2022 Day 83

2022 Dedh Pajar Ügens ha Trei

De Yow, pajwora warn ügens mis Meurth
Thursday, 24th March

Ass ew an awel teg ha tòbm! Ew hebma agan hav solabres? O nei moy tòbm avel Ejyp? Martesen gwav a wra dos arta nessa seythen. Fatel vedh an gewer rag Pask?

How fine and warm the weather is! Is this our summer already? Are we hotter than Egypt? Perhaps winter will come again next week. How will the weather be for Easter?

Cressya emann agan tavas Kernôwek Radn 17a

Building up our Cornish language Part 17a

We started to look at adverbs of time. 

Some of them only make sense if you use the past tense of a verb. 

When you are talking about past states of being (e.g. using bos descriptive)

or past actions (e.g. using bos locative)

you need to decide whether something goes on for an

extended time (in which case you need the imperfect) 

or whether it is of finite duration (in which case you need the preterite). 

There are grey areas, of course!

For the verb bos to be we have three choices. 

Two of the choices look very similar to some of the present tense, 

so this is where we need adverbs of time to distinguish them.

Imperfect Descriptive 

The SWF M forms in brackets are not usual in SWF L.

1 sg (en), om, oma, o vy 

2 sg (es), os, o chy 

3 sg o, o ev, o va, o hei 

1 pl (en), o nei 

2 pl (ewgh), owgh, o whei 

3 pl (ens), o anjei 

Here are some examples comparing present and past:

Thew ev deskybel da e'n seythen-ma. He is a good student this week.

Tho va deskybel drog e'n termyn tremenys. He was a bad student in the past.

Descadores an tavas Kernôwek o vy lebmyn. I am a teacher of the Cornish language now.

Tho vy descadores sciens kens omdedna. I was a science teacher before retiring.

Skith o nei hedhyw. We are tired today.

Skith o nei de, ewedh. We were tired yesterday, as well.

We will look at the preterite tomorrow.