context S1 pre-posed pronoun then, be linked to a major syntactic change in the vernacular, rather than to any factors related to the mutation itself. In the other 'in', we have seen above context in which it occurs, however, following the preposition

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that there is an apparent tendency for the Nasal mutation to be replaced by the Soft. This shift has indeed been noted in dialect areas further west (Thorne, 1971, 108c9; Watkins, 1977, 155). The tendency not to realize the Spirant mutation in environments other than those already discussed above has been noted in other dialect areas (Davies, 1955, 147; Fynes-Clinton, 1913, 1, 5434; Griffiths, 1974, 1; Rees, 1936, 97; Sommerfelt, 1925, 645), and would appear to be part of a general tendency in informal varieties of spoken Welsh. In the South Glamorgan dialect area, this general tendency may be receiving further impetus from the syntactic developments discussed above with respect to the S3m pronoun. In the context of negated verbs, the tendency not to realize the Spirant mutation in the appropriate environments may also be 'being' main verbs and in the periphrastic verbal part of an ongoing syntactic change. Negation in vowel-initial construction may be realized by the disjoint negative [(d) . . . dIm]. The [d] (which is prefixed to the initial vowel of the verb) is, however, variable, the variability being governed not only by the tense of the verb present or imperfect (according to the traditional labels of the grammars) but also by social factors. Figure 14 shows the tendencies of all four groups vis-à-vis negating (a) verbs subject to Soft mutation; (b) present tense main verbs; (c) imperfect tense auxiliaries and main verbs; and (d) verbs subject to Spirant mutation. auxiliaries and From Fig. 14 we may note the general tendency of Group III to choose standard realizations more consistently than Group II in all cases but the last, confirming the trend noted above in this respect for Group III to preserve certain older vernacular features on occasion. Figure 14 also shows the general tendency of all groups to variably realize negation with a pre-verbal or verbal ), it marker. Since the negation is also lexically marked by the element [dIm] (or other elements such as would appear that the initial marker is becoming redundant, and that we are once again witnessing an historical syntactic shift, with an increasing tendency to mark negation with a post-verbal lexical marker (suprasegmental features such as intonation and stress also playing an important part, of course). If this is so, the decreasing realization of the Spirant mutation in this context may again be attributable to syntactic features. Conclusions From the above description and discussion it would appear that, apart from the contexts possessive pronouns + nouns, the Spirant and Nasal

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Fig. 14 Verb-initial negation mutations were, for our sample, declining and that their diminishing use may in part be attributable to syntactic changes in the dialect. The Soft mutation, on the other hand, may spread to new environments, sometimes at the expense of the Nasal mutation. Group I tends to choose the Spirant mutation more frequently than any other group in verbal negation and following [a] 'and', apparently realizing the mutation in a larger vernacular lexical set as well as in non-vernacular items. Group I also chooses the yn Nasal mutation more frequently than any other group in the contexts S1 pre-posed pronoun + verbal noun and preposition + noun. For this group, then, the Nasal and Spirant mutations may function as markers (Labov, 1972a: 314). Comparing Group III with Group II, we find that there is little or no difference in their tendencies to realize the Spirant mutation in the contexts S3f [i] ei pre-fixed pronoun + noun or verbal noun, or in their realization of the Soft mutation to the initial consonants of declarative

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verbs. These similarities are shared with Group I, suggesting that the mutations in these environments, be they categorical or variable, are relatively stable for these frequent and infrequent users of the language. In the case of nouns following the preposition yn and verbal nouns following the S1 pre-posed pronoun fy, however, Group III tends to choose Nasal mutation more frequently than Group II. In these cases, the usage of Group II would appear to reflect a general ongoing change in southern varieties of Welsh, with the Nasal mutation yielding to the Soft or non-mutation. Group III, in this case, would appear to have retained an earlier stage of this trend, a possible reflection of the tendencies of the older generation with whom they most frequently spoke Welsh. It may be that a similar phenomenon is reflected in the stronger tendency of Group III to realize Soft mutation in negated verbs which have [b, d, g, m, ] radical initials. As for the Spirant mutation following [a] 'and' and to negated [p, t, k] radical initial verbs, as well as the Soft mutation following S3m [i] pre-posed pronoun and prepositions, however, Group III chooses mutation less frequently than Group II. In these latter cases it would appear that the decreasing realization of the mutations may be attributed to rule loss associated with decreasing use of the language. Group IV consistently shows less tendency than any other group to mutate in all the environments considered, with the sample . The yielding no examples of Spirant mutation to negated [p, t, k] initial verbs, or Nasal mutation following the preposition evidence offered by the data pertaining to the negation of vowel-initial verbs tends to confirm the general pattern of rule loss on the part of Group IV, and although intuitively these phenomena would appear to be linked with a failure to develop full fluency in Welsh, further investigation may reveal that they may also be age-correlated (cf. Watkins, 1977, 155). Perhaps the most amazing feature of the mutations, however, is the persistent nature of the alternations in some environments: considering their low information value and their marginality to the system only three consonants may be affected by the Spirant mutation, six by the Nasal, and eight by the Soft, all other consonants and all vowels remaining unaffected by the feature in this area, it might have been expected that they would have disappeared long ago. And yet, in certain contexts at least, they remain categorical. Notes 1 Mutations with the first function have been variously referred to as 'bound retrospective' (Oftedal, 1962), 'function' or 'structure' (Jones, 1977, 326).

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Page 235 With the second function they have been categorized as 'projected' (Oftedal, 1966), 'contact' or 'liaison' (Jones, 1977, 326). A catalogue of the environments which condition mutation may be found in any standard grammar of Welsh. 2 For discussions by linguists of different theoretical orientations, see Hamp, 1951 morphophonemic; Ellis, 1965 systemic; Albrow, 1966 prosodic; Awbery, 1973, 1975 generative. 3 See Davies 1973, 957; 1975, 436; 1979, 416 for details. 4 See Ball, 1981. 5 The tape-recordings from the archives of the Welsh Folk Museum are numbers 90, 93, 94, 336, 337, 342, 464, 3965, 4575, 4576, 4577, 4578. I am most grateful to the Curator and his staff for affording me the facilities to listen to these recordings and for their hospitality on my frequent visit to St Fagans. 6 A full discussion of these and related issues, while not inappropriate, would extend the length of this paper unduly. 7 It should be noted, however, that Dorian's data are derived from translations of English stimulus sentences into Gaelic rather than from spontaneous speech. 8 Despite compelling arguments against the a priori grouping of individuals (Bickerton, 1975, 18; Milroy, 1980), the comparative rarity of some of the environments to be considered (see note 14 below) necessitates an initial partitioning (cf. Labov, 1972a, 2045). The grouping is, however, based on linguistic considerations rather than purely social factors. 9 A further point of local phonetic detail which has no direct bearing on the phonological aspects of the Spirant mutation and open centralized . In this concerns the variability of (k) and (ch) in initial position preceding the half open environment, (k) may be variably realized as [k] or [c], and (ch) may have the variants [x], , or [c]. 10 In our dialect area, [h] may be found with prosodic status in pre-vocalic position under conditions of particular emphasis, e.g.

11 The variable initial (k) see note 9 above may be realized by [g] or Glamorgan dialect area.

under the conditions of this mutation in the South

12 Historically, [g] was replaced under the conditions of this mutation by the homorganic voiced fricative [g]. This sound was later lost. See Jackson, 1953, for details. 13 See Jackson, 1953, for a possible explanation of the historical development of this change. 14 Group totals range between 5 tokens for the context S3f possessive pronoun + noun and 706 tokens for the context preposition + common noun, this wide range of instances being an indication of the relative frequencies of

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these two contexts in the corpus. Summary tables may be found in Thomas, 1983. 15 Formal styles would appear to share the vernacular tendency not to mutate proper nouns (see Morgan, 1952), this trend being apparent also with regards to the names of learned journals and books, e.g. yn Barn 'in Barn', yn Tywyll Heno 'in Tywyll Heno', rather than *ym Marn, *yn Nhywyll Heno. 16 The consonants in this case do not include [p, t, k], which undergo Spirant mutation when preceded by the negative marker [ni] in formal varieties, and which variably show Spirant mutation in our dialect area. These consonants were considered above. 17 See further Morgan, 1952. 18 See Watkins (1977; 1978) for a fuller discussion of this feature.

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Change and Variation in the Welsh of Gaiman, Chubut Robert O. Jones Introduction This paper is concerned with aspects of phonological variation within the Welsh speech of Gaiman, Chubut, Argentina. It is based on fieldwork conducted in 1971/2 1 and in 1973/42 and on an interpretation of the data that has thus far been analysed. At the outset the aims and scope of the work were rather different from those of traditional Welsh dialectological work in that linguistic homogeneity within a single geographical area was not taken as an underlying principle. The study was geared towards recording a sample of informants whose speech would be both representative and valid for the sociological spectrum of the community, (cf. Goffman, 1964). Consequently this project entailed a study of language variation within the socio-economic and cultural framework of the speech community. It was intended to examine and reveal the inter-relationships between linguistic variation on the one hand and social stratification on the other, but contextual features such as inter-group communication, speaker/addressee relationship, field of discourse and mode of discourse were considered as potential linguistic conditioning factors. The research aims therefore resemble those of Labov (1963, 1966a,b, 1970, 1972a,b); Shuy et al. (1968); Wolfram (1969); Trudgill (1974). As in their work, the emphasis of this project was upon studying language within its social context. This in turn necessitated a binary approach: (i) identifying those linguistic features which are conditioned by sociological attributes, such as educational attainments, religious background, group membership etc., (ii) identifying those linguistic variables which are conditioned by the social situation field of discourse/mode of discourse/tenor of discourse. The sociolinguistic procedures adopted by the aforementioned were worked out for urban surveys of English, but since Gaiman is basically

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rural and agricultural, fieldwork methodology was considerably modified, particularly in the field of informant selection and mode of gathering data. A stratified random sampling technique was used, based on sex and age, but religious background, educational background and cultural affiliation were later examined. 3 The last three factors were chosen as particularly relevant since historical evidence suggests that they were the dominant factors affecting the social integration and structure of the community from its outset. The Welsh first emigrated to Chubut in the spring of 1865.4 The motivations behind the emigration movement were a mixture of economic, religious and cultural factors which throughout the early history of the area were the dominant sociological integration factors in the establishment, and consolidation of the various settlements. The first nine years saw hardly any immigration but from 1874 until the end of the century there was a steady increase in the Welsh-speaking population of the area due to immigration. By 1894 the population numbered 3,747 a marked increase upon the 153 original pioneers of 1865. The colonists originated from various parts of Wales and naturally took with them the vernaculars of the areas from which they originated. Chubut therefore became a dialect melting pot out of which emerged varieties of Welsh which share peculiarities with a number of Welsh regional dialects and in addition other features which are non-Welsh due to the interaction with Spanish in the Argentine context. The total set of speech patterns however constitute varieties of Welsh which are characteristically South American. The town of Gaiman was established in 18745 and historical information gives ample proof of the fact that sociological factors were paramount in the fusion and dissemination of certain forms, and consequently in the development of characteristically local varieties of Welsh. From the outset religion and education acted as unifying factors.6 People from different parts of Wales speaking very different varieties of Welsh were bonded into a social unit by virtue of the unifying and conformist influence of these institutions. Bethel, the local chapel, became a place of worship, it acted as a local primary school and it became the social centre of the community where people met for various cultural gatherings such as the cymanfaoedd canu, dosbarth sol-ffa, cyrddau cystadleuol and the eisteddfodau.7 Gradually over the years Welsh culture and the Welsh non-conformist religion became inseparable and after the Argentine Government took over the local primary school and made it monolingual Spanish, the role of educating the children and making them literate in the Welsh language was

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taken over by the chapel. 8 It is not surprising therefore that religion has exerted considerable influence upon the social and linguistic development and distribution of linguistic features within the community.9 In the Welsh educational field Gaiman is important too from a historical point of view, but also as I hope to show because of the impact which this had and still has on linguistic variability. Gaiman was the only area which came into direct confrontation with the Argentine Government over the Education issue in 18979. They refused to allow the government to take over the primary school which had functioned in the area for the previous 20 years or so10 on the grounds that: 'The only method to impart education successfully to a child is through the medium of the mother tongue' (Y Dravod, 27.3.96). When the government finally took over the school in 1899, the people of Gaiman started agitating for a Welsh secondary school which was eventually opened in 1907. Being an independent school run by a committee of local inhabitants, its syllabus was patterned on that of the British grammar school system but the education was trilingual Welsh, Spanish and English in contrast to the English monoglot education current at the same period in Wales. This secondary school under D. Rhys Jones and later E. T. Edmunds B.Sc. was instrumental in educating in the broader sense, but in a very definite way it gave status to the Welsh language and emphasized the literary importance of Welsh for generation after generation of young Patagonians. It introduced them to modern Welsh literature and culture and also drilled them in the grammar of literary and formal Welsh. This training inevitably had an effect upon the vernacular of the pupils and helped to reinforce the kind of training imparted by the Sunday school. These institutions however served as social group barriers.11 Active chapel members tend to socialize far more within their own group whereas Argentine acculturation is far more apparent amongst those who are not chapel members and amongst those who have not received formal education through the medium of Welsh. Informant Selection Based on the Electoral Roll (1973) and the schools' census a register was drawn up of all those who spoke Welsh. This was compiled with the help of Miss Tegai Roberts (the curator of the local museum), Miss C. Ellis (chapel secretary), Mrs Luned Roberts de Gonzalez and Mrs Valeira Jones de Pugh (local headmistresses) who have been lifelong inhabitants

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of Gaiman and who knew all the persons whose names appeared on the Electoral Roll. The outcome was two separate registers: a) List of all those of Welsh ancestry b) List of those who spoke Welsh. In December 1973, 23% of the population of the Gaiman district were of Welsh extraction but only 15% of the population spoke Welsh regularly. Table 1 Gaiman population of Welsh extraction and Welsh-speaking Percentage of total population of Welsh 23%Male Female extraction 21% 25% Percentage of total population who spoke 15%11% 19% Welsh The above would seem to suggest that women have a greater tendency to speak Welsh than the males, and as the research progressed it became evident that they were also more conscious of 'correct' prestigious forms. 12 A third of all Welsh speakers are over 60 years of age and most of these are women, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Sex and age were therefore important criteria in the sampling

Fig. 1 Distribution of Welsh speakers in terms of sex and age F = female, M = male

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procedures adopted. The Welsh-speaking register was therefore stratified as follows: I Elderly (60+) male/female II Middle-aged (4560) male/female III Young Middle-aged (3045) male/female IV Young (under 30) male/female 13 A random sample was taken which amounted to 30% of the stratified register. Such a large percentage was taken in order to guarantee that the final informant sample would include a spectrum representing various religious affiliations and nonaffiliations, various educational backgrounds and attainments, various socio-cultural orientations and group identity. These were not worked into the initial stratified register because the addition of so many factors would have resulted in a very complex register making sampling well nigh impossible. This point is made by Goode and Hatt (1952, 221, 222) 'From a practical point of view, if all these biases were used the value of the sampling would be lost for the number of sub-samples would be enormous ...'. Some of the 30% refused to be interviewed,14 others were rejected for a variety of reasons. Those who had only just moved to Gaiman to live obviously could not be representative of Gaiman speech. Others had left the area and yet others had died since the census was taken. Others were infirm and could not be interviewed. Those who agreed to be interviewed were then visited and questioned concerning their background with reference of family, religion, education and culture. They were asked about their social activities, social networks and their use of Welsh and Spanish. This social background questionnaire as already implied was divided into three main sections with sub-sections in each one ordered in a hierarchy according to index score values as follows15 (the index score values are indicated in brackets): Religion (3) Prominent and active member of the Welsh chapel (2) Non-active, occasional attendance (1) Non-member (0) Spanish-medium religious affiliations Education (3) Welsh-medium secondary education (2) Welsh/Spanish primary education16 (1) Spanish-medium secondary education (0) Spanish-medium primary education only

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Cultural Orientation 17 (3) Welsh (2) Mainly Welsh but with a Spanish bias (1) Mainly Spanish but with a Welsh bias (0) Spanish Figure 2 below illustrates the religious patterning within the sample. More than 50% of all informants are involved in Welsh medium religious activities which again emphasizes the importance of religion within the life of the community. Table 2 modifies the picture, when the age of the informants is taken into consideration.

Fig. 2 Distribution of speakers within the different religious patterns Figure 3 illustrates how the informants are stratified according to educational background. Welsh-medium education is a minority feature and this is attributable to the historical facts already mentioned. Figure 4 illustrates how the informants are stratified according to cultural orientation. When age is taken into consideration, it is seen that there is a decline in Welshness from one generation to the next as illustrated in Table 3. By combining the individual's scores for the features mentioned it is possible to isolate the social status strata or groups found at Gaiman. This is illustrated in Fig. 5 below.

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Table 2 Distribution of speakers in terms of age and religious pattern Index Score Elderly Middle-aged Young Middle-aged Young (3) 8 5 3 0 (2) 7 3 0 1 (1) 3 3 3 6 (0) 0 0 1 3

Fig. 3 Distribution of speakers in terms of educational patterns

Fig. 4 Distribution of speakers in terms of cultural patterns

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Table 3 Distribution of speakers in terms of age and cultural pattern Index Score Elderly Middle-aged Young Middle-aged Young (3) 9 0 0 0 (2) 7 8 5 0 (1) 2 1 2 4 (0) 0 2 0 6

Fig. 5 Distribution of speakers in terms of aggregate scores for the three social features of religion, education and cultural orientation The informant sample was therefore representative of the possible groupings found within the community. Below in Table 4 and Fig. 6 it is shown how the status groups are distributed along the age axis. This illustrates a gradual process of Argentinian acculturation from the elderly to the young whose patterns are polarized at the lower end of the Welsh status spectrum. There is a definite break in the status spectrum at stratum 5 which

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Table 4 Distribution of speakers within the index scores' spectrum in terms of age Index Scores (0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) Elderly 2 1 5 4 1 1 4 Middle-aged 1 2 1 1 2 4 Young middle-aged 1 2 1 3 Young 2 5 2 1

Fig. 6 Distribution of speakers of different age groups within the index scores' spectrum prompted me to group strata 69 together as Status Group A, and strata 04 together to form Status Group B. As previously mentioned social network patterns coincide with these social strata divisions in that informants A tended to socialise far more with other Group A speakers but not to the exclusion of rapport with Group B speakers or with non-Welsh speaking members of the community. This is an expected phenomenon because they are all active members of Bethel, the Welsh chapel and also participate in all activities connected with traditional Welsh culture. 18 Representatives of both groups are found amongst all age groups except for the young. The informant sample therefore is divided into 7 sub groups: (i) Elderly A 1A (ii) Elderly B 1B (iii) Middle-aged A 2A

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(iv) Middle-aged B 2B (v) Young Middle-aged A 3A (vi) Young Middle-aged B 3B (vii) Young 4 The classification as outlined above proved to be productive and revealing within this community in that phonological variation to a large extent (but not exclusively so) correlates with this social patterning. As I hope to show, linguistic variation confirms the validity of the social parameters and the latter in turn operate as indicators which explain phonological variability patterns which within a non-social framework might have been considered as 'free variation' phenomena. This framework also enables us to isolate those features which are 'changing' within a community and makes it possible for the analyst to describe the nature and rate of change and pinpoint those linguistic and extra-linguistic factors which promote or hinder such change. Linguistic Sampling As in the other sociolinguistic projects previously mentioned, this work attempted to examine the possibility of variability within the speech of individuals arising from the social context of the speech act. Such a premise is very aptly stated by Lucia EliasOlivares (1976) in a study of Spanish in Austin, Texas: A basic sociolinguistic principle is that in a heterogeneous speech community with varying degrees of linguistic diversity and social complexity speakers interact using different speech variations. Data were required from each informant which would represent a band of the possible usages within each one's Welsh repertoire. Consequently each informant was recorded in different contexts in the following time sequence. (1) Interview situation questions and answers usually resulting in careful/formal speech. This was conducted on a one to one basis between the fieldworker and informant and at the beginning of the series of visits. (2) Each informant read several passages of literary Welsh plus a list of isolated words. (3) Each informant was observed interacting with family, friends and acquaintances and discussing a variety of subjects ranging from politics to motor racing, with the fieldworker and others. The questionnaire used in the formal interview situation was con-

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structed to give an outline of the phonological features of Gaiman Welsh, but particular attention was given to those features which were shown to be variable in the 1971 preliminary survey. The reading passages were included in order to examine whether a change in linguistic medium could result in an incidence change in the speech of informants. Analysis of Variables A Features Correlatable with Age and Social Differences Variations in the pronunciation of the following phonemes were noted within the community velar fricative /x/, palatoalveolar , voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ and the central vowel . Features (i) and (ii) below illustrate variations in the fricative phonetic realization of these phonemes; 19 (iii) and (iv) represent variants which in effect result in a reduction of the phonemic inventory.20 an advanced velar fricative, but their (i) /x/ In Gaiman this phoneme is realized phonetically as [x] a velar fricative and incidence is not conditioned by phonetic context. The demarcation in the usage of these variants is conditioned mainly by the age of the informant. Members of the older generation realize the phoneme as [x] in all instances whereas the young middle occur but they are not in free aged and the young always use . Amongst the middle aged group however both [x] and variation. Within this generation, the variation is conditioned by the sociological groupings A and B. All members of Group 2A used [x] and all members of group 2B used . This is an example of direct interference from Spanish. The older generation use when speaking Spanish whereas Group 2B and the the Welsh phone [x] in both languages. Group 2A use [x] in Welsh and in both languages. This pattern remains 'stable' in the various stylistic contexts. younger generations consistently use Table 5 The phonetic realization of /x/ in Gaiman 1A 1B 2A 2B 3A 3B Welsh [x] [x] Spanish [x]

4

(ii) Fortis Plosives In Welsh initial and final fortis plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ are accompanied by strong aspiration [ph], [th], [kh]. In the Spanish of

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this area the fortis plosives are always unaspirated. In Gaiman the Spanish unaspirated phones are used instead of the aspirated ones in the Welsh of a large portion of the community. As with [x] and the dominant conditioning factor again is age. The older inhabitants use the Welsh aspirated phones in both Welsh and Spanish. Members of Group 2A distinguish between the two sets according to the language used, but Groups 2B, 3A and 3B and the young consistently use the unaspirated phones. As in the case of [x] the occurrence of [ph], [th], [kh] as a status group marker operates amongst the middle-aged only. It is not basically a Group A versus Group B characteristic but may be taken as an indicator of the growth in the importance of Spanish and consequent bilingualism within the life of the community. The middle-aged group had all of their primary education through the medium of Spanish and their parents were to some extent bilingual. The older generation on the other hand received their education at a time when the community was not bilingual. The fact that group 2A can distinguish between the separate phones for the two languages is attributable to the fact that they received Welsh-medium secondary education at Yr Ysgol Ganolraddol. Table 6 Occurrence of aspirated and unaspirated variants of /p/, /t/ and /k/ 1A 1B 2A 2B 3A 3B 4 Welsh [ph][th][kh] [ph][th][kh][p][t][k] [p][t][k] [p][t][k] Spanish [ph][th][kh] [p][t][k] [p][t][k] [p][t][k] [p][t][k]

lexical sets in the speech of others /sj/ was recorded initially and medially and /s/ finally. It is interesting to bear in mind that the palatoalveolar fricative does not occur in Spanish and that the absence of this particular phoneme was recorded in the speech of those who were least Welsh in orientation. Age again is a determining factor but status grouping and stylistic variation make the to /sj/ and /s/ less clear-cut than the other examples of variation mentioned. is not only a generation switch from associated feature but also a Group A prestige marker. It occurs in the speech of Group 3A informants in word final position only in casual speech, but in all possible environments in formal speech. This illustrates a case of counteracting tendencies in their

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Casual Formal

Table 7 Occurrence of in both casual and formal contexts 1A 1B 2A 2B 3A 3B /s/ /s/ /s/ /s/ /s/

4 /s/ /s/

less patterns of their peer group, and the patterns of their social network group. In formal speech the 'norm' speech the imposed is that of the social group rather than that of the peer group. The mid central vowel characterizes all Welsh dialects other than those of south-west Dyfed. It is also found in (iv) Gaiman, but in the speech of some it is being replaced by /I/. Its distribution pattern is exemplified in Table 8 below. in Gaiman in both casual and Table 8 Occurrence of formal contexts 1A 1B 2A 2B 3A 3B 4 /I/ /I/ Casual /I/ Formal This feature does not vary with stylistic change other than minimally in the speech of Group 3B. There isn't an Spanish of the area.

vowel in the

These four examples discussed above illustrate not only the importance of age but also of sociological grouping as variation conditioning factors. These features illustrate the extent to which individuals and groups participate in a close knit Welsh social network. The degree of involvement in such a group correlates with both age and sociological grouping. Groups 2B, 3B and 4, are on the fringe of such networks, and as such are much more susceptible to linguistic modifications and innovations from the wider linguistic community, in this case Spanish-speaking. In terms of 'apparent time' it would seem that phonetic or allophonic modification occurred prior to phonemic change in these examples in this particular bilingual setting.

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B Variation Correlatable with Age, Sociological and Stylistic Factors The importance of the sociological and stylistic components as conditioning factors is borne out when one considers:

, At first it might appear that no pattern whatsoever exists in Gaiman speech. Some speakers use them, others don't and yet in the speech of others they occur infrequently. By taking age as the only criterion it would be possible to state a few general tendencies: (i) As one progresses from the older generation to the younger generation the incidence of (h) decreases. (ii) All the other features listed above seem to be linked to the incidence of /h/. A decrease in the use of /h/ results in a similar , the spirant mutation and the nasal mutation. pattern with Such conclusions however are not only vague but grossly over-simplified. When the distribution of these features is considered against the background of social features that characterize groups A and B, and within the various social contexts, a different pattern emerges. The actual occurrence of these features (in contrast to Ø) is quantified as a percentage of the possible occurrence in four different contexts casual speech, (CS); careful or formal speech, (FS); reading style (RS); word lists, (WL). Within each age status group the tokens per feature varied only very slightly. Table 9 shows the incidence of these features as a percentage of the possible occurrence of each feature for each status group amongst the elderly in both casual and formal contexts. Table 9 Incidence of (h) in the h80 1A CS 100 FS 28 1B CS 43 FS

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speech of status groups 1A and 1B -hSp N 89 59 66 55 74 100 73 75 67 83 20 0 0 0 0 35 3 0 0 0

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In casual style initial (h) is not consistently used, Status Group A scoring 80%. Amongst group A informants is stronger than (h-) but the remaining features score much lower percentages. It is important to note that the weakening of (h) is most prominent in word medial position and as an element in the spirant mutation. 21 Non-occurrence of these features in the speech of group A speakers is restricted to a finite set of linguistic contexts. No examples were found of (h) and zero in free variation. In formal speech the incidence of each of these features increases so that score 100% each. The other features increase in incidence by allowing the features in certain linguistic contexts where they did not occur in casual speech. In contrast to Group A, members of Group B do not use four of these features and even the incidence of initial (h) and initial is very sparse in comparison. In Group B speech there is a reversal of strength of . This would seem to bear out the assertion that a weakening of initial (h) can affect each of the other features as well. In contrast to Group A, the occurrence is conditional by emphatic stress placement.22 Consequently one can have pairs such as: of initial (h) and initial

Table 10 [h] and [ ] in stressed and unstressed syllables in the speech of Status Group 1A and 1B

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In careful speech as could be expected these two features increase in the speech of Group B, possibly because of a higher proportion of one word responses given in the interview situation. One speaker used medial (-h-) but the other features did not occur. Within this generation group alone, the most Welsh in orientation and background, there are obviously two contrasting patterns and as shown these correlate with the sociological groupings established. The patterns of Group A are much nearer the 'standard norm' and, as will be seen, a certain degree of 'prestige value' is afforded to such patterns. Similar clear-cut differences between Group A and B are found amongst the other generation groups. Table 11 illustrates the patterns found amongst the middle-aged. Table 11 Incidence of (h) in the speech of Status Groups 2A and 2B -hSP N h77 90 67 67 30 23 2A CS 93 100 90 83 53 63 FS 20 0 0 0 0 0 2B CS 27 13 0 0 0 0 FS There is a slight decrease in the incidence of initial (h) amongst both status groups when compared with the corresponding older status groups. Group 2B patterns are rather similar to Group 1B except that a lower incidence of initial (h) in casual speech within this age group. There is a slight increase in the formal style, but this is even results in the non-occurrence of initial lower than the older group's casual patterns which indicates that these are features which are weakening in terms of 'apparent time' but also suggests that this age group's control of 'formal style' is less certain than that of their elders. Group 2A's patterns show a sharp decrease in the incidence of (h) as an exponent of the spirant and nasal mutations. These are unstable features in the speech of this group even in the formal style. Informants of Groups 1B and 2B do not mutate because the prefixed personal pronouns which condition the mutations have been elided. Therefore they normally have [aval hi] rather (my head). The nasal mutations which are conditioned by the than [i haval hi] (her apple) and [pen vi] rather than , e.g. remains as rather than (in Trelew) and the mutation preposition

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conditioned by the negative prefixed [an], e.g. (incorrect) (dissimilar) is realized without the glottal fricative element as . Amongst the Middle-aged Group A speakers the incidence of these mutations is to some extent linguistically restricted as follows: (i) Spirant Mutation Three patterns were recorded and they seemed to occur in free variation, although the informants were all aware of the fact that pattern (a) was the 'correct' pattern in view of the fact that in formal speech, initial (b) and (c) type responses were corrected to (a) type responses. (a) [i] + [h] + word-initial vowel + suffixed personal pronoun [i haval hi] (b) [i] + Ø + word-initial vowel + suffixed personal pronoun [i aval hi] (c) Ø + noun + suffixed personal pronoun [aval hi]. nor following the negative prefix [an] in casual speech. In formal (ii) Nasal Mutation It did not occur after the preposition speech it occurred sporadically in these environments. In casual speech therefore it was restricted to the environment of the first person singular pronoun, but such instances occurred in free variation with forms where the prefixed personal pronoun had been elided. In formal speech the unelided forms occurred consistently. The patterns of the Young Middle-aged exhibit the same tendencies as those noted above. Table 12 Incidence of (h) in the speech of status groups 3A and 3B -hSP N h70 70 57 60 30 23 3A CS 90 95 85 78 67 55 FS 17 0 0 0 0 0 3B CS 17 13 0 0 0 0 FS Amongst both status groups there is a general decrease in the environments where these features can occur in casual speech. The only exceptions are the spirant and nasal mutations in the speech of Status Group A. The patterns are similar to those exhibited in the speech of the corresponding Middle-aged status group. Members of group A are

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Page 254 strongly aware of stylistic differences whereas for Group B there exists only a minimal variation in usage. The patterns elicited in the speech of the young were all very similar thus supporting the sociological classification made earlier.

4

Table 13 Incidence of (h) in the speech of status group 4 -hSP h10 0 0 0 0 CS 13 10 0 0 0 FS

N 0 0

As in the speech of the Middle-aged B and the Young Middle-aged B speakers there are only two features operative in the speech of the Young . Incidence is still lower in their speech and occurrence of the features as in the speech of 3B is not associated with emphatic stress placement. They occurred only in a limited number of lexical items all monosyllables and frequently used nouns. In the reading passages and word lists, the rate of occurrence of all features increased in the speech of status Group A speakers. In the speech of Groups B speakers the rate of occurrence of all features which occurred in formal speech increased in RS and WL; other features are introduced for the first time as exemplified in Table 14. Table 14 Distribution of features along the contextual axis within Status Groups B

A change from casual speech to careful speech and a change in linguistic medium result in the use of features which do not occur in spontaneous casual speech. In Fig. 7 the distribution of the two strongest features is illustrated. It is clear that the sociological factors are much more important than the generation factor. In all styles the incidence patterns of Status

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Fig. 7 Occurrence of (h-) and ( ) in the speech| of the different age and status groups in various contexts Groups A form a band at the top of the index whereas Status Groups B and the Young form a separate unit. Within each unit (A and B) generation differences are apparent with comparable decreasing patterns within each unit. There are far greater differences between 1A and 1B than between 1B and 3B or between 1A and 3A. One can only conclude that these features operate primarily as status group markers within the community. Such statements are reinforced when the spirant and nasal mutations are considered. These are entirely confined to Status Groups A and although a wide spectrum of usage is recorded in casual speech conditioned by the generation factor, a change in medium in the reading styles results in a 100% occurrence of these features. These are unquestionably 'literary Welsh' features which are correlatable with the educational and religious background of these informants. Medial (-h-) and medial (substantiate

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) again correlate very closely with the above mentioned sociological differences and in addition

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Fig. 8 Occurrence of the spirant and nasal mutations in the different age and status groups, in the various styles the suggestion that Group A members are very much aware of 'standard' correct forms as compared with their Group B contemporaries. It is interesting to note that Group 2A speakers score higher percentages than their 1A elders. This is entirely an educational phenomenon. They had all received several years formal Welsh-medium education at Yr Ysgol Ganolraddol. This was not the case with all 1A speakers. They were young at a period when the Ysgol Ganolraddol was established and only part of their primary education had been Welsh-medium. By the 1920s primary education was entirely monoglot Spanish and according to historical evidence it was anti-Welsh. 23 'Although they could preserve their values in the Chapel and the Eisteddfod, in many phases of life they were face to face with another language and a new set of cultural values. Children began to live a dual rôle. Although the language of the home and of worship was Welsh,

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schooling was by law passed in 1896 in Spanish and this played an important rôle in the life of the children' (G. Williams, 1975, 185). By comparing 2A with 2B in the use of all the variables analysed it is quite clear that the former's secondary education had a lasting purist effect upon their speech patterns. If the percentages for the six features discussed above are added together for each informant one gets an aggregate score for the occurrence of (h) in his/her speech. Figure 9 below indicates the distribution in terms of age and social status within the four contextual situations already mentioned. The two sociological bands are exhibited clearly. It is also very clear that stylistic variation is a productive feature. Amongst Group A speakers there are generation differences in casual speech, but a

Fig. 9 Distribution of (h) in terms of age and social status in the various styles

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considerable narrowing of differences in the formal and reading styles. They all modify towards a common norm in formal speech which is imposed by religion and the fact that they all interact in the Welsh language in a spectrum of formal situations. A literary norm imposed by education is apparent in the reading styles. Groups 1A and 2A are nearer to each other and to the literary norm in these styles because of their formal Welsh educational training. The fact that members of Group 3A are able to differentiate between the spoken and written norms may be attributed to their Sunday school training and continual exposure to the written language in the religious context. Group B members exhibit different rates of occurrence of these features which again correlate with generation divisions. In casual and formal speech 2B, 3B and the young are only minimally differentiated from one another but 1B scores a slightly higher rate of occurrence which indicates that a great number of changes were initiated or accelerated by the middle-aged group. (cf. Tables 2, 3 and 4). Variation in terms of medium differences is most apparent in Groups 1B and 2B which shows a certain awareness of written patterns which is less obvious in the usages of 3B speakers and minimal amongst the young. This is basically a reflection of the decrease in chapel attendance which has taken place over the years. When 1B and 2B informants were children Sunday school attendance was the norm rather than the exception; amongst the young middle-aged the reverse pattern was the order of the day. For those young informants who attended chapel, their religious register was predominantly Spanish-medium. This study amply demonstrates that intra-dialect variation may be conditioned by sociological factors even within a predominantly rural community. It also reveals that a restriction in the spectrum of possible registers can have a bearing upon patterns used, particularly so in a bilingual setting. Notes 1 'Preliminary Survey of Chubut Welsh Dialects', supported by the Welsh Dialectology Grant, Linguistic Dept., UCNW, Bangor. 2 'A Socio-dialectological Survey of Welsh in Chubut', supported by the Social Science Research Council. 3 No attempt was made to work within a class hierarchy because of the difficulties of determining what are class division markers in this predominantly rural area. As noted by Trudgill (1974, 33) ' . . . class boundaries and barriers tend to be relatively fluid and flexible . . . ' The multi-index approach adopted here gave social groups rather than social classes.

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4 In Abram Matthews, Hanes y Wladfa Gymreig (1894, 1446), there appears a list of all the Mimosa 1865 emigrants. They came from areas such as Mountain Ash, Aberdâr, Brynaman and Bridgend in south Wales and Bala, Ganllwyd, Ffestiniog, Caernarfon, Bangor, Holyhead, Bethesda, Llanfairfechan, Denbigh, Rhosllanerchrugog, Llandrillo, Llanfechan and Aberystwyth in north and mid Wales. Others came from Liverpool, Manchester, Birkenhead, Seecombe, Wigan and New York. In terms of dialect features they were therefore a mixed company. 5 In Y Dravod, 3.11.1949, it is stated that the area was first settled in the spring of 1874, firstly by D. D. Roberts and a few weeks later by the Revd J. C. Evans. During 1875 more people settled in the area and it was known as Pentre Sydyn an appropriate name considering its rapid growth. 6 Mrs Owen M. Jones, Y Dravod, 3.11.1949, states that she spent part of her childhood at Gaiman or Pentre Sydyn as it was known then, and that from the outset, religious, cultural and educational activities played an important rôle in the life of the community. ' . . . I started my education at Gaiman and Dafydd Hughes was our teacher. The first literary meeting in the area was held in the building which also operated as the local school. Before they built the first chapel they used to hold religious services in the home of John Rees, and I remember a preaching festival being held in Thomas Morgan Jones' coral:'. 7 Cymanfaoedd canu: hymn singing festivals. dosbarth sol-ffa: music classes to teach pupils to read sol-fa. Successful completion was a pre-requisite to being accepted as a choir member. cyrddau cystadleuol: cultural gatherings on the local level where individuals competed in poetry recitation, singing, and literary works. Group competitions were normally restricted to quartets and octets. Eisteddfodau: cultural gatherings on an interlocality level. 8 A Welsh chapel was not built at Dolavon when the area was first settled and this probably accounts for the fact that it is not as Welsh as Gaiman is. 9 Max Weber (1951, 2367), (1958, 1317, 168, 249) emphasises the importance of religion as a social force. Since religion can influence various aspects of the individual's life pattern, it can through the individual have a bearing upon the social structure of the community. A similar statement was made by Gerhard Lenski (1961, 321): 'Through its impact on individuals, religion makes an impact on all the other institutional systems of the community these individuals staff. Hence the influence of religion operates at the social level as well as at the personal level.' 10 Southern Cross, 1899. (English newspaper published in Bs.As.). 'They resist the imposition of the Spanish language; they managed for years to ignore it in their schools, and education for them has been a problem not so much social and intellectual as racial and national how to keep their children as stubbornly Welsh as themselves.' 11 Glyn Williams (1975, 186) 'The new generation of Welshmen, those born of Welsh parents, in Patagonia belonged to two social groups reflected in the

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''in-group" (us) and the "out-group" (them). From the Welshman's point of view his group, although no longer a majority, is the in-group, the Latins being the out-group.' 12 This tendency is well documented in other cultures and language groups. Levine and Crockett (1966); Nordberg (1971); Macaulay and Trevelyan (1973); Trudgill (1974); Suzanne Romaine (1978). 13 The under 30s were taken as one group. 14 Labov (1966a) makes the point that the speech patterns of those who refused to co-operate but who were recorded later on were not very different from the patterns of informants who were recorded. 15 This follows Glyn Williams's statement concerning 'in-group' and 'out-group' and the values which the society itself placed on such status markers. See also Glass (1954, 5): 'Such a study assumes a hierarchy of social status that society is arranged in a series of layers and that there are criteria which may be used to indicate the status level or position in the hierarchy of an individual or group.' The index value (3) is given to a variety which results in a greater use of Welsh. The value (o) is given to that factor which does not condition the use of Welsh. 16 These categories are to some extent conditioned by age. Welsh/Spanish primary education is restricted to the older generation, Welsh-medium secondary education is a feature found amongst the older and middle-aged informants. Spanish medium secondary education is found amongst the young middle-aged and the young, whereas those who have received Spanish primary education only are distributed amongst all the age groups. 17 This was based on: a) Participation in traditional Welsh cultural activities b) Relative use of the two languages spoken, written, reading c) Self-identity. 18 J. and L. Milroy (1978, 1936): 'Moreover the degree to which individuals approximate to a vernacular speech norm seems to correlate to the extent to which they participate in close knit networks . . . . . . . A close-knit group has the power to impose behavioural norms of all kinds on its members . . . . . . while conversely the person on the fringe of the network may look to the wider social group outside his immediate community for speech and behavioural norms.' In Chubut the standardizing process is found within the close-knit group, and the non-standard changes most obvious amongst the out-group. 19 Uriel Weinreich (1953) refers to this type of interference as 'reinterpretation of distinctions'. 20 Uriel Weinreich (1953) refers to this type of interference as 'underdifferentiation'. 21 The patterns used by one of the informants were not typical of the responses given by other Group A informants in respect of those two features. She was the only one within the group who had not received Welsh medium secondary education. By discounting that informant, group A scores would appear as follows.

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CS FS

(h-) 80 100

(

) 89.2 100

(-h-) 68 86

(-

) 76.6 88.8

Sp 73 89.6

N 76.4 93.6

This leads one to conclude that formal Welsh medium education was extremely important but it does not invalidate the analysis based on group identification. In her usage of these features this individual's patterns were much nearer the individual patterns of other Group A members than those of Group B members. Amongst Group B members only two . In this individual's speech all of the features occurred; her linguistic patterns are features occurred in their speech in fact manifestations of a group phenomenon. D. Bickerton's statement (1971, 488) would seem to be only partially valid for this community. ' . . . it is my contention that no group exhibits either complete uniformity or complete variability and moreover that there is no group within a given language community such that the linguistic behaviour of all its members fall within a certain range and all non-members outside it.' In this community variability exists among members of each group, but there are no overlaps in patterns and groups. 22 In all of the examples recorded in Gaiman the occurrence of the emphatic stress ('h) was restricted to those lexical items where (h) could be expected to occur in the speech of Group A speakers. In Bryncrwn on the other hand it could occur in all The vowel initial lexical items when accompanied by emphatic stress, thus resulting in pairs such as latter are similar to patterns recorded in south-east Wales by C. H. Thomas. 23 Y Dravod, March 1921, based on the Inspector of Schools' report for 1920. 'Fortunately the independent spirit which characterized the Welsh is ended, its place is now in the shadows and the dreams of the past, since the scholars of Chubut today clearly reflect strong and genuine Argentine aspirations.' Also: R. Bryn Williams (1962, 271) 'During the first half of this century education in Chubut was anti-Welsh and tended to make us children feel ashamed of our Welsh connections'.

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Welsh as a Literary, Standard, and Official Language Glanville Price The purpose of this contribution is to characterize briefly, for those who are not familiar with the subject, the status of Welsh as a literary language, as a standard language, and as an official language. These three concepts are all too often confused. It is true that they frequently overlap to a considerable extent in the case of major world languages like English and French, for example, the three are almost coterminous. But the three concepts are very clearly distinct from one another and, in the case of many languages, particularly the less influential languages, the reality corresponding to each of these concepts may be very different. Since this confusion over the use of the terms in question does occur, it will be as well to begin by offering a working definition (which cannot however be a rigorously precise definition) of each of them. By 'literary language' we understand a variety that is used to more than a minimal extent (i.e., not merely sporadically) as a written medium, for any one or more of a number of purposes that may include not merely purposes of creative literature but also, for example, legal or liturgical or didactic functions. By 'official language', we mean a variety that is recognized by public authorities for such purposes as the promulgation of laws, the execution of valid legal transactions, the publication of official forms and other documents, and correspondence between official bodies and members of the public. The most difficult of our terms to define adequately is that of 'standard language'. For our present purposes we shall take this to refer to a prestige variety whose grammar and orthography and, though perhaps to a less extent, vocabulary and pronunciation are codified, i.e., correspond to generally accepted norms (which need not however be absolutely rigid there are, for example, differences between British and American norms for English). Though originally based on the speech of a particular area or areas, a standard language is likely to be used as such in other areas whose indigenous speech-basis is either a different form of the same language or a different language altogether. Finally, where a standard language exists, it is

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likely to be also a literary and very possibly an official language as well, and to be used for such purposes as education, broadcasting and religious worship. A good example of a language in relation to which the three concepts are very far from overlapping totally is provided by Swiss Romansh, which is not standardized (five written varieties are in use) but is beyond any doubt a literary language and which, in the canton of the Grisons though not in Switzerland generally, is recognized as an official language. Scottish Gaelic, on the other hand, though having a fully standardized form that is in use for literary purposes, and as a medium of education and religious worship, does not enjoy official status. And Occitan, which is beyond dispute a literary language, has achieved neither standardization in the sense in which we have defined the term (though two moderately successful attempts, based upon widely different principles, have been made at codifying it) nor any degree of recognition as an official language. We now turn to consider the specific case of Welsh as a literary, a standard and an official language, in that order since, as we shall see, it is from a chronological point of view the most appropriate. As a written language, Welsh has an ancient and distinguished tradition. The earliest known inscription in Welsh, on a tombstone now housed in the church at Tywyn, probably dates from the early eighth century, and few glosses and other brief texts from the eighth to the tenth centuries occur in the Book of St. Chad (now in the Cathedral library at Lichfield) and other manuscripts. (It is now generally accepted that some important poetry of the sixth century survives, in its essentials, in manuscripts dating from the thirteenth century, but we have no means of knowing when it was first written down, after presumably being transmitted orally for some generations.) But, like many, but by no means all, other Western European vernaculars, Welsh first emerged as a fully-fledged literary language (but still leaving certain fields, especially those other than imaginative literature, largely or wholly to Latin) in the period beginning around the eleventh or twelfth century. In prose, we have a number of texts of considerable importance in the perspective not merely of Welsh literature but in that of European literature generally. Pride of place among these goes to the eleven tales, collectively known as the Mabinogion, which now survive only in fourteenth-century manuscripts but which beyond any reasonable doubt date from an earlier, and in some cases much earlier, period. Wales also produced in the medieval period a number of poets of stature, foremost among them Dafydd ap Gwilym, who flourished in the

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fourteenth century and who, by common consent, ranks as the greatest poet Wales has ever produced. Though Welsh literature has perhaps never since reached the heights of distinction it achieved in the medieval period, the literary tradition, in both prose and verse, has continued, and is very much alive today. And it is to no inconsiderable extent thanks to the existence of this long established and firmly entrenched literary tradition that Wales and the Welsh language have been spared the often counter-productive and sometimes embittered disputes that have all too often characterized the attempts of certain other language-groups (the Bretons and the Occitans among them) to create or revive a generally accepted codified variety of their language suitable for the purposes of serious writing. Which brings us to the second of our immediate concerns, namely Welsh as a standard language. No-one who is familiar with any widely-used medieval vernacular can fail to be aware that considerable diversity exists among writers working at the same period, in respect not merely of spelling, but also of grammar and vocabulary, and not all such discrepancies are due to different geographical, i.e. dialectal, origins. This is as true of Welsh as it is of any other medieval vernacular, such as English, French, Icelandic or Provençal. In spite of the existence in widespread concurrent use of a highly and indeed rigidly codified language such as Latin, a comparable degree of uniformity was clearly not expected of those who wrote in a vernacular. This is not, however, to imply that no standards or norms existed, that each transcribed his vernacular merely according to his whim. Far from it. In general, people writing at the same period and in the same language observed more or less the same conventions, some of which remained more or less stable for centuries. Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise. The ability to write in a given language was, after all, a skill that was acquired by a process of training, which inevitably means the transmission of certain conventions. The foundations of standard Welsh, then, as of various other standardized European vernaculars, were laid in the medieval period. The decisive period, however, as for certain other languages (one thinks in particular of the significant role played by Martin Luther in the creation of standard German), was that of the Protestant Reformation. An Act of Parliament of 1563 laid upon the bishops of the Welsh dioceses the responsibility for ensuring that both the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible were translated into Welsh. Only four years later, in 1567, the translations both of the Prayer Book and of the New Testament appeared. The Welsh version of the Prayer Book was due to the Bishop of St. Davids, Richard Davies, who also translated parts of

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the New Testament. Most of the New Testament, however, including all four gospels, was the work of William Salesbury, who had previously published other works in Welsh, a Welsh-English dictionary (the first dictionary of Welsh, 1547), and a book (in English) on the pronunciation of Welsh (1550). On the whole, Salesbury's linguistic activity was sensible and beneficial. In one respect, however, he seems to have been misguided. Although in general he based his orthography on the traditional but not wholly codified conventions of literary Welsh, inherited, as we have seen, from the medieval period, he adopted for words borrowed from Latin (or, via Latin, from Greek) a Latinized spelling very much at variance with contemporary pronunciation (e.g. ecles instead of eglwys 'church', on the model of ecclesia). Later developments, however, were to ensure that such forms did not survive. After 1567, there remained the task of providing a Welsh translation of the Old Testament, and this was carried out by William Morgan (later to become Bishop of Llandaff and then of St. Asaph), who also revised the translation of the New Testament and brought out the first complete Bible in Welsh in 1588. Morgan had the vision and judgement to base his language firmly on that of the literary tradition rather than on one or more of the regional varieties of contemporary spoken Welsh and so took a major step forward in the process of creating a standard written Welsh. The process was virtually brought to completion in 1620 when a second, revised edition of the Bible, prepared largely by the vicar of Mallwyd, John Davies, appeared. The language of this version, in its successive reprints through the ensuing centuries, was to provide the accepted standard for written Welsh. One cannot do better than quote the tribute to its influence paid by Sir Thomas Parry, as rendered by Idris Bell in his translation of Parry's History of Welsh Literature (1955, pp. 1956): Perhaps the greatest service of the Bible to Welsh literature was that it gave the nation a standard tongue superior to any dialect. In a country which lacked a university or any cultural institution to act as a centre for its literary vitality and to foster that enlightened conservatism which is indispensable to the continuance of a tradition, there would have been a risk that the language might degenerate into a number of disconnected dialects, as happened in Brittany, and the speech of one part of the country would have been so awkward to another part as to make it impossible to get a means of expression dignified and acceptable enough for the requirements of fine poetry.

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It still remains for us to comment briefly on the orthography, grammar and vocabulary of contemporary standard written Welsh and on the relationship between this and the spoken language. The orthography of modern Welsh is completely standardized. In its essentials, it is that of the 1588 Bible. That orthography however left room for certain fluctuations and uncertainties on minor points and it was not until the twentieth century that the process of standardization was finally completed. This result was achieved with the universal acceptance of the principles and practices laid down in a report, Orgraff yr Iaith Gymraeg ('The Orthography of the Welsh Language'), drawn up by a committee of experts and published in 1928 by the University of Wales Press. These orthographical standards are based on phonetic, not etymological principles, but conform to a somewhat archaic pronunciation rather than to that of any variety of contemporary spoken Welsh, particularly in respect of vowels and diphthongs whose pronunciation varies considerably from one part of Wales to another. This has the considerable advantage that one written version can serve as an accepted transcription for a variety of regional pronunciations (e.g. tadau 'fathers' for both [tada] and [tade]). The influence of orthography on pronunciation is more or less restricted to highly formal registers in which, in particular, there is a tendency to maintain diphthongs that have been reduced to simple vowels in speech, and to pronounce certain final consonants that were lost centuries ago in conversational for byddant 'they will be', and the pronunciation (in particular, the t of 3rd person plural verb endings in -nt, e.g. final -f [v] of 1st person singular verb endings and of superlatives, e.g. for byddaf 'I shall be', [olav]/[ola] for olaf 'last'). Since the Second World War in particular, there has been a growing awareness of an appreciable gulf between the grammar of the standard language and that of contemporary spoken Welsh. In consequence of this awareness, there is an increasing tendency to avoid various features that are associated exclusively with literary usage and to adopt in writing certain morphological and syntactical features that are in widespread use in the spoken language (in particular, analogical or contracted morphological features and periphrastic verbal constructions). While this is, in principle, to be welcomed, it is noticeable and probably inevitable that this had led to a certain 'destandardization' in that a variety of spoken forms are penetrating the written language. Whether this is a temporary phase and whether some of these forms will come to be preferred to others as standard forms, and, if so, when and why, is a subject on which it would be pointless to speculate at present. There has also emerged a simplified form known as Cymraeg Byw ('Living

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Welsh'), drawn up specifically to meet the need of second-language teaching. This form has been the centre of much controversy (see, for example, C. H. Thomas, 1974/9). In the last twenty years or so, and in particular since the passing of the Welsh Language Act in 1967 (see below), Welsh has come to be increasingly used in many spheres of public life. Inevitably, as always happens when a language is called upon to fulfil functions from which it had previously been excluded, the need has arisen for an expansion of the lexical resources of the language (in default of which, there would have been a mass importation of English technical terms of all kinds). If this were left to ad hoc decisions by all and sundry, the result would have been chaos. (An illustration of what can happen is provided by the fact that, for a telephone extension, some bodies have taken to using estyniad, a literal translation of the English term, whereas others have adopted cangen, literally 'branch'.) This danger has, fortunately, been largely though not wholly avoided by the action of the University of Wales Press in publishing lists of recommended technical terms, drawn up by specialists, for use in different fields. Though, regrettably, few of these have achieved widespread currency in everyday spoken usage, at least they are available for those who choose to use them. Long after the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 12823, Welsh had continued in widespread use in the proceedings in courts of law (though not, in general, as a language of record, for which purpose Latin or English were preferred). But the Act of 1536, by which Wales was legally incorporated into England, though not in so many words prohibiting the use of Welsh, laid it down explicitly that the language of all legal proceedings and transactions was to be English. The official Welsh Office report, Legal Status of the Welsh Language (1965), however, makes it clear that Welsh continued to be used in the courts, when witnesses were ignorant of English, and, furthermore, that, in the wider sphere of public administration, 'the use of Welsh . . . was not entirely proscribed, and it appears to have enjoyed a limited measure of semi-official status' (p. 11). The fact remains that, for over four centuries after the Act of 1536, the only language fully recognized for any official purposes in Wales was English. The first measure granting a degree, albeit only a very limited degree, of official recognition to Welsh was the Welsh Courts Act of 1942. This legalized the use of Welsh in any court in Wales by anyone who considered that 'he would otherwise be at any disadvantage by reason of his natural language of communication being Welsh'. The first provision for a Welsh version of any kind of official form was made in 1964 by an Act authorizing the translation into Welsh of any form

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required to be used in connection with parliamentary and local government elections. In the face of growing pressure for an enhanced status for Welsh, the government in 1963 appointed a three-man committee to examine the status of the Welsh language. Their report, which appeared in 1965 under the title Legal Status of the Welsh Language (London, HMSO, Cmnd. 2785), was to form the basis of legislation on the subject. The committee rejected 'the principle of bilingualism' (i.e. the principle that all legal and administrative business in Wales should be carried on in both languages) and opted instead for 'the principle of equal validity', by which they meant that there should be legislation 'to the effect that any act, writing or thing done in Welsh in Wales . . . should have the like legal force as if it had been done in English' (report, p. 39). The report also drew attention to certain practical consequences that would follow from the implementation of this recommendation in particular, arrangements would have to be made for the translation into Welsh of a wide range of official forms and documents. Legislation based on the 1965 report was incorporated in the Welsh Language Act, which came into force on 27 July 1967. The main provisions of this Act were that 'in any legal proceeding in Wales . . . the Welsh language may be spoken by any party, witness or other person who desires to use it', that 'the appropriate Minister may by order prescribe' a Welsh version of any document used for 'an official or public purpose', and that 'anything done in Welsh' on the basis of such documents 'shall have the like effect as if done in English'. This represents a considerable improvement on the previous situation, even though the Act not only fails to confer upon Welsh the full status of an official language but falls short of full recognition of the 'principle of equal validity'. As far as the right to use Welsh in courts of law is concerned, it will be noted that the 1967 Act confers this right on all who, whatever their motives, may wish to do so, whereas the 1942 Act tolerated the use of Welsh only when an individual felt he would otherwise be at a disadvantage. It will also be noted, however, that, though the Act empowers Ministers to prescribe a Welsh version of specific official documents, it lays no obligation on them to do so. In practice, a wide range of official forms, information leaflets, etc., emanating from various ministries, are now available bilingually (either as separate documents or with both languages on the same document), together with such other official documents as driving licences, motor vehicle test certificates, voting papers, television licences, telephone bills, etc. In addition, an increasing range of other bodies that are under no

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statutory obligation to provide Welsh versions of their forms, accounts, leaflets, etc., now do so. These include local government authorities, the Welsh Water Authority, electricity boards, banks, building societies, the Nature Conservancy Council, and political parties. It can be seen that the situation of Welsh as a literary, standard, and official language compares favourably with that of most other so-called 'minority language' in Western Europe. That does not mean that there is not room for improvement or that the indefinite survival of the Welsh language is assured. But to speculate on such topics would be beyond the scope of this contribution. Readers wishing further information are directed to Betts (1976), Council for Wales and Monmouthshire (1963), R. Brinley Jones (1970), W. R. Jones (1966) and Stephens (1979).

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Weinreich, U. (1953) Languages in Contact (Mouton, The Hague). Wells, J. C. (1979) 'Final Voicing and Vowel Length in Welsh', Phonetica, 36, 34460. Welsh Office (1965) Legal Status of the Welsh Language (HMSO, London). Williams, G. (1975) The Desert and the Dream: A Study of Welsh Colonization in Chubut, 18651915 (University of Wales Press, Cardiff). Williams, I, (1930) Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi (Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, Caerdydd). Williams, R. Bryn (1962) Y Wladfa (Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, Caerdydd). Williams, R. D. (1955) 'Dyddiau Mawr Mebyd', Y Drysorfa, June 1955. Williams, S. J. (1980) A Welsh Grammar (University of Wales Press, Cardiff). Wode, H. (1977) 'Developmental Principles in Naturalistic L2 Acquisition', in Drachmann, G. (ed.) Salzburger Beiträge zur Linguistik, 4, 20720. Wolfram, W. A. (1969) A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech (Washington D.C. Center for Applied Linguistics).

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Index A Aerometry, electro-aerometer 7 Affricates, articulation of 44; phonemic status of 45, 103; see also under Borrowings Allophones, see under Vowels and Consonants Apiration, with nasal mutation 8, 51; of stops 14-15, 247-8; in fricative + stop clusters 16 B Bilingualism 156; successive and simultaneous 157-9 Borrowings, from English 42, 102; affricates 44-5, 103; fricative 48, 103 Boundaries, medieval administrative 177-9, 194-9; gwlad/gwledydd 176, 178, 187, 194; cantref/cantrefi 176, 179, 187, 194; cwmwd/cymydau 176, 179, 187, 194; maenor/maenorau 179, 188, 194; gwestfa/gwestfau 179, 194; parish 176, 179, 187; see also under Dialects C Central Vowels, see under Vowels Charts, consonant 41, 83; vowel 55, 58, 59, 61, 92 Clusters, fricative + stops 42; experimental data 13, 15; VOT 16; aspiration in 16; analysis of 42, 62; homorganic/non-homorganic 43; see also under Phonotactic constraints Consonants, the consonantal phonemes 40, 81, 83; see also under Affricates, Clusters, Fricatives, Glides, Liquids, Nasals, Plosives D Dialects, geographical/social factors in 199-205; correlation with administrative boundaries 176-87, 197-9; transitions 180, 192-3; lexical diffusion 192;

sigmoid curves 192-3; [a]/[e] boundary 188, 189-94; dialects of: North East 189-94; North West 203; South East 51, 85; Mid Wales 72, 75; Morgannwg 180-2; South Glamorgan 208-34; Ystrad Tywi 183-6; Carnwyllion 184-5; Ceredigion 186; South Cardigan 79; Pembrokeshire 100, North Pembroke 79; Patagonia 238 Diphthongs, of South Welsh 90, 92, distribution 57-8; articulation 58-60; of North Welsh 60-1, 90-2; phonemic analysis of 94-8; dialect variation 59 Distinctive features, of vowels 23, 31-5, 106, 109 F Fricatives, voicing of 13, 18-20, 46; frication, duration of 18-20, 46; perceptual cues for identification of 18, 20; articulation of 46-7; distribution of 48; labio-dental 45-6, endo/exolabial 46; dental 46; alveolar 46; palato-alveolar 47; lateral 46; velar 47; uvular 47; glottal 45, 47, 85, 104, prosodic status of 235, pharyngalisation of 47-8 Formants 29-30, 52 Fortis/Lenis, effects on vowel duration 9-13; see also under Plosives G Glides, unrounded palatal 52, articulation of 52, distribution of 52; labio-velar 52,

articulation of 52, distribution of 52-3 I Intonation, tonality 125, 127; information unit 125; tone group 125, isochrony of 130, boundary of 126, 129-30, structure of 128, tonic syllable in 128, pretonic syllable 128, information prominence at pretonic 142-4, proclitic syllable 128, post-tonic syllable 128;

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Intonation (contd) tonic foot 129-30; tonicity, marked/unmarked 131; focus, information 132-142; pitch peak 142-3, 154; tone 145-6, function of 146-8, marked/unmarked 146-8; key 148-52 L Language Death 210 Linguistic Interference, from English 49, 102 from Spanish 247 Linguistic Variables, Mutations, Soft 221-28, Spirant 216-20, 253, 255-6, Nasal 220-21, 250, 255-6; velar fricative 247; palato-alveolar fricative 247, 248-9; voiceless plosives 247-8; central vowel 247, 249; glottal fricative 250-2; voiceless trill 250-1 Liquids, lateral, alveolar non-fricative 48-9, pharyngalisation of 47, 62, 'dark' and 'clear' l 48-9; trills, alveolar voiced and voiceless 49-50; post-alveolar frictionless continuant 49; post-alveolar fricative 49; alveolar flap 49; uvular roll 50, tafod tew 50 M Mutation, consonantal, types of: Soft 40, 214-5; Spirant 40, 213; Nasal 40, 213-4; radical/base/citation forms 19, 40; secondary forms 40; experimental data (Nasal) 6-8, 51; acquisition of 168-74; in South Glamorgan Welsh 216-28, changes in 224, spread of Soft Mutation 224-6, 232; acquisition of mutation rules 168-74; vocalic, see under Vowels, alternation

N Nasals, voiced, articulation and distribution of 50-1; voiceless 51, experimental evidence on 51; bilabial 50; dental 50; alveolar 50; velar 50 P Phonemes, consonantal, see Consonants vocalic, see Vowels; diphthongal, see Diphthongs half contrasts in 63 Phonology, abstract vs. concrete 5-6; surface structure/underlying structure 105-22; acquisition of 156-74, social context 157-9, stages of development 160-1, fifty word stage 160, variation 161-2, Welsh and other languages 162-5, substitution processes 164, analytical ability of children 165-8, morphophonology 166-8, displaced contrasts 168 Phonotactic Constraints, on Consonants 81-5, restrictions on stops, see also under Provection, restrictions on /h/ 85, 104; consonant clusters, initial 86-7, medial 86-7, final 86-9, word-final restrictions 88-90, epenthesis 89-90, dialect variation 89-90; on Diphthongs, North Welsh 90, 92, 96-7, South Welsh 90, 92, distribution 93, restrictions on 93-4, phonemic interpretation of 94-6; on Glides, distribution of 98-9, in clusters 99-100, dialect variation 100 on Vowels 65-8, vowels and stress 66-70, dialect variation 70-6; the central vowel

76-78,

dialect variation 78-81, 115

Plosives, articulation of 42, 44; voicing of 13, 14-15, 17, 41; voice onset time (VOT) 13-15, 16, 41-2; aspiration 14-15, 41-2; duration of 17; perceptual cues for identification of 12, 18; fortis/lenis 13-14, 41; release stage 43; neutralisation 43, in fricative + plosive clusters 42, see also under Clusters; place of articulation (bilabial, alveolar, dental, velar) 41 Provection, devoicing of medial stops 83-5, 181, 183, 186 S Sampling of Informants 209, 239; stratified and random sampling in bilingual community 240-1 Sociolinguistic variables, setting and interlocutor 209-10; social class 210; group status 211; language use 211-13, decrease in language use, correlatable with decline of linguistic variables 219-21, 224, 227, 234; age 241-6; education 238-9, 241; culture 238-9, 242; religion 238-9, 241; prestige linguistic variety 210 Spectrography, evidence in: Nasal mutation 7, 51; vowel duration 10, 12; VOT initial plosives 15; VOT fricative + plosive clusters 16; duration of final plosives 17; fricatives, initial 18-19, fricatives, final 19-20; North Welsh vowels 21-31 Stress, lexical 53, 117-18, 121; tied 53; on ultima 53; rules for stress

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assignment 117-18; see also under Phonotactic Constraints, vowels and stress. V Vowels, the vocalic phonemes: (see also under Diphthongs), the unit vowels 53, articulation of 54-6; vowel quantity, phonemic status of 9-10, 12, 53, 57, 64; distribution of 54, 57, 65-71; dialect variation 56-7, palatalisation of front vowel 56, 180; North Welsh 21-31 (see also under Spectrography), distinctive features of 23, 31, formants 29-31, X-ray study of 25-8; central vowels (high) 21, 24, 25, 105, central rounded/unrounded, merger of 63, 109, underlying structure of 107-9, articulation of (photographic and X-ray studies) 22-8; central vowel

105

(see also under Phonotactic Constraints and Vowels, alternation) alternation 105-23, context of 110-12, rules for 113-15, raising to

119-20

W Welsh, Standard 264-6, Literary 262-4, Official 267-9; varieties of, prestige/high 210, careful/formal 246, reading style 246-7, according to age 247; legal status of 267-8; orthography of 266 See also under Dialects, Linguistic Variables, Sociolinguistic Variables

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