Copyright © 2003, 2004 all rights reserved. This page most recently revised on: May 31, 2004
When we first introduced adjectives, we noted that they are placed after the noun they describe. There are, however, exceptions, both for a small set of particular adjectives and for some particular situations.
A very limited set of adjectives are placed before the noun either consistently or as a regular option to the normal position. These include the following.
| Usually Placed Before Noun | |||
| hen | adj | -yon | old |
| gwir | adj | -yon | true, genuine |
| priv | adj | primary, chief, main | |
| Can Be Placed Before Noun | |||
| cam | adj | ceimyon | wrong [when placed before], crooked [when placed after] |
| unig | adj | only [when placed before], lonely [when placed after] |
If you recall our rule of thumb "if something's out of place, expect lenition", then it shouldn't surprise you to find that when an adjective comes before a noun, the noun lenites.
Translate the following phrases into Welsh. These have been taken from medieval texts, so the original has been given after the "standardized" form in the key. Don't worry if your word order doesn't match the key, but try to understand how things have been rearranged from the default order, and possibly why.
Another group of modifiers that are usually (but not always) placed before the noun are some that might be thought of as "adjectives of quantity or extent". Many grammars will place these in the section on pronouns, rather than adjectives, and from this point the word order may make more sense. I.e., if you view "yr holl wyr" as "the entirety of the men" then you have "gwyr" modifying "yr holl" and following it as expected.) Some of these usually cause lenition, others usually do not (as noted). They can often be used alone acting as a noun.
| cwb(y)l (L) | adj | entire, complete | |
| gormod | adj | excessive, too much | |
| holl (L) | adj | all, whole, entire | |
| llawer | adj | much, many a (with singular noun) | |
| pob | adj | each, every ("pawb" when acting as a noun) | |
| ryw (L) | adj | some (in an indefinite sense -- some X or other), a certain [also compounds such as amryw, cyvryw, unryw] | |
| sawl (L) | adj | as many, so many (normally used with the definite article: "y sawl X") | |
| ychydig | adj | a little [of], a bit [of] |
Same instructions as exercise #1.
A popular feature of poetry, which is also sometimes found in prose literature, is the construction of ad hoc adjective-noun compounds. These use an order opposite to that of the normal phrase and cause lenition of the noun. Usually they will be written as a single word (a "close" compound) but sometimes not (a "loose" compound). It is important to be aware of these, not only in terms of word order and mutation, but because the compound itself will not necessarily be listed in a dictionary, only the component parts.
You'll need a dictionary for this one. The following list of words are adjective-noun compounds taken from poetry (mostly the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym). I've picked a list with a fairly repetitive inventory of elements. Decompose the compounds, give the citation form of each element -- both in standardized and modern spelling (if different), and give the meanings of the elements.