Taking a new look at Cornish grammar 35 (Possessive Pronouns)

In English we have single word possessive pronouns, such as “mine”, “hers”, “theirs”, etc. which we can use in a variety of ways, e.g. “Are those theirs?”; “That’s not yours.”; “Hers is bigger than mine.” In Cornish we have to use a number of different approaches. (See later posts for more.)

First, we have already used neppeth (SWF/M neppyth) to mean something/anything. We can now use peth (SWF/M pyth) thing with a possessive adjective (and the appropriate mutations). The plural pethow is not often needed.

o feth SWF/M ow fyth	mine, my thing, my stuff, etc.
dha beth SWF/M dha byth	thine, thy thing, thy stuff, etc.
y beth SWF/M y byth	his, his thing, his stuff, etc.
hy feth SWF/M hy fyth	hers, her thing, her stuff, etc.
agan peth SWF/M agan pyth	ours, our thing, our stuff, etc.
agas peth SWF/M agas pyth	yours, your thing, your stuff, etc.
aga feth SWF/M aga fyth	theirs, their thing, their stuff, etc.

For extra emphasis you can add the appropriate personal pronoun on the end (known as the enclitic personal pronoun). This enclitic personal pronoun then attracts the emphasis and, as a result, in speech the possessive adjective is unstressed.

o feth vy SWF/M ow fyth vy	mine, my thing, my stuff, etc.
dha beth jy SWF/M dha byth jy	thine, thy thing, thy stuff, etc.
y beth e(v) SWF/M y byth ev	his, his thing, his stuff, etc.
hy feth hei SWF/M hy fyth hi	hers, her thing, her stuff, etc.
agan peth nei SWF/M agan pyth ni	ours, our thing, our stuff, etc.
agas peth whei SWF/M agas pyth hwi	yours, your thing, your stuff, etc.
aga feth anj(ei) SWF/M aga fyth i	theirs, their thing, their stuff, etc.

Late Cornish often took this a stage further and dropped the unstressed possessive adjective, replacing it with a similarly unstressed definite article (with a loss of mutations). Because they are unstressed both definite article and possessive adjectives are prone to being dropped altogether.

(an) peth vy	mine, my thing, etc.
(an) peth jy	thine, etc.
(an) peth ev	his, etc.
(an) peth hei	hers, etc.
(an) peth nei	ours, etc.
(an) peth whei	yours, etc.
(an) peth anjei	theirs, etc.

The phrase an peth (a/neb a) "that which" also reinforced the use of the definite article rather than the possessive pronoun,

i.e. an peth vy = "that which is mine"

Here are some sample sentences. (Some have no equivalents in SWF/M.) You can have lots of variations. Put what you want to stress early in the sentence:

Thew peth vy.	It is mine.
Ma’n peth jy obma.	Yours is here.
Hebma ew peth ev.	This is his.
Hedna ew an peth hei.	That is hers.
Oll a’ re-ma ew pethow nei.	All these are our things.
Re-na ew pethow whei.	Those are your things.
An pethow anjei ens.	They are their things.

N.B. The possessive adjectives agan, agas and aga may drop their initial a after another vowel.

O feth ew da. SWF/M Ow fyth yw da.	Mine is good.
Dha beth jy ew drog. SWF/M Dha byth jy yw drog.	Yours is bad.
Teg ew y beth e. SWF/M Teg yw y byth ev.	His is beautiful.
Bian ew hy feth. SWF/M Byhan yw hy fyth.	Hers is small.
Ottobma gan peth nei. SWF/M Ottomma agan pyth ni.	Here’s our stuff.
Ma gas peth ena. SWF/M Yma agas pyth ena.	Yours is there.
Pe le ma ga feth anjei? SWF/M Ple ma aga fyth i?	Where is theirs?