Accidence
The article
§ 114. i. The definite article is ỿr, ’r or ỿ. There is no indefinite article in Welsh.
ii. The full form ỿr is used before a vowel or h, as ỿr afon ‘the river’, ỿr haul ‘the sun’, dwfr ỿr afon, gwres ỿr haul; the ỿ is elided after a vowel, as i’r afon ‘into the river’, o’r tɥ ‘from the house’; before a consonant the r is dropped, unless the ỿ has been elided as above, as ỿn ỿ tɥ ‘in the house’.
w̯- counts as a consonant: ỿ w̯aedd ‘the cry’; i̯- as a vowel in Mn. W. ỿr i̯aith ‘the language’; in Ml. W. as a vowel or a consonant, as ỿr i̯arll r.m. 188 l. 25; 189 ll. 13, 30; 190 l. 7; ỿ iarll 189 ll. 2, 20. As initial wy is w͡y § 38 iv, we have in the standard language yr ŵy ‘the egg’, yr ŵyr ‘the grandson’, yr ŵyth ‘the eight’, yr w͡ythnos ‘the week’, yr w͡ylo ‘the weeping’, yr w͡yneb ‘the face’, yr w͡ybren ‘the sky’. Similarly yr W͡yddfa ‘Snowdon’, yr W͡yddgrug ‘Mold’, with radical gw͡y- fem., see v.
iii. O. W. has only the first two forms, written ir and r; thus ir tri ox. ‘the three’, ir pimphet do. ‘the fifth’, ir bis bichan do. ‘the little finger’, ir mant do. ‘the thumb’, ir guolleuni juv. ‘the light’, or deccolion m.c. gl. decadibus, or bardaul leteinepp m.c. gl. epica pagina, dir escip l.l. 120 ‘to the bishops’. After a diphthong we have ir, as nou ir emid m.c. ‘that of the brass’. The form ỿ is in regular use in early Ml. W., as E betev ae gulich y glav b.b. 63 ‘the graves which the rain wets’.
