Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Breton mutations

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Like all modern Celtic languages, Breton is characterised by initial consonant mutations, which are changes to the initial sound of a word caused by certain syntactic or morphological environments. In addition Breton, like French, has a number of purely phonological sandhi features caused when certain sounds come into contact with others.

Contents

The mutations are divided into four main groups, according to the changes they cause: soft mutation (Breton kemmadurioù dre vlotaat), hard mutation (kemmadurioù dre galetaat), spirant mutation (kemmadurioù c'hwezhadenniñ) and mixed mutation (kemmadurioù mesket). There are also a number of defective (or incomplete) mutations which affect only certain words or certain letters.

Summary of sound changes

The main mutations cause the following changes:

Functions of mutations

The role which initial mutations play in Breton grammar can be divided into three categories (which are not mutually exclusive):

  • Linking (or Contact) Mutations – these occur systematically after certain words called mutators, of which there are around 100 in Breton.
  • Gender-Number-Distinctive Mutations – these occur after the articles and in postposed adjectives to mark gender and number.
  • Mutations of Recognition – these mark the distinction between homophones (e.g. e "his" & he "her") and are useful in the comprehension of the spoken language.

    • Soft mutation

    The soft mutation is by far the most frequent mutation in Breton, both in terms of the number of consonants it affects and the number of environments in which it occurs.

    Effects

    1. A voiceless plosive becomes a voiced plosive lene (p /p/ → b /b̥/, t /t/ → d /d̥/, k /k/ → g /ɡ̊/)
    2. A voiced plosive becomes a fricative (b /b/ → v /v/, d /d/ → z /z/, g /ɡ/ → c’h /x/)
    3. Nasal m /m/ becomes fricative v /v/
    4. The consonant cluster gw /ɡw/ becomes w /w/
  • Note that words beginning with gou- may follow either g (e.g. gouarn → o c’houarn) or gw (e.g. gouelañ → o ouelañ)

    • After definite and indefinite articles

    The definite article ar/an and the indefinite ur/un cause the soft mutation of:

  • Most feminine singular nouns:
  • Masculine plural nouns denoting people:

    • Nouns beginning with d- and a few others do not mutate after the articles.

    After proclitics

    The following grammatical words cause mutations to a following word:

  • The prepositons da, dre, a, war, dindan, eme, en ur:
  • The interrogative pronoun pe "what":
  • The possessive pronouns da "your", e "his":
  • The verbal particles a, ne, na, ez, ra, en em:
  • The numerals daou "two (masculine)", div "two (feminine)":
  • The conjunctions pa "if, when", pe "or", tra "while"
  • The adverb re "too":
  • The pronouns holl "all", re "those, ones", hini "that, one":

    • After adjectives and nouns

    The soft mutation occurs in:

  • Adjectives following feminine singular nouns:
  • Adjectives following masculine plural nouns referring to people:
  • Nouns following adjectives:

    • These mutations are limited. When the first word ends in a vowel or -l, -r, -m, -n it causes the soft mutation wherever possible, but when the first word ends in any other consonant only the consonants g-, gw-, m-, b- change in the following words.

    Effects

    The Spirant Mutation transforms three unvoiced plosive consonants into fricatives: p /p/ → f /f/, t /t/ → z /z/ and k /k/ → c'h /x/.

    Environments

    The mutation occurs following:

  • The possessive pronouns he "her", o "their, ma/va "my" and (in the Trégorrois Dialect) hon "our":
  • The numerals tri "three (masc.)", teir "three (fem.)", pevar "four (masc.)", peder "four (fem.)", nav "nine":

    • In the spoken language the spirant mutation is usually replaced with the soft mutation after numerals.

    Defective mutations

  • The mutation of t and k occurs following the infixed pronoun 'm "me" (am, em with verbal particles), da'm "to my" and em "in my":
  • Mutation of k occurs following hor "our":
  • The word Pask "Easter" becomes Fask following the days Sul "Sunday" and Lun "Monday.

    • Effects

    The hard mutation causes voiced stops to be devoiced: b /b/ → p /p/, d /d/ → t /t/, g /g/ → k /k/.

    Environments

    The mutation is caused by:

  • Possessive pronoun ho "your (plural)":
  • Infixed pronoun 'z "you (singular)" (az, ez with verbal particles), da'z "to your (sg.)", ez "in your (sg.)":

    • Effects

    The mixed mutation causes:

    1. The soft mutation of b /b/ → v /v/, g /ɡ/ → c'h /x/, gw /ɡw/ → w /w/, m /m/ → v /v/
    2. Hard mutation of d /d/ → t /t/

    Environments

    The mixed mutation occurs after:

  • The verbal particles e and o
  • The conjunction ma "if"

    • Orthography of mutations

    In Old and Middle Breton, it was extremely rare to write the consonant mutations. Around the 17th century, the Jesuits started to learn Breton and introduced the writing of mutations.

    Sometimes, the mutated letter is written before the radical letter in the style of the Gaelic languages, to make recognition easier. This is largely confined to proper nouns (e.g. Itron vMaria "the virgin Maria" is pronounced /ˈitˌrõn ˈvarˌja/.

    Some processes which are properly part of external sandhi have become crystalised in the written language, whilst others have not.

    References

    Breton mutations Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA