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§ 36 keinhauc 54 ≡ keinhawc  28; but the oldest Ml. prose  (the early  of the laws) and Mn. lit. W. follow the practice of the N. W. dialects and insert the i̯, as keynẏauc i 24, cf. 22, Mn. W. ceini̯og ‘penny’.

There are, however, several exceptions to this rule besides those mentioned or implied in § 36. The i̯ is omitted before the substantival terminations &#8209;en, &#8209;es, &#8209;edd; as deilen (M.Ỻ. i 155 has the unusual deili̯en) ‘leaf’, bugeiles ‘shepherdess’, cyfeilles (printed cyfeillies in 75) ‘amie’, meithedd ‘lengthiness’; before endings of comparison, as meithed, meithach, meithaf (maith ‘long’), meined, meinach, meinaf (main ‘slender’), except rheit-i̯ed, &#8209;i̯ach, &#8209;i̯af § 149 i, stems in &#8209;eidd- as manweiẟẏach Ỻ.A. 8 ‘finer’, pereiddi̯af ‘sweetest’, and some stems in &#8209;eith- as perffeithi̯af ‘most perfect’; before the pl. endings &#8209;edd, &#8209;oedd, as ieithoedd ‘languages’; in a few isolated words as teilo ‘to manure’ (but teẏlẏaw in  102), adeilad ‘building’ (but adeilẏat in  1220), cymdeithas ‘society’, eiddo ‘property’.

i̯ is also added to many stems having i or u; as cil ‘back’, pl. cili̯au cili̯af ‘I retreat’; tir ‘land’, old poetic pl. tiri̯on 26,  1144, tiri̯o ‘to land’, tiri̯og ‘landed’ (but pl. tiredd, tiroedd); grudd ‘cheek’, pl. gruddi̯au; llun ‘form’, pl. lluni̯au, lluni̯o ‘to form’, lluni̯aidd ‘shapely’; ystudẏaw, llavurẏaw Ỻ.A. 11 ‘to study’, ‘to labour’. In some of these cases also the i̯ is lost in S. W. dialects.

Many stems end in w̯ which forms rising diphthongs with the vowels of all endings, except with w § 36 i; thus galw̯ ‘to call’, galw̯af ‘I call’, gelw̯aist ‘thou calledst’, gelw̯ynt ‘they called’, etc.

i. w̯ drops before w, and i̯ drops before i. The semivowel is sometimes written (as w or y) in Ml. W., but is often