Talk:eeee

RFV discussion: April–June 2023

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eeee

Manx.

According to the source cited (or at least the 2nd edition), the independent fut. form is ee, not *eeee, as Broderick puts it (p. 326 in the 2nd edition, 2009):

The -ee- of the stem absorbs the -ee of the Future Independent

He gives ee ee /iː-i/ for ‘she will eat’ – but anyway, neither form (ee or eeee) seems to be attested as the future indep. of gee in the texts of Manx corpus (and there are no hits for eeee at all). IMO the whole page should be removed unless an actual non-artificial example can be found.

Also the Middle Irish ancestor form given (ithidh) doesn’t follow our MIr. spelling convention and is rather a Classical Gaelic form in post-15th c. spelling. // Silmeth ^@talk 14:01, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

This lesson book says on page 51 that the verb is usually eeys, and gives the example sentence eeys ee for "she will eat" (no object). This suggests that eeee is indeed possible, and grammatical, but is "usually" avoided because it is difficult to pronounce even in isolation, let alone before another ee. —Soap— 18:34, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Eeys is also present in the corpus, in three different texts. This makes sense as the old relative (itheas) form spreading to independent position.

Anyway, a form continuing ithidh definitely makes sense grammatically – but it likely wouldn’t be spelt *eeee, due to the simplification mentioned by Broderick. Compare other verbs like folmee eh < falmhaighidh ‘he will empty’ (not *folmeeee eh, dep. cha volmee/n’olmee), immee eh < im(th)ighidh ‘he will go’ (not *immeeee), etc. (although those have the -ee part in unstressed syllable, unlike the ee- verb – but IMO nothing suggests this should be different unless there’s a counterexample; and if neither spelling is attested, *eeee is at best a reconstruction). // Silmeth ^@talk 19:32, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Another remark: Phillips (Early Manx, early 17th c.) has níi for ‘will wash’ (níi e y ghasmedjyn ghosse ayns fwil yn niawghráwiníi ‘he shall wash his foot-steps in the blood of the non-believers’), and also íi for the verbal noun (later (g)ee, and not *eeee) – both those forms were originally disyllabic (nighidh, ithe /niɣ´əð´, iθ´ə/) – showing that eeee is impossible (but already in Phillips’ translations there is no íi or similar for the finite verb, it’s only used as a verbal noun in periphrastic constructions). EDIT: Phillips also uses níi for later nee ‘will do’ (< do-ní /dəˈn´iː/, monosyllabic), so even his íi doesn’t mean a lot for the 17th c. So I’m pretty much convinced eeee hasn’t existed and should be deleted. // Silmeth ^@talk 12:10, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I’d say this fails. Can I ask someone with the powers to remove the article? // Silmeth ^@talk 11:56, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

It’s been 2 months now. @Mahagaja? // Silmeth ^@talk 10:53, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Seems not to be real. Broderick himself lists in in the first edition of the cited source, but not in the second, so I guess he discovered it doesn't actually exist. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Definitely a made-up thing. Interesting that the ee form (which he gives in the 2nd edition) is also non-existent in the corpus (and eeys also generally only as relative), so this verb is just never used in the simple future. May I ask you to delete the article? // Silmeth ^@talk 12:36, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

RFV-failed, entry deleted. // Silmeth ^@talk 12:31, 21 June 2023 (UTC)