I will begin my discussions of the Cornish verb by going through and describing the five tenses that Norris and Lhuyd observed in their translations. Today's notes come from material in Norris, volume 2 of his _The Ancient Cornish Drama_, pp. 260-287. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cornish Verb: The First Tense Norris finds that the First tense is used for both present and future time although it is more commonly used for the present as the Compound conjugation form of this tense was a seperate future. However, useage of the simple first tense for the future can still be found in the _Ordinalia_. Here is the verb _care_ "to love" in the present tense: caraf I love keryth you (sing.) love car he/she/it loves keryn we love carough you (pl.) love carons they love Note that the simple rule I found in Norris (Norris,1968v2:221) explains very well the changes of the root vowel in the second person singular and the first person plural. Here are some examples of the first tense: gowegneth ny garaf. I do not love falsehood [ny+soft mutation] lavaraf theugh newothow. I will tell you news [theugh: to you, combined pronoun/preposition form] ny geusyth. You do not speak. ny'm guelyth arte. You will not see me again. ['m: _me_ (me) contracts after a vowel] ny gemeryn nep lowene. We take not any pleasure. [gemeryn < kemeryn by soft mutation.] Norris notes that in the _Ordinalia_, the _f_ of the first person singular is often dropped for the sake of rhyme: ny vynna(f). I will not... a wela(f)... I see... lavara(f)... I say... I was correct about _gruthyl_ "to do" being an irregular verb. Norris put its conjugation in another place and I found it soon after I posted. Here is the first tense of "to do": guraf I do gureth you (sing.) do gura he/she/it does guren we do gureugh you (pl.) do gurons they do And here are some examples of the Compund first tense (formed with the above forms of "to do"). Note that they are all translated by the English future. Note also that the forms often loose their initial _g_ due to soft muta tion caused by particles occuring before: pan wreth agan dysky. When you do teach us. [wreth < gureth by soft mutation, note that initial _u_ is often rendered _w_; agan "of us" poss. pron.] an gorhel guren dyscuthy. The ark we will uncover. ny wreugh why tryge. You will not remain. [why: you (pl.) nom. and acc. form] y wrons clamdere. They will faint. [_y_ instead of _a_ as an affirmative particle] Here are the forms of all the irregular verbs that Norris noted in his work with the _Ordinalia_ in their first tense forms: (Note: three dots indicate that the form is not attested to by Norris in the _Ordinalia_) "to be" "to give" "to bring" "to come" 1PS of rof drow (doro) ... 2PS os reth (reyth) ... dueth (duth) 3PS yu re (ree, rea) ... due 1PP on ren ... ... 2PP ough ... ... ... 3PP yns (ens) ... ... desons "to go" "to bear/carry" "to know" 1PS af ... gon 2PS eth ... ... 3PS a dek (deg) gor 1PP en ... ... 2PP eugh ... gothough 3PP ... ... gothons ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This of course covers the basic operations of the Cornish first tense. There will of course be more examples occuring in future posts but I hope that this post aids as an introduction. Until next time, Anthony Velasquez Oregon State Univeristy (E-mail) velasqua@ucs.orst.edu ========================================================================= Neb may fe moghya geffys, a gar moghye