Taking a new look at Cornish grammar 12 (adverbs from adjectives)

Apart from some loan words, adjectives usually come after their nouns (unless they are in compound nouns – which is a different topic). The same applies to adverbs and their verbs. 

In English we can produce an adverb from an adjective by adding the suffix “-ly”, e.g. bad → badly. There are several methods in Cornish.

As we have seen, one method is to precede the adjective by en (SWFM yn). Particularly in Late Cornish the en is often left out, simply using the adjective as an adverb, and some adverbs do not use en anyway. Soft mutation (examples shown coloured) may occur, whether or not en is evident. (In SWFM yn causes a “mixed mutation”.)

Here are some examples (not all of the English adverbs end in “-ly”). 

Notice that the adverbs I have chosen all apply to the way or manner in which something is done. (Some of them have more meanings than I have shown.)

We will look at other types of adverb in later posts.

adjective		related adverb
cler SWFM kler	clear	en cler SWFM yn kler	clearly
da	good	da en ta  etta SWFM yn ta	well
mas		en vas  vas SWFM mas
devri SWFM devri	certain, definite	devri en tevri SWFM yn tevri	certainly, definitely
dien	complete	en tien et tien SWFM yn tien	completely
diògel SWFM diogel	doubtless, secure	diògel dhiògel en dhiògel SWFM yn dhiogel SWFM yn tiogel	doubtlessly, securely
glan	clean	glan en lan SWFM yn lan	cleanly, completely
glaneth	neat	en laneth SWFM yn glanyth (though, yn kempen preferred)	neatly
für SWFM fur	wise	en für SWFM yn fur	wisely
lent	slow	en lent SWFM yn lent	slowly
lôwen	happy, glad	en lôwen SWFM yn lowen	happily gladly
spladn SWFM splann	bright, clear	en spladn SWFM yn splann	brightly clearly
trist trûedhek	sad	trist  trûedhek SWFM yn truedhek	sadly
trûan SWFM truan		trûan en trûan SWFM truan yn truan
üdnik SWFM unnik	lone	en üdnik SWFM yn unnik (though, unsel preferred)	only
üskis SWFM uskis	quick, fast	üskis SWFM uskis en üskis SWFM yn uskis	quickly, fast

The other way to go from adjective to adverb is to use der vaner  or dre vaner … before the adjective “in a … manner/way”. (Forms der and dre are equally valid - the letter r has a habit of wandering around!)

arbednek SWFM arbennek	special distinct	der vaner arbednek SWFM dre vaner arbennek en arbednek SWFM yn arbennek	especially distinctly
deskys SWFM dyskys lettrys	academic	der vaner deskys SWFM dre vaner dyskys der vaner lettrys	academically learnedly
drog	bad wicked	der vaner drog SWFM dre vaner drog	badly
gowek mingow	untruthful dishonest treacherous	der vaner gowek SWFM dre vaner gowek	dishonestly treacherously
own	fair	der vaner own SWFM dre vaner own	fairly
speitys or spitüs SWFM spitus	spiteful	der vaner speitys or spitüs SWFM dre vaner spitus	spitefully

Sometimes there is no direct translation, so you have to take a different approach. Instead of saying “quietly” or “silently” you could say “without making a sound” e.g. heb gül son, heb gwil gîk.