Verbal noun as ‘equivalent’ of finite verb in Welsh

Abstract

In the Brythonic languages—in Welsh more commonly than in Cornish and Breton—a construction is encountered in which the verbal noun (a more satisfactory term than ‘infinitive’) performs the function of a finite verb. It that role it does not act eliptically, or ana-phorically, for it can begin a work (an essay, article, letter—not frequently a novel) and there is no possibility of discerning what would fill the alleged ellipsis. Some writers avoid the construction, others favor it, a state of affairs reminiscent of the Latin ‘historical infinitive’.

In the Goidelic group of Celtic (Irish, Gaelic, Manx) the same construction also occurs, but more sparsely by far.

A similar, but not identical, formation is found in Russian, the so- called ‘actor-infinitive construction,’ but there is usually nothing to express the actor in Celtic occurrences of verbal noun instead of finite verb.

Other languages have shown nominal expressions in place of verbal ones, including Homeric Greek, scholastic Latin, certain types (and periods) of Sanskrit, etc. In some of these there is a certain artificiality present. In Welsh, whether scholarly or colloquial, that is not the case. There seems to be something similar in certain non-Indo-European languages too. It is, however, difficult to say whether there was transmission in one direction or another, although a few scholars have indulged in such speculation.