[Spellyans] worthy

[Jon Mills]

That's a possibility, in which case we might have 3 legitimate spellings for this item in order to include <gwef>. Alternatively, the attested <u>s in this item might be reinterpreted as <v>s, pronounced [v]. And since <w>, <u> and <v> are in free variation in the Middle Cornish texts, the <w>s might also represent [v]. <gweff> is attested in Pascon aga Arluth (95), so there is no reason to think that this might be a late development.
 Ol an gwella,
 Jon

----- Original Message -----
From: nicholas williams
Sent: 07/15/11 02:11 PM
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] worthy

I suspect that gwef is a back formation on the basis of the comparative. In *gwywha, *gwewha the -h- of the suffix devoiced the w, which
between vowels was pronounced as a bilabial [f]. From this the simplex gwef was extracted.

Nicholas

 On 2011 Gor 15, at 13:49, Jon Mills wrote:
 If we consider the presence of final <-f> and <ff>, should the the final phoneme not be a fricative, /v/ ?
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