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Welsh Grammar
Welsh grammar reflects the patterns of linguistic structure that permeate the use of the Welsh language. In linguistics ''grammar'' refers to the domains of the syntax, and morphology (linguistics), morphology. The following articles contain more information on Welsh: * Welsh syntax * Colloquial Welsh morphology (the patterns that shape the spoken language as it is used by present-day Welsh speakers.) * Literary Welsh morphology (the rules governing the use of the formal written language, normally corresponding to older, historical patterns.) See also * Welsh phonology * Welsh orthography * Welsh numerals * History of the Welsh language {{DEFAULTSORT:Welsh Grammar Welsh grammar, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welsh Language
Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic languages, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales by about 18% of the population, by some in England, and in (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). It is spoken by smaller numbers of people in Canada and the United States descended from Welsh immigrants, within their households (especially in Nova Scotia). Historically, it has also been known in English as "British", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric". The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gave the Welsh language official status in Wales. Welsh and English are ''de jure'' official languages of the Senedd (the Welsh parliament), with Welsh being the only ''de jure'' official language in any part of the United Kingdom, with English being merely ''de facto'' official. According to the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census, the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 538,300 ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages), phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language, and analogous systems of sign languages), and pragmatics (how the context of use contributes to meaning). Subdisciplines such as biolinguistics (the study of the biological variables and evolution of language) and psycholinguistics (the study of psychological factors in human language) bridge many of these divisions. Linguistics encompasses Outline of linguistics, many branches and subfields that span both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretical linguistics is concerned with understanding the universal grammar, universal and Philosophy of language#Nature of language, fundamental nature of language and developing a general ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology, morphology (linguistics), morphology, and syntax, together with phonetics, semantics, and pragmatics. There are, broadly speaking, two different ways to study grammar: traditional grammar and #Theoretical frameworks, theoretical grammar. Fluency in a particular language variety involves a speaker internalizing these rules, many or most of which are language acquisition, acquired by observing other speakers, as opposed to intentional study or language teaching, instruction. Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves more direct instruction. The term ''grammar'' can also describe the linguistic behaviour of groups of speakers and writer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). Diverse approaches, such as generative grammar and functional grammar, offer unique perspectives on syntax, reflecting its complexity and centrality to understanding human language. Etymology The word ''syntax'' comes from the ancient Greek word , meaning an orderly or systematic arrangement, which consists of (''syn-'', "together" or "alike"), and (''táxis'', "arrangement"). In Hellenistic Greek, this also specifically developed a use referring to the grammatical order of words, with a slightly altered spelling: . The English term, which first appeared in 1548, is partly borrowed from Latin () and Greek, though the L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, which are the smallest units in a language with some independent meaning. Morphemes include roots that can exist as words by themselves, but also categories such as affixes that can only appear as part of a larger word. For example, in English the root ''catch'' and the suffix ''-ing'' are both morphemes; ''catch'' may appear as its own word, or it may be combined with ''-ing'' to form the new word ''catching''. Morphology also analyzes how words behave as parts of speech, and how they may be inflected to express grammatical categories including number, tense, and aspect. Concepts such as productivity are concerned with how speakers create words in specific contexts, which evolves over the history of a language. The basic fields of ling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welsh Syntax
The syntax of the Welsh language has much in common with the syntax of other Insular Celtic languages. It is, for example, heavily right-branching (including a verb–subject–object word order), and the verb for ''be'' (in Welsh, ) is crucial to constructing many different types of clauses. Any verb may be inflected for three tenses (preterite, future, and unreality), and a range of additional tenses are constructed with auxiliary verbs and particles. Welsh lacks true subordinating conjunctions, and instead relies on special verb forms and preverbal particles to create subordinate clauses. There are at least four registers or varieties of Welsh that the term ''Modern Welsh'' is used to describe. There is ''Biblical Welsh'', which is archaic and not part of colloquial usage, although some educated Welsh speakers are familiar with it. Two more registers are ''Literary Welsh'' and ''Colloquial Welsh''; this article primarily describes Colloquial Welsh, except where noted. Finally, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colloquial Welsh Morphology
The morphology of the Welsh language has many characteristics likely to be unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a moderately inflected language. Verbs inflect for person, number, tense, and mood, with affirmative, interrogative, and negative conjugations of some verbs. There is no case inflection in Modern Welsh. Modern Welsh can be written, and spoken, in several levels of formality, for example colloquial or literary, as well as different dialects. The grammar described in this article is for Colloquial Welsh, which is used for speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh used in William Morgan's 1588 translation of the Bible and can be seen in formal writing. It does not reflect the spoken language presented here. Initial consonant mutation Initial consona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Welsh Morphology
The morphology of the Welsh language shows many characteristics perhaps unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a moderately inflected language. Verbs conjugate for person, tense and mood with affirmative, interrogative and negative conjugations of some verbs. A majority of prepositions inflect for person and number. There are few case inflections in Literary Welsh, being confined to certain pronouns. Modern Welsh can be written in two varieties – Colloquial Welsh or Literary Welsh. The grammar described on this article is for Literary Welsh. Initial consonant mutation Initial consonant mutation is a phenomenon common to all Insular Celtic languages (there is no evidence of it in the ancient Continental Celtic languages of the early first millennium). The first consonant of a word in Welsh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welsh Phonology
The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative and several voiceless sonorants ( nasals and liquids), some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable. Consonants Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: Symbols in parentheses are either allophones, or found only in loanwords. The sound generally occurs in loanwords, e.g. ''sŵ'' ('zoo'), although this is usually realised as in northern accents, e.g. . The postalveolar affricates and occur mainly in loanwords, e.g. ('chips') and (' jelly'), but also in some dialects as developments from and , e.g. from ('devil'). The voiceless nasals occur mostly word-initially, as a consequence of nasal mutation. These nasals hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welsh Orthography
Welsh orthography uses 29 letters (including eight digraphs) of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords. Welsh orthography makes use of multiple diacritics, which are primarily used on vowels, namely the acute accent (), the grave accent (), the circumflex (, , or ) and the diaeresis (). They are considered variants of their base letter, i.e. they are not alphabetised separately. The Welsh alphabet also lacks (, ), (, ), (, ), (, ), and (, /). Foreign words Welsh borrows a number of words from English. Those words are spelled according to Welsh spelling conventions, for example: " bus", " buck", " bucket", " car", " noggin", " gob", " slogan", " flannel", " truant", and " gaol". Non-native letters in Welsh The letter has only recently been accepted into Welsh orthography: for use in words borrowed from English which retain the sound, even when it originally was not represented by in English orthography, as in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welsh Numerals
The traditional counting system used in the Welsh language is vigesimal, i.e. based on twenties where numbers from 11 to 14 are "''x'' on ten", 16–19 are "''x'' on fifteen" (though 18 is more usually "two nines"); numbers from 21 to 39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenty", 60 is "three twenty", etc. There is also a decimal counting system, where numbers are "''x'' ten ''y''" unit(s), e.g. thirty-five (35) in decimal is (three ten five) while in vigesimal it is (fifteen – itself "five-ten" – on twenty). Numerals Variation in form There is some syntactically and phonologically triggered variation in the form of numerals. There are, for example, masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two" ( and ), "three" ( and ) and "four" ( and ), which must agree with the grammatical gender of the objects being counted. The numerals for "five", "six" and "hundred" (, and ) also have reduced forms (, , ) when they precede the object they are counting. The words for "ten", "tw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Welsh Language
The history of the Welsh language () spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Welsh language, Modern Welsh. Origins Welsh evolved from British language (Celtic), British (Common Brittonic), the Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken by the ancient Britons (historical), Britons. Alternatively classified as Insular Celtic languages, Insular Celtic or P-Celtic and Q-Celtic, P-Celtic, it probably arrived in Great Britain, Britain during the Bronze Age or British Iron Age, Iron Age and was probably spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth.Koch, pp. 291–292. During the Early Middle Ages, the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and the other Brythonic languages (Breton language, Breton, Cornish language, Cornish, and the extinct Cumbric language, Cumbric). It is not clear when Welsh became distinct.Koch, p. 1757. Primitive W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
