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Aspects of Verbal Noun Constructions in Medieval Irish and Welsh

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Aspects of Verbal Noun Constructions in Medieval Irish and Welsh Aspects of Verbal Noun C onstructions in Medieval Irish and Welsh Aspects of VerbalWith RNounefere nConstructionsce to Similar in Medieval ConIrishstruc tandions Welshin Basque With Reference to Similar Constructions in Basque Patricia Ronan Patricia Ronan PhD Dissertation National University of Ireland, Maynooth Supervisor: Prof. K. R. McCone August 2006 2 Abstract This study provides a survey of the constructions of verbal nouns with prep- ositions that are used in a significant way, such as creating syntactic and semantic contexts not found with ordinary nouns. Particular emphasis is placed on constructions serving to denote tense, mood and aspect. Also some syntactic contexts involving verbal nouns as objects are examined. This ma- terial has been collected primarily from Old and Middle Irish texts, but some reference is made to Modern Irish where this seems helpful in order to illus- trate developments. The observations made are compared to findings on the use of verbal nouns in a closely related language, Middle Welsh, and an unrelated, non-Indo-European language, Basque. The discussion of the Me- dieval Irish material is followed by the evaluation of an illustrative corpus of Middle Welsh data and available descriptions of Welsh verbal nouns. Paral- lel constructions in these Insular Celtic languages are then brought together in order to assess which prepositional verbal noun constructions might have been a feature of Insular Celtic. Data from Basque is compared to the find- ings for Insular Celtic. The results seek to identify the language specific features of Old Irish verbal nouns and a common core of verbal noun usage in Insular Celtic as opposed to other usages adopted by a non-Indo-European sample language. 3 4 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 13 1.1. Subject and aim of the investigation .................................................. 13 1.2 Previous work on Verbal Nouns ......................................................... 14 1.3 The material ........................................................................................ 17 1.3.1 Criteria for the definition of verbal nouns .................................. 17 1.3.2 Concrete versus abstract nouns ................................................... 19 1.3.3 Differences between verbal nouns and abstract nouns ............... 20 1.4 Transmission of the material .............................................................. 21 1.5 Sources ................................................................................................ 22 1.5.1. Old Irish ..................................................................................... 22 1.5.3 Welsh texts .................................................................................. 31 1.6 Relevant grammatical approaches ...................................................... 33 1.6.1 Case ............................................................................................. 33 1.6.2 Grammaticalisation ..................................................................... 35 1.6.3 Grammaticalisation of prepositions ............................................ 36 1.6.4 Semantics of prepositions ........................................................... 38 1.6.5 Semantic classification of prepositions ....................................... 39 1.6.6 Prototype Theory ........................................................................ 42 1.6.7 Tense and aspect ......................................................................... 43 2 Verbal Nouns in Old and Middle Irish ....................................................... 49 2.1 Verbal noun usage .............................................................................. 49 2.1.1 Noun inflection ........................................................................... 49 2.1.2 Syntactic possibilities of the verbal noun ................................... 50 2.1.3 Agent structures .......................................................................... 52 2.1.4 Changes within the verbal noun category ................................... 54 2.2 Verbal nouns with prepositions in Old and Middle Irish ................... 55 2.2.1 Ar and for .................................................................................... 55 2.2.1 Oc, i n- and la .............................................................................. 65 2.2.3 Fri, re and íar .............................................................................. 81 2.2.4 Cen and neb ................................................................................. 98 2.2.5 Do .............................................................................................. 107 2.2.6 Im and fo ................................................................................... 117 2.2.7 Lesser used prepositions with verbal noun: tri, ó, di, co, eter and a .......................................................................................................... 122 5 2.4. Periphrasis with verbal noun and inflected verb ............................. 142 2.4.1 The Figura Etymologica ........................................................... 142 2.4.2. ‘Do’-periphrasis ....................................................................... 152 2.4.3 Gaibid and verbal noun ............................................................. 158 2.4.4 Verbal nouns in non-finite sentences in Irish ........................... 164 3. Verbal Nouns in Medieval Welsh ........................................................... 167 3.1 Verbal noun usage ............................................................................ 167 3.1.1 Old Welsh ................................................................................. 167 3.1.2 Agent structures ........................................................................ 169 3.2. Verbal nouns with prepositions in Middle Welsh ........................... 169 3.2.1 ar and wrth ................................................................................ 169 3.2.2 gan, yn and a(c): ....................................................................... 174 3.2.3 kynn, rac and gwedy .................................................................. 184 3.2.4 heb ............................................................................................. 192 3.2.5 y ................................................................................................. 194 3.2.6 am and dan ................................................................................ 198 3.2.7: Lesser used prepositions with verbal noun: drwy, o, nes, yr, particle ry ........................................................................................... 203 3.3 Semantic components of prepositions in Medieval Welsh .......... 212 3.4 Grammaticalised structures .......................................................... 214 3.4.3 Verbal nouns in non-finite sentences in Welsh ......................... 221 4. Possible common Insular Celtic constructions ........................................ 223 4.1. Irish for, ar and Welsh ar ................................................................. 223 4.2. Irish oc, i n-, le and Welsh yn, ac, gan ............................................ 224 4.2.1 oc and yn ................................................................................... 224 4.2.2 oc and ac ................................................................................... 231 4.2.3 la and gan .................................................................................. 232 4.3 Irish fri, re, íar and Welsh wrth, rac, kynn, gwedy ........................... 233 4.3.1 fri and wrth ................................................................................ 233 4.3.2 re, kynn and rac ......................................................................... 234 4.3.3 íar and gwedy ............................................................................ 235 4.4 Irish cen, Welsh hep .......................................................................... 236 4.5 Irish do, Welsh y ............................................................................... 237 4.6 Irish im, fo, Welsh am, dan ............................................................... 239 4.6.1 im and am .................................................................................. 239 4.6.2 fo and dan .................................................................................. 240 4.7 Irish tri, ó, de, Welsh drwy, o, di. ..................................................... 240 4.7.1 tri and drwy ............................................................................... 240 4.7.2 ó and o ....................................................................................... 241 4.7.3 di ............................................................................................... 242 4.8 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 243 5. Typological Parallels with Constructions in Basque ............................... 245 6 5.1 The situation in Basque .................................................................... 245 5.1.1 Nominal inflection .................................................................... 245 5.1.2 Verbal nouns in Basque ............................................................ 248 5.1.3 Contexts without suffixation ....................................................
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