Papers by Tomasz Czerniak
Roczniki Humanistyczne, 2014
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Vowel Mutation, Harmonic Epenthesis, Palatalised Velars, Affricates, Vowel Reduction, Element The... more Vowel Mutation, Harmonic Epenthesis, Palatalised Velars, Affricates, Vowel Reduction, Element Theory, Phonological Primes, Weak Vowels
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New Perspectives in Celtic Studies
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Within Language, Beyond Theories
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Books by Tomasz Czerniak
Preface
This volume contains a selection of papers which deal with a wide range
of phenomena con... more Preface
This volume contains a selection of papers which deal with a wide range
of phenomena connected with Celtic linguistics, literature and culture.
Additionally, two articles are devoted to Scottish literature and are
included in this book because Scottish literature, even when written in
English, not Scottish Gaelic, has obvious affinities with Celtic culture. On
the following pages one will find analyses offered by both distinguished
scholars who are well-known in the circles of Celtic studies and young
researchers who have just begun their careers in the field of academic
investigations. Such a combination is by all means purposeful as it
provides prospective readers with a unique opportunity to be confronted
with Celtic issues presented from dissimilar viewpoints and perspectives.
Sabine Asmus discusses the difficulties which face those trying to
describe similarities between the contemporary literatures of the
historically closely linked Celtic neighbours – Ireland and Wales. Despite
their mutual influence all through the Middle Ages and some
recognizable motif and genre similarities, the identification of shared
trends is problematic. This article aims to reveal the reasons for this state
of affairs and suggests that they are due to the differing histories of the
two regions, in particular since the Renaissance period when neither of
them could escape the different forms of intensive English rule.
The article by Martin J. Ball addresses the problem of the number of
rhotic consonants in Modern Welsh. The author investigates the contrast
between the lenis [r], fortis [rh] and voiceless [r9] from a Systemic
Phonology perspective which divorces the phonematic character of the
trill from the aspiration/voiceless prosody that may co-occur.
Aleksander Bednarski raises the problem of the palimpsestuous
dimension of Gwyneth Lewis’s The Meat Tree, arguing that it can be read
in Gérard Genette’s terms as a metatextual commentary on the critical
discourse concerning the Welsh tales known as the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi.
Following Booij, Maria Bloch-Trojnar provides further evidence
against the universal validity of Greenberg’s Universal 28, which states
that derivational markers always occur closer to the root than
inflectional ones. The universal has to be weakened with reference to
the so-called inherent inflectional categories such as comparative forms
of adjectives, the plural number in nouns, the participle, and infinitive
forms of verbs. The paper examines cases in Irish where inflectional
forms feed derivation.
The objective of Andrew Breeze’s paper is a historical linguistic
analysis of possible Latin influences on the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi. Focusing on the expression “with the Crown of London”
(ardyrchawc o goron Lundein), he tests the assumption that the authors of
the above-mentioned tales were influenced by major Latin mediaeval
works.
Wioletta Chabko discusses the issues raised in Alan Warner’s first
novel, Morvern Callar, within the context of post-structural theory and
modern day cybernetic culture. Using the tenets of post-structuralism, the
article attempts to illustrate how contemporary Scottish fiction can be
seen as challenging traditional representations of Scottish identity.
Moreover, the novel highlights the influence of media and information
technology on the protagonist and on the course of the story. As such, it
may be viewed as commenting on issues relevant not only to the Scottish
semiosphere but also to the broader, worldwide condition of
contemporary media-saturated reality.
The contribution by Tomasz Czerniak is an Element Theory approach
to the internal composition of Welsh vocalic segments. The proposed
structures are based on the phonological behaviour of the investigated
vocalic segments and are compatible with phenomena typical of the
northern dialects of the language.
Malwina Degórska’s paper studies a gender-bending protagonist of
the 21st century Irish-language drama The Connemara Five (2006) by
using Thomas’ and Taormino’s understanding of ‘queer heterosexual’
identity and the Foucaldian notion of the ‘family cell’. Based on Micheál
Ó Conghaile’s play, it is argued that in modern Irish society keeping
gender instability out of public view is a part of the country’s regulating
practice on sexuality.
Natalia Dudek compares the schwa epenthesis in Irish and
Luxembourgish. Although the situation in Luxembourgish resembles the
Irish example to a certain extent, she argues that the patterns of vowel
insertion which have been proposed as well-established for Irish do not
work the same way in the former dialect of German which has recently
been recognized as a separate language.
Krzysztof Jaskuła addresses the partial deactivation of prehistoric
sandhi effects in Middle Irish. In his view, there are a few possible
explanations to the question of why one formerly phonological process
was abandoned in favour of another sound adjustment.
Mélanie Jouitteau describes Breton indefinites created by noun
reduplication that obtain an existential free-choice reading. The range of
possible determiners and licensing contexts is specified and it is argued
that the -mañ- element at the heart of the reduplicative structure is an
entity distinct from the spatial proximal deictic marker -mañ.
In his paper, Wojciech Nowicki argues that Tobias Smollett’s last
novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), ingeniously combines
self- and hetero-images of Edinburgh at a time when Scotland was
emerging from cultural obscurity, its capital to be styled the ‘Athens of
the North’.
Mark Ó’Fionnáin inspects early translations of Russian literature into
Irish and claims that they were more than simply literary translations. It is
unclear whether the translators themselves worked directly from Russian,
or relied on an English translation, but at least three of these translators
did know Russian. In his opinion, the translators were part of a mission to
support the building of a national Irish literature. The author looks at the
use they made of their texts, not just in offering their readership Russian
literature, but also in presenting cultural or linguistic information, such as
idioms or phonetic descriptions, or a brief history of Russian literature.
He also takes a look at how they set about the task of rewriting Russian
names and nouns in their Irish texts.
All the authors of the articles included in this collection deserve our
great thanks for both contributing the results of their research to the
present volume and their smooth cooperation during the whole editorial
process.
Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to a number of
people who have helped us in the process of reviewing the papers and
making extremely useful comments. Particularly, we wish to thank Prof.
Anna Bloch-Rozmej, Prof. Eugeniusz Cyran, Prof. Anna Malicka-
Kleparska and Dr Sławomir Zdziebko.
Several papers from this selection were presented during the Celtic
Days in Zamość, Poland, in June 2014, and we thank the organizers of
that memorable event, namely Prof. Wojciech Nowicki and Ms. Tamara
Woińska.
We also hope that the articles included in this book will provide
readers with new and fresh perspectives on how Celtic issues can be
represented and interpreted.
Tomasz Czerniak
Maciej Czerniakowski
Krzysztof Jaskuła
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This volume provides accounts of well-established themes of general Celtic inquiry from new theor... more This volume provides accounts of well-established themes of general Celtic inquiry from new theoretical perspectives, in addition to addressing new areas of research that have remained largely unexplored. The collection includes contributions by both established and young scholars on diverse aspects of culture, literature and linguistics, reflecting the multidisciplinary character of current trends in Celtology. The linguistic section of the book includes chapters dealing with Welsh phonology and possible areas of influence of the Brittonic language on English, as well as with the issues of translating culture-specific aspects of medieval Welsh texts and the problems of standardising Irish orthography and font. The second part of the volume is devoted to literature and considers neglected, and heretofore unexplored, aspects of Welsh-language poetry, fiction and children’s literature, the work of John Cowper Powys, and Scottish film in the theoretical context of post-humanism. Approaching these issues from different angles and using different methodologies, the collection highlights the connections between long-established academic areas of interest and popular culture, broadening the horizon of Celtic scholarship.
Chapter One
Prolegomena to a Study of Welsh Vocalism
Sabine Asmus and Cormac Anderson
Chapter Two
Diphthongs in the North of Wales
PawełTomasz Czerniak
Chapter Three
Translating or Mistranslating Celtic Law in the Polish versions
of the “Four Branches of the Mabinogi”
Katarzyna Jaworska-Biskup
Chapter Four
Revision of the Most Known Celtic Features of English
Ireneusz Kida
Chapter Five
An Irish Solution to an Irish Problem: The (Neverending) Issue
of Standardising Irish
Mark Ó Fionnáin
Chapter Six
Hiraeth as Allegorical Form: Fflur Dafydd’s Atyniad
Aleksander Bednarski
Chapter Seven
Is this Machine Alive? Machine-like, Biotic, Autopoietic Systems in Contemporary Cinema
Maciej Czerniakowski
Chapter Eight
A Postcolonial Traveller? A Take on the Poetry of Iwan Llwyd
Siôn Pennar
Chapter Nine
Barti Ddu: A Welsh Colonial Hero in a Post-colonial Text?
Awen Schiavone
Chapter Ten
“History is not to be trifled within this way”? Re-contextualising
John Cowper Powys’ Owen Glendower (1940)
Angelika Reichmann
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Conference Presentations by Tomasz Czerniak
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Although the status of affricates in the phonology of Welsh raises more questions than Element Th... more Although the status of affricates in the phonology of Welsh raises more questions than Element Theory has answers for, a theoretical response to at least the most rudimentary of these questions is inevitable to complete the picture of Welsh consonant inventory. The aim of this presentation is to investigate the (diachronic and synchronic) behaviour of /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ in Welsh and to put forward their autosegmental representations. Being generally marked in Celtic languages, affricates are relatively new to the inventory of Welsh consonants (Hannahs 2013: 15). Despite that fact, Griffen (1974, 1997, 2010) argues that they have become incorporated into active linguistic patterns. Firstly, /dʒ/ is a result of /d/+/j/ affrication process. Secondly, a number of, predominantly English, loanwords have been adopted in Welsh, preserving the original pronunciation. Thirdly, they participate in Initial Consonant Mutations – morpho-phonologically productive consonant alternations. Four different autosegmental representations of affricate consonants in Element Theory (namely Harris 1994, Szigetvári 1997, Scheer 1999 and Backley 2011) will be tested by applying the Welsh data. It will be argued that it is the combination of occlusion and palatality that makes for affrication.
References:
Backley, Phillip. 2011. An Introduction to Element Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Griffen, Toby D. 1974. “The Development of Welsh Affricates: A Change Through Borrowing.” Lingua 34: 148-165.
Griffen, Toby D. 1997. “Welsh Alveopalatals: Functional Pattern Attraction.” Word 48: 353-366.
Griffen, Toby D. 2010. “The Further Development of Welsh Affricates.” Unpublished MS: Southern Illinois University. Available: http://www.fanad.net.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The Phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheer, Tobias. 1999. “A Theory of Consonantal Interaction.” Folia Linguistica 32: 201-237.
Szigetvári, Péter. 1997. “On Affricates.” In Proceedings of the First Doctoral Symposium in Linguistics, edited by Ágnes Bende-Farkas, 94-105. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University.
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Rethinking Traditional Linguistic Issues. Lublin, Poland.
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The IPA symbol which is frequently employed to denote the phonetic shape of the Welsh mid-central... more The IPA symbol which is frequently employed to denote the phonetic shape of the Welsh mid-central vowel is often misinterpreted as a weak or reduced vowel. The vowel, represented by <y> in spelling, might indeed be confusing to an English-centred linguist. Firstly, the formant structure is largely consistent with the reduced vowel of the English language found in words like about or phenomenon (Ball and Williams 2001). Secondly, its distribution is limited to a non-final position. Whenever <y> would occur in a final syllable, its melody is changed, which is known in the literature as Vowel Mutation (Ball and Jones 1984, Hannahs 2013). Thirdly, <y> seems to be the only vowel which is not lengthened in open stressed syllables (Buczek 1998). Moreover, it is unattested in monosyllables except in extremely rare borrowings (e.g. nyrs, fyr ‘nurse, fur’) or in clitics (Ball and Jones 1984).
On the other hand, <y> appears in a stressed syllable, which should indicated anything but its weakness. Furthermore, it alternates mostly with [i] and [u] but not with other vowels and cannot be understood as a reduction product. On top of that, Awbery (1986) observes that it is indeed lengthened under stress in certain southern dialects of Welsh.
Both phonetic and phonological facts should shed some more light on the elusive character of Welsh <y>, what it should be represented with phonetically and what it should be named.
Awbery, Gwenllian M. 1986. Pembrokeshire Welsh. A phonological study. Llandysul. National Museum of Wales.
Ball, Martin J. and Glyn E. Jones. 1984. eds. Welsh Phonology. Selected Readings. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Ball, Martin J. and Briony Williams. 2001. The phonetics of Welsh. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Buczek, Anita. 1988. The vowel that cannot be long: the story of the Welsh central vowel schwa. In
Structure and Interpretation - Studies in Phonology, edited by E. Cyran, 55-64. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Folium.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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conference title: New Developments in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
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Papers by Tomasz Czerniak
Books by Tomasz Czerniak
This volume contains a selection of papers which deal with a wide range
of phenomena connected with Celtic linguistics, literature and culture.
Additionally, two articles are devoted to Scottish literature and are
included in this book because Scottish literature, even when written in
English, not Scottish Gaelic, has obvious affinities with Celtic culture. On
the following pages one will find analyses offered by both distinguished
scholars who are well-known in the circles of Celtic studies and young
researchers who have just begun their careers in the field of academic
investigations. Such a combination is by all means purposeful as it
provides prospective readers with a unique opportunity to be confronted
with Celtic issues presented from dissimilar viewpoints and perspectives.
Sabine Asmus discusses the difficulties which face those trying to
describe similarities between the contemporary literatures of the
historically closely linked Celtic neighbours – Ireland and Wales. Despite
their mutual influence all through the Middle Ages and some
recognizable motif and genre similarities, the identification of shared
trends is problematic. This article aims to reveal the reasons for this state
of affairs and suggests that they are due to the differing histories of the
two regions, in particular since the Renaissance period when neither of
them could escape the different forms of intensive English rule.
The article by Martin J. Ball addresses the problem of the number of
rhotic consonants in Modern Welsh. The author investigates the contrast
between the lenis [r], fortis [rh] and voiceless [r9] from a Systemic
Phonology perspective which divorces the phonematic character of the
trill from the aspiration/voiceless prosody that may co-occur.
Aleksander Bednarski raises the problem of the palimpsestuous
dimension of Gwyneth Lewis’s The Meat Tree, arguing that it can be read
in Gérard Genette’s terms as a metatextual commentary on the critical
discourse concerning the Welsh tales known as the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi.
Following Booij, Maria Bloch-Trojnar provides further evidence
against the universal validity of Greenberg’s Universal 28, which states
that derivational markers always occur closer to the root than
inflectional ones. The universal has to be weakened with reference to
the so-called inherent inflectional categories such as comparative forms
of adjectives, the plural number in nouns, the participle, and infinitive
forms of verbs. The paper examines cases in Irish where inflectional
forms feed derivation.
The objective of Andrew Breeze’s paper is a historical linguistic
analysis of possible Latin influences on the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi. Focusing on the expression “with the Crown of London”
(ardyrchawc o goron Lundein), he tests the assumption that the authors of
the above-mentioned tales were influenced by major Latin mediaeval
works.
Wioletta Chabko discusses the issues raised in Alan Warner’s first
novel, Morvern Callar, within the context of post-structural theory and
modern day cybernetic culture. Using the tenets of post-structuralism, the
article attempts to illustrate how contemporary Scottish fiction can be
seen as challenging traditional representations of Scottish identity.
Moreover, the novel highlights the influence of media and information
technology on the protagonist and on the course of the story. As such, it
may be viewed as commenting on issues relevant not only to the Scottish
semiosphere but also to the broader, worldwide condition of
contemporary media-saturated reality.
The contribution by Tomasz Czerniak is an Element Theory approach
to the internal composition of Welsh vocalic segments. The proposed
structures are based on the phonological behaviour of the investigated
vocalic segments and are compatible with phenomena typical of the
northern dialects of the language.
Malwina Degórska’s paper studies a gender-bending protagonist of
the 21st century Irish-language drama The Connemara Five (2006) by
using Thomas’ and Taormino’s understanding of ‘queer heterosexual’
identity and the Foucaldian notion of the ‘family cell’. Based on Micheál
Ó Conghaile’s play, it is argued that in modern Irish society keeping
gender instability out of public view is a part of the country’s regulating
practice on sexuality.
Natalia Dudek compares the schwa epenthesis in Irish and
Luxembourgish. Although the situation in Luxembourgish resembles the
Irish example to a certain extent, she argues that the patterns of vowel
insertion which have been proposed as well-established for Irish do not
work the same way in the former dialect of German which has recently
been recognized as a separate language.
Krzysztof Jaskuła addresses the partial deactivation of prehistoric
sandhi effects in Middle Irish. In his view, there are a few possible
explanations to the question of why one formerly phonological process
was abandoned in favour of another sound adjustment.
Mélanie Jouitteau describes Breton indefinites created by noun
reduplication that obtain an existential free-choice reading. The range of
possible determiners and licensing contexts is specified and it is argued
that the -mañ- element at the heart of the reduplicative structure is an
entity distinct from the spatial proximal deictic marker -mañ.
In his paper, Wojciech Nowicki argues that Tobias Smollett’s last
novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), ingeniously combines
self- and hetero-images of Edinburgh at a time when Scotland was
emerging from cultural obscurity, its capital to be styled the ‘Athens of
the North’.
Mark Ó’Fionnáin inspects early translations of Russian literature into
Irish and claims that they were more than simply literary translations. It is
unclear whether the translators themselves worked directly from Russian,
or relied on an English translation, but at least three of these translators
did know Russian. In his opinion, the translators were part of a mission to
support the building of a national Irish literature. The author looks at the
use they made of their texts, not just in offering their readership Russian
literature, but also in presenting cultural or linguistic information, such as
idioms or phonetic descriptions, or a brief history of Russian literature.
He also takes a look at how they set about the task of rewriting Russian
names and nouns in their Irish texts.
All the authors of the articles included in this collection deserve our
great thanks for both contributing the results of their research to the
present volume and their smooth cooperation during the whole editorial
process.
Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to a number of
people who have helped us in the process of reviewing the papers and
making extremely useful comments. Particularly, we wish to thank Prof.
Anna Bloch-Rozmej, Prof. Eugeniusz Cyran, Prof. Anna Malicka-
Kleparska and Dr Sławomir Zdziebko.
Several papers from this selection were presented during the Celtic
Days in Zamość, Poland, in June 2014, and we thank the organizers of
that memorable event, namely Prof. Wojciech Nowicki and Ms. Tamara
Woińska.
We also hope that the articles included in this book will provide
readers with new and fresh perspectives on how Celtic issues can be
represented and interpreted.
Tomasz Czerniak
Maciej Czerniakowski
Krzysztof Jaskuła
Chapter One
Prolegomena to a Study of Welsh Vocalism
Sabine Asmus and Cormac Anderson
Chapter Two
Diphthongs in the North of Wales
PawełTomasz Czerniak
Chapter Three
Translating or Mistranslating Celtic Law in the Polish versions
of the “Four Branches of the Mabinogi”
Katarzyna Jaworska-Biskup
Chapter Four
Revision of the Most Known Celtic Features of English
Ireneusz Kida
Chapter Five
An Irish Solution to an Irish Problem: The (Neverending) Issue
of Standardising Irish
Mark Ó Fionnáin
Chapter Six
Hiraeth as Allegorical Form: Fflur Dafydd’s Atyniad
Aleksander Bednarski
Chapter Seven
Is this Machine Alive? Machine-like, Biotic, Autopoietic Systems in Contemporary Cinema
Maciej Czerniakowski
Chapter Eight
A Postcolonial Traveller? A Take on the Poetry of Iwan Llwyd
Siôn Pennar
Chapter Nine
Barti Ddu: A Welsh Colonial Hero in a Post-colonial Text?
Awen Schiavone
Chapter Ten
“History is not to be trifled within this way”? Re-contextualising
John Cowper Powys’ Owen Glendower (1940)
Angelika Reichmann
Conference Presentations by Tomasz Czerniak
References:
Backley, Phillip. 2011. An Introduction to Element Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Griffen, Toby D. 1974. “The Development of Welsh Affricates: A Change Through Borrowing.” Lingua 34: 148-165.
Griffen, Toby D. 1997. “Welsh Alveopalatals: Functional Pattern Attraction.” Word 48: 353-366.
Griffen, Toby D. 2010. “The Further Development of Welsh Affricates.” Unpublished MS: Southern Illinois University. Available: http://www.fanad.net.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The Phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheer, Tobias. 1999. “A Theory of Consonantal Interaction.” Folia Linguistica 32: 201-237.
Szigetvári, Péter. 1997. “On Affricates.” In Proceedings of the First Doctoral Symposium in Linguistics, edited by Ágnes Bende-Farkas, 94-105. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University.
On the other hand, <y> appears in a stressed syllable, which should indicated anything but its weakness. Furthermore, it alternates mostly with [i] and [u] but not with other vowels and cannot be understood as a reduction product. On top of that, Awbery (1986) observes that it is indeed lengthened under stress in certain southern dialects of Welsh.
Both phonetic and phonological facts should shed some more light on the elusive character of Welsh <y>, what it should be represented with phonetically and what it should be named.
Awbery, Gwenllian M. 1986. Pembrokeshire Welsh. A phonological study. Llandysul. National Museum of Wales.
Ball, Martin J. and Glyn E. Jones. 1984. eds. Welsh Phonology. Selected Readings. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Ball, Martin J. and Briony Williams. 2001. The phonetics of Welsh. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Buczek, Anita. 1988. The vowel that cannot be long: the story of the Welsh central vowel schwa. In
Structure and Interpretation - Studies in Phonology, edited by E. Cyran, 55-64. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Folium.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This volume contains a selection of papers which deal with a wide range
of phenomena connected with Celtic linguistics, literature and culture.
Additionally, two articles are devoted to Scottish literature and are
included in this book because Scottish literature, even when written in
English, not Scottish Gaelic, has obvious affinities with Celtic culture. On
the following pages one will find analyses offered by both distinguished
scholars who are well-known in the circles of Celtic studies and young
researchers who have just begun their careers in the field of academic
investigations. Such a combination is by all means purposeful as it
provides prospective readers with a unique opportunity to be confronted
with Celtic issues presented from dissimilar viewpoints and perspectives.
Sabine Asmus discusses the difficulties which face those trying to
describe similarities between the contemporary literatures of the
historically closely linked Celtic neighbours – Ireland and Wales. Despite
their mutual influence all through the Middle Ages and some
recognizable motif and genre similarities, the identification of shared
trends is problematic. This article aims to reveal the reasons for this state
of affairs and suggests that they are due to the differing histories of the
two regions, in particular since the Renaissance period when neither of
them could escape the different forms of intensive English rule.
The article by Martin J. Ball addresses the problem of the number of
rhotic consonants in Modern Welsh. The author investigates the contrast
between the lenis [r], fortis [rh] and voiceless [r9] from a Systemic
Phonology perspective which divorces the phonematic character of the
trill from the aspiration/voiceless prosody that may co-occur.
Aleksander Bednarski raises the problem of the palimpsestuous
dimension of Gwyneth Lewis’s The Meat Tree, arguing that it can be read
in Gérard Genette’s terms as a metatextual commentary on the critical
discourse concerning the Welsh tales known as the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi.
Following Booij, Maria Bloch-Trojnar provides further evidence
against the universal validity of Greenberg’s Universal 28, which states
that derivational markers always occur closer to the root than
inflectional ones. The universal has to be weakened with reference to
the so-called inherent inflectional categories such as comparative forms
of adjectives, the plural number in nouns, the participle, and infinitive
forms of verbs. The paper examines cases in Irish where inflectional
forms feed derivation.
The objective of Andrew Breeze’s paper is a historical linguistic
analysis of possible Latin influences on the Four Branches of the
Mabinogi. Focusing on the expression “with the Crown of London”
(ardyrchawc o goron Lundein), he tests the assumption that the authors of
the above-mentioned tales were influenced by major Latin mediaeval
works.
Wioletta Chabko discusses the issues raised in Alan Warner’s first
novel, Morvern Callar, within the context of post-structural theory and
modern day cybernetic culture. Using the tenets of post-structuralism, the
article attempts to illustrate how contemporary Scottish fiction can be
seen as challenging traditional representations of Scottish identity.
Moreover, the novel highlights the influence of media and information
technology on the protagonist and on the course of the story. As such, it
may be viewed as commenting on issues relevant not only to the Scottish
semiosphere but also to the broader, worldwide condition of
contemporary media-saturated reality.
The contribution by Tomasz Czerniak is an Element Theory approach
to the internal composition of Welsh vocalic segments. The proposed
structures are based on the phonological behaviour of the investigated
vocalic segments and are compatible with phenomena typical of the
northern dialects of the language.
Malwina Degórska’s paper studies a gender-bending protagonist of
the 21st century Irish-language drama The Connemara Five (2006) by
using Thomas’ and Taormino’s understanding of ‘queer heterosexual’
identity and the Foucaldian notion of the ‘family cell’. Based on Micheál
Ó Conghaile’s play, it is argued that in modern Irish society keeping
gender instability out of public view is a part of the country’s regulating
practice on sexuality.
Natalia Dudek compares the schwa epenthesis in Irish and
Luxembourgish. Although the situation in Luxembourgish resembles the
Irish example to a certain extent, she argues that the patterns of vowel
insertion which have been proposed as well-established for Irish do not
work the same way in the former dialect of German which has recently
been recognized as a separate language.
Krzysztof Jaskuła addresses the partial deactivation of prehistoric
sandhi effects in Middle Irish. In his view, there are a few possible
explanations to the question of why one formerly phonological process
was abandoned in favour of another sound adjustment.
Mélanie Jouitteau describes Breton indefinites created by noun
reduplication that obtain an existential free-choice reading. The range of
possible determiners and licensing contexts is specified and it is argued
that the -mañ- element at the heart of the reduplicative structure is an
entity distinct from the spatial proximal deictic marker -mañ.
In his paper, Wojciech Nowicki argues that Tobias Smollett’s last
novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), ingeniously combines
self- and hetero-images of Edinburgh at a time when Scotland was
emerging from cultural obscurity, its capital to be styled the ‘Athens of
the North’.
Mark Ó’Fionnáin inspects early translations of Russian literature into
Irish and claims that they were more than simply literary translations. It is
unclear whether the translators themselves worked directly from Russian,
or relied on an English translation, but at least three of these translators
did know Russian. In his opinion, the translators were part of a mission to
support the building of a national Irish literature. The author looks at the
use they made of their texts, not just in offering their readership Russian
literature, but also in presenting cultural or linguistic information, such as
idioms or phonetic descriptions, or a brief history of Russian literature.
He also takes a look at how they set about the task of rewriting Russian
names and nouns in their Irish texts.
All the authors of the articles included in this collection deserve our
great thanks for both contributing the results of their research to the
present volume and their smooth cooperation during the whole editorial
process.
Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to a number of
people who have helped us in the process of reviewing the papers and
making extremely useful comments. Particularly, we wish to thank Prof.
Anna Bloch-Rozmej, Prof. Eugeniusz Cyran, Prof. Anna Malicka-
Kleparska and Dr Sławomir Zdziebko.
Several papers from this selection were presented during the Celtic
Days in Zamość, Poland, in June 2014, and we thank the organizers of
that memorable event, namely Prof. Wojciech Nowicki and Ms. Tamara
Woińska.
We also hope that the articles included in this book will provide
readers with new and fresh perspectives on how Celtic issues can be
represented and interpreted.
Tomasz Czerniak
Maciej Czerniakowski
Krzysztof Jaskuła
Chapter One
Prolegomena to a Study of Welsh Vocalism
Sabine Asmus and Cormac Anderson
Chapter Two
Diphthongs in the North of Wales
PawełTomasz Czerniak
Chapter Three
Translating or Mistranslating Celtic Law in the Polish versions
of the “Four Branches of the Mabinogi”
Katarzyna Jaworska-Biskup
Chapter Four
Revision of the Most Known Celtic Features of English
Ireneusz Kida
Chapter Five
An Irish Solution to an Irish Problem: The (Neverending) Issue
of Standardising Irish
Mark Ó Fionnáin
Chapter Six
Hiraeth as Allegorical Form: Fflur Dafydd’s Atyniad
Aleksander Bednarski
Chapter Seven
Is this Machine Alive? Machine-like, Biotic, Autopoietic Systems in Contemporary Cinema
Maciej Czerniakowski
Chapter Eight
A Postcolonial Traveller? A Take on the Poetry of Iwan Llwyd
Siôn Pennar
Chapter Nine
Barti Ddu: A Welsh Colonial Hero in a Post-colonial Text?
Awen Schiavone
Chapter Ten
“History is not to be trifled within this way”? Re-contextualising
John Cowper Powys’ Owen Glendower (1940)
Angelika Reichmann
References:
Backley, Phillip. 2011. An Introduction to Element Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Griffen, Toby D. 1974. “The Development of Welsh Affricates: A Change Through Borrowing.” Lingua 34: 148-165.
Griffen, Toby D. 1997. “Welsh Alveopalatals: Functional Pattern Attraction.” Word 48: 353-366.
Griffen, Toby D. 2010. “The Further Development of Welsh Affricates.” Unpublished MS: Southern Illinois University. Available: http://www.fanad.net.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The Phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheer, Tobias. 1999. “A Theory of Consonantal Interaction.” Folia Linguistica 32: 201-237.
Szigetvári, Péter. 1997. “On Affricates.” In Proceedings of the First Doctoral Symposium in Linguistics, edited by Ágnes Bende-Farkas, 94-105. Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University.
On the other hand, <y> appears in a stressed syllable, which should indicated anything but its weakness. Furthermore, it alternates mostly with [i] and [u] but not with other vowels and cannot be understood as a reduction product. On top of that, Awbery (1986) observes that it is indeed lengthened under stress in certain southern dialects of Welsh.
Both phonetic and phonological facts should shed some more light on the elusive character of Welsh <y>, what it should be represented with phonetically and what it should be named.
Awbery, Gwenllian M. 1986. Pembrokeshire Welsh. A phonological study. Llandysul. National Museum of Wales.
Ball, Martin J. and Glyn E. Jones. 1984. eds. Welsh Phonology. Selected Readings. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Ball, Martin J. and Briony Williams. 2001. The phonetics of Welsh. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Buczek, Anita. 1988. The vowel that cannot be long: the story of the Welsh central vowel schwa. In
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Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.