8. Other Pronouns

     (In the process of being written)

Notes:

1. I have departed from IPA in the representation of mid vowels, and follow the long established academic practice when describing Vulgar Latin and the development of Romance languages, namely:

   [e]and [o] denote any front unrounded or back rounded mid vowel respectively, when the degree of height is either unknown, indeterminate or irrelevant;

   [ẹ] and [ọ] denote specifically high versions (IPA [e] and [o]);

   [ę] and [ǫ] denote specifically low versions (IPA [ɛ] and [ɔ]).

2. Also [ə] denotes:

   - generally any reduced non-defined centralized vowel without reference to height;

   - in Late Britainese, a unstressed non-phonemic low-mid to near-low ([ɜ] to [ɐ]) central vowel, depending upon regional pronunciation.

8.1 Relative Pronouns

Relative and Interrogative pronouns are similar in Classical Latin, differing mainly in the nominative and accusative singular forms. In Vulgar Latin the two pronouns coalesced even more. The feminine relatives quae, quam gave way to the the quī, quem of the masculine. The neuter relative quod was replaced by the relative quid, while the masculine nominative interrogitive quis was replaced by the relative quī. The genitive cuius /'kuj.jus/ and dative cui /kuj/ (same form for all three genders in Latin) survived in Old French as cui, with both both genitive and dative meanings, and as possessive adjectives in the Iberian peninsula (Spanish cuyo, Portuguese cujo).

The Latin plural forms were not used in the spoken language, the original singular forms, as in many languages, doing duty for both singular and plural.

8.1.1 Relative pronouns in early Britainese

Therefore, in early Britainese we would have found:

	Unstressed		Stressed
	masc. & fem.	neut.	masc. & fem.	neut.
nom.	chi [ki]	che [kə]	chi ['ki]	chei ['kei̯]
acc.	che [kə]		chen ['ken]
gen. & dat.	cui [kyi̯]	-	cui ['kyi̯]	-

In the table above, the masc. & fem. forms were used whenever the antecedent was a noun as all nouns are either masculine or feminine, there being no neuter gender. The neuter pronouns above were used only if the antecedent was a situation or indefinite idea, e.g. Cio che tu di ess vair "What you say is true."

With the exception of chen, if we replace ch in the table above with qu we will have forms very similar to Old French; also in early Britainese just as in Old French, the initial [k] in all forms except cui will also have been found spelled with initial k-.

The stressed masc. & fem. acc. chen is from. Latin quem, cf. Spanish quien, Portuguese quem; it also survives in Romanian cine. That is forms derived from quem survived in the western and eastern fringes of the Romance speaking area but disappeared from central areas and Gaul. There is no reason why it will not have survived on the northern fringe as well.

We find in Old French a phonetic confusion of cui and qui so that by the 12th century cui has more or less given way to qui. Such confusion would have been worse in Britainese where [y] became unrounded, so that chi and cui became homophones and both come to be written as chi which led eventually to the demise of genitive/dative forms, being replaced by the prepositions de and a followed by a stressed accusative (either chen or chei).

8.1.2 Later development of the relative pronoun

8.1.2.1 Omission of relative prounoun?

It might be thought that from our 'controlling languages' that the relative pronoun would often come to be omitted in later developments since it is omitted in colloquial Welsh and very often omitted in English when object of a relative clause, e.g. Mae'r esgidiau brynais i'n rhy fach "The shoes I bought are too small".

But the two developments are different; nor is it true to say the relative is omitted in the Welsh example. In more formal Welsh the relative pronoun is a if it is the subject or direct object of the relative clause; this causes soft mutation (lenition) of the initial consonant of the following verb; in the sentence given as an example pryn-ais buy-PST.1SG receives initial soft mutation even when a is omitted in speech, i.e. Mae'r esgidiau (a) brynais i'n rhy fach. The relative is still marked.

If the relative is genitive, indirect object or the object of a preposition it is y [ə] or, before a vowel, yr [ər], which does not trigger any mutation and is often omitted in speech. But, unlike similar constructions in English, the clause never ends with a 'dangling preposition'; genitive is shown by a possessive adjective and objects of prepositions by having the preposition with a 3rd person pronoun in the relative clause, e.g.

• Dyma'r dyn (y) gwelon ni ei dŷ [Here.is the man (REL) saw we his house] = "Here is the man whose house we saw."
• Dyma'r tŷ (y) mae e'n byw ynddo [Here.is the house (REL) is he PTCL live in.it] "Here is the house (that) he lives in."

The omission of the relatives a [a] and y [ə] in spoken Welsh is simply the dropping of unstressed vowels; the vowels reappear in formal speech and the mutation triggered by a remains even if the vowel is not pronounced. The English relative pronouns who, who(m), which and that behave differently from the Welsh a and y(r). So we must be careful what we infer from the two languages.

Britainese is a Romance language and the omission of a relative pronoun, though not entirely unknown, is rare in these languages. We do, however, find examples in Old French:

• A relative subject pronoun was often omitted after a negative phrase in the context: 'There is not one, who ... + ne + [subjunctive]' e.g.
  N'i a celui n'ait brisiée sa lance. "There is not he (who) has not broken his lance." [Aymeri de Nasrbonne, 1823]
  Nen aḍ remes paien ne seit ocis. "There is no infidel left (who) is not killed." [La Chanson de Roland, 101-2]
• The subject or, occasionally, the object relative pronoun could be omitted after tel, or other indefinite pronouns or adjectives: e.g.
  Tel i ara ferai dolent. "There will be someone (whom) I will make unhappy." [Tristan, 1244]

Although omission of the relative occurs in Welsh, English and also occurred in Old French, there is no commonality in this usage. In formal Welsh it is not omitted and its omission in spoken Welsh still often leaves a trace in the initial soft mutation of the verb; in French the omission of the relative pronoun did not survive. Thus it seems to me there probably were examples of relative pronoun being omitted in certain constructions in early Britainese, this practice did not survive and the relative pronoun is not omitted in later Britainese.

8.1.2.2 later developments

In French we find that the neuter nominative que gradually gave way to qui, so in Britainese it is likely that neuter che gave way to chi so that the relative pronoun had common nominative and accusative forms. The stressed chei will eventually have become c(h)ai [kəi̯]; the spelling chai will have prevailed under the influence of the relatives chi, che and chen.

We find in Old French tht quei/ quoi e.g. Li chevaus sor quoi il seoit ... "The horse on which he sat ..." [from La Queste del Saint Graal]; so in Britainese we will have found chen being used for persons and chai for things or situations.

We find the use of que, which besides being an accusative relative also introduces noun clauses (indirect speech), having its use extended in popular speech, e.g. Je vous présente l'ami que je lui ai parlé de vous "I introduce to you the friend that I spoke to [him] about you" This is like the Welsh construction and similar to English. though without a 'dangling preposition'. In view of the developments in Welsh and English in our timeline, it is likely that that this construction would have become the normal one in everyday Britainese and that preposition with chen or chai would have become confined to formal speech or writing just as preposition with whom or which is in English. Thus we find in late Britainese:

8.1.2 Relative Pronouns in Late Britainese

We may thus summarize the relative pronouns of late Britainese; they make no distinction of grammatical gender or number and:

• as subject of clause: chi [ki]
  Lo thain chi mangá lo wastel ... "The boy who ate the cake ..."
  Cio chi á stad scrit ess vair "That which has been written is true."/ "What has been written is true."
• as direct object of clause: che [kə]
  La facin che nos vidhims her ... "The girl (whom) we saw yesterday ..."
  Cio che tu di ess vair "That which you say is true."/ "What you say is true."

Indirect object of clause, possession or as object of a preposition we find that:

• in normal use, both spoken and written, the clause begins with che and the relationship shown by a personal pronoun or possessive in the relative clause referring back to the antecedent;
• in formal use only, the clause begins with a preposition followed by chen if the antecedent is a person or persons or by chai if the antecedent is a thing or situation;

thus:

Indirect object	Formal	La femn a chen tu doná lo levr ... The woman to whom you gave the book ...
	Normal	La femn che tu li doná lo levr ... The woman (that) you gave the book to [her]...
Possessive	Formal	La femn lo filot de chen nos vidhims ... The woman, the son of whom we saw ...
	Normal	La femn che nos vidhims so filot... The woman (that) we saw her son ... i.e. The woman whose son we saw ...
Object of preposition	Formal	Lo thain con chen tu stai parland ... The boy with whom you were speaking ...
	Normal	Lo thain che tu stai parland con íl ... The boy (that) you were speaking with [him] ...