Verbal
particles 1
These
look like fragments of words. By themselves they don’t really have a meaning. In
the descriptive form of boas, Th before ew
at the start of a sentence prevents it from being a question, e.g.
but
Th[2]ew
kei. It is a
dog.
Ew teg? Is it lovely?
Thew teg. It is lovely.
Ew Jory? Is it George?
Thew Jory. It is
George.
In
the case of boas, the negative is produced by replacing Th
with Nag,
e.g.
Nag ew kei. It is not a
dog.
Nag ew teg. It is not
lovely.
Nag is also used with the locative,
though the negative and question forms do not use ma.
Eus keus? Is there
(any) cheese?
Eus mel? Is there
(any) honey?
Eus? Is there (any)?
The
negative puts Nag in front of eus.
Nag eus keus war an
bord. There isn’t any
cheese on the table.
Nag eus mel e’n pot. There isn’t any
honey in the pot.
Nag eus prev e’n
aval. There isn’t a worm in the apple.
Nag eus kei reb an tan.
There isn’t a
dog by the fire.
Or
as a negative question:
Nag eus keus? Isn’t there
(any) cheese?
Nag eus? Isn’t there
(any)?
[1] If you just
wanted to give a positive answer to this you could just say Ew. or Ea,
ew.
[2] Traditional
Late Cornish joins this verbal particle to the verb, e.g. Thew kei. Middle Cornish and
KS may use <yth> instead of <th>
and it is not joined, so <Yth yw>
instead of <Thew>.
[3] eus is
NEVER used with the definite article or with names.
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