Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/kʷrītos

This Proto-Celtic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Past participle of *kʷrināti (“to buy”).

*kʷrītos^[1]

1. bought, purchased

Middle Welsh, Gaulish, and Old Irish disagree wildly on the form of this term's potential noun formations, making reconstructing a singular unifying etymon for descendant nouns difficult.^[2]

• Old Irish críth has a genitive singular críthi attested in late manuscripts, implying it was in a declension that added a vowel suffix to form the genitive singular.
  • The main two declensions that would have such a suffix would be *-tus (as reconstructed by De Bernardo Stempel and McCone) and *-tā (as assumed by Schumacher).
  • Irslinger rules out *-tā based on the tendency of -yH- and -wH-final roots to have a short vowel in the root syllable when using the suffix, not a long one.
  • Vendryes has opted for a direct derivation from the past participle.^[3]
• Middle Welsh prid manifests as an adjective (indicative of a past-participial adjective), and a masculine noun meaning "mortgage, pledge". The noun can come from any gender of the past participle, or *-tā, or *-tus.
• Gaulish tiopritom is neuter and derives from a neuter substantivization of a *-tós adjective.

The simplest derivation for all these nouns is independent derivations in all three Celtic branches from the past participle.

• Proto-Brythonic: *prid
  • Middle Welsh: prid (“dear, costly; mortgage, pledge”)
    • Welsh: prid
• Old Irish: críth (archaic)
• ⇒ Gaulish: tiopritom