A Bit More About Adverbs
We have used adjectives to describe what something
is like. A simple method is used to convert those adjectives into adverbs to
describe how something is done. These are adverbs of manner. (Though, in Late
Cornish adjectives were often just used as adjectives without alteration.) All
you do is put a little adverb particle, en[1], before
the adjective, like putting –ly on
the end of an adjective in English, e.g.:
lowen happy
en
lowen happily
en üskis quickly, fast
Lowen ew an kei. The dog is happy.
Ma’n kei o
qwary en lowen. The dog is playing happily.
Thew ev üskis. Üskis ew. He is fast. It’s fast.
Ma va o
ponya en üskis. He runs quickly.
Notice
that you are using the two different versions (descriptive and locative) of the
verb boas
to be.
Lowen ew an kei. Thew ev üskis.
The dog is happy. He
is fast.
Ma’n kei o qwary en lowen. Ma va o ponya en
üskis.
The dog is playing happily. He is
running quickly.
Here are
some more examples. The adverb particle en may cause a hard mutation:
da good
en ta, etta, well
drog bad
en trog badly
en tevrei definitely, certainly, indeed, etc.
dien complete, utter, etc.
en tien, ettien completely, utterly, etc.
lel loyal, faithful
truedhek sad
en truedhek sadly
trosek noisy
en trosek noisily
en ûhel loudly, aloud
isel soft,
low
en isel softly
Me a vedn
moas avorow en tevrei. I will definitely
go tomorrow.
Hedna ew
gwres en ta. That is well
done.
An kei a wrüg
holya en lel. The dog
followed faithfully.
Nag o’vy
lowen en tien. I am not completely happy.
It doesn’t work for all adjectives, so sometimes
you have to resort to saying
in
a … manner, in a … way, e.g.:
en maner(f) für in
a wise manner, in a wise way, wisely
en cor(m)gocky in
a stupid manner, stupidly
Ma va o
pedndroppya en maner für. He nods wisely.
Thero’whei o
fara en cor gocky. You are
behaving stupidly.
Or you can resort to opposites, e.g.
heb caletter without difficulty, without a problem,
easily
Anjei a ell gwil
hebma heb caletter. They can do
this easily.
[1] yn in Middle Cornish
[2] pronounced <isskiz>
– üskis
is also one of the adjectives
that can be used as an adverb without putting en in front of it.
[3] pronunciation
stress on final syllable
[4] This is a useful way to end a formal letter.
[5] umbrella graph! pronounced <treewan> in
Late Cornish
[6] The idiom e’n
gwettha pres (in the worst time)
also means unfortunately, in parallel
with e’n
gwella pres (in the best time)
meaning fortunately
[7] umbrella graph again! pronounced <eew-hall>
in Late Cornish. The pronunciation changed from Middle Cornish – the hamlet of
Hugus near Truro (meaning “high wood”) still has the <oo> sound.
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