A diachronic and theoretical analysis of the initial Celtic consonant mutations in Irish and Welsh

The Celtic languages are a linguistically puzzling subgrouping of the Indo-European language family due to the unique appearance of initial consonant mutations (CM). A brief overview of the history of Celtic languages, their sociolinguistic status, and the interlaced orthographical and phonological systems represented by Irish and Welsh is provided. The initial CM and their phonemic, phonetic, and orthographical representations along with their various environments reveal surprising alternations between these two languages despite a lack of appearance in a parent language. This difference is due to the distinct influences of British Latin on each language, Irish development of an original orthographic system, Ogham, and the level of reciprocity between the two languages during their early formation. Diachronic history of each CM is noted with an emphasis on Soft Mutation (SM) or lenition. The initial CM are also examined in a theoretical dimension as phonological, morphological and syntactic phenomena with current theories highlighted. A framework that would utilize all three subdisciplines of linguistics is examined with a possible application that would utilize a varied syntactic dimension emphasizing c-commanding rules in Welsh and strict adherence to mutation only in specified XP's followed in significance in both languages by morphophonological elements.