[Spellyans] gwyw

[Daniel Prohaska]

Nicholas, 
Since ‘half-length’ appears to be such a red rag, one could simply take it as ‘length’, or more peculiarly as ‘non-short’. Note that I didn’t write half-length in the open stressed syllable of a di- or polysyllabic word such as **[ˈgweˑðən], which you, rihtly in my view, criticise for the phonology of Cornish around 1500, but as the phonetic transcription of a monosyllabic word with a w-diphthong in word final position, i.e. byw~bew [beˑʊ] (cf. Lhuyd <vêụ> (2x), <vêu> (2x), <bêụ> (3x), <bêu>, for further examples see my previous post) which I could just as well transcribe [beːw] or [beːʊ]. Lhuyd’s spellings indicate that the nucleus was not short; whether it is analysed as ‘long’ or ‘half-long’ or ‘three-quarter long’ makes no difference. ‘Half-length’ in Brythonic linguistics is, as you stated in CT, merely a variation of ‘long’. 
Dan
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From: spellyans-bounces at kernowek.net [mailto:spellyans-bounces at kernowek.net] 
On Behalf Of nicholas williams
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 3:13 PM
To: Standard Cornish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] gwyw
 
Fiction! There is no half-length in Revived Cornish. Hardly any speaker of RMC has any idea what half-length means.
Go on to Nowodhow an Seythen some time, Dan, and make a note if you hear half-length anywhere.
Quite apart from that we want to avoid anything that separates RMC and RLC speakers.
 
Nicholas 
 
On 2011 Gor 26, at 13:54, Daniel Prohaska wrote:



The SWF/M form <gwiw> has /gwiw/ which is pronounced [gwiˑʊ], while SWF/M <byw> is /bɪw/ pronounced [beˑʊ]. 
 
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