Insular Celtic Research Articles

The rise of gemination in Celtic

This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate consonants as a phonological class in the Celtic branch of Indo-European. The approach of this study is comparative historical linguistics, drawing on diachronic structuralism combined with aspects of language contact studies and functional approaches to language usage. This study traces the development of geminates from Proto-Indo-European (fourth millennium B.C.), which did not allow geminate consonants, to the Common Celtic period (first millennium B.C.), when almost every consonant could occur as a singleton or as a geminate, and on to the earliest attested stages of the Insular Celtic languages (first millennium A.D.). Although they were prominent in the phonology of Proto- and Ancient Celtic (Gaulish, Celtiberian), ultimately geminates were gotten rid of as a phonological class in the individual Insular Celtic languages. This is probably due to the fact that the contrast between lenited and unlenited sounds took on a central role in Insular Celtic phonology, making gemination a phonetically redundant category. Most instances of geminate consonants in Celtic can be explained by regular sound change operating on inherited clusters of consonants. Each sound change will be discussed in a separate section in a rough chronological order. Effectively, gemination is largely a strategy to reduce the number of allowed consonant combinations. To a limited degree, gemination also had a morphological function, especially in the formation of personal names and in the creation of adjectival neologisms. However, there is a residue of words, especially nouns, in the Insular Celtic languages that defy any attempt at etymologising. They are prime suspects of having been borrowed from prehistoric, substratal languages.

The rise of gemination in Celtic.

This study investigates systematically the emergence and establishment of geminate conson-ants as a phono-logical class in the Celtic branch of Indo-European. The approach of this study is comparative historical linguistics, drawing on diachronic structuralism combined with aspects of language contact studies and functional approaches to language usage. This study traces the development of geminates from Proto-Indo-European (fourth millennium b.c.), which did not allow geminate consonants, to the Common Celtic period (first millennium b.c.), when almost every consonant could occur as a singleton or as a geminate, and on to the earliest attested stages of the Insular Celtic languages (1 st millennium a.d.). Although they were prominent in the phonology of Proto- and Ancient Celtic (Gaulish, Celtiberian), ultimately geminates were gotten rid of as a phonological class in the individual Insular Celtic languages. This is probably due to the fact that the contrast between lenited and unlenited sounds took on a central role in Insular Celtic phonology, making gemination a redundant category. Most instances of geminate consonants in Celtic can be explained by regular sound change operating on inherited clusters of consonants. Each sound change will be discussed in a separate section in a rough chronological order. Effectively, gemination is largely a strategy to reduce the number of allowed consonant combinations. To a limited degree, gemination also had a morphological function, especially in the formation of personal names and in the creation of adjectival neologisms. However, there is a residue of words, especially nouns, in the Insular Celtic languages that defy any attempt at etymologising. They are prime suspects of having been borrowed from prehistoric, substratal languages.

Bretona-marking of (internal) verbal arguments: A result of language contact?

AbstractWe discuss a potential case of borrowing in this paper: Bretona- ‘of’, ‘from’ marking of (internal) verbal arguments, unique in Insular Celtic languages, and reminiscent of Gallo-Romancede/du- (anden-) arguments. Looking at potential Gallo-Romance parallels of three Middle Breton constructions analyzed in some detail (awith indefinite mass nominals in direct object position,a-marking of internal arguments under the scope of negation,a[allomorphsan(ez)-/ahan-] with personal pronouns for internal arguments, subjects (mainly of predicative constructions) and as expletive subjects of existential constructions), we demonstrate that even if there are some semantic parallels and one strong structural overlap (aanddeunder the scope of negation), the amount of divergences in morphology, syntax and semantics and the only partially fitting relative chronology of the different constructions do not allow to conclude with certainty that language-contact is an explanation of the Breton facts, which might have come into being also because of internal change (bound to restructuring of the pronominal system in Breton). More research is necessary to complete our knowledge ofa-marking in Middle Breton and Modern Breton varieties and on the precise history of Frenchen, in order to decide for one or the other explanation.

Laryngeal Realism and early Insular Celtic orthography

One of the well-known features of early Insular Celtic orthographic practice is that <p t k b d g m> represent [p t k b d g m] in initial position, but [b d g β ð ɣ β/w̃] in post-vocalic position. Kenneth Jackson proposed that this system arose in Britain when Brittonic underwent lenition and British Latin did so, as well. That this is the correct scenario can hardly be doubted and is now received doctrine. But Jackson assumed that Brittonic and British Latin both contrasted their plosive series via the Laryngeal feature [voice], a view that cannot be maintained. This paper draws upon instrumental work conducted upon modern Celtic languages and adopts the approach to phonology known as Laryngeal Realism to propose that, in fact, initial <p t k b d g> in early Insular Celtic languages represent [ph th kh p t k], i.e., they were contrasted via the Laryngeal feature [spread glottis], precisely as in Scottish Gaelic, and that their orthographies are, likewise, directly comparable to Scottish Gaelic.

Metrical systems of Celtic traditions

On the basis of fragmentary evidence from the ancient Celtic languages (e.g., Gaulish), but especially from the rich poetic heritage of the medieval Insular Celtic languages (e.g., Old Irish, Middle Welsh), the poetic terminology reconstructable for Common Celtic is presented. The possible metrical remains from ancient Celtic are reviewed and an attempt is made to identify their principles of versification. The characteristics of the medieval Irish and medieval British systems of versification are described. Finally, the question of the genetic relationship of ancient and medieval Celtic versification is discussed, and the possible relationship of Celtic with neighbouring Germanic, especially medieval Scandinavian, traditions is briefly reviewed.

On the history and prehistory of the Old Irish passive ending -ar

Abstract This paper proposes a diachronic explanation of the Old Irish (OIr.) passive ending -ar (to quote the conjunct form) in terms of a particular Insular Celtic (IC) innovation. After a description of the OIr. passive in which paradigmatic structure, basic and secondary functions and allomorphic distribution are addressed, I review some recent hypotheses which derive OIr. -ar from a specific Proto-Indo- European ending *-o, and conclude that the problems raised by such a basic assumption justify the search for an alternative account. This alternative proposal grants precedence to the specific lexical distribution of OIr. passive endings -ar and -thar, and establishes a direct diachronic link between that lexical distribution and that of strong and weak passive preterite stems respectively. Those innovations must be considered as Proto-Insular Celtic and explain perfectly the Brittonic situation.

The Phonetics and Phonology of Rhotics in Modern Irish

This paper examines the phonology and phonetics of rhotics in Modern Irish. Descriptions of the Old Irish language posit four distinct rhotic phonemes, differentiated along the axes fortis-lenis and broad-slender, the same oppositions being relevant also for laterals and coronal nasals. However, descriptions of modern Goidelic dialects typically posit two or three distinct rhotic phenomes. While the distribution and nature of sonorant contrasts has featured strongly in discussions about sound change and phonological patterning in the Insular Celtic languages, there has been little empirical study into the synchronic status of sonorants in contemporary Irish, a point this paper aims to address.

Standard Average European and the Western Fringe – a Reconsideration

The concept of Standard Average European Sprachbund is one of the most influential and widely known within the field of areal linguistics. According to its advocates, the standard written varieties of the major European languages have become increasingly similar through a series of convergent developments, which took place during the great migrations and the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The languages located at the Western fringe of Europe, i.e. Insular Celtic languages and Basque, display but very few SAE-features and appear to have taken little or no part in this convergence process. The present article will examine the Insular Celtic and Basque features to demonstrate that these languages show more convergent developments than is admitted by the SAEhypothesis. In addition, the diachronic dimension of the SAE will be discussed by dating the emergence of the features within the individual languages. The results of this analysis seriously question both the socio-historic scenario and the time-frame proposed for these developments

Daughter ~ Maiden ~ Maidservant: Dynamics of Semantic Shift from Continental Celtic to Insular Celtic Vocabulary

The old Indo-European word for ‘daughter’ (*dhugH [Szemerenyi 1977: 21] or *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr [Mallory, Adams 2006: 472]) survives in all major branches of daughter-languages except Albanian, Italian (but cf. Osc. futír?) and Insular Celtic. OI der ‘daughter, girl’ and der- in compound names represents a reduced form of old I.-E. word [O’Brien 1956: 178], “an allegro-form” [Matasović 2009: 110]. Continental Celtic has a well-known Gaulish duxtir (Larzac tablet) and Celtiberian TuaTe[r]es/TuaTeros (Bottorita inscription II) supposed to have the same old I.-E. meaning ‘daughter’ (?, cf. ‘jeune fille initiée’ [Lejeune 1985: 133], cf. also [Sims-Williams 2007: 3]). At the same time, another I.-E. term for ‘girl, woman’ is also attested and even widely used in Gaulish: *ġenh₁ ‘bear, generate’ [IEW: 373 ff.] &gt; Gaul. geneta, genata, gneta, nata [Delamarre 2003: 177, 181] with supposed meaning ‘young girl, young woman, servant (?)’. Cf. also Osc. genetaí ‘daughter’. Insular Celtic conserved this I.-E. root in W. geneth ‘girl’ (with merch ‘daughter’), OI gen ‘woman, girl’ (a rare word of glossaries, see DIL: gen-2) and OI ingen ‘1.girl; 2.daughter’ (ousted in MI by cailín in this first meaning). The loss of I.-E. word of ‘daughter’ both in British and Goidelic could be explained by the special institute of fosterage existing in Early Ireland and Wales (cf. OI aite and muimme ‘foster-father’ and ‘foster-mother’, “intimate forms have been transferred to the fosterparents” [Kelly 1988: 86] and the use of dalta ‘foster-child’ with the meaning ‘daughter’ in Modern Irish dialects). But we suppose, this loss of I.-E. kinship term represents a part of so called “linguistic revolution” of Insular Celtic languages in early centuries AD, a “revolution” provoked by some social changes. The semantic shift ‘girl’ — ‘daughter’ — ‘servant’ (as well as ‘boy’ — ‘son’ — ‘servant’) represents a universalia (or frequentalia), attested in many languages (cf. [Zalizniak 2008]). Cf. Czech dĕvice, Paul. dziewa ‘girl’, but Luj. dźowka ‘daughter’ and Czech naše holka ‘our girl = daughter’; Russ. devochka ‘girl’ used in the meaning ‘daughter’ and, at the same time, dochka ‘daughter’ used in the meaning ‘girl’ in popular speech. The semantic development in this case is not ‘evolutional’ but of two-way one, or bilateral, that is: ‘girl’ ↔ ‘daughter’ (and ↔ ‘servant’). Cf. the etymology of I.-E. *dhuĝ(h₂)-tḗr proposed (with some doubt) by J.Mallory: from *dhug- ‘meal’, ‘the person who prepares the meals’ [Mallory and Adams 1997: 148]. Servant again! Cf. also Russ. rab ‘slave’ and rebenok ‘child’.

Loanwords in Welsh: Frequency Analysis on the Basis of Cronfa Electronaeg o Gymraeg

The Welsh language adopted words from several languages, the most important being Latin, Norman French and English. As noted by Prof. Hildegard Tristram, the issues of English influence on the Insular Celtic languages did not receive due attention because of political undercurrents of the British Isles [Tristram 2002: 258]. The research of T.H. Parry-Williams [Parry-Williams 1924] still remains the main work on the subject. The prevailing view of the Welsh-speaking community on this topic can be seen in the name of a series of articles in the Mabon journal during the 1970s: Sut i beidio ag ysgrifennu Saesneg yn Gymraeg (How not to write English in Welsh) (e.g. [Roberts 1973]). This prescriptivism is avoided mainly in dialectal and code-switching studies, which cannot be prescriptive by definition, but still there are many issues awaiting description. In our paper we would like to present the result of our research, in which we analyse loanwords in two Welsh corpora. The first should be more precisely called a text massive, as only a part of it is available electronically yet. It consists of the 11 texts of the Mabinogi in the broader, Lady Charlotte Guest’s, sense and represents a classical sample of the Middle Welsh prose language. The second is the Bangor corpus of the Modern Welsh language. Selecting the loanwords in the top 1000 of the most frequent words in both corpora and comparing those two lists provides ideas on the English/Latin loanwords ratio in the language, their place in the whole vocabulary, and the correlation between Middle and Modern Welsh. Taking into account the less frequent loanwords allows refining the results.

A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales. Volume II: South-West Wales

A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales. Volume II: South-West Wales, by Nancy Edwards. ( Cardiff: U. of Wales P., 2007; pp. 568. £70). This splendid volume, one of three planned to cover the whole of Wales, is an important work of scholarship which gives historians, archaeologists, linguists and epigraphers access to one of the most important collections of early medieval sculpture in Europe. This Welsh material is of fundamental importance to our understanding of the development of the Insular Celtic languages, at a period from the fifth to seventh centuries when the Brittonic (Welsh) and Goidelic (Gaelic) branches were undergoing rapid fission. The stones also represent the major body of artefactual evidence for the early medieval period in Wales, given the continuing difficulty in discovering archaeological sites of the period. This volume is a truly interdisciplinary study, combining art historical, archaeological and linguistic approaches. Although based on the format of the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, the volume pays special attention to the language of the inscriptions (with a chapter by Patrick Sims-Williams), and their landscape context. A series of eleven introductory chapters detail the historical, archaeological and geological background, followed by a series on aspects of the inscribed stones and sculpture, the inscriptions, and finally a summarising chapter on the development of stone-carving in Wales. These chapters are all extremely useful, giving sound analyses of the material, in much greater depth than in the Anglo-Saxon Corpus. For this reviewer, highlights included: a discussion of the original locations of the early inscribed stones, most of which can be shown to be associated with churches, in contrast to north Wales, and thus often provide the earliest evidence for these sites; illustration that the roman-letter inscriptions are not derived from Roman lapidary capitals and later Continental uncial book-hand, but from the general late-Roman cursive tradition and a range of lesser scripts; the definitive decoupling of the famous Voteporix stone from Gildas’ tyrant Vorptipor; and the discussion of the location of the cross-carved stones which are shown to be associated with parish churches rather than important monasteries, and demonstrate the early medieval origins of the parish system in this area. However, the meat of the volume lies in the catalogue of 216 monuments. These are well presented, with excellent photographs of all the decorated faces, often taken using modern lighting techniques. There are outline drawings of all the inscriptions, along with a selection of the decorated sculpture. The entries on each stone are of the highest quality, with comprehensive critical discussion of any antiquarian accounts (often important in preserving lost information), the language and epigraphy of the inscriptions, and the decorative elements. The production of the volume cannot be faulted, though one might have expected some colour illustrations. The eight pages of comparative scale drawings of a large number of the stones, following the model of the Scottish Royal Commission's corpus of the West Highland sculpture, are particularly useful. The entries are organised by county and parish but, unless one is familiar with the location of every Welsh parish (these are not shown on any map), it is difficult to locate individual stones on the maps. It might have been better to have used the catalogue numbers on the location maps, and also on the page headers for ease of cross-referencing. Given the current debate on the best means of recording and presenting these complex three-dimensional monuments, the one surprising omission is any discussion of the recording methods employed. It is not clear whether the outline drawings of the inscriptions were prepared independently or under supervision, why only some of the other stones were drawn, or why the fully shaded drawings used by the Scottish Royal Commission were not employed. Cost was no doubt a major factor in these decisions, but some acknowledgment that there are alternatives, and that these can affect the interpretation of the monument, would have been welcome. The difficulties of carrying out this work cannot be overestimated. Most of the monuments are in remote rural locations, often in locked or disused churches, some requiring complicated negotiations to gain access, as well as co-ordination of access between the geologists, photographers and illustrators. Many months of fieldwork were required, and Dr Edwards is to be commended for her dedication to this project. The Board of Celtic Studies, the National Museum of Wales, and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales are to be congratulated on supporting this venture. Overall, this volume is an outstanding achievement and an essential work of scholarship and reference for anyone with an interest in early medieval Britain.

Standard Average European and the Celticity of English intensifiers and reflexives: some considerations and implications

My contribution explores the potential of Standard Average European (SAE) as a methodological yardstick for the assessment of the Celticity of Standard English (SE), i.e. the degree to which SE may have been influenced by Insular Celtic languages. SAE allows a quantification of the extent to which SE differs from other SAE languages and at the same time shows similarities with Insular Celtic languages which are generally thought to deviate from SAE. The concept of SAE will be introduced and a complex test case will be analyzed: the rise of identical reflexives and intensifiers and the frequency of ‘labile’ verbs, e.g. to break both intransitive and transitive, in English. Reflexives and intensifiers are identical in Insular Celtic, but separate categories in SAE. According to Haspelmath (1993), labile verbs are unusually frequent in English by SAE standards, and they are also very frequent in Insular Celtic. It will be shown that the frequency of labile verbs in SE and Insular Celtic results from the identity of reflexives and intensifiers in these languages. Since the frequency of labile verbs thus can be shown to be a typologically secondary phenomenon, it is the rise of the new system of identical reflexives and intensifiers in SE which is methodologically the relevant linguistic subsystem within the complex test case for which Insular Celtic influence can be proposed and which can be adduced as an argument in favor of the Celtic hypothesis. For the assessment of the Celtic hypothesis, it will therefore be rewarding to complement the initial comparison of SE and Insular Celtic with further data from SAE and general typology whenever the linguistic subsystems under scrutiny allows the inclusion of such data.

Special issue on Re-evaluating the Celtic hypothesis

Present-day historians of English are widely agreed that, throughout its recorded history, the English language has absorbed linguistic influences from other languages, most notably Latin, Scandinavian, and French. What may give rise to differing views is the nature and extent of these influences, not the existence of them. Against the backdrop of this unanimity, it seems remarkable that there is one group of languages for which no such consensus exists, despite a close coexistence between English and these languages in the British Isles spanning more than one and a half millennia. This group is, of course, the Insular Celtic languages, comprising the Brittonic subgroup of Welsh and Cornish and the Goidelic one comprising Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic. The standard wisdom, repeated in textbooks on the history of English such as Baugh and Cable (1993), Pyles &amp; Algeo (1993), and Strang (1970), holds that contact influences from Celtic have always been minimal and are mainly limited to Celtic-origin place names and river names and a mere handful of other words. Thus, Baugh &amp; Cable (1993: 85) state that ‘outside of place-names the influence of Celtic upon the English language is almost negligible’; in a similar vein, Strang (1970) writes that ‘the extensive influence of Celtic can only be traced in place-names’ (1970: 391).

The Question of a Hamito‐Semitic Substratum in Insular Celtic

AbstractThe hypothesis of a Hamito‐Semitic (or Afro‐Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito‐Semitic is enjoying a revival. Linguists have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito‐Semitic are to be explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type). However, recent work by Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis. This article presents the main contributions on the question, provides a table showing the principal points of similarity by author and language, briefly comments on each of these points, and, regretting the reluctance of substratalists to consider typological explanations, sounds a note of caution against what might be termed ‘substratum frenzy’.

O pochodzeniu łacińskich przysłówków zakończonych na -iter

The origin of the Latin adverbs ending with -iter remains unclear. They derived primitively not only from adjectives of the third declension, but also from many adjectives of declensions I and II (cf. Leumann 1963: 299; Hartleb-Kropidlo 1999). Researchers did not take into account the possibility that the Latin suffix -iter (typical of adverbs) may be genetically identical with the Celtic suffix *-itri- , which characterizes the so called EQUATIVE degree (Lat. aequativus ) of the adjectives in the Insular Celtic languages. Most Indo-European languages do not demonstrate such an adjectival formation. It is traditionally suggested that the Celtic languages introduced a grammatical innovation. Also the Latin adverbs ending with -iter appear to be absent in different Indo-European languages. However, it is possible to demonstrate that these two formations (attested in Latin and Celtic, respectively) are genetically related. The Insular Celtic adjective has three degrees of comparison: the equative, the comparative and the superlative (Pokorny 1914: 71–72; Thurneysen 1980: 232). The degree of equality is realized by an adjective with the suffix *-itri- (hence OIr. –ithir , -idir ), which is followed by the accusative of the noun. The equative denotes that the person or thing referred to possesses a certain quality in THE SAME degree as that with which he or it is compared. The latter is put in the accusative case(e.g. gilithir gruth ‘as white as milk [acc.]’) or expressed by a conjuctionless clause, e.g. OIr. soilsidir bid hi lugburt ‘as bright (as if) it were in a garden’; is firithir ad fiadar ‘it is as true (as) is reported’ (Thurneysen 1980: 232). Further examples: OIr. denithir ‘as hasty, as swift’ (< OIr. dian ‘hasty, swift’); demnithir ‘as certain’ (< demin ‘certain’); erlamaidir ‘as ready’ (< erlam ‘ready’); firithir ‘as true’ (< fir ‘true’ = Lat. vērus ); lerithir ‘as eager, as diligent’ (< ler ‘eager, diligent’); lethithir , lethidir ‘as broad’ (< lethan ‘broad’); remithir ‘as thick’ (< remur ‘thick’); soirbithir , soirbidir ‘as easy’ (< soirb ‘easy’); suthainidir ‘as lasting’ (< suthain ‘lasting’); tresithir ‘as strong’ (< tren ‘strong’); Middle Welsh gwennet ‘as white’ (< gwenn ‘white’), kynduhet ‘as black’ (< du ‘black’). According to the present author, the equative existed in Proto-Indo-European and it was created by the suffix * - teros (in the central area) and also *-itri- (in the western area). The Latin adverbs ending with -iter was used to create a similaritative formula, which seems analogous to the equative degree of adjective in the Insular Celtic languages.

A NEW CONJECTURE ON THE ORIGINS OF ABSOLUTE AND CONJUNCT FLEXION

The distinction in the Insular Celtic languages between absolute and con junct flexion arose out of the same syntactic and morphological patterns as underlie the grammars of all Indo-European languages. The Proto-Indo European verb could be in marked, sentence-initial position, for 'emphasis' (focus, foregrounding, vel sim.), in which case it was accented, or in unmarked, sentence-medial or final position, in which case, in main clauses, it was unaccented. In some phase of prehistoric Celtic, an apocope rule affected inherited short final *-e and *-/ in unaccented words. Non-initial verbs, being unaccented, underwent this apocope, giving rise to Insular Celtic conjunct forms. Initial verbs, being accented, did not undergo this apocope, giving rise to absolute forms. The recent publication of The Origins and Development of the Insular Celtic Verbal Complex by Kim McCone provides a welcome restatement of one of the theories of the development of the distinction between absolute and conjunct flexion in the Insular Celtic languages, amongst other matters.1 In a number of previous publications addressing related matters, I have expressed agreement with the underlying principles of McCone's theory.2 McCone's crucial insight has been that the system of absolute and conjunct flexion is derivable from given syntactic, morphological and phonological patterns of the proto-language without the need to conjecture unusual use of any of the morphology,3 or a remarkable particle, various types of which have been posited.4 The present note continues to uphold the derivational principle as just stated, while conjecturing a difference in the detail of exactly how that principle operated. I start by presenting a pared-down schematic representation of the essence of McCone's theory (a more detailed presentation, in accord ance with McCone's own terms, will be reproduced for argument's sake further below). The basis of the developments is the distinction between the presence and absence of enclitics (whether pronouns or particles of various types) in association with simple initial verbs or verbs with some 1 McCone (2006), building on arguments presented most notably in McCone (1979,1982, 1985,1994). 2 e.g. Isaac (1993,26; 1996,405; implicitly, 2000b). 3 PIE primary vs secondary flexion, e.g. Meid (1963),Watkins (1963). 4 e.g. Cowgill (1975), Kortlandt (1979, 1994), Schrijver (1994, 1997), Schumacher (1999, 2004). Such theories are discussed at length by McCone in his book, so will not be touched upon further here. ?riu LVii (2007) 49-60 ? Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 207.46.13.113 on Thu, 06 Oct 2016 04:14:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

A NEW CONJECTURE ON THE ORIGINS OF ABSOLUTE AND CONJUNCT FLEXION

The distinction in the Insular Celtic languages between absolute and conjunct flexion arose out of the same syntactic and morphological patterns as underlie the grammars of all Indo-European languages. The Proto-Indo-European verb could be in marked, sentence-initial position, for 'emphasis' (focus, foregrounding, vel sim.), in which case it was accented, or in unmarked, sentence-medial or final position, in which case, in main clauses, it was unaccented. In some phase of prehistoric Celtic, an apocope rule affected inherited short final *-e and *-i in unaccented words. Non-initial verbs, being unaccented, underwent this apocope, giving rise to Insular Celtic conjunct forms. Initial verbs, being accented, did not undergo this apocope, giving rise to absolute forms.

A Source Book for Irish English (review)

Reviewed by: A source book for Irish English by Raymond Hickey Joseph F. Eska A source book for Irish English. By Raymond Hickey. (Library and information sources in linguistics 27.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. Pp. xii, 541 & CD-ROM. ISBN 1588112098. $150 (Hb). This volume is intended to offer easy access to both linguistic and nonlinguistic references to those [End Page 839] interested in Irish English (also commonly known as Hiberno-English). An enormous amount of information is provided, making the book of great value to individuals approaching the subject matter for the first time as well as to specialists. Those concerned especially with dialectology, sociolinguistics, and language contact phenomena will find much of interest in its pages. The first section (1–32) provides an outline of the history of the English language in Ireland (starting in the late twelfth century) and examines early documents of the language from the late twelfth to the late sixteenth century. The second section (33–55) briefly discusses the issues with which scholars of Irish English have principally concerned themselves and provides some exemplary references. These include the identification of Irish English; its history; the debate over whether characteristic features of the variety are retentions or result from contact with Irish Gaelic; attitudes about Irish English; studies of its phonetic, phonological, and syntactic properties; subvarieties of Irish English; the variety as depicted in literature; and relationships abroad. The third section (57–457) is an annotated bibliography of 3443 linguistic (and some relevant nonlinguistic) publications that appeared up to late 2000 and bear upon the study of Irish English. It is subdivided into the general themes of ‘English in Ireland’; ‘Extraterritorial varieties’, including English in other historically Celtic-speaking areas, North America, and elsewhere; ‘Additional languages’ (i.e. the Insular Celtic languages and Norse, Flemish, Anglo Norman, Shelta, Polari, and Romani); ‘General references’ on nonlinguistic topics; and ‘Collections’ (i.e. collected volumes on a wide range of subjects). The annotations are very helpful, though sometimes colored by H’s own views. Not every item is annotated, and some do not provide complete bibliographical information. The volume is rounded out with a series of appendices, an index of authors cited, an explanation of the software found on the accompanying CD-ROM, and a shortish list of some items that appeared or were presented too late in the publication process to be included in the bibliography proper. The CD-ROM contains the bibliographic databases and annotations and a variety of software programs for managing them. It can be run under Microsoft Windows 98 or a subsequent version. Also included are a variety of help texts and reference files in .rtf format, along with further additional bibliographic items published too late to appear in the printed volume (readers are referred to H’s homepage for an up-to-date supplement to the printed bibliography). This volume and CD-ROM will be of great value to scholars of Irish English and related areas. Joseph F. Eska Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Copyright © 2003 Linguistic Society of America

Dictionary of Celtic religion and culture

Containing more than 1000 articles, this dictionary is in effect a wide-ranging survey of important aspects of Celtic religion and culture, covering both the prehistoric continental Celts and the later medieval culture that found written form long after the Celts had settled in the British Isles. Articles in the book also cover the interaction between Celtic and Roman civilizations, and the seminal input of medieval Celtic legend into the Arthurian tradition. The continental and insular Celtic languages, both ancient and modern, are described, and there is an account of the Celtic deities known to us from the inscriptions and iconography of the classical world. Celtic art and agriculture, the Ossian myth, the Irish renaissance, and the history of Celtic studies, are among other topics studied in detail. Containing more than 1000 articles, this dictionary is in effect a wide-ranging survey of important aspects of Celtic religion and culture, covering both the prehistoric continental Celts and the later medieval culture that found written form long after the Celts had settled in the British Isles.

The Celtic languages Edited by Donald MacAulay (review)

REVIEWS565 The Celtic languages. Edited by Donald MacAulay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pp. xvii, 466. Reviewed by Nancy Stenson, University of Minnesota The ninth book in the Cambridge University Press Language Surveys series deals with the six Insular Celtic languages, with greatest attention given to the four languages surviving as community vernaculars—Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Breton, and Welsh—and shorter chapters on Cornish and Manx. The intent is to provide a descriptive overview of each modern language, a goal which is on the whole successfully achieved. The opening chapter, 'The Celtic languages: An overview', by Donald MacAulay (1-8), surveys the establishment of the Celts in their modern-day territories, their linguistic affiliations, and a few noteworthy typological features common to all the languages. Except for brief mention in the overview, Continental Celtic, or Gaulish, is not covered in this volume. The remaining chapters are 'The Irish language', by Cathair Ó Dochartaigh (11-99); 'The Manx language', by Robert L. Thomson (100-36); 'The Scottish Gaelic language', by Donald MacAulay (137-248); 'The Welsh language', by Alan R. Thomas (251-345); 'The Cornish language', by Alan R. Thomas (346-70); and 'The Breton language' by Elmar Ternes (371-452). Each chapter begins with fairly extensive, valuable sections entitled 'Historical and social perspective', covering external history of each language, areal distribution, sociolinguistic status, and dialect variation. Remaining sections are grouped under the headings 'Syntax ' (with subsections covering such topics as sentence types, word order, ellipsis, tense, aspect, and modality) 'Structure of the phrase' (constituentlevel syntax, with sections on NP, VP, and PP), 'Morphology' (inflectional and derivational), 'Sound system' (consonants, vowels, syllable structure, stress, pitch, and intonation), and 'Morphophonology' (mainly initial mutations, and a few language-specific alternations). The major strength of the volume is its presentation of comparative data for the six languages, since the grammatical information for any given language is readily available elsewhere, often in more detail. For a brief overview of the grammars, however, there is an advantage to having all six available in a single volume, with easy cross-reference, and this is what the book aims to provide. Chapters are arranged in parallel format, so that one can either read through all sections on a single language or find the six parallel sections on, say, inflected prepositions, or 'be', or vowel inventories, for immediate comparison. Some flexibility was permitted in following the chapter outlines, and this affects crosslanguage comparability in certain sections. Some departures from the common organization are justified by differences among the languages or by the lesser availability of data for Manx and Cornish, but others are harder to explain, such as the extensive reordering of the syntax sections in the Breton chapter and the complete absence of sections on ellipsis, aspect, complementation, and modality in Breton. The organizational structure itself sometimes obscures comparability. Authors clearly did not interpret all section titles uniformly, so that similar headings sometimes contain very different material, and similar 566LANGUAGE, VOLUME 70, NUMBER 3 (1994) phenomena across languages may appear in different sections. Thus, the subsection on noun morphology labelled 'Inherent classes' discusses gender in the Irish chapter and count/mass/collective distinctions in the Brittonic languages, and is omitted altogether from the Manx and Scottish Gaelic chapters, although the latter has separate sections for both gender and countability. Similarly, the syntax sections 'Parataxis and hypotaxis' all cover coordination (with and without overt conjunctions), but the Irish, Gaelic, and Breton chapters also briefly mention various forms of subordination. Ternes (Breton) and MacAulay (Gaelic) discuss the construction called 'absolute' in Breton (and introducing a nonfinite verb or verbless predicate) in this section, but the analogous construction in Irish is dealt with in the section 'Other sentential features'. The 'Verb phrases' section also produces very different results from language to language. The VP is variously identified as consisting of finite verb plus subject (Irish), auxiliary, verb, and inflection (Welsh), all major sentence constituents (Manx), and the verbal noun plus object of progressive constructions (Gaelic). Breton, the one language analyzed as SVO and thus easily describable in terms of VPs, has the longest section, covering a variety of verbal syntactic phenomena not mentioned for the other languages or covered elsewhere. Parallel structure...