A linguist on another list has been asking about languages with a richer set of 'deictic names of days' than English, which only has one word either side of today (yesterday and tomorrow -- if you get more remote than that you have to fall back on phrases -- the day before yesterday, etc.) Welsh is obviously richer than English in this regard: any grammar book will quote the following, with the glosses as given. echdoe 'the day before yesterday' ddoe 'yesterday' HEDDIW yfory 'tomorrow' trennydd 'the day after tomorrow' tradwy 'two days hence' (There is also "trannoeth", but that is standardly (in Williams, Thorne, etc) glossed as 'the following day', which suggests that it's the non-deictic counterpart of "yfory" -- i.e. the day following some specified day, not necessarily this here one that we call today -- and therefore not what the inquiry was about). Leaving "trannoeth" aside, then, according to the original inquirer, this makes Welsh 'one of the very RARE languages that seem to have an asymmetry' -- i.e. two deictic day words before today but three for after today. However, looking now at Y Geiriadur Mawr, it seems that things aren't so simple. Looking up all four "heddiw plus" words, we find: "YFORY -- trannoeth i heddiw -- TOMORROW TRANNOETH -- y diwrnod ar ol hynny -- NEXT DAY TRENNYDD -- y diwrnod ar ol trannoeth, ymhen dau ddiwrnod -- TWO DAYS HENCE, TWO DAYS LATER TRADWY -- ymhen tri diwrnod -- IN THREE DAYS' TIME" It's not altogether clear how to take this, but it seems to suggest that while "trannoeth" is indeed the non-deictic counterpart of "yfory", "trennydd", and perhaps "tradwy", may be both deictic and non- deictic. Under the entry for "tradwy" the phrase "trannoeth a thrennydd a thradwy" is quoted, without comment or gloss, which seems to suggest that these three form a non-deictic series 'day + 1, +2, +3'. Some questions: (1) Is the deictic/non-deictic distinction in fact confused (as it often is in English, of course)? (2) In my English, at any rate, 'two days hence' doesn't mean the same as 'in three days' time'. "Tradwy" looks as though it's literally 'across two' -- i.e. the third day from your reference day. If the reference day is Tuesday, "tradwy" would be Friday. And that would fit in with "trannoeth (Wed) a thrennydd (Thur) a thradwy (Fri)" Are there dialectal or idiolectal differences as to which day "tradwy" actually refers to, or is the problem here with what (some) English speakers mean by 'two days hence' (which for me, writing this on Tuesday, would be Thursday)? (3) Can you extend the series in either direction, without resorting to phrases? (Particularly, if "tradwy" is 'across two', could you conceivably have 'across three ...'? ************************ Nigel Love Linguistics Cape Town NLOVE@BEATTIE.UCT.AC.ZA ************************