‘Dark’ and ‘Clear’ Y in Medieval Welsh Orthography: Caligula versus Teilo

IF 0.3 4区文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY Pub Date : 2021-06-04 DOI:10.1111/1467-968X.12205

P. Sims‐Williams

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

A famous exception to the ‘phonetic spelling system’ of Welsh is the use of for both /ǝ/ and the retracted high vowel /ɨ(:)/. This double use of was almost universally adopted by c. 1330, when a grammarian labelled /ǝ/ and /ɨ/ as ‘dark y’ and ‘clear y’ and illustrated them with polysyllables such as ystyr /ˈǝstɨr/ ‘meaning’, in which the value of was predictable from the position of in the word. At that time the three-way system of for /i(:)/, ‘dark’ , and ‘clear’ was two centuries old, being first attested in Braint Teilo (‘The Privilege of St Teilo’), c. 1130. Yet the ‘Teilo’ system is rarely attested before c. 1300; instead all three phonemes might be represented by , as commonly before 1100, or by ; or might be used for /ǝ/ and/or for /ɨ(:)/, as had sometimes occurred in Old Welsh as well. This article argues that one reason, apart from scribal conservatism, for the delay in adopting the ‘Teilo’ system was its failure to distinguish the value of in proclitics such y /ǝ/ ‘the’ and y /ɨ/ ‘his/her’ and ‘to’. For this the ultimately abortive ‘Caligula’ system (c. 1250) had offered a solution.

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中世纪威尔士正形术中的“黑暗”和“清晰”Y：Caligula与Teilo

威尔士语的“语音拼写系统”有一个著名的例外，那就是使用for / /和收放的高元音/ /(:)/。这种双重用法在1330年几乎被普遍采用，当时一位语法学家将/ * /和/ * /标记为“dark y”和“clear y”，并用多音节如ystyr / [ǝst] * r/ ' meaning '来说明它们，其中的值可以从单词中的位置预测。在那个时候，表示/i(:)/， ' dark '和' clear '的三种方式已经有两个世纪的历史了，第一次被证实是在Braint Teilo(《St Teilo的特权》)，大约1130年。然而，“Teilo”系统在公元1300年之前很少得到证实;相反，所有三个音素都可以用来表示，就像1100年之前一样，或者用;or可能被用于/ * /和/或/ *(:)/，就像有时在古威尔士语中发生的那样。本文认为，除了抄写上的保守主义外，延迟采用“Teilo”系统的一个原因是它未能区分诸如y / * / ' the '和y / * / ' his/her '和' to '等政治中的价值。为此，最终流产的“卡利古拉”(Caligula)体系(约1250年)提供了一个解决方案。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS-

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0.90

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0.00%

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期刊介绍： Transactions of the Philological Society continues the earlier Proceedings (1852-53), and is the oldest scholarly periodical devoted to the general study of language and languages that has an unbroken tradition. Transactions reflects a wide range of linguistic interest and contains articles on a diversity of topics: among those published in recent years have been papers on phonology, Romance linguistics, generative grammar, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, Indo-European philology and the history of English.