[Spellyans] treven as the plural of chy

Craig Weatherhill craig at agantavas.org
Wed Dec 31 19:23:46 GMT 2008


I always use tavarn (-arn, not -ern)rather than dewotty which, as  
Nicholas says, is an unecessary invention.  However, I have always  
translated "shoppa', found in several place-names, as "workshop",  
rather than the retail variety.

Craig

On 31 Kev 2008, at 12:48, nicholas williams wrote:

> It has recently been suggested that treven may be a singulative, and  
> not therefore be the plural of chy 'house'.
> There can be no doubt that treven is indeed the suppletive plural of  
> chy. Here are some examples:
>
> Neb a garra y das po y vam, y vab po y virth, chy, trevyn po  
> tyrryow, moy agesa ve, y myth crist 'Who ever loves his father or  
> mother, his son or his daughter, house, houses or land more than me,  
> says Christ…' TH 21a
> Ke oagoaze tha e drevon ha bethow why looan 'Draw unto his houses  
> and be joyful'  Thomas Boson (translation of Psalm 100)
> Na dale deiw gwell treaven war an treath 'You ought not build houses  
> on the sand' John Jenkins
> Domus…An house, a lodging, a dwelling… C. Tshyi [plur Treven] Lhuyd  
> AB: 55c.
>
> The form *chyow (KS *chiow) is unattested.
>
> Treven is probably indeed a singulative of tref, trevow 'town,  
> village'.
> Note:
> ha gensy y feth tra dek  maners trefov castylly 'and with her there  
> will be fine possessions, manors, towns and castles'  BM 304-05  
> (said to Meriasek as an incentive to marry the duke's daughter).
> treven then could be understood as 'a portion of a town > a row of  
> houses > houses'.
> Indeed in this suppletive plural we may see a reflection of the  
> distinctively nucleated settlement
> patterns of Western Cornwall (The element ti, chy is almost wholly  
> absent from toponyms in East Cornwall).
>
> Suppletive plurals are found elsewhere in Cornish.
> The obvious example is tra 'thing', plural taclow, taclennow.
> *Traow is attested twice in Lhuyd, but not anywhere in native Cornish.
> Compare also coscar 'company, lads' as a suppletive plural of maw  
> 'lad'
> in ha parcel a throk coscar 'a bunch of evil lads' BM 2358.
>
> It seems that trevow may itself sometimes be used to refer generally  
> to 'houses' in the plural.
> This is perhaps why Tregear says:
> In delma oll gouernans gwlasow, an pow, an Trevow marras, han trevow  
> trygva…
> 'Thus all governance of kingdoms, the countryside, the towns and the  
> dwelling houses…' TH 25a.
>
> Neither *chiow nor *traow has any place in the revived language.
> Forms in -tiow, -jiow are acceptable in compounds, however, in  
> clâvjiow 'hospitals', bowjiow 'cowsheds'.
> I prefer not to use  it in *arhantty 'bank', *arhantiow, because I  
> prefer bank, bancow; cf. banknota 'bank note' used by
> Caradar in Nebes Whethlow Ber. *Arhantty seems a particularly  
> unhappy coinage by Nance, because arhans
> in Cornish always means 'silver'; the word for 'money' is mona:
>
> Ni venja pea a munna seer John Jenkins
> ha Mona lour gans goz Gureg Williams Gwavas
> Pecunia…Money, coin…C. Monnah Lhuyd AB: 115c.
>
>
> I also prefer shoppa, shoppys 'shop' to *gwerthjy, *gwerthjiow.  
> Shoppa is attested in the toponym
> Ponson Joppa. *Gwerthjy is an invention of Nance's.
> I prefer the attested tavarn (BM, Lhuyd) to *dewotty, again an  
> invention of Nance's.
>
> Nicholas
>
>
>
>
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--
Craig Weatherhill





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