‑ig forms m. titles, as gwledig ‘prince’, pendefig ‘chief’, and f. diminutives as oenig, etc.
‑in is m. in brenin ‘king’, dewin ‘sage’, buelin ‘drinking horn’, ewin ‘(finger‑)nail’, gorllewin ‘west’; otherwise f., as byddin, cegin, cribin, gwerin, hesbin, megin, melin.
v. ‑ai, Ml. W. ‑ei (for ‑hei) forms nouns of com. gender, as llatai § 136 ii; see cicai f. D.G. 166.
§ 140. i. No useful rule can be laid down for determining by the form the gender of nouns without derivative endings. It is true that nouns having w or y in the ultima are mostly m., and those having o or e are mostly f.; thus asgwrn, arddwrn, dwrn, dwfr, ellyll, byd, bryn are m.; colofn, tonn, ffordd, ffenestr, gwên, deddf are f. But exceptions are so numerous that the rule is of no great practical value.
The reason for the rule is that Brit. u and i, which normally give W. w and y, were affected to o and e by the lost f. ending ‑ā, § 68, thus bringing about a preponderance of f. nouns with o and e. The reasons for the numerous exceptions are the following: (1) o and e may be original Brit., and not the result of affection at all, as in môr m. ‘sea’, penn m. ‘head’; (2) y is often due to affection by the lost f. ending ‑ī; as in blwyddyn f., telyn f. etc.; (3) endings other than ‑ā, ‑ī caused no affection; hence ffrwd f., hwch f. etc.
u seems to some extent to have followed the analogy of w, thus W. cur m. < Lat. cūra f.; most monosyllables with u are thus m.; but clud ‘vehicle’, tud ‘people, country’, hug ‘covering’, dun ‘thigh’, hun ‘sleep’, punt ‘£1’, ffust ‘flail’ are f.
There is no reason why a, i and the diphthongs should be distinctive of gender; and rules which make them the basis of such a distinction are arbitrary, and worse than useless. Thus Mendus Jones, Gr.² 75, states that monosyllables having a are f.; Anwyl, Gr. 28, says they are m., and names 13 exceptions (omitting gardd, sarff, barf, nant, cad, llath, barn, etc., etc.); actually, the proportion of m. to f. (excluding Eng. words, and names of males and females, as tad, mam) is about 55:45. Similarly monos. with i are said to be m.; in reality the numbers of m. and f. are practically equal:—m., llid, gwrid, pridd, llif ‘flood’, rhif, brig, cig, cil, mil ‘animal’, ffin, llin, min, gwin, glin, tir, mis, plisg, llith ‘mash’;—f., pi, crib, gwib, gwich, tid, ffridd, llif ‘saw’, gwig, pig, hil, mil ‘1000’, hin, tin, trin, rhin, gwisg, cist, llith ‘lesson’.
ii. A few doublets occur with m. ‑w‑, f. ‑o‑; as cwd m. ‘bag’, cod f. ‘purse’. The others are borrowed words containing ‑or + cons.; as torf ‘crowd’ < Lat. turba: twrf ‘tumult’;—fforch ‘a fork’ < Lat. furca: ffwrch ‘the fork, haunches’;—ffordd ‘way’ <
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