1. Adjectives, signifying size, colour, position, etc., e.g. _mêr_, _mear_, _vcar_, great; _bîan_, _bean_, _vean_, little; _glas_, blue; _dew_, black; _gwin_, _gwidu_, _widn_, white; _gwartha_, _wartha_, _gwarra_, upper; _gollas_, _gullas_, _wollas_, lower, etc., in agreement with the noun.
2. Other nouns in the appositional genitive.
4. Adjectives or nouns preceded by the article _an_, the, or by a preposition such as _war_, on.
The following points should be considered:—
1. The gender of the noun. Of the nouns mentioned above, _tre_, _ros_, _car_, _lan_, _whêl_, _hal_, _goon_, _carrack_, _crows_, _fenton_, _kelly_, _trigva_, _mellan_, _bron_, _tor_, are feminine, so that the initial of the adjective epithet is changed to the second state. This may often, more or less, determine whether the epithet is an adjective or a noun in the genitive. Thus, in the name _Tremaine_, we may be sure that the second syllable is not an adjective or it would be _Trevaine_, so the meaning is not, as one would think, “the stone house,” not a very distinguishing epithet in Cornwall, but probably the “house of the stones,” i.e. of some stone circle or other prehistoric remains. Sometimes, however, the initial of an appositional genitive, and sometimes that of an epithet of a masculine noun is irregularly changed in composition.
2. The stress accent of the compound. This is of great importance, especially in determining whether an article or preposition intervenes between the noun and its epithet, and also, in the rare cases in which it occurs, in deciding whether the epithet may not precede the noun. _The stress accent is almost invariably on the epithet_, and it is astonishing to see how even in East Cornwall, where the language has been dead for three centuries, this accentuation is still preserved. If the epithet suffix is a monosyllable, the accent of the compounded word is on the last syllable; if not, the accent is usually on the last but one, but the intervening article or preposition is always a proclitic, and is disregarded as to accent. The same sort of thing happens in English. Thus, even if it were the custom to write _Stratfordonavon_ all in one word, we should know by the accent that it meant _Stratford-on-Avon_; but one, say some German philologist, who had never heard it pronounced, and knew nothing of British topography and the distribution of surnames, might conjecture that it was _Stratfor Dónavon_, might compare it with _Lydiard Tregoze_, _Stoke Dabernon_, _Sutton Valence_, or _Compton Wyniates_, and might build thereon a beautiful theory of an Irish settlement in Warwickshire. Things every whit as absurd as this have been done with Cornish names.