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§§ 116, 117 The dual, whether it agreed in form with the sg. or the pl., formerly preserved the effect of its old vocalic ending in the soft mutation of a following adj., as deu wyẟel vonllwm 56 ‘two bare-backed Irishmen’, y ddwy wragedd rywiogach L.G.C. 127 ‘the two women [who are] kinder’.

In W. the noun has two genders only, the masculine and the feminine.

The plural of a noun is formed from the singular either by vowel change or by the addition of a termination, which may also be accompanied by vowel change. But where the singular has been formed by the addition to the stem of a singular termination, this is usually dropped in the plural, and sometimes a plural termination is substituted for it, in either case with or without change of vowel. There are thus seven different ways of deducing the pl. from the sing.: i. change of vowel; ii. addition of pl. ending; iii. addition of pl. ending with vowel change; iv. loss of sg. ending; v. loss of sg. ending with vowel change; vi substitution of pl. for sg. ending; vii. substitution of pl. for sg. ending with vowel change.

i. The vowel change that takes place when the pl. is formed from the sg. without the addition or subtraction of an ending is the ultimate i-affection; see § 83 ii. This was originally caused by the pl. termination ‑ī of o-stems; thus *bardos gave barẟ ‘bard’, but *bardī gave beirẟ ‘bards’; and also by ‑ī of neut. i-stems, as in mŷr ‘seas’ < *morī § 122 ii (4); possibly -ū of neut. u-stems, but original examples are doubtful. Later, when the cause of the affection had been forgotten, it came to be regarded merely as a sign of the pl., and was extended to all classes of stems.