> > > > > Yes; you seem to be at odds with David Thorne, who in his recent > > > grammar says (p. 155): '"hwynt" is not used in the accusative with > > > verbs ending in "-nt". > > > > I think David Thorne means something else here (Sorry, I don't have my copy to > > hand right now). I suspect what he means is that although hwynt IS an > > accusative pronoun, you can't use it after a verb that itself ends in -nt > > because it sounds bad (repetition of -nt etc). So: > > > > gwelsant hwy they saw (not *gwelsant hwynt) > > > > gwelais hwynt I saw them > > gwelaist hwynt You saw them > > gwelodd hwynt He/She/It saw them > > gwelsom hwynt We saw them > > gwelsoch hwynt You saw them > > gwelsant hwy They saw them (not *gwelsant hwynt) > > > > Does this tally with the book? - David. > > No, it tallies with what I originally assumed to be the case: that > the restriction is on having -nt twice, therefore not *gwelsant hwynt > meaning either 'they saw' or 'they saw them'. What Thorne says is > what I quoted him as saying: that hwynt is not used in the > 'accusative' with verbs ending in -nt (thereby implying, or at any > rate leaving room for the inference, that (a) it is or could be used > in the 'nominative' with verbs ending in -nt, and (b) -- equally > false, I imagine -- that it could be used as the object of > prepositions ending in -nt). P.S. I get the impression from your comments here and in your earlier message that for you "hwynt" is fundamentally an object form (with the additional restriction that it can't be the object of a verb whose subject happens to be 3pl). My guess is that it's non-appearance as subject would be an accidental consequence of the "you can't have two -nt's" rule (since the verb of which it was subject would usually end in -nt). This makes more sense to me, given that Welsh does not in general distinguish subject from object forms of pronouns. The test is whether "hwynt" is possible as subject when the verb isn't 3pl: e.g. "hwy(nt) a ddaeth", or "daethoch, chwi a(c) hwy(nt), ..." Would the long forms be all right here -- 'all right', that is, granted an appropriately archaic context? ************************ Nigel Love Linguistics Cape Town NLOVE@BEATTIE.UCT.AC.ZA ************************