Writing a Diary 19 (perfect tense)

We have looked at several ways of expressing past activities.

There is the simple past tense (preterite), e.g.

Me a welas. (Me welas.) I saw.

There is the compound preterite, e.g.

Me a wrüg gweles. (Me wrüg gweles.) I did see.

In English we can also say “I have seen.” This is the perfect tense. It indicates a completed action. There are two ways of dealing with this in Cornish.

In later Cornish the idiom was to use the passive voice.

So “I have seen” became “There is seen by me”.

Ma gwelys genam. (Ma gwelys gene’vy.)

Ma is the present tense of boas to be, being (impersonal form) = there is

gwelys is the past participle/adjective form of gweles to see, seeing = seen

genam is the contracted form of gen with/by plus the personal pronoun.

Me a welas golow.	I saw a light.
Me a wrüg gweles golow. (can be emphatic)	I did see a light.
Ma gwelys[1] genam an golow.	I have seen the light.
Ma gwelys gene’vy an golow o honan!	I have seen the light myself!
Ma gwelys gena nei y steren en Est (William Rowe)	We have seen his star in the East

Texts written in Middle Cornish may use an older version of the perfect tense (dropped in later Cornish), replacing the verbal particle a with the “perfect particle” re (not to be confused with re meaning too/too much) plus the preterite. (You will appreciate the simplicity of using <re> with the compound preterite!)

e.g. Me re welas or Me re wrüg gweles

I have seen

Notice that <re> causes the same soft mutation as <a> did.

Similarly: 

me re evas   or me re wrüg eva…	I have drunk = ma evys genam
me re gemeras or me re wrüg kemeres…	I have taken = ma kemerys genam
me re dhabras or me re wrüg debry…	I have eaten = ma debrys genam
me re bernas or me re wrüg perna …	I have bought = ma pernys genam
me re spendyas or me re wrüg spendya…	I have spent = ma spendys genam
me re ros or me re wrüg rei…	I have given = ma res genam
me re dhros or me re wrüg drei…	I have brought = ma dres genam
me re gavas      or me re wrüg cavos…	I have found = ma kevys genam
me re gollas      or me re wrüg kelly…	I have lost = ma kellys genam
me re necovas or me re wrüg nakevy…	I have forgotten = ma nakevys genam

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[1]  In RLC the past participle ended in –ez, so this is the pronunciation of <ys>