Colloquial Welsh morphology

The soft mutation (Welsh: treiglad meddal) is by far the most common mutation in Welsh. When words undergo soft mutation, the general pattern is that unvoiced plosives become voiced plosives, and voiced plosives become fricatives or disappear; some fricatives also change, and the full list is shown in the above table.

In some cases a limited soft mutation takes place. This differs from the full soft mutation in that words beginning with rh- and ll- do not mutate.

Common situations where the limited soft mutation occurs include:

• Feminine singular nouns after the definite article (y / yr / 'r), e.g. y rhyfel 'the war', not *y ryfel; y llwyfan 'the windpipe', not *y lwyfan.
• Feminine nouns following the numeral un (one), e.g. un rhyfel 'one war', not *un ryfel; un llwyfan 'one windpipe', not *un lwyfan.
• Nouns or adjectives used predicatively or adverbially after yn.
• Adjectives following mor ("so"), rhy ("too") or pur ("fairly, very").

Common situations where the full soft mutation occurs are as follows – note that this list is by no means exhaustive:

• Qualifiers (adjectives, nouns, or verb-nouns) used to qualify feminine singular nouns, e.g. cath fawr 'a big cat' [< mawr]; hogan ganu 'a singing girl' [< canu].
• Words immediately following the prepositions am ("for"), ar ("on"), at ("to"), dan ("under"), dros ("over"), trwy ("through"), heb ("without"), hyd ("until"), gan ("by"), wrth ("by, near, beside, with"), i ("to"), o ("of, from") - note that this does not mean there is a one-to-one correspondence between Welsh and English prepositions!
• Nouns following the number two (dau / dwy)
• Nouns following adjectives (N.B. most adjectives follow the noun); i.e. hen ddyn 'old man' (from dyn 'man').
• Nouns after the possessive adjectives dy (informal/singular 'your') and ei ('his').
• An object of a conjugated verb.
• The second element in many compound words, i.e. Llanfair from llan ('parish') + Mair ('Mary').
• Verb-nouns following an indirect object, i.e. rhaid i mi fynd ('I must go').
• Inflected verbs in the interrogative and negative (also frequently, in the spoken language, the affirmative), though this should strictly be the 'mixed mutation'.

The occurrence of the soft mutation often obscures the origin of placenames to non-Welsh-speaking visitors. For example, Llanfair is the church of Mair (Mary), and Pontardawe is the bridge on the Tawe (pont ar + Tawe).

The nasal mutation (Welsh: treiglad trwynol) normally occurs:

• after fy – generally pronounced as if spelt y(n) – ("my") e.g. gwely ("a bed"), fy ngwely ("my bed"), pronounced yngwely
• after the locative preposition yn ("in") e.g. Tywyn ("Tywyn"), yn Nhywyn ("in Tywyn")
• after the negating prefix an- ("un-") e.g. teg ("fair"), annheg ("unfair").

Notes

1. The preposition yn becomes ym if the following noun (mutated or not) begins with m, and becomes yng if the following noun begins with ng. E.g. Bangor ("Bangor"), ym Mangor ("in Bangor"); Caerdydd ("Cardiff"), yng Nghaerdydd ("in Cardiff").

2. In words beginning with an-, the n is dropped before the mutated consonant (except if the resultant mutation allows for a double n), e.g. an + personol → amhersonol (although it would be retained before a non-mutating consonant, e.g. an + sicr → ansicr).

3. In some dialects the soft mutation is often substituted after yn giving forms like yn Gaerdydd for "in Cardiff", or it is even lost altogether, especially with place names, giving yn Caerdydd. This would be considered incorrect in formal registers.

Under nasal mutation, voiced stop consonants become nasals, and unvoiced stops become voiceless nasals. A non-standard mutation also occurs in some parts of North Wales where nasal consonants are also unvoiced, e.g. fy mham ("my mother"; standard: fy mam). This may also occur (unlike the ordinary nasal mutation) after ei ("her"): e.g. ei nhain hi ("her grandmother", standard ei nain hi).

The name aspirate mutation can be misleading as the affected consonants do not become aspirated, but become fricatives. This is represented by the addition of an h after the original initial consonant (c /k/, p /p/, t /t/ → ch /χ/, ph /f/, th /θ/), but the resultant forms are pronounced as single phonemes.

The aspirate mutation occurs:

• after the possessive ei when it means "her" – ei chi hi 'her dog' (< ci 'dog')
• after a ("and") – coffi a theisen 'coffee and cake' (< teisen 'cake')
• after â ("with", "by means of") – cwtogi â chyllell 'cut with a knife' (< cyllell 'knife')
• after gyda ("with") – teisen gyda choffi 'cake with coffee' (< coffi 'coffee')
• for nouns after the masculine numeral three (tri) – tri physgodyn 'three fish(es)' (< pysgodyn 'fish')
• after the number six (chwech, written before a noun as chwe) – chwe phlentyn 'six children' (< plentyn 'child')

Aspirate mutation is the least-used mutation in colloquial Welsh. The only word that it always follows in everyday language is ei ("her") and it is also found in set phrases, e.g. mwy na thebyg ("more than likely"). Its occurrence is unusual in the colloquial Southern phrase dyna pham ("that's why") as dyna causes the soft mutation, not aspirate mutation. Colloquially, the aspirate mutation is often replaced by the soft mutation, or ignored all together – particularly mutation of t- and p-; one is likely to hear paid â phoeni, paid â poeni, and paid poeni for 'don't worry'.

A mixed mutation occurs when negating conjugated verbs. Initial consonants undergo aspirate mutation if subject to it, and soft mutation if not. For example, clywais i ("I heard") and dwedais i ("I said") are negated as chlywais i ddim ("I heard nothing") and ddwedais i ddim ("I said nothing"). In practice, soft mutation is often used even when aspirate mutation would be possible (e.g. glywais i ddim); this reflects the fact that aspirate mutation is in general infrequent in the colloquial language (see above).

Under some circumstances an h is added to the beginning of words that begin with vowels, a process commonly called 'h-prothesis' and usually called pre-vocalic aspiration (PVA) by linguists. This occurs after the possessive pronouns ei ("her"), ein ("our") and eu ("their"), e.g. oedran ("age"), ei hoedran hi ("her age"). It also occurs with ugain ("twenty") after ar ("on") in the traditional vigesimal counting system, e.g. un ar hugain ("twenty-one", literally "one on twenty").

Although aspirate mutation also involves the addition of h in spelling, the environments for aspirate mutation and initial h addition do not overlap except for ei ("her").

Welsh has no indefinite article. This means that indefiniteness is implied by the lack of definite article or determiner. The noun cath, therefore, means both 'cat' and 'a cat'.

English has no plural indefinite article proper, but often uses the word 'some' in place of one: compare "I have an apple" and "I have some apples", where the word 'some' is being used as an article because the English language calls for something in this position, compare "I have apples" and "I have some apples", the former is rarely encountered in English. In these types of English sentences, the word 'some' is therefore left untranslated due to there being no concept of an indefinite article in Welsh: mae gen i afalau ('I have [some] apples').

The definite article, which precedes the words it modifies and whose usage differs little from that of English, has the forms y, yr, and ’r. The rules governing their usage are:

• When the previous word ends in a vowel, regardless of the quality of the word following, ’r is used, e.g. mae'r gath tu allan ("the cat is outside"). This rule takes precedence over the other two.
• When the following word (usually a noun) begins with a vowel, yr is used, e.g. yr ardd ("the garden").
• In all other places, y is used, e.g. y bachgen ("the boy").

The article triggers the soft mutation when it is used with feminine singular nouns, e.g. tywysoges "(a) princess" but y dywysoges ("the princess").

The definite article is used in Welsh where it would not be used in English in the following ways:

• To not allow a noun to be indefinite. In an English sentence like I'm going to school, the noun school has no article, but the listener is expected to know which school is being talked about. In Welsh this noun (ysgol) would take the definite article: dw i'n mynd i'r ysgol ('I'm going to school').
• With demonstratives like this and that, which in Welsh are phrases equivalent to English the... here (this) and the... there (that), e.g. y bore 'ma (this morning); y gadair 'na (that chair).
• In certain places where English uses an indefinite article. English phrases like one pound per kilogram / one pound a kilogram replace the indefinite article with the definite article, e.g. un bunt y cilogram.
• In genitive constructions. English can again get away with no article in these phrases, e.g. Town Hall, City Centre. In Welsh these call for use of the definite article, e.g. Neuadd y Dref (Town Hall, lit. "hall of the town"); Canol y Ddinas (City Centre, lit. "centre of the city").

The Welsh personal pronouns are:

		Singular	Plural
First Person		mi, i, fi	ni
Second Person		ti, di	chi
Third Person	Masculine	e/fe, o/fo	nhw
	Feminine	hi

The Welsh masculine-feminine gender distinction is reflected in the pronouns. There is, consequently, no word corresponding to English "it", and the choice of e/o (south and north Welsh respectively) or hi depends on the grammatical gender of the antecedent.

The English dummy or expletive "it" construction in phrases like "it's raining" or "it was cold last night" also exists in Welsh and other Indo-European languages like French, German, and Dutch, but not in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indo-Aryan or Slavic languages. Unlike other masculine-feminine languages, which often default to the masculine pronoun in the construction, Welsh uses the feminine singular hi, thus producing sentences like:

Mae hi'n bwrw glaw.

It's raining.

Roedd hi'n oer neithiwr.

It was cold last night.

However, colloquially the pronoun is often omitted when it would be translated as "it" in English, leaving:

Mae'n bwrw glaw.

It's raining.

Roedd'n oer neithiwr.

It was cold last night.

Third-person masculine singular forms o and fo are heard in parts of mid- and north Wales, while e and fe are heard in parts of mid-, west and south Wales.

The pronoun forms i, e, and o are used as subjects after a verb. In the inflected future of the verbs mynd, gwneud, dod, and cael, first-person singular constructions like do fi may be heard. I, e, and o are also used as objects with compound prepositions, for example o flaen o 'in front of him'. Fi, fe, and fo are used after conjunctions and non-inflected prepositions, and also as the object of an inflected verb:

Weloch chi fo dros y penwythnos?

Did you see him over the weekend?

Fe and fo exclusively are used as subjects with the inflected conditional:

Dylai fe brynu un newydd i ti.

He ought to buy you a new one.

Both i, e, and o and fi, fe, and fo are heard with inflected prepositions, as objects of verbal nouns, and also as following pronouns with their respective possessive adjectives:

Wyt ti wedi ei weld e/fe/o/fo heddiw?

Have you seen him today?

Alla i ddim dod o hyd i fy allweddi i/fi.

I can't find my keys.

The use of first-person singular mi is limited in the spoken language, appearing in i mi "to/for me" or as the subject with the verb ddaru, used in a preterite construction.

Ti is found most often as the second-person singular pronoun, however di is used as the subject of inflected future forms, as a reinforcement in the imperative, and as following pronoun to the possessive adjective dy ... "your ..."

Chi, in addition to serving as the second-person plural pronoun, is also used as a singular in formal situations, as is in French and Russian. Conversely, ti can be said to be limited to the informal singular, such as when speaking with a family member, a friend, or a child. This usage corresponds closely to the practice in other European languages. An alternative form of ti, used almost exclusively in some north-western dialects, is chdi;[5][6] as an independent pronoun it occurs especially frequently after a vowel sound at the end of the phrase (e.g. efo chdi, i chdi, wela i chdi, dyna chdi).[5]

The reflexive pronouns are formed with the possessive adjective followed by hun "self". There is variation between North and South forms. The first person singular possessive pronoun fy is usually pronounced as if spelt y(n).

		Singular	Plural
North	First Person	fy hun	ein hun
	Second Person	dy hun	eich hun
	Third Person	ei hun	eu hun
South	First Person	fy hunan	ein hunain
	Second Person	dy hunan	eich hunain, eich hunan
	Third Person	ei hunan	eu hunain

Note that there is no gender distinction in the third person singular.

Welsh has special emphatic forms of the personal pronouns.

The term 'emphatic pronoun' is misleading since they do not always indicate emphasis. They are perhaps more correctly termed 'conjunctive, connective or distinctive pronouns' since they are used to indicate a connection between or distinction from another nominal element. For example, 'minnau' may on occasion be best translated 'I/me, for my part'; 'I/me, on the other hand', 'I/me, however', or even simply 'I/me'. Full contextual information is necessary to interpret their function in any given sentence.

		Singular	Plural
First Person		minnau, innau, finnau	ninnau
Second Person		tithau	chithau
Third Person	Masculine	fyntau (yntau)	nhwythau
	Feminine	hithau

The emphatic pronouns can be used with possessive adjectives in the same way as the simple pronouns are used (with the added function of distinction or connection).

While the singular demonstrative pronouns this and that have separate forms for masculine and feminine, there is only a single plural form in each case (these, those). This is consistent with a general principle in Welsh that gender is not marked in the plural. The latter forms are also often used for intangible, figurative, or general ideas (though cf. also the use of 'hi' discussed above).

	Masculine	Feminine	Intangible
this	hwn	hon	hyn
that	hwnnw, hwnna	honno, honna	hynny
these	y rhain
those	y rheiny

In certain expressions, hyn may represent "now" and hynny may represent "then".

Bod 'to be' is irregular. In addition to having inflected forms of the preterite, future, and conditional, it also maintains inflected present and imperfect forms which are used frequently as auxiliaries with other verbs. Bod has separate conjugations for (a) affirmative and (b) interrogative and negative forms of the present indicative (there are also further variations in the third person singular, in the context of dependent clauses). The apparent high irregularity of this tense can be simplified and rationalised by tracing back the divergences to the standard formal written forms: e.g. 'dyw e ddim' and 'dydy e ddim' or 'dydi o ddim' (he is not) can all be seen as informal variants of 'nid ydyw ef (ddim)'.

The present tense in particular shows divergence between north and southern dialects. Though the situation is undoubtedly more complicated, King (2003) notes the following variations in the present tense as spoken (not as written according to the standard orthography):

		Affirmative (I am)		Interrogative (Am I?)		Negative (I am not)
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
North	First Person	dw	dan	ydw?	ydan?	(dy)dw	(dy)dan
	Second Person	—, (r)wyt	dach	wyt?	(y)dach?	dwyt	(dy)dach
	Third Person	mae	maen	ydy?	ydyn?	dydy	dydyn
South	First Person	rw, w	ŷn, —	ydw?	ŷn?	(d)w	ŷn
	Second Person	—, (r)wyt	ych	wyt?	ych?	—	(ych)
	Third Person	mae	maen	ydy?, yw?	ŷn?	dyw	ŷn

		Affirmative (I am)		Interrogative (Am I?)		Negative (I am not)
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Preterite	First Person	bues	buon	fues?	fuon?	fues	fuon
	Second Person	buest	buoch	fuest?	fuoch?	fuest	fuoch
	Third Person	buodd	buon	fuodd?	fuon?	fuodd	fuon
Imperfect	First Person	roeddwn	roedden	oeddwn?	oedden?	doeddwn	doedden
	Second Person	roeddet	roeddech	oeddet?	oeddech?	doeddet	doeddech
	Third Person	roedd	roeddyn	oedd?	oeddyn?	doedd	doeddyn
Future	First Person	bydda	byddwn	fydda?	fyddwn?	fydda	fyddwn
	Second Person	byddi	byddwch	fyddi?	fyddwch?	fyddi	fyddwch
	Third Person	bydd	byddan	fydd?	fyddan?	fydd	fyddan

Bod also has a conditional, for which there are two stems:

		Affirmative		Interrogative		Negative
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
bydd-	First Person	byddwn	bydden	fyddwn?	fydden?	fyddwn	fydden
	Second Person	byddet	byddech	fyddet?	fyddech?	fyddet	fyddech
	Third Person	byddai	bydden	fyddai?	fydden?	fyddai	fydden
bas-	First Person	baswn	basen	faswn?	fasen?	faswn	fasen
	Second Person	baset	basech	faset?	fasech?	faset	fasech
	Third Person	basai	basen	fasai?	fasen?	fasai	fasen

• ddim ("not") is added after the subject for negative forms of bod.
• There are many dialectal variations of this verb.
• Colloquially the imperfect tense forms are o'n i, o't ti, oedd e/hi, o'n ni, o'ch chi and o'n nhw. These are used for the declarative, interrogative and negative.
• In speech the future and conditional forms often receive the soft mutation in all situations.
• Welsh and other Celtic languages are unusual among the European languages in having no fixed words for "yes" and "no" (although many speakers do use 'ie' and 'na' in ways that mimic English usage). If a question has a verb at its head, the relevant part of that verb is used in the answer e.g.: Ydych chi'n hoffi coffi? (Are you liking coffee? = Do you like coffee?) then either Ydw (I am = I do = Yes) or Nac ydw (I am not = I do not = No)

A few verbs which have bod in the verbnoun display certain irregular characteristics of bod itself. Gwybod is the most irregular of these. It has preterite and conditional forms, which are often used with present and imperfect meaning, respectively. The present is conjugated irregularly:

	Singular	Plural
First Person	gwn	gwyddon
Second Person	gwyddost	gwyddoch
Third Person	gŵyr	gwyddon

The common phrase dwn i ddim "I don't know" uses a special negative form of the first person present. The initial d- in this form originates in the negative particle nid: nid wn i > nid wn i ddim > dwn i ddim. Such a development is restricted to a very small set of verb forms, principally this form of gwybod and various forms of bod (e.g., does, doedd, from nid oes and nid oedd respectively)."

The four verb-nouns mynd "to go", gwneud "to do", cael "to get", and dod "to come" are all irregular in similar ways.

		mynd		gwneud		cael		dod
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Preterite	First Person	es	aethon	wnes	wnaethon	ces	caethon	des	daethon
	Second Person	est	aethoch	wnest	wnaethoch	cest	caethoch	dest	daethoch
	Third Person	aeth	aethon	wnaeth	wnaethon	caeth	caethon	daeth	daethon
Future	First Person	a	awn	na	nawn	ca	cawn	do	down
	Second Person	ei	ewch	nei	newch	cei	cewch	doi	dewch
	Third Person	eith	ân	neith	nân	ceith	cân	daw	dôn

The forms caeth, caethon, caethoch often appear as cafodd, cawson, cawsoch in writing, and in places in Wales these are also heard in speech.

In the conditional, there is considerable variation between the North and South forms of these four irregular verbs. That is partly because the North form corresponds to the Middle Welsh (and Literary Welsh) imperfect indicative, while the South form corresponds to the Middle Welsh (and Literary Welsh) imperfect subjunctive.

		mynd		gwneud		cael		dod
		Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
North	First Person	awn	aen	nawn	naen	cawn	caen	down	doen
	Second Person	aet	aech	naet	naech	caet	caech	doet	doech
	Third Person	âi	aen	nâi	naen	câi	caen	dôi	doen
South	First Person	elwn	elen	nelwn	nelen	celwn	celen	delwn	delen
	Second Person	elet	elech	nelet	nelech	celet	celech	delet	delech
	Third Person	elai	elen	nelai	nelen	celai	celen	delai	delen