‘On his steed went my protector in the host yesterday, a man like a lion.’ See also L.G.C. 143, D.G. 510.
The word kyfrw̯ɥs ‘shrewd’ (rhyming with henwerɥs and ynɥs in b.t. 78, and with prisc ≡ prys and chuis ≡ chw̯ŷs in b.b. 57) is now sounded kyfrw͡ys on account of the difficulty of the consonantal group frw̯. The word celw̯ɥdd has undoubtedly the rising diphthong; see kelw̯ɥẟ / kynnɥẟ r.p. 1223, cf. 1251, and D.G. 338; probably gŵɥdd / gelwydd, D.G. 256, is a misreading, but this form occurs in the 16th cent., see f. 36.
x. w͡y after a vowel has generally been changed to w̯ɥ, except in verbal terminations. Thus aw͡yr / hŵɥr / llŵɥr r.p. 1029, and generally so rhymed, see D.G. 395, 416, is now pronounced aw̯ɥr, and the rhyme with ɥr occurs already in the 13th cent.: aw̯ɥr / sɥr b.t. 23, G.Y.C. r.p. 1418. Similarly aw͡yẟ / rŵɥẟ / arw͡yẟ r.p. 1180 is later a-w̯ɥdd. Pow͡ys L.G.C. 381 is pronounced Pow̯ɥs § 192 ii (2); tyw͡yll as in tywill / canvill b.b. 30, tyw͡yll / gannw͡yll / pw͡yll r.p. 1045, tyw͡yll / amw͡yll D.G. 267, tŵɥll / tyw͡yll do. 117, 283 is now tỿw̯ɥll, and already in D.G. rhymes with hyll 71, 285, 421, and with cyll 173, 185; ew͡yn r.p. 1036, later ew̯ɥn ‘foam’. On the other hand glanhā́-w͡yd ‘was cleansed’ and all similar inflected forms are still so pronounced.
Lat. ăvĭdus would have given *ew̯ydd in Welsh; aw̯ɥdd cannot be derived from it, see § 76 iii, iv.
Accentuation.
§ 39. i. In a polysyllabic word, one syllable is always pronounced with more emphasis than the others; this is called the syllable bearing the principal accent, or, simply, the accented syllable. In Welsh the accent is a stress accent.
A syllable may be emphasized either by raising the tone of voice or by a more forcible utterance. The two things may go together; but speakers of various languages unconsciously adopt one or the other as their principle of accentuation. The first produces musical or pitch accent, the second produces expiratory or stress accent. In Pr. Aryan the accent before the dispersion is believed to have been predominantly pitch, though vowel gradation, § 63, points to the working of a strong stress accent. In Keltic, as in Italic and Germanic, the accent became predominantly stress, and has remained so, though its position has varied greatly.
☞ The syllable bearing the principal accent is denoted by an acute accent ´ placed above its vowel.
ii. The remaining syllables of the word are also pronounced with varying emphasis, but this may generally be disregarded, and they may all be considered as unaccented syllables. In
