[Spellyans] Abbreviating Ordinal Numbers

[Eddie Climo]

On 25 Mer 2009, at 16:05, Hewitt, Stephen wrote:
> "First,...next,...third,...fourth..." How natural! Jon Mills really  
> ought to have thought of that!


Indeed. If Nicholas's stricture is correct, we should predict finding  
an even spread of sequences like this in the historicical corpus:

kensa, nessa, tressa, peswara, pympes ...
kensa, secund, nessa, peswara, pympes ...
kensa, secund, tressa, nessa, pympes ...
kensa, secund, tressa, peswara, nessa ...

If, as I suspect, we only find the 1st of the above sequences, the  
absence of the others would seem to invalidate the premise that  
'nessa' only means 'next' and not 'second'.

As for the alleged 'spuriousness' of the 'Nancean' legacy, Nance was a  
fine linguist and lexicographer. We are greatly indebted to him and to  
the other revivalists of his generation. And if we are able to know  
more about some areas of the Cornish language that they did, it's  
largely thanks to our standing on their shoulders.


Eddie Foirbeis Climo
- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -
Dres ethom akennow byner re bons lyeshes
Accenti non multiplicandi praeter necessitatem

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