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Mesotomic syllables in Armes Prydein
L.un~uqr Scrm~zr. Volume 15, Number 2. PP. 91-106, Prmted ,n Great Britam
MESOTOMIC
0388~C001/93 $6.00+.00 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ud
1993
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES
PRYDEZN
TOBY D. GRIFFEN Metrical discrepancies in Ames Prydein One of the great monuments of Old Welsh literature, the prophetic (vaticinatory) poem Armes Prydein (The Prophecy of Britain-see Williams 1972) is recorded in 199 lines of the Book of Tuliesin (see J. G. Evans 1910). While it may be attributed to the quasimythical sixth-century seer and poet Taliesin (see Stephens 1986:571-572), the historical and political concerns of Armes Prydein clearly indicate that it was composed around A.D. 930 (I. Williams 1972:xX, 1975:xxvi; Stephens 1986:17-18). The earliest manuscript, however, is found in Peniarth 2, dating from around 1275. Thus, while the composition of the manuscript would have been firmly within the Old Welsh period (from the beginning of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century-Morris Jones 1913:7), the source manuscript was copied by a speaker of Middle Welsh. The basic meter of Armes Prydein is the Cyhydedd Naw Ban (literally, the nine-peak line). As pointed out by Morris Jones (1925:337-338), this meter consists of a ninesyllable line divided by a caesura into a five-syllable half-line, followed by a foursyllable half-line. While the Middle and Modern Welsh meter also takes into consideration the beat, or stress accent patterns, Old Welsh apparently either did not have a stress accent (compare Watkins 1972) or else had a very weak one that was subordinate to the high pitch accent of the ultima. According to Williams, about 46% of the lines:
however,
the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is realized intact in only
“The usual metre of the Ames is Cyhydedd Naw Ban. Lines of nine syllables occur in 92 of the lines, interspersed with lines of ten syllables. For the most part the nine-syllabled lines are divided by a medial pause or caesura into groups of 5 f4, the ten-syllabled into groups of 6+4. But in 23 of the ten-syllabled lines the caesura comes after the fifth syllable, giving two half-lines of 5+5. There are also eight longer lines, divided by caesura into 6+.5. This accounts for 189 of the 199 lines of the poem: the remaining ten lines are easily arranged or adapted to conform to one or other of these lengths. One can see how fond the poet was of making the second half of the line into one of four syllables, following the pause. The lines are embellished with alliteration and internal rhyme; frequently the end of the first half-line rhymes with the second syllable in the second half, sometimes the rhyming words are in the first half.” (I. Williams 1972:lii)
The deviations from the Cyhydedd Naw Ban have been accepted as given by scholars of Welsh literature, in spite of the fact that there is a justification for one type of metrical discrepancy known since the poetic grammars of the Middle Ages
relating to this paper should be addressed to Prof. T. D. Griffen, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1432, U.S.A.
Correspondence
91
TOBY
92
D. GRIFFEN
(compare G. J. Williams and Jones 1934). Epenthesis (svarabhakti) introduces a vowel to break up a difficult consonant cluster and thus to aid in pronunciation. Epenthetic vowels and the syllables resulting from them, however, have always been unscanned in Welsh versification. For example, the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is maintained in line 179: bydinoed am gwrwf a thwrwfmilwyr ‘hosts about the ale-feast, and the noise of warriors’ (I. Williams 1972: 14 & 15). In both gwnuf(from cwmfi ‘ale’ and thwnuf(from rwMifl ‘noise, tumult’. the second syllable is an epenthetic, breaking up the cluster $, and it is therefore not scanned (counted) in the poetic meter. If we were to approach the Old Welsh of Armes Prydein without the knowledge of the poetic rule of epenthesis, then we would have to classily line 179 as an elevensyllable line divided into a six-syllable half-line and a five-syllable half-line. Without the knowledge of this rule-based Old Welsh metrical discrepancy, we would have to conclude that line 179 does not adhere to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban. In this case, we would find that Armes Prydein has even fewer than 92 lines of its own basic metrical pattern. The only reason we know that line 179 should be scanned as Cyhydedd Naw Ban is that the rule of epenthesis-that epenthetics are unscanned syllables-has survived from Old Welsh through Middle Welsh and into Modern Welsh. (On epenthesis, see D. S. Evans 1964: 12-13, Jackson 1953:337-338, Lewis and Pedersen 1974:93-94, Watkins 1961:29, Griffen in press). Now the question is this: Are there any other rules of unscanned syllables in Old Welsh that did not survive long enough in the art of poetry to be recorded in the bardic grammars? To answer this question, let us view the lines of Armes Prydein afresh and without the prejudice of rules recorded after the Old Welsh period. Let us further assume that the basic meter of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban was maintained in the majority of lines, with violations attributable to transmission errors between the Old Welsh of 930 and the Middle Welsh of 1275. Our task, then, is to find regular rules that will predict the unscanned syllables in the long lines and allow us to scan the lines as nine-syllable lines with five-syllable and four-syllable half-lines. The task of determining a rule by which a syllable is not considered pertinent poetic scansion properly falls under the purview of phonology. After all, we dealing here with syllables perceived to be pertinent in the phonological system of Welsh poetry. First, though, we must delineate the model of phonology used in investigation.
for are Old our
Dynamic phonology Dynamic phonology is a functional abstraction from modern dynamic phonetics. Its development and many details of its application to analytical problems are treated at length in Griffen 1985 and in terms more understandable to the layperson in Griffen 1988 (though, of course, in far less detail). It has been used extensively in analyses of Welsh, and those analyses most pertinent to this study include Griffen (1979, 1987/88, 1989, in press). Those working
in Welsh linguistics
will recognize
a strong influence
of Firthian
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
93
prosodic analysis (from Firth 1948), although this has actually been secondary to the broader approach to phonology typified by the structural/functional Prague School phonology of Trubetzkoy (1969). The notational resemblance to prosodic analysis and many of the basic attitudes shared by prosodic and dynamic analysis have resulted more from a convergence achieved when structural/functional principles were applied to the dynamic phonetic evidence of Mermelstein (1973), ehman (1966, 1967), and many others. Once this convergence was established, the teachings of John R. Firth and his followers were drawn upon and have strengthened this model considerably. What dynamic phonology does is to take the principles and many of the analytical procedures from dynamic phonetics and abstract those elements and relationships that are of phonological pertinence. The most basic principle of dynamic phonetics is that speech is not uttered phonemically-with discrete speech segments following one another in linear progression. Rather, the features of speech are organized in accordance with an hierarchical system of dynamic coarticulatory constraint. Dynamic coarticulatory constraint can best be understood through a cursory examination of the speech event itself. To utter a syllable, we vibrate the vocal cords (or create frication between them) to establish a fundamental frequency upon which to build. When the air with its fundamental frequency vibrations (or frication) enters the oral cavity, the position of the tongue body, jaw, and lips work together to create the formant frequencies characteristic of particular syllabic vowels. These formants are constrained or obstructed by movements of other articulators-the consonants. At all levels, finer distinctions, or prosodies, apply to create subtle differences in the manner in which the obstruction is realized at each level, or division, of constraint-laryngeal, syllabic (vocalic), obstructional (consonantal). This hierarchy of constraint is illustrated in Figure 1.
I
0IJstructi0n Prosody Consonantal Features Obstruction
Syilabk Prosody
Vocalic Features Syllable
Laryngeal Pattern Prosody Laryngeal Features Laryngeal Pattern
Fig. 1. Hierarchy
of dynamic
coarticulatory
constraint.
94
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
To conduct analysis, we take this hierarchical system of dynamic coarticulatory constraint (well established in phonetic literature) and organize it into a syllabic frame, as illustrated in Figure 2. The syllabic relationship is also well documented in the phonetic literature, though the features abstracted into the phonological frame are, of course. limited to those of phonological pertinence (in the Trubetzkoian sense). The jagged lines represent the fact that these features are realized in overlapping and often continuous patterns. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that the consonant ih a single, unified block constraining a particular and immutable position in the syllabic. especially not in this study of mesotomy in Old Welsh poetry.
<
>
<
>
C ------
>
<
>
C
>
C
>
< <
obstruction prosodies obstruction features
< <
> S>
< -----.-
>
< <
> >
< -II
>
-syllable prosodies
< ~~--~--~--------_-________-_ < < syllable features <
> > > > > >
>
< < laryngeal (pattern) prosodies < -----_--_--_---------------------~.. < C
<
>
> >
laryng;caJfeatures I_.---
> >
Indeed, the crucial element of dynamic analysis for this study IS the \‘crq tlexibiltty in the constraint of the obstruction over the syllable. This constraint can move historically from one position to another, as in the process of metathesis (see Griffen 198S:chapter lo), and it can even spread over an entire syllable, totally obstructing the syllabic vowel (compare Griffen 1985:chapter 12). In this respect, there is a great deal of potential convergcncc with the principles of prosodic analysis laid down in Firth 1948. The important difference is that the sounds of prosodic analysis tend to be treated as phonematic units following one another in left-to-right progression, providing something of a phonemic hasc on which to hang the prosodies. This practice has in fact been emphasized in more recent CV phonology. resulting in a shift of attention from the manner in which prosodiez JI-t‘ realized with sounds to the intricacy of the phonematic progression and gencrari\c I1C(~-5friicIures
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
95
that may be used to justify this progression (see Fudge 1987-also Griffen 1990). In the dynamic analysis, however, the progression is not recognized-only the realization of the consonant as a constraint on the vowel. The vowel is seen as continuous ‘under’ the consonant, and the consonant is free to shift its position ‘over’ the vowel. Thus, while prosodic analysis in CV phonology has shifted its attention to the progression of phonematic units and has emphasized the segmental aspect, dynamic analysis has entirely abandoned (or, more precisely, has never adopted) the notion of segmentation and maintains consonantal obstructions and vocalic syllables on different hierarchical levels simultaneously. It is this difference that enables the analysis that follows and provides the insight of the mesotomic syllable in Armes Prydein. The accent in Old Welsh and Middle Welsh Now that we have identified the corpus (lines with additional syllables beyond the nine-syllable Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter) and have established the method of analysis, we must answer only one more question before proceeding to a solution. What difference existed between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh that would have justified a poetic/ phonological device in the former and that had disappeared by the latter? Whatever the device was, it was not accounted for in the Middle Welsh bardic grammars (G. J. Williams and Evans 1934). Given the traditional nature of Welsh poetry, it is highly unlikely that a device in Old Welsh would have simply been abandoned in Middle Welsh as if it were still viable-if the phonological basis for the device remained. (To be sure, the generic rhymes and alliterations treated in Travis 1973:45-49 had all but disappeared, but this device was probably archaic by the Old Welsh period.) The major change between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh syllables-the basic units of meter-was the Old Welsh accent shift. In Old Welsh, the primary accent was one of pitch, with high culminative pitch realized on the ultima. In Middle Welsh, the pitch accent remained on the ultima, but a stress accent was realized on the penult. There are several ways of accounting for this development. According to Jackson (1953:682), the pitch accent of Old Welsh coincided with a heavy stress accent, and the stress accent shifted between Old and Middle Welsh to the penult. In the view of Watkins (1972), however, there was no stress accent pattern at all in Old Welsh, and the development of a stress accent on the penult in Middle Welsh was an innovation. D. M. Jones (1949) treads a middle ground, maintaining that the ultima lost its stress element and the penult later developed stress independently. A fuller summary of these positions and their implications can be found in Griffen (in press). For reasons that will be clear by the end of this analysis, the position of Watkins would seem to be the most accurate. That is, Old Welsh accentuation was phonologically marked by a high culminative pitch accent in the ultima. To this we may add that the pretonic syllables were more or less even phonologically-if a difference existed in pitch levels among the pretonic syllables (before the ultima), the speaker/hearer took no notice of them (they were not phonologically pertinent). Moreover, whatever slight stress differences may have existed among syllables were likewise considered
TOBY
96
of no consequence
D. GRIFFEN
and would have been ignored by the poet.
Let us now take a look at how these two accent patterns would be analyzed in dynamic phonology. In Figure 3, we find the schematic syllabic frames of a trisyllabic word in Old Welsh and in Middle Welsh. The consonantal obstructions are shown straddling the transitions between syllabic vowels and could be realized as syllablefinal and syllable-initial obstruction patterns or indeed as nonobstructions. The important point is that whatever consonantal obstructions may have occurred, they would have been imposed about here over the continuous vocalic pattern. In the Old Welsh schema, the accent occurs in the ultima, and the pretonic syllables are equal. In the Middle Welsh schema, the accent occurs in the penult, and the other syllables are thus broken up. Old
Welsh Ultimate Pitch Accent
<
>
<
>
<
>
<
C
>
C
>
<
>
<
>
<
>
C
<
>
>
<
< > < >
< < < < <
>
< > < >
>
> > > > >
ACCENT
tonic equivalents
Middle Welsh Penuhimate Stress Accent <
>
<
>
<
>
<->
c <
> >
< <
> >
< <
> >
< <
> >
<
<
C
>
<
>
>
>
<
<
<
>
C
>
>
>
ACCENT
Fig. 3. Old Welsh accent shift
At this point, we should recall a fundamental difference between the pitch and the stress accent patterns. In Modern Welsh, which maintains both patterns (though the
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
97
latter is considered the phonologically pertinent), the only pitch level of any consequence is the high pitch of the final syllable (D. M. Jones 1949), although the pitch level does rise throughout the word (Watkins 1961:29). On the other hand, the stress level maintains four phonetically pertinent levels, which can be reduced to three levels of phonological pertinence generally realized in a 12 3 1 21 pattern (see Griffen 1979). Thus, while the pretonic syllables in the pitch pattern may be considered equivalent in accent, those in the stress pattern cannot. One of the most fundamental differences between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh, then, reveals some subtler differences that will be crucial to the analysis below. In Old Welsh, the pretonic syllables were accentually identical phonologically. Should the vowel quality of pretonic syllables likewise have been identical, then there would have been no difference at all between, for instance, a penult and an antepenult with the same vowel. In Middle Welsh, on the other hand, no two consecutive syllables could share this degree of identity. This is an extremely significant difference, for it enables the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh and requires its disappearance in Middle Welsh. Syllable mesotomy in Annes Prydein Examining Armes Prydein from the viewpoint of dynamic analysis and taking into account the identity of pretonic syllables with the same vowel in Old Welsh, we can now form an hypothesis: Pretonic syllables with vowels of the same quality in the Old Welsh poetry of Armes Prydein were scanned as single long syllables. For example, the personal name Kutwuludyr was pronounced with four syllables. As we have seen already, however, epenthetic syllables, while pronounced and even spelled, were not considered real syllables and were thus not scanned. As the final syllable was epenthetic, the word would have been reduced from four scanned syllables to three. Moreover, since the penult and antepenult shared the same quality and (phonologically) the same quantity, they were thus completely identical. The hypothesis states that the poet would have considered them to be a single long syllable. The rw in effect ‘cut through the middle’ of the long syllable (uz suggesting the term ‘mesotomic’ for the phenomenon. With this mesotomic syllable counting as a single syllable for purposes of scansion (and phonological pertinence), the word would have been further reduced from three scanned syllables to two. The proof of whether the mesotomic syllable was a viable part of the Old Welsh poetry of Ames Prydein is revealed in the justification of the nine-syllable Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. If the long lines can be reduced to the proper meter with the application of mesotomy, then it would appear likely that such a rule did in fact exist. Moreover, mesotomy ought not to reduce the lines below the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter, at least not in any quantity that would exceed the expected cases of scribal transmission error. The following is an examination of the most obvious or apparent cases of mesotomy in Armes Prydein. There are some other possible occurrences of the device, but these are deemed to be too subtle and subject to interpretation. In this first approximation
98
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
of the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh versilication, the most straightforward cases.
we had best limit ourselves
to
Lines justified through the mesotomic syllable In Table 1 is a listing of those lines containing obvious instances of the mesotomic syllable that fully justify the line to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. That is, without mesotomy, these lines are too long; but with the application of mesotomy in these instances, the lines adhere to the nine-syllable meter with the live-syllable and foursyllable half-lines. In each line, the mesotomic syllables are italicized. The lines themselves are from I. Williams 1972, and the translations are those of Rachel Bromwich found within the Williams text. Table 1. Lines justified through the mesotomic syllable Line
8 13
English (Bromwich)
Welsh maraned a meued a hed genhyn.
we shall have wealth and property and peace.
A phennaeth ehelaeth a ffraeth vnbyn.
and wide dominion, and ready leaders:
Gwaethyl gwyr hyt Gaer Weir gwusgarawt allmyn.
The warriors will scatter the foreigners as far as Caer Weir
gwnahawnt goruoled gwedy gehyn.
they will rejoice after the deva\tatton,
Pell dygoganher amser dybydyn.
for long was (?) prophesied the ttmr when they will come,
24
(NV dvffei a talei yg keithiwet).
(nobody would pay them under compulsion).
30
ny wydynt py treiglynt ym pop aber.
They do not know why they wander in every estuary, oppresstve rule wtll give rise to sorrow.
38
dychyfroy etgyllaeth pennaeth lletfer.
51
y Dduw a Dewi yd ymorchymynynt.
They commend themselves to God and to Dewt,
59
A lluman adaw agarw disgyn.
and (men) leaving behind their banners and fierce attacking;
A mal [bwytl b&on
76
eu crysseu yn llawn creu a orolchant.
they will wash then shut\ full of blood.
81
bydinoed Kutwaladyr
The armies of Cadwaladr
82
rydvchafwynt
91 111
Saesson syrthyn.
and like (food for) wild beasts the Saxons will fall.
60
kadyr y deuant.
Kymry kat a wnant.
will come bravely:
let the Cymry attack, they wtll do battle.
Karrvaladyr yn baladyr gan y unbyn.
Cadwaladr will be a shaft ofdefencr
A cherd ar allure a ffo beunyd.
and the foreigner(s) will be on the move, and daily in flight: They will rush mto battle ltke a bear from the mountain
gyfarth ma1 arth o vynyd
wtth his chieftains
113
fichyrchwynt
122
pan sathwynt galaned wrth eu hennyd.
when corpses stand up. supporttng each other
130
y rynyssaw Gwydyl trwy lieingant.
to lead the Irish by means of a Imen banner (?).
163
Kynan a Chatwaladyr
Cynan and Cadwaladr.
178
rydychafwynt Gymry kadyr gyweithyd.
kadyr yn lluyd
wtth splendid hosts.
May the Cymry rise up, a fatr company.
up. \uppon~ng each
187
pan safhwynt galaned wrth eu hennyd.
When corpses stand
196
poet fyqssawc
may Dewi be the leader of our warrmrs.
199
ny rr?‘w ny wellyc ny phlyc ny chryd.
Dewi yr kynifwyr.
other
He will not fade. reject. nor wca\tzr. nor (will He) diminish.
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
99
For example, line 2 ostensibly contains ten syllables, divided into half-lines of six and four syllables, respectively. This is, of course, a violation of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. The word muraned ‘wealth, treasure’, however, maintains a penult and antepenult with the same quality and, given the pertinent pitch accent on the ultima, with the same quantity. Since they are identical, they are scanned as a single long syllable cut through the middle by the consonant. With the mesotomic syllable taken into account, the line fully adheres to the prescribed meter. Line 8 could be considered problematical, for the application of mesotomy in ‘rejoicing’ would shorten the line too much if gwnahwnt ‘they will make’ were disyllabic-if the w were considered consonantal. It is suggested here that the sequence gwn [gun] could be interpreted as syllabic (rendering the word a trisyllable). Indeed, this would follow the pattern for Old Welsh proffered by I. Williams (197244).
goruoled
In lines 24, 30, and 199, mesotomy appears to apply between words. The negative particle ny, however, is traditionally a prefix adjoined to the verb or other following word, creating in each case a mesotomic syllable that fully justifies the line (although this is resisted by nyt-line 132). Lewis and Pedersen (1974:143) consider it a loose compound in the same category as the temporal particle ry, which is written in Ames Prydein as a prefix and which does unambiguously take part in mesotomic syllables. The same incorporation of the prefixed particle is extended to the preverbal particle 51, creating yet another mesotomic syllable that completes the full justification of the line along with the mesotomic syllable in the middle of the verb. Williams notes that in this case and the case in line 20, ‘ ‘yd is metrically redundant, and may be omitted” (Williams 1972:37). Of course, the rather nebulous case of redundancy can now be seen as a firm case of mesotomy. yd in line
The word agarw ‘fierce, cruel’ in line 59 (compare the word herw ‘raid, roving’ in line 135) is assumed to have a syllabic w, rather than a consonantal one. This is certainly a reasonable assumption for Old Welsh, though it might not be for earlier stages of the language (see Griffen 1986). As seen in the word rydrychajiqnt ‘let them attack’ in lines 82 and 113, the mesotomic syllable is not restricted to penultimate/antepenultimate position. The important aspect of the environment is that it be pretonic. As mentioned disyllabic, with epenthetic yr not does not contain is thus tonic.
in the section above, whenever the name Katwaladyr occurs, it is the mesotomic syllable Katwa counting as one syllable, and the counting at all. Of course, baladyr ‘spear-shaft, support’ in line 91 a mesotomic syllable, as the yr is epenthetic and the syllable lad(yr)
In line 111, ar allure ‘(on) foreigner’ is rendered as a single word. As noted by Williams (1972:51), the word in the text was copied as araffuro, and in some texts it occurred as arallji-o. The writing as a single word is seen in the mesotomy as the proper form, for it fully justifies the line. In fywyssaw ‘lead’ in line 130 and rywyssawc ‘leader’ in line 196, the division
of
100
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
the compound root occurs between the first y and the w (see Morris Jones 1913: I 10). Thus, the first y is a syllabic vowel, and the w may be taken as obstructional, dividing the first y from the second. As the first is a syllabic vowel in itself and not part of a diphthong, it is free to join the following y in a mesotomic syllable. This condition may be contrasted with that of the name Glywyssyg in line 99, treated below. In all, 24 lines that had previously been considered Ban meter now can be seen to adhere to it. This greatly meter in Ames Prydein-indeed, it establishes that the used in the majority of lines. This significant decrease result of our recognizing the mesotomic syllable.
to violate increases Cyhydedd in metrical
the Cyhydedd Naw the regularity of the Naw Ban meter was discrepancies is the
Half-lines justified through the mesotomic syllable In three instances, the application of the mesotomic syllable either does not reduce the line to the required nine syllables or it reduces the line below the nine syllables. In these instances, however, mesotomy does justify the half-line in which it occurs. We can therefore conclude that the mesotomy does in fact apply, but it reveals some transmission error in the other half-line. These instances are listed in Table 2. Table 2. Half-lines justified through the mesotomic syllable Line
Welsh
English
(Bromwich)
20
o vn ewyllis bryt yd ymwrthuynnyn
with a single will they will offer battle
83
lleith anoleith rydygyrchassant
they have sought inescapable death,
cw mae eu kenedloed py vro pan doethant
where are their peoples? from what country do they come?
136
As noted in the previous section, the preverbal particle in yd ymwrthuynnyn ‘they will oppose (in battle)’ in line 20 is effectively prefixed to the verb to create a mesotomic syllable. This justifies the second half-line by reducing the excessive five syllables to four. As in the fully justified line 5 1, the preverbal particle need not be considered redundant for metrical purposes, as indeed it is not in other, nonmesotomic instances. In line 83, mesotomy reduces rydygyrchassarit ‘they have sought’ from five syllables to four. As a single word, it could not have occurred at the end of the line with the four-syllable requirement of the second half-line. Now, however, it does fit. Whatever problem there may be that reduces this line from the original nine syllables to an unacceptable eight, it must occur in the first half-line. The mesotomic syllable thus reveals the true source of the problem; although, to be sure, it can hardly provide an explanation. A similar situation obtains in line 136. By reducing kenedloed ‘peoples, nations’ from three syllables to two, the mesotomic syllable justifies the first half-line with five syllables. Once again, however, the extra syllable in the second half-line is still problematic.
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
101
These three lines strengthen the argument for the mesotomic syllable, in spite of the fact that in one case it does not suffice to reduce the entire line enough, and in two cases it reduces the line too much. As the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is realized in half-lines though, the justification of a half-line through mesotomy is a decisive contribution. Partial justification through the mesotomic syllable In two instances, the mesotomic syllable reduces the line and the half-line in which it occurs, but not enough to justify either. These instances are found in Table 3. Table 3. Partial justification Line 58 184
Welsh
syllable
English (Bromwich)
AC am Gwy geir kyfyreir namyn kechmyn gyfnewitwyr.
through the mesotomic
Knhvuladyr
y am peurllyn. ae
and about the Wye, shout answering shining water, but the slaves and hucksters
shout across the
of Cadwaladr.
Line 58 is particularly interesting. The preceding line is AC am alit lafnawr a gawr a gryn ‘and about the hill (there will be) blades and cries and thrusting’. The superfluous conjunction in line 57 may well have led the scribe to supply a superfluous conjunction in the following line. Such parallelism would have been particularly appealing to the scribe, since in each case the conjunction is followed by the preposition am ‘about’. Should this latter conjunction be an unwarranted addition by the scribe, then the mesotomic syllable would indeed reduce the line to the proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. No such justification can be found for line 184. With the mesotomic syllable, the meter consists of an eleven-syllable line with six syllables in the first half-line and five in the second. This small group of mesotomic syllables does bring the lines closer to the required meter. We can even suggest quite reasonably that the first may justify the half-line and the line. Certainly, neither case would contradict the viability of mesotomy in the poetic meter. Apparent discrepancies introduced by the mesotomic syllable More damaging to the hypothesis would be instances of mesotomy creating a discrepancy in a line. This is apparently the case in those lines listed in Table 4. As we shall see, however, all apparent cases of mesotomic syllables that introduce discrepancies to their lines can be justified as nonmesotomic. One group of apparent mesotomic syllables has to do with the prefix dych-ldyg-. When the meaning of this prefix is transparently ‘with, together’, the word appears to be exempt from mesotomy . This should not come as any great surprise, since the maintenance of a particular meaning for the prefix would necessitate the precise pronunciation of the prefix as a syllable. Once the meaning of the prefix is obscured,
102
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
Table 4. Apparent discrepancies introduced by the mesotomic syllable Line
Welsh
English (Bromwich)
21
Meiryon eu tretheu dychynnullyn.
The stewards will collect their taxes
49
nyt oed yr mawred nas Neferynt.
It would not be through pride that they would no! discuss it
61
Kymry kynyrcheit kyfun dullyn.
The supporters of the Kymry will form orderly rank\.
72
anaeleu tretheu dychynullant.
afflictions are the taxes they will collect.
99 117
na chrynet Dyfet ny Glywyssyg
let neither Dyfed nor Glyw,yasmg tremble
Atui pen gaflaw heb emennyd
There will be heads split open wnhout hram\. the messengers of death will meet
121
Kennadeu agheu dychyferwyd.
161
boet mor boet agor eu kussulwyr
Let sea and anchor be their coun\ellor\
192
Kymry gwenerawl hyt vrawt goruyd.
The Cymry, believers (‘5. till Judpement day will he victorious;
then there is no reason for the poet to make sure the syllable is pronounced entity.
as a distinct
Thus, in lines 2 1 and 72 the word dychynnullyn ‘they gather [together], collect’ may appear to be a candidate for mesotomy, but the meaning of the prefix is far too transparent and must be pronounced. We must therefore scan the word as containing four syllables. In each case, an apparent violation of the second half-line is resolved. Likewise, the word dychyferwyd ‘he/she meets [with]’ in line 12 1 maintains a prefix with the transparent meaning of ‘with, together’ and is therefore exempt from mesotomy. On the other hand, mesotomy does resolve discrepancies in lines 38 and 113 (see Table l), and it applies in these latter cases because the meaning of the prefix is opaque enough not to require the pronunciation with a separate syllable. This difference in treatment of prefixes depending upon the transparency of the meaning is, of course, not unusual in Welsh, in which the degree of bonding is still a consideration (see Morris Jones 1913:260-70). Variant spellings also reveal how some apparently motivating environments for mesotomy avoid the device. For example, kynyrcheit ‘followers, clients’ in line 61 certainly appears to contain a mesotomic syllable; but when we compare this spelling with kyneircheit in lines 47 and 77, we see that the apparent environment for mesotomy is nothing more than the result of a spelling variant. Likewise, the spelling of kussulwyr ‘counselors’ in line 161 would appear to require mesotomy. On the other hand, another form of the word is rendered as kussyl ‘counsel’ in line 165. The u and the y would likely have represented separate sounds in Old Welsh, but they could have been confused in the dialect of Middle Welsh spoken by the scribe (compare D. S. Evans 1964:1-2), in which mesotomy would no longer have been possible. Thus, the latter form would have been tri-syllabic, without the application of mesotomy. Moreover, this word may well have been transparently perceived as a borrowing from Latin c%silium ‘counsel‘ necessitating
MESOTOMIC
the pronunciation word.
of each syllable
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES
in accordance
PRYDEIN
103
with the pattern of the borrowed
The issue of transparent borrowings also applies to gweneruwl in line 192. While the meaning of this word is problematic and treated in detail by I. Williams (1972:70), the source is transparently Latin. As is the case in Modern Welsh (see Griffen 1974), the maintenance of separate phonological systems for the native language and for borrowings is rather to be expected (see also Fries and Pike 1949). We can thus justify the exemption and avoid the mesotomic syllable in this case, in which it would have created a discrepancy. In line 49, the application of mesotomy in lleferynt ‘they will speak’ would create a discrepancy, changing a proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban into an eight-syllable line with four syllables in each half-line. This is the plural form of the singular llafuru ‘to speak’ and the presence of y in the final syllable has changed the a to e in the preceeding syllable by the process of vowel affection (umlaut). That the vowel affection has spread back two syllables would appear to be more in line with the Middle Welsh of the scribe than the Old Welsh of the original (compare D. S. Evans 1964:31). We can thus consider this to be a scribal error, especially as this extended vowel affection is not found in any of the instances of mesotomic syllables that properly reduce the line to the expected meter. In line 99, the place name Glywyssyg would appear to follow the pattern of fywyssaw(c). In the latter case, however, the word as clearly divided into ry and wyssuw(c), with the mesotomic syllable divided by the w. In Glwy,ssyg, on the other hand, the first root is apparently glyw ‘lord’ (Morris Jones 1913:152, 160), with the y a part of the diphthong yw. Thus, this syllable would not have been identical with the following, as the w would have been part of the syllabic diphthong and would not have been considered a consonant or semiconsonant separating the same vowel in a long syllable. Finally, in line 117 a mesotomic syllable in the word emennyd ‘brain(s)’ would reduce the proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter to an eight-syllable line with four syllables per half-line. As seen in Morris Jones 1913:269, the initial vowel could have been either e or y, raising the possibility that the original contained the second variant. Moreover, the original construction would have required an aspirated nasal emhennyd. The heavy aspiration after the nasal would have created a definite syllable boundary. Thus, there are two justifications for discounting this apparent case of mesotomy . In each instance of apparent mesotomy, there has been a systematic reason for claiming that mesotomy should not have applied. In the terminology of Hjelmslev (1970:30-31), then, what we have is a series of counterexamples, none of which weakens the hypothesis. These counterexamples are based upon spelling variants, competing phonological systems, and revised Middle Welsh orthography. Indeed, in the entire corpus there is not a single exception (in the strict Hjelmslevian sense) to the rule of the mesotomic syllable. The hypothesis is very strong.
104
TOBY D. CRIFFEN
Conclusion The mesotomic syllable can thus be seen to have been a viable poetic device in the Old Welsh of Armes Ptydein. As such, it would have represented the phonological interpretation of a single long syllable divided by a consonant. Moreover, it would not have been apparent to the bardic grammarians of Middle Welsh, since the accent shift would by that time have removed even the possibility of a motivating environment. Without the mesotomic syllable, only 92 of the 199 lines of the Armes Prydein adhere to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter-reputedly the main meter of the poem. With the mesotomic syllable, we can add 24 lines to this meter without subtracting one. This provides us with 116 adhering to the now obviously dominant meter. By admitting the viability of the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh, we thus increase the number of acceptable lines by 26%, raising the overall percentage from a minority of 46 % to a majority of 58%. Furthermore, with the three justifications of half-lines and the two other reductions in long lines, the device supports the meter in 29 lines, raising the overall lines supported by mesotomy to 12 l-6 1% While this increase may appear to be modest from the point of view of modern poetry, we must bear in mind that we are dealing with a poem composed around A.D. 930 and transmitted an unknown number of times before the final copy around 1275. How many dialects were involved in this transmission is likewise unknown. And, of course, inscriptions and manuscripts between 930 and 1275 are so sparse as to offer little opportunity for precise interpolation and reconstruction. Given these uncertainties, the rise in acceptable lines provided by the mesotomic syllable is very impressive. Indeed, there are more lines justified by the mesotomic syllable hypothesized in this article than by the device of epenthesis known to have applied in Old Welsh poetry; and there are far more different words involved in mesotomy than in epenthesis. Of more interest phonologically, the discovery of the mesotomic syllable and its viability in Old Welsh provide strong evidence in favor of dynamic phonology. In the segmental and semisegmental models of phonology (such as the CV phonematic approach of prosodic analysis, autosegmental phonology, and other reputedly nonsegmental models-see Griffen 1990), the mesotomic syllable is obscured by the intervention of the phonematic consonant. In dynamic phonology, the vowel is considered to be continuous (as it is in the dynamic phonetic evidence), with the consonant imposed upon it but not interrupting it. It is through this latter interpretation that the mesotomic syllable can be discovered and justified-and the evidence of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter of Armes Prydein certainly offers clear support. By more accurately abstracting into the phonology the manner in which the features of the speech act are actually produced and perceived, we gain insights into the way the Old Welsh poets viewed the crucial phonological aspect of their craft-versification. Had the poet viewed the word as composed of CV sequences, then he could not possibly have maintained the mesotomic syllable. Yet, the mesotomic syllable proves its viability by justifying even more lines than does epenthesis. With the viability
of mesotomy,
it is clear that the poet must have viewed the word
105
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
dynamically. That is, he considered the flow of the syllabic vowels to be continuous and the consonants to be constraints upon the vowel at various points throughout the syllable. This insight coincides with other observations on the Welsh language: the manner in which assimilation could spread through more than one syllable in Old and Middle Welsh (see Griffen 1985:246-248), the extension of the syllabic vowel in epenthesis (see Griffen in press), and similar phenomena. Clearly, the Welsh phonological structure is organized along dynamic lines, as we certainly should expect from the evidence of dynamic phonetics in general.
REFERENCES EVANS,
of Middle Welsh. Dublin Institute for Advanced
D. S. 1964 A Grammar
Studies, Dublin.
EVANS, J. G. (Ed.) 1910 Facsimile and Texf of the Book of Taliesin. Llanbedrog. FIRTH,
J. R. 1948 Sounds and prosodies.
Transactions
FRIES, C. C. and PIKE, K. L. 1949 Coexistent FUDGE,
E. 1987 Branching
structure
of the Philological
phonemic
systems.
T. D. 1974 The development
of Welsh affricates:
T. D. 1979 On phonological
T. D. 1985 Aspects of Dynamic Phonology.
GRIFFEN, 9-17.
T. D. 1986 On Middle Welsh final lengthening.
Benjamins,
GRIFFEN, T. D. 1987/88 Middle Welsh vowel assimilation 22123, 146-156. GRIFFEN, T. D. 1988 Germuno-European: Carbondale. T. D. 1989 The dynamics T. D. 1990 Degemination
GRIFFEN,
T. D. Epenthesis
JACKSON,
K. H. 1953 Lunguuge
JONES,
of Celtic Studies 33,
patterns: interacting parameters.
Studia Celticu
Breaking the Sound Law. Southern Illinois University
of vowel quantity strategies
in Welsh.
Press,
Word 40, 335-347.
in new High German and Swabian.
An Introduction.
Whitlield,
F. J. (Trans).
Lingua 82, 131-149.
and History in Early Britain. Edinburgh
H. 1974 A Concise
Comparative
University
University
Celtic Grammar.
J. 1913 A Welsh Grammar: Historical and Comparative.
MORRIS JONES, J. 1925 Cerad Dafod. Clarendon,
of Wisconsin
Press, Edinburgh.
Board of Celtic Studies 13, 63-64.
MERMELSTEIN, P. 1973 Articulatory model for the study of speech production. tical Society of America 53, 1070-1083. MORRIS
Lingua 34,
Amsterdam.
Bulletin of the Board
D. M. 1949 The accent in Modem Welsh. Bulletin ofthe
LEWIS, H. and PEDERSEN, Ruprecht, Giittingen.
borrowing.
and the Old Welsh accent shift. Studiu Celtica (in press).
HJELMSLEV, L. 1970 Language: Press, Madison.
JONES,
23, 359-377.
A change through
stress in Welsh. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 28, 106-l 12.
GRIFFEN, GRIFFEN,
GRIFFEN,
127-152.
25, 20-50.
within the syllable. Journal of Linguistics
GRIFFEN, 149-165.
GRIFFEN,
Society,
Language
Vandenhoeck
and
Journal of the Acous-
Clarendon,
Oxford.
Oxford. spectrographic
GHMAN, S. E. G. 1967 Numerical 41, 310-320.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
STEPHENS, TRAVIS, Lsc ir,r--c
model of coarticulation.
measurements.
Journal of the
GHMAN, S. E. G. 1966 Coarticulation in VCV utterances: Acoustical Society of America 39, 151-168.
M. (Ed.) 1986 77ze Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales. Clarendon,
J. 1973 Early Celtic Versecraft.
Cornell University
Press, Ithaca.
Oxford.
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106
T. RUBETZKOY, Press, Berkeley. WATKINS,
N. S. 1969 Principles ofPhonology. Baltaxe, C. A. M. (Tram).
T. A. 1961 leirhyddiuerh: Agweddau ar Astudio Iairh. University
WATKINS, T. A. 1972 The accent in Old Welsh-its Cefric &dies 25, I-1 1. WILLIAMS, Cardiff.
Cl. J. and JONES,
quality and development.
University of California
of Wales Press, Cardiff. Bulletin of the Board of
E. I. 1934. Gramadegau’r Penceirddiaid. University
WILLIAMS, I. 1972 Ames Prydein: The ProphecyofBriruin. Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin.
of Wales Press,
English edition by Rachel Bromwich.
WILLIAMS, I. 1975 77te Poems of Taliesin. English edition by J. E. Caerwyn for Advanced Studies, Dublin.
Williams.
Dublin
Dublin Institute
MESOTOMIC
0388~C001/93 $6.00+.00 0 1993 Pergamon Press Ud
1993
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES
PRYDEZN
TOBY D. GRIFFEN Metrical discrepancies in Ames Prydein One of the great monuments of Old Welsh literature, the prophetic (vaticinatory) poem Armes Prydein (The Prophecy of Britain-see Williams 1972) is recorded in 199 lines of the Book of Tuliesin (see J. G. Evans 1910). While it may be attributed to the quasimythical sixth-century seer and poet Taliesin (see Stephens 1986:571-572), the historical and political concerns of Armes Prydein clearly indicate that it was composed around A.D. 930 (I. Williams 1972:xX, 1975:xxvi; Stephens 1986:17-18). The earliest manuscript, however, is found in Peniarth 2, dating from around 1275. Thus, while the composition of the manuscript would have been firmly within the Old Welsh period (from the beginning of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century-Morris Jones 1913:7), the source manuscript was copied by a speaker of Middle Welsh. The basic meter of Armes Prydein is the Cyhydedd Naw Ban (literally, the nine-peak line). As pointed out by Morris Jones (1925:337-338), this meter consists of a ninesyllable line divided by a caesura into a five-syllable half-line, followed by a foursyllable half-line. While the Middle and Modern Welsh meter also takes into consideration the beat, or stress accent patterns, Old Welsh apparently either did not have a stress accent (compare Watkins 1972) or else had a very weak one that was subordinate to the high pitch accent of the ultima. According to Williams, about 46% of the lines:
however,
the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is realized intact in only
“The usual metre of the Ames is Cyhydedd Naw Ban. Lines of nine syllables occur in 92 of the lines, interspersed with lines of ten syllables. For the most part the nine-syllabled lines are divided by a medial pause or caesura into groups of 5 f4, the ten-syllabled into groups of 6+4. But in 23 of the ten-syllabled lines the caesura comes after the fifth syllable, giving two half-lines of 5+5. There are also eight longer lines, divided by caesura into 6+.5. This accounts for 189 of the 199 lines of the poem: the remaining ten lines are easily arranged or adapted to conform to one or other of these lengths. One can see how fond the poet was of making the second half of the line into one of four syllables, following the pause. The lines are embellished with alliteration and internal rhyme; frequently the end of the first half-line rhymes with the second syllable in the second half, sometimes the rhyming words are in the first half.” (I. Williams 1972:lii)
The deviations from the Cyhydedd Naw Ban have been accepted as given by scholars of Welsh literature, in spite of the fact that there is a justification for one type of metrical discrepancy known since the poetic grammars of the Middle Ages
relating to this paper should be addressed to Prof. T. D. Griffen, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1432, U.S.A.
Correspondence
91
TOBY
92
D. GRIFFEN
(compare G. J. Williams and Jones 1934). Epenthesis (svarabhakti) introduces a vowel to break up a difficult consonant cluster and thus to aid in pronunciation. Epenthetic vowels and the syllables resulting from them, however, have always been unscanned in Welsh versification. For example, the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is maintained in line 179: bydinoed am gwrwf a thwrwfmilwyr ‘hosts about the ale-feast, and the noise of warriors’ (I. Williams 1972: 14 & 15). In both gwnuf(from cwmfi ‘ale’ and thwnuf(from rwMifl ‘noise, tumult’. the second syllable is an epenthetic, breaking up the cluster $, and it is therefore not scanned (counted) in the poetic meter. If we were to approach the Old Welsh of Armes Prydein without the knowledge of the poetic rule of epenthesis, then we would have to classily line 179 as an elevensyllable line divided into a six-syllable half-line and a five-syllable half-line. Without the knowledge of this rule-based Old Welsh metrical discrepancy, we would have to conclude that line 179 does not adhere to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban. In this case, we would find that Armes Prydein has even fewer than 92 lines of its own basic metrical pattern. The only reason we know that line 179 should be scanned as Cyhydedd Naw Ban is that the rule of epenthesis-that epenthetics are unscanned syllables-has survived from Old Welsh through Middle Welsh and into Modern Welsh. (On epenthesis, see D. S. Evans 1964: 12-13, Jackson 1953:337-338, Lewis and Pedersen 1974:93-94, Watkins 1961:29, Griffen in press). Now the question is this: Are there any other rules of unscanned syllables in Old Welsh that did not survive long enough in the art of poetry to be recorded in the bardic grammars? To answer this question, let us view the lines of Armes Prydein afresh and without the prejudice of rules recorded after the Old Welsh period. Let us further assume that the basic meter of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban was maintained in the majority of lines, with violations attributable to transmission errors between the Old Welsh of 930 and the Middle Welsh of 1275. Our task, then, is to find regular rules that will predict the unscanned syllables in the long lines and allow us to scan the lines as nine-syllable lines with five-syllable and four-syllable half-lines. The task of determining a rule by which a syllable is not considered pertinent poetic scansion properly falls under the purview of phonology. After all, we dealing here with syllables perceived to be pertinent in the phonological system of Welsh poetry. First, though, we must delineate the model of phonology used in investigation.
for are Old our
Dynamic phonology Dynamic phonology is a functional abstraction from modern dynamic phonetics. Its development and many details of its application to analytical problems are treated at length in Griffen 1985 and in terms more understandable to the layperson in Griffen 1988 (though, of course, in far less detail). It has been used extensively in analyses of Welsh, and those analyses most pertinent to this study include Griffen (1979, 1987/88, 1989, in press). Those working
in Welsh linguistics
will recognize
a strong influence
of Firthian
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
93
prosodic analysis (from Firth 1948), although this has actually been secondary to the broader approach to phonology typified by the structural/functional Prague School phonology of Trubetzkoy (1969). The notational resemblance to prosodic analysis and many of the basic attitudes shared by prosodic and dynamic analysis have resulted more from a convergence achieved when structural/functional principles were applied to the dynamic phonetic evidence of Mermelstein (1973), ehman (1966, 1967), and many others. Once this convergence was established, the teachings of John R. Firth and his followers were drawn upon and have strengthened this model considerably. What dynamic phonology does is to take the principles and many of the analytical procedures from dynamic phonetics and abstract those elements and relationships that are of phonological pertinence. The most basic principle of dynamic phonetics is that speech is not uttered phonemically-with discrete speech segments following one another in linear progression. Rather, the features of speech are organized in accordance with an hierarchical system of dynamic coarticulatory constraint. Dynamic coarticulatory constraint can best be understood through a cursory examination of the speech event itself. To utter a syllable, we vibrate the vocal cords (or create frication between them) to establish a fundamental frequency upon which to build. When the air with its fundamental frequency vibrations (or frication) enters the oral cavity, the position of the tongue body, jaw, and lips work together to create the formant frequencies characteristic of particular syllabic vowels. These formants are constrained or obstructed by movements of other articulators-the consonants. At all levels, finer distinctions, or prosodies, apply to create subtle differences in the manner in which the obstruction is realized at each level, or division, of constraint-laryngeal, syllabic (vocalic), obstructional (consonantal). This hierarchy of constraint is illustrated in Figure 1.
I
0IJstructi0n Prosody Consonantal Features Obstruction
Syilabk Prosody
Vocalic Features Syllable
Laryngeal Pattern Prosody Laryngeal Features Laryngeal Pattern
Fig. 1. Hierarchy
of dynamic
coarticulatory
constraint.
94
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
To conduct analysis, we take this hierarchical system of dynamic coarticulatory constraint (well established in phonetic literature) and organize it into a syllabic frame, as illustrated in Figure 2. The syllabic relationship is also well documented in the phonetic literature, though the features abstracted into the phonological frame are, of course. limited to those of phonological pertinence (in the Trubetzkoian sense). The jagged lines represent the fact that these features are realized in overlapping and often continuous patterns. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that the consonant ih a single, unified block constraining a particular and immutable position in the syllabic. especially not in this study of mesotomy in Old Welsh poetry.
<
>
<
>
C ------
>
<
>
C
>
C
>
< <
obstruction prosodies obstruction features
< <
> S>
< -----.-
>
< <
> >
< -II
>
-syllable prosodies
< ~~--~--~--------_-________-_ < < syllable features <
> > > > > >
>
< < laryngeal (pattern) prosodies < -----_--_--_---------------------~.. < C
<
>
> >
laryng;caJfeatures I_.---
> >
Indeed, the crucial element of dynamic analysis for this study IS the \‘crq tlexibiltty in the constraint of the obstruction over the syllable. This constraint can move historically from one position to another, as in the process of metathesis (see Griffen 198S:chapter lo), and it can even spread over an entire syllable, totally obstructing the syllabic vowel (compare Griffen 1985:chapter 12). In this respect, there is a great deal of potential convergcncc with the principles of prosodic analysis laid down in Firth 1948. The important difference is that the sounds of prosodic analysis tend to be treated as phonematic units following one another in left-to-right progression, providing something of a phonemic hasc on which to hang the prosodies. This practice has in fact been emphasized in more recent CV phonology. resulting in a shift of attention from the manner in which prosodiez JI-t‘ realized with sounds to the intricacy of the phonematic progression and gencrari\c I1C(~-5friicIures
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
95
that may be used to justify this progression (see Fudge 1987-also Griffen 1990). In the dynamic analysis, however, the progression is not recognized-only the realization of the consonant as a constraint on the vowel. The vowel is seen as continuous ‘under’ the consonant, and the consonant is free to shift its position ‘over’ the vowel. Thus, while prosodic analysis in CV phonology has shifted its attention to the progression of phonematic units and has emphasized the segmental aspect, dynamic analysis has entirely abandoned (or, more precisely, has never adopted) the notion of segmentation and maintains consonantal obstructions and vocalic syllables on different hierarchical levels simultaneously. It is this difference that enables the analysis that follows and provides the insight of the mesotomic syllable in Armes Prydein. The accent in Old Welsh and Middle Welsh Now that we have identified the corpus (lines with additional syllables beyond the nine-syllable Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter) and have established the method of analysis, we must answer only one more question before proceeding to a solution. What difference existed between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh that would have justified a poetic/ phonological device in the former and that had disappeared by the latter? Whatever the device was, it was not accounted for in the Middle Welsh bardic grammars (G. J. Williams and Evans 1934). Given the traditional nature of Welsh poetry, it is highly unlikely that a device in Old Welsh would have simply been abandoned in Middle Welsh as if it were still viable-if the phonological basis for the device remained. (To be sure, the generic rhymes and alliterations treated in Travis 1973:45-49 had all but disappeared, but this device was probably archaic by the Old Welsh period.) The major change between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh syllables-the basic units of meter-was the Old Welsh accent shift. In Old Welsh, the primary accent was one of pitch, with high culminative pitch realized on the ultima. In Middle Welsh, the pitch accent remained on the ultima, but a stress accent was realized on the penult. There are several ways of accounting for this development. According to Jackson (1953:682), the pitch accent of Old Welsh coincided with a heavy stress accent, and the stress accent shifted between Old and Middle Welsh to the penult. In the view of Watkins (1972), however, there was no stress accent pattern at all in Old Welsh, and the development of a stress accent on the penult in Middle Welsh was an innovation. D. M. Jones (1949) treads a middle ground, maintaining that the ultima lost its stress element and the penult later developed stress independently. A fuller summary of these positions and their implications can be found in Griffen (in press). For reasons that will be clear by the end of this analysis, the position of Watkins would seem to be the most accurate. That is, Old Welsh accentuation was phonologically marked by a high culminative pitch accent in the ultima. To this we may add that the pretonic syllables were more or less even phonologically-if a difference existed in pitch levels among the pretonic syllables (before the ultima), the speaker/hearer took no notice of them (they were not phonologically pertinent). Moreover, whatever slight stress differences may have existed among syllables were likewise considered
TOBY
96
of no consequence
D. GRIFFEN
and would have been ignored by the poet.
Let us now take a look at how these two accent patterns would be analyzed in dynamic phonology. In Figure 3, we find the schematic syllabic frames of a trisyllabic word in Old Welsh and in Middle Welsh. The consonantal obstructions are shown straddling the transitions between syllabic vowels and could be realized as syllablefinal and syllable-initial obstruction patterns or indeed as nonobstructions. The important point is that whatever consonantal obstructions may have occurred, they would have been imposed about here over the continuous vocalic pattern. In the Old Welsh schema, the accent occurs in the ultima, and the pretonic syllables are equal. In the Middle Welsh schema, the accent occurs in the penult, and the other syllables are thus broken up. Old
Welsh Ultimate Pitch Accent
<
>
<
>
<
>
<
C
>
C
>
<
>
<
>
<
>
C
<
>
>
<
< > < >
< < < < <
>
< > < >
>
> > > > >
ACCENT
tonic equivalents
Middle Welsh Penuhimate Stress Accent <
>
<
>
<
>
<->
c <
> >
< <
> >
< <
> >
< <
> >
<
<
C
>
<
>
>
>
<
<
<
>
C
>
>
>
ACCENT
Fig. 3. Old Welsh accent shift
At this point, we should recall a fundamental difference between the pitch and the stress accent patterns. In Modern Welsh, which maintains both patterns (though the
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
97
latter is considered the phonologically pertinent), the only pitch level of any consequence is the high pitch of the final syllable (D. M. Jones 1949), although the pitch level does rise throughout the word (Watkins 1961:29). On the other hand, the stress level maintains four phonetically pertinent levels, which can be reduced to three levels of phonological pertinence generally realized in a 12 3 1 21 pattern (see Griffen 1979). Thus, while the pretonic syllables in the pitch pattern may be considered equivalent in accent, those in the stress pattern cannot. One of the most fundamental differences between Old Welsh and Middle Welsh, then, reveals some subtler differences that will be crucial to the analysis below. In Old Welsh, the pretonic syllables were accentually identical phonologically. Should the vowel quality of pretonic syllables likewise have been identical, then there would have been no difference at all between, for instance, a penult and an antepenult with the same vowel. In Middle Welsh, on the other hand, no two consecutive syllables could share this degree of identity. This is an extremely significant difference, for it enables the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh and requires its disappearance in Middle Welsh. Syllable mesotomy in Annes Prydein Examining Armes Prydein from the viewpoint of dynamic analysis and taking into account the identity of pretonic syllables with the same vowel in Old Welsh, we can now form an hypothesis: Pretonic syllables with vowels of the same quality in the Old Welsh poetry of Armes Prydein were scanned as single long syllables. For example, the personal name Kutwuludyr was pronounced with four syllables. As we have seen already, however, epenthetic syllables, while pronounced and even spelled, were not considered real syllables and were thus not scanned. As the final syllable was epenthetic, the word would have been reduced from four scanned syllables to three. Moreover, since the penult and antepenult shared the same quality and (phonologically) the same quantity, they were thus completely identical. The hypothesis states that the poet would have considered them to be a single long syllable. The rw in effect ‘cut through the middle’ of the long syllable (uz suggesting the term ‘mesotomic’ for the phenomenon. With this mesotomic syllable counting as a single syllable for purposes of scansion (and phonological pertinence), the word would have been further reduced from three scanned syllables to two. The proof of whether the mesotomic syllable was a viable part of the Old Welsh poetry of Ames Prydein is revealed in the justification of the nine-syllable Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. If the long lines can be reduced to the proper meter with the application of mesotomy, then it would appear likely that such a rule did in fact exist. Moreover, mesotomy ought not to reduce the lines below the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter, at least not in any quantity that would exceed the expected cases of scribal transmission error. The following is an examination of the most obvious or apparent cases of mesotomy in Armes Prydein. There are some other possible occurrences of the device, but these are deemed to be too subtle and subject to interpretation. In this first approximation
98
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
of the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh versilication, the most straightforward cases.
we had best limit ourselves
to
Lines justified through the mesotomic syllable In Table 1 is a listing of those lines containing obvious instances of the mesotomic syllable that fully justify the line to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. That is, without mesotomy, these lines are too long; but with the application of mesotomy in these instances, the lines adhere to the nine-syllable meter with the live-syllable and foursyllable half-lines. In each line, the mesotomic syllables are italicized. The lines themselves are from I. Williams 1972, and the translations are those of Rachel Bromwich found within the Williams text. Table 1. Lines justified through the mesotomic syllable Line
8 13
English (Bromwich)
Welsh maraned a meued a hed genhyn.
we shall have wealth and property and peace.
A phennaeth ehelaeth a ffraeth vnbyn.
and wide dominion, and ready leaders:
Gwaethyl gwyr hyt Gaer Weir gwusgarawt allmyn.
The warriors will scatter the foreigners as far as Caer Weir
gwnahawnt goruoled gwedy gehyn.
they will rejoice after the deva\tatton,
Pell dygoganher amser dybydyn.
for long was (?) prophesied the ttmr when they will come,
24
(NV dvffei a talei yg keithiwet).
(nobody would pay them under compulsion).
30
ny wydynt py treiglynt ym pop aber.
They do not know why they wander in every estuary, oppresstve rule wtll give rise to sorrow.
38
dychyfroy etgyllaeth pennaeth lletfer.
51
y Dduw a Dewi yd ymorchymynynt.
They commend themselves to God and to Dewt,
59
A lluman adaw agarw disgyn.
and (men) leaving behind their banners and fierce attacking;
A mal [bwytl b&on
76
eu crysseu yn llawn creu a orolchant.
they will wash then shut\ full of blood.
81
bydinoed Kutwaladyr
The armies of Cadwaladr
82
rydvchafwynt
91 111
Saesson syrthyn.
and like (food for) wild beasts the Saxons will fall.
60
kadyr y deuant.
Kymry kat a wnant.
will come bravely:
let the Cymry attack, they wtll do battle.
Karrvaladyr yn baladyr gan y unbyn.
Cadwaladr will be a shaft ofdefencr
A cherd ar allure a ffo beunyd.
and the foreigner(s) will be on the move, and daily in flight: They will rush mto battle ltke a bear from the mountain
gyfarth ma1 arth o vynyd
wtth his chieftains
113
fichyrchwynt
122
pan sathwynt galaned wrth eu hennyd.
when corpses stand up. supporttng each other
130
y rynyssaw Gwydyl trwy lieingant.
to lead the Irish by means of a Imen banner (?).
163
Kynan a Chatwaladyr
Cynan and Cadwaladr.
178
rydychafwynt Gymry kadyr gyweithyd.
kadyr yn lluyd
wtth splendid hosts.
May the Cymry rise up, a fatr company.
up. \uppon~ng each
187
pan safhwynt galaned wrth eu hennyd.
When corpses stand
196
poet fyqssawc
may Dewi be the leader of our warrmrs.
199
ny rr?‘w ny wellyc ny phlyc ny chryd.
Dewi yr kynifwyr.
other
He will not fade. reject. nor wca\tzr. nor (will He) diminish.
MESOTOMIC
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES PRYDEIN
99
For example, line 2 ostensibly contains ten syllables, divided into half-lines of six and four syllables, respectively. This is, of course, a violation of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. The word muraned ‘wealth, treasure’, however, maintains a penult and antepenult with the same quality and, given the pertinent pitch accent on the ultima, with the same quantity. Since they are identical, they are scanned as a single long syllable cut through the middle by the consonant. With the mesotomic syllable taken into account, the line fully adheres to the prescribed meter. Line 8 could be considered problematical, for the application of mesotomy in ‘rejoicing’ would shorten the line too much if gwnahwnt ‘they will make’ were disyllabic-if the w were considered consonantal. It is suggested here that the sequence gwn [gun] could be interpreted as syllabic (rendering the word a trisyllable). Indeed, this would follow the pattern for Old Welsh proffered by I. Williams (197244).
goruoled
In lines 24, 30, and 199, mesotomy appears to apply between words. The negative particle ny, however, is traditionally a prefix adjoined to the verb or other following word, creating in each case a mesotomic syllable that fully justifies the line (although this is resisted by nyt-line 132). Lewis and Pedersen (1974:143) consider it a loose compound in the same category as the temporal particle ry, which is written in Ames Prydein as a prefix and which does unambiguously take part in mesotomic syllables. The same incorporation of the prefixed particle is extended to the preverbal particle 51, creating yet another mesotomic syllable that completes the full justification of the line along with the mesotomic syllable in the middle of the verb. Williams notes that in this case and the case in line 20, ‘ ‘yd is metrically redundant, and may be omitted” (Williams 1972:37). Of course, the rather nebulous case of redundancy can now be seen as a firm case of mesotomy. yd in line
The word agarw ‘fierce, cruel’ in line 59 (compare the word herw ‘raid, roving’ in line 135) is assumed to have a syllabic w, rather than a consonantal one. This is certainly a reasonable assumption for Old Welsh, though it might not be for earlier stages of the language (see Griffen 1986). As seen in the word rydrychajiqnt ‘let them attack’ in lines 82 and 113, the mesotomic syllable is not restricted to penultimate/antepenultimate position. The important aspect of the environment is that it be pretonic. As mentioned disyllabic, with epenthetic yr not does not contain is thus tonic.
in the section above, whenever the name Katwaladyr occurs, it is the mesotomic syllable Katwa counting as one syllable, and the counting at all. Of course, baladyr ‘spear-shaft, support’ in line 91 a mesotomic syllable, as the yr is epenthetic and the syllable lad(yr)
In line 111, ar allure ‘(on) foreigner’ is rendered as a single word. As noted by Williams (1972:51), the word in the text was copied as araffuro, and in some texts it occurred as arallji-o. The writing as a single word is seen in the mesotomy as the proper form, for it fully justifies the line. In fywyssaw ‘lead’ in line 130 and rywyssawc ‘leader’ in line 196, the division
of
100
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
the compound root occurs between the first y and the w (see Morris Jones 1913: I 10). Thus, the first y is a syllabic vowel, and the w may be taken as obstructional, dividing the first y from the second. As the first is a syllabic vowel in itself and not part of a diphthong, it is free to join the following y in a mesotomic syllable. This condition may be contrasted with that of the name Glywyssyg in line 99, treated below. In all, 24 lines that had previously been considered Ban meter now can be seen to adhere to it. This greatly meter in Ames Prydein-indeed, it establishes that the used in the majority of lines. This significant decrease result of our recognizing the mesotomic syllable.
to violate increases Cyhydedd in metrical
the Cyhydedd Naw the regularity of the Naw Ban meter was discrepancies is the
Half-lines justified through the mesotomic syllable In three instances, the application of the mesotomic syllable either does not reduce the line to the required nine syllables or it reduces the line below the nine syllables. In these instances, however, mesotomy does justify the half-line in which it occurs. We can therefore conclude that the mesotomy does in fact apply, but it reveals some transmission error in the other half-line. These instances are listed in Table 2. Table 2. Half-lines justified through the mesotomic syllable Line
Welsh
English
(Bromwich)
20
o vn ewyllis bryt yd ymwrthuynnyn
with a single will they will offer battle
83
lleith anoleith rydygyrchassant
they have sought inescapable death,
cw mae eu kenedloed py vro pan doethant
where are their peoples? from what country do they come?
136
As noted in the previous section, the preverbal particle in yd ymwrthuynnyn ‘they will oppose (in battle)’ in line 20 is effectively prefixed to the verb to create a mesotomic syllable. This justifies the second half-line by reducing the excessive five syllables to four. As in the fully justified line 5 1, the preverbal particle need not be considered redundant for metrical purposes, as indeed it is not in other, nonmesotomic instances. In line 83, mesotomy reduces rydygyrchassarit ‘they have sought’ from five syllables to four. As a single word, it could not have occurred at the end of the line with the four-syllable requirement of the second half-line. Now, however, it does fit. Whatever problem there may be that reduces this line from the original nine syllables to an unacceptable eight, it must occur in the first half-line. The mesotomic syllable thus reveals the true source of the problem; although, to be sure, it can hardly provide an explanation. A similar situation obtains in line 136. By reducing kenedloed ‘peoples, nations’ from three syllables to two, the mesotomic syllable justifies the first half-line with five syllables. Once again, however, the extra syllable in the second half-line is still problematic.
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
101
These three lines strengthen the argument for the mesotomic syllable, in spite of the fact that in one case it does not suffice to reduce the entire line enough, and in two cases it reduces the line too much. As the Cyhydedd Naw Ban is realized in half-lines though, the justification of a half-line through mesotomy is a decisive contribution. Partial justification through the mesotomic syllable In two instances, the mesotomic syllable reduces the line and the half-line in which it occurs, but not enough to justify either. These instances are found in Table 3. Table 3. Partial justification Line 58 184
Welsh
syllable
English (Bromwich)
AC am Gwy geir kyfyreir namyn kechmyn gyfnewitwyr.
through the mesotomic
Knhvuladyr
y am peurllyn. ae
and about the Wye, shout answering shining water, but the slaves and hucksters
shout across the
of Cadwaladr.
Line 58 is particularly interesting. The preceding line is AC am alit lafnawr a gawr a gryn ‘and about the hill (there will be) blades and cries and thrusting’. The superfluous conjunction in line 57 may well have led the scribe to supply a superfluous conjunction in the following line. Such parallelism would have been particularly appealing to the scribe, since in each case the conjunction is followed by the preposition am ‘about’. Should this latter conjunction be an unwarranted addition by the scribe, then the mesotomic syllable would indeed reduce the line to the proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter. No such justification can be found for line 184. With the mesotomic syllable, the meter consists of an eleven-syllable line with six syllables in the first half-line and five in the second. This small group of mesotomic syllables does bring the lines closer to the required meter. We can even suggest quite reasonably that the first may justify the half-line and the line. Certainly, neither case would contradict the viability of mesotomy in the poetic meter. Apparent discrepancies introduced by the mesotomic syllable More damaging to the hypothesis would be instances of mesotomy creating a discrepancy in a line. This is apparently the case in those lines listed in Table 4. As we shall see, however, all apparent cases of mesotomic syllables that introduce discrepancies to their lines can be justified as nonmesotomic. One group of apparent mesotomic syllables has to do with the prefix dych-ldyg-. When the meaning of this prefix is transparently ‘with, together’, the word appears to be exempt from mesotomy . This should not come as any great surprise, since the maintenance of a particular meaning for the prefix would necessitate the precise pronunciation of the prefix as a syllable. Once the meaning of the prefix is obscured,
102
TOBY D. GRIFFEN
Table 4. Apparent discrepancies introduced by the mesotomic syllable Line
Welsh
English (Bromwich)
21
Meiryon eu tretheu dychynnullyn.
The stewards will collect their taxes
49
nyt oed yr mawred nas Neferynt.
It would not be through pride that they would no! discuss it
61
Kymry kynyrcheit kyfun dullyn.
The supporters of the Kymry will form orderly rank\.
72
anaeleu tretheu dychynullant.
afflictions are the taxes they will collect.
99 117
na chrynet Dyfet ny Glywyssyg
let neither Dyfed nor Glyw,yasmg tremble
Atui pen gaflaw heb emennyd
There will be heads split open wnhout hram\. the messengers of death will meet
121
Kennadeu agheu dychyferwyd.
161
boet mor boet agor eu kussulwyr
Let sea and anchor be their coun\ellor\
192
Kymry gwenerawl hyt vrawt goruyd.
The Cymry, believers (‘5. till Judpement day will he victorious;
then there is no reason for the poet to make sure the syllable is pronounced entity.
as a distinct
Thus, in lines 2 1 and 72 the word dychynnullyn ‘they gather [together], collect’ may appear to be a candidate for mesotomy, but the meaning of the prefix is far too transparent and must be pronounced. We must therefore scan the word as containing four syllables. In each case, an apparent violation of the second half-line is resolved. Likewise, the word dychyferwyd ‘he/she meets [with]’ in line 12 1 maintains a prefix with the transparent meaning of ‘with, together’ and is therefore exempt from mesotomy. On the other hand, mesotomy does resolve discrepancies in lines 38 and 113 (see Table l), and it applies in these latter cases because the meaning of the prefix is opaque enough not to require the pronunciation with a separate syllable. This difference in treatment of prefixes depending upon the transparency of the meaning is, of course, not unusual in Welsh, in which the degree of bonding is still a consideration (see Morris Jones 1913:260-70). Variant spellings also reveal how some apparently motivating environments for mesotomy avoid the device. For example, kynyrcheit ‘followers, clients’ in line 61 certainly appears to contain a mesotomic syllable; but when we compare this spelling with kyneircheit in lines 47 and 77, we see that the apparent environment for mesotomy is nothing more than the result of a spelling variant. Likewise, the spelling of kussulwyr ‘counselors’ in line 161 would appear to require mesotomy. On the other hand, another form of the word is rendered as kussyl ‘counsel’ in line 165. The u and the y would likely have represented separate sounds in Old Welsh, but they could have been confused in the dialect of Middle Welsh spoken by the scribe (compare D. S. Evans 1964:1-2), in which mesotomy would no longer have been possible. Thus, the latter form would have been tri-syllabic, without the application of mesotomy. Moreover, this word may well have been transparently perceived as a borrowing from Latin c%silium ‘counsel‘ necessitating
MESOTOMIC
the pronunciation word.
of each syllable
SYLLABLES
IN ARMES
in accordance
PRYDEIN
103
with the pattern of the borrowed
The issue of transparent borrowings also applies to gweneruwl in line 192. While the meaning of this word is problematic and treated in detail by I. Williams (1972:70), the source is transparently Latin. As is the case in Modern Welsh (see Griffen 1974), the maintenance of separate phonological systems for the native language and for borrowings is rather to be expected (see also Fries and Pike 1949). We can thus justify the exemption and avoid the mesotomic syllable in this case, in which it would have created a discrepancy. In line 49, the application of mesotomy in lleferynt ‘they will speak’ would create a discrepancy, changing a proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban into an eight-syllable line with four syllables in each half-line. This is the plural form of the singular llafuru ‘to speak’ and the presence of y in the final syllable has changed the a to e in the preceeding syllable by the process of vowel affection (umlaut). That the vowel affection has spread back two syllables would appear to be more in line with the Middle Welsh of the scribe than the Old Welsh of the original (compare D. S. Evans 1964:31). We can thus consider this to be a scribal error, especially as this extended vowel affection is not found in any of the instances of mesotomic syllables that properly reduce the line to the expected meter. In line 99, the place name Glywyssyg would appear to follow the pattern of fywyssaw(c). In the latter case, however, the word as clearly divided into ry and wyssuw(c), with the mesotomic syllable divided by the w. In Glwy,ssyg, on the other hand, the first root is apparently glyw ‘lord’ (Morris Jones 1913:152, 160), with the y a part of the diphthong yw. Thus, this syllable would not have been identical with the following, as the w would have been part of the syllabic diphthong and would not have been considered a consonant or semiconsonant separating the same vowel in a long syllable. Finally, in line 117 a mesotomic syllable in the word emennyd ‘brain(s)’ would reduce the proper Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter to an eight-syllable line with four syllables per half-line. As seen in Morris Jones 1913:269, the initial vowel could have been either e or y, raising the possibility that the original contained the second variant. Moreover, the original construction would have required an aspirated nasal emhennyd. The heavy aspiration after the nasal would have created a definite syllable boundary. Thus, there are two justifications for discounting this apparent case of mesotomy . In each instance of apparent mesotomy, there has been a systematic reason for claiming that mesotomy should not have applied. In the terminology of Hjelmslev (1970:30-31), then, what we have is a series of counterexamples, none of which weakens the hypothesis. These counterexamples are based upon spelling variants, competing phonological systems, and revised Middle Welsh orthography. Indeed, in the entire corpus there is not a single exception (in the strict Hjelmslevian sense) to the rule of the mesotomic syllable. The hypothesis is very strong.
104
TOBY D. CRIFFEN
Conclusion The mesotomic syllable can thus be seen to have been a viable poetic device in the Old Welsh of Armes Ptydein. As such, it would have represented the phonological interpretation of a single long syllable divided by a consonant. Moreover, it would not have been apparent to the bardic grammarians of Middle Welsh, since the accent shift would by that time have removed even the possibility of a motivating environment. Without the mesotomic syllable, only 92 of the 199 lines of the Armes Prydein adhere to the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter-reputedly the main meter of the poem. With the mesotomic syllable, we can add 24 lines to this meter without subtracting one. This provides us with 116 adhering to the now obviously dominant meter. By admitting the viability of the mesotomic syllable in Old Welsh, we thus increase the number of acceptable lines by 26%, raising the overall percentage from a minority of 46 % to a majority of 58%. Furthermore, with the three justifications of half-lines and the two other reductions in long lines, the device supports the meter in 29 lines, raising the overall lines supported by mesotomy to 12 l-6 1% While this increase may appear to be modest from the point of view of modern poetry, we must bear in mind that we are dealing with a poem composed around A.D. 930 and transmitted an unknown number of times before the final copy around 1275. How many dialects were involved in this transmission is likewise unknown. And, of course, inscriptions and manuscripts between 930 and 1275 are so sparse as to offer little opportunity for precise interpolation and reconstruction. Given these uncertainties, the rise in acceptable lines provided by the mesotomic syllable is very impressive. Indeed, there are more lines justified by the mesotomic syllable hypothesized in this article than by the device of epenthesis known to have applied in Old Welsh poetry; and there are far more different words involved in mesotomy than in epenthesis. Of more interest phonologically, the discovery of the mesotomic syllable and its viability in Old Welsh provide strong evidence in favor of dynamic phonology. In the segmental and semisegmental models of phonology (such as the CV phonematic approach of prosodic analysis, autosegmental phonology, and other reputedly nonsegmental models-see Griffen 1990), the mesotomic syllable is obscured by the intervention of the phonematic consonant. In dynamic phonology, the vowel is considered to be continuous (as it is in the dynamic phonetic evidence), with the consonant imposed upon it but not interrupting it. It is through this latter interpretation that the mesotomic syllable can be discovered and justified-and the evidence of the Cyhydedd Naw Ban meter of Armes Prydein certainly offers clear support. By more accurately abstracting into the phonology the manner in which the features of the speech act are actually produced and perceived, we gain insights into the way the Old Welsh poets viewed the crucial phonological aspect of their craft-versification. Had the poet viewed the word as composed of CV sequences, then he could not possibly have maintained the mesotomic syllable. Yet, the mesotomic syllable proves its viability by justifying even more lines than does epenthesis. With the viability
of mesotomy,
it is clear that the poet must have viewed the word
105
MESOTOMIC SYLLABLES IN ARMES PRYDEIN
dynamically. That is, he considered the flow of the syllabic vowels to be continuous and the consonants to be constraints upon the vowel at various points throughout the syllable. This insight coincides with other observations on the Welsh language: the manner in which assimilation could spread through more than one syllable in Old and Middle Welsh (see Griffen 1985:246-248), the extension of the syllabic vowel in epenthesis (see Griffen in press), and similar phenomena. Clearly, the Welsh phonological structure is organized along dynamic lines, as we certainly should expect from the evidence of dynamic phonetics in general.
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