Possessive
adjectives 3
We
have seen the singular possessive adjectives used in front of nouns:
o my
y his
hy her
o
hanow my name
y
hanow his name
hy
hanow her
name
As
in
Jan
ew o hanow. Jan is my name.[1]My
name is Jan.
And
we have seen that some nouns mutate after possessive adjectives.[3]
e.g.
poll a pool
o
foll
my pool
tesen a
cake
y
desen his cake
carr a car
hy harr her car
For
extra emphasis these can be combined with the personal pronouns, e.g.
o foll vy my pool
y desen ev his
cake
hy harr hei her car
Now
we can add some plural possessive adjectives[4]:
agan our
agas your
agan poll our pool
agan tesedn ow our cakes
agan carr our car
agas tasow your fathers
agas kei your dog
agas treven your
houses
The
Lord’s Prayer combines agan and nei:
Agan Tas nei
eus en Nev…
Our Father that there is in Heaven…
Nag
eus moy vel pajar po pemp en drev nei ’ell clappya
Kernowek lebmen…[5]
There are not more
than four or five in our town that can speak
Cornish now
William
Bodinar was a Cornish fisherman. In 1776 he wrote a letter about himself. Here
are a few snippets of the things he wrote, in his own, rather inconsistent,
spelling:
Bluth
vee eue try egence a pemp…
…gen
seara vee a pemp dean moy en cock…
Nag
es moye vel pager po pemp…
…poble
coath pager egance blouth…
Here
is the same in SWF/Lt
Bloodh[6]
vy ew trei ügens ha pemp… My years of age
are 65 ...
…gen sira vy ha pemp den moy ... with my father and five
more men
en cok… in a fishing boat ...
Nag eus moy vel There are not more
than
pajar po pemp… four or five ...
…pobel coth ... old people
pajar ügens bloodh… 80 years
of age ...
[1] The usual way
of saying <I’m called Jan.> would
be <Jan henwys o vy.>.
[2] In the Bible,
Luke 1:63
[3] See Table E
for more examples.
[5] William
Bodinar was bemoaning the decline of the Cornish language.
[6] <bloodh>
years of age is derived from the
regular word for a year <bledhen>
, though bloodh is masculine
whereas bledhen is feminine, so 4
years old is pajar bloodh and 4 years is peder bledhen.
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