[Spellyans] y-umlaut in 'Beunans Meriasek' ?

[ajtrim at msn.com]

As so many words ending in -ys are spelt -ijs, -yys, -is, or -yes in the texts, and as doubling the vowel was used to indicate a long vowel, and adding an e could be used for the same, why do we think -ys  was pronounced short, i.e. [Iz]. Surely long but unstressed, i.e. [i:s] or [i:z] is more likely.

I know that this goes against the notion that long vowels only occur in stressed syllables but that is what the evidence is indicating.


Regards,

Andrew J. Trim




From: nicholas williams 
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 10:29 AM
To: Standard Cornish discussion list 
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] y-umlaut in 'Beunans Meriasek' ?


<ij> is common in both BM and PA, in which latter texts one finds, for example, 


dyspresijs
convyctijs
temptijs.


In such cases <ijs> occurs at the end of the verbal adjective of
verbs in -ya.
Elsewhere in PA and in other texts, comparable verbal adjectives are spelt with <yy>:


gwarnyys
formyys
playnyys.


There are also examples of the same ending spelt <yes>:


granntyes
lettyes
tackyes.


It is also sometimes written <is>:


grontis
syttis
dyzgtis


or as <ys>:


grontys
formys
dyghtys.


Where <ijs> occurs in rhyme, it rhymes with -ys:




kyllys ~ mevijs ~ genys ~ bys PA 4
sperys ~ convyctijs ~ parys ~ danvenys PA 18
ordys ~ apposijs BM 521, 525.


Since <ijs> is unstressed and monosyllabic
in such verbal adjectives, it seems reasonable to assume that <ijs>
is a written variant only, and is to be pronounced either [I at z] or [Iz].


In KS I write <grontys>, <lettys>, <dyghtys>.


This is not the same desinence as in <goliys> 'wounded', <chastiys> 'chastised', which is disyllabic.


Nicholas








On 21 Nov 2008, at 00:40, <ajtrim at msn.com> <ajtrim at msn.com> wrote:


  I have always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that <ij> was a way of writing <ii>.






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