CHAPTER VIII—THE VERB IN GENERAL

§ 1. The nucleus of a Cornish verb is its root. This is used without any variation or addition for the third person singular of the present tense, and for the second person singular of the imperative.

Other parts of the verb are formed on this root in three ways:—

1. By the inflected form, that is to say by the addition of certain syllables indicating person, tense, etc., with or without a modification of the root vowel. In older Cornish the word thus formed indicated _person_ as well as _tense_ without the addition of a pronoun, though if emphasis on the subject was intended the pronoun was used before or after it. In later Cornish the pronoun was almost always added after the verb, and as the latter word often ended with the same consonant as the former began with, the final consonant of the verb was often, but incorrectly, omitted in writing, as it was in sound. Thus:—

Root _car_, love; first pers. sing. pres., _carav_, I love, with pronoun, _carav vî_, pronounced and often written _cara vî_; plur., _caron_, we love, _caron nŷ_, often written _caro nŷ_.

The inflected form is common in early Cornish, but in the later stages of the language it is hardly ever used, except _in negative_, _interrogative_, _and dependent sentences_, and in certain tenses of the verb _to be_. Even when it is used, it is more frequently the inflected form of an auxiliary verb with the infinitive or participle of the main verb.

2. By the impersonal form, as the Breton grammarians call it. This has inflections of tense but not of person, the latter being indicated by the personal pronouns, placed before the verb, which, being immediately preceded by the particle _a_, has its initial in the second state. This verb is the third person singular of the required tense. Thus:—

Root _car_, third pers. sing. past, _caras_.

Impersonal form. _Mî a garas_, _tî a garas_, _ev a garas_, etc.

This form is frequently used in early and late Cornish for a direct affirmative sentence, beginning straight off with its nominative, or preceded only by _and_ or _but_, etc.; but not so frequently in late Cornish, as the impersonal form of an auxiliary verb, with the infinitive of the main verb.

3. By the auxiliary form, either inflected or impersonal, with the infinitive or a participle of the main verb. The auxiliaries are:—

_Gîl_ or _gwîl_ (older forms _gwrthil_, _gwithil_, etc.), to do.

_Menny_, to wish, to will.

_Gally_, to be able.

_Gŏthvos_, to know.

_Bos_, to be.

(a). _Gwîl_ is used to form several tenses, and is used (1) in its impersonal form in principal affirmative sentences, (2) in its inflected form in negative, interrogative, or dependent sentences, with the infinitive of the main verb, more frequently than any other form, for the present, preterite, conditional, and imperative. Its use is similar to that of _do_, in the Cornish manner of speaking English. Thus:—

_Mî a wra cara_, I love, lit. I do love.

_Tî a wrîg cara_, thou didst love.

In these two sentences, _wra_ and _wrîg_ are _proclitics_, unaccented syllables joined in sound to the word which follows.

_Mar qwressa an dên cara_, if the man would love.

_Gwra cara_, love thou (do thou love); _gwreugh why cara_, love ye.

_Gwrens e bos_, let him be.

(b). _Menny_ is used as an auxiliary of the future and conditional. In principal affirmative sentences it is usually in its impersonal form, in negative, interrogative, or dependent sentences always in its inflected form. Thus:—

_Mî a vedn môs_, I will go.

_Mî a venja môs_, I would go.

_A vednough why môs_? will you go?

(c). _Gally_ is used, chiefly in the present and preterite, for “can” and “could,” but also for “may” and “might.” Thus:—

_Mî a el môs_, I can (or may) go.

_Mî a alja môs_, I could (or might) go.

(d). _Gŏdhvos_ in the present is sometimes used for “can.” Thus:—

_Mî ôr mos_, I can go (lit. I know [how] to go).

These follow the same rule as the others with regard to the use of their impersonal and inflected forms.

(e). _Bos_, to be, as an auxiliary, is used, much as in English, with the present or past participle, to form the continuous present, the continuous past, and the passive. It is generally used in the inflected form in its present and imperfect in any sort of sentence, but in principal affirmative sentences it is generally used in the impersonal form for other tenses. It can also be used with _gwîl_ or _menny_ and _gally_ as an auxiliary to it, while it is itself an auxiliary to another verb, but this is only what is done in English with such expressions as “can be,” “will be,” “shall be,” etc.

The use of the various forms of the verb will be found more fully explained in the chapter on the construction of sentences.

When the auxiliaries _gwîl_ and _gally_ are used to form a passive, it is sometimes the auxiliary that takes the passive form. Thus:—

_Mar ny_ wrer _y wythe_, if he be not guarded (_Res. Dom._, 341), _mar _keller _y wythe_, if he can be kept (_Pass. Chr._, 3058).

But in modern Cornish this would be more likely to be formed with a double auxiliary:—

_Mar ni wrello bos gwithes_.

_Mar callo bos gwithes_.

$ 2. The Tenses Of The Inflected Verb.

The inflected verb is reducible to five tenses, with an imperative, two participles, and a verbal noun or infinitive. These are all formed on the root by the addition of terminations, and sometimes by a modification of the root vowel (indicated below by _m_).

The tenses and their terminations are:—

I. Present or Future.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—av_ or _am_ _—on_ [earlier _—m—en_].

2. _—m eth_ or _es_. _—ough_.

3. root alone. _—ons_ or _ans_.

II. Imperfect or Secondary Present.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—en_. _—en_.

2. _—es_. _—eugh_.

3. _—a_. _—ens_.

III. Preterite.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—m—ys_. _—son_ [earlier_—m—sen_].

2. _—m—ses_. _—sough_.

3. _—as_. _—sons_ or _sans_.

_Re_ prefixed to this tense turned it into a preterperfect in middle Cornish, but in the later form _re_ is only used for the optative. {119}

IV. The Pluperfect or Secondary Perfect, largely used in late Cornish as a Conditional.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—sen_ (or _jen_). _—sen_ (or _jen_).

2. _—ses_ (or _jes_) _—seugh_ (or _jeugh_).

3. _—sa_ (or _ja_). _—sens_ (or _jens_).

V. The Subjunctive Present.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—m—ev_. _—m—en_.

2. _m—y_. _—m—eugh_.

3. _—o_. _—ens_ or _ons_.

Extra tense to some verbs: Second Future. Found in the early MSS. in the impersonal form as a simple future.

Singular. Plural.

1. _—fym_, _vym_, _vyv_. _—fan_, _von_.

2. _—fyth_, _vyth_. _—fough_, _vough_.

3. _—iv fyth_, _vyth_, _—fyns_, _vyns_, _vons_. _vo_.

The Imperative.

Singular. Plural.

1. wanting. _en_.

2. root alone. _eugh_.

3. _—ens_ or _es_. _ens_.

The Present Participle is formed by prefixing _ow_ to the infinitive, the initial of which, if mutable in that manner, is changed to its fourth state. If a present participle governs a pronoun object, the latter in its possessive form immediately precedes (and governs as to initial) the infinitive, and is itself preceded by the preposition _worth_. In late Cornish _ow_ was often written _a_ or _o_.

Another participial form, common in Breton and occasionally found in Cornish, has been already mentioned in Chap. III. § 2. This is made by placing the preposition _yn_, _en_, in, and the indefinite article _idn_, _un_, before the infinitive or verbal noun. Its use is chiefly adverbial. Thus, in the _Poem of the Passion_ we find, _yn un scolchye_, skulking; _yn un garme_, crying out; _yn un fystyne_, hurrying.

The Infinitive or Verbal Noun is formed by adding _a_, _ya_, _y_, _as_ or _es_, _al_ or _el_, to the root. In some verbs the root itself, without any addition, is the verbal noun.

The Past or Passive Participle is formed by adding _es_ to the root, with or without modification of the root vowel.

The Passive termination is _er_ for the present and _es_ for the preterite, but in Modern Cornish the Passive is almost always formed after the English model by the auxiliary verb _bos_, to be, with the past participle.

The terminations _ma_ and _ta_ are often added to the first and second persons singular of various tenses in interrogative and subjunctive sentences, and in the case of the first person even in ordinary narration. Norris maintains that these are not forms of _mî_ and _tî_, but only an _a_ suffixed to the verb termination, which in the first person reverts to a primary _m_ for _v_, and in the second person reassumes a dropped _t_. This theory is rather supported by our finding _a_ occasionally added to the third persons of tenses of the verb _to be_, but _va_ is also found. Whether this is the explanation or not, we find such forms as:—

_Pandra venta_? what wilt thou?

_A wresta_? dost thou? _Mar menta_, if thou wilt.

_Pandra wrama_? what shall I do?

There are some few differences between the inflected verb of the earlier MSS. and that of modern Cornish, and among other changes the lighter termination _en_ or _yn_ of the first person plural, and _ens_ or _yns_ of the third person plural, in some cases had changed by Lhuyd’s time to _on_ or _an_, and _ons_ or _ans_, but probably really the vowel is obscure. There was also considerable uncertainty about the modification of the vowel. Even in the early MSS. the change of vowel is rather vague, but the general rule seems to have been that when the termination has a thin vowel (_e_, _i_, or _y_), a broad root vowel (_a_, _o_, _u_) is changed to a thin vowel, usually in late Cornish to _e_ (cf. the Gaelic rule of _leathan le leathan agus caol le caol_, broad with broad and thin with thin). But this is by no means universal, and in some tenses, as in the imperfect and pluperfect, is not found at all.

There is some confusion in modern Cornish about the subjunctive or fifth tense. Norris considers that Lhuyd’s subjunctive is really, except for the third person singular, the imperfect or second tense of the older MSS. But it seems to be more like a form of the present indicative, except in the third person singular, which is the old subjunctive. Lhuyd’s change of the first person singular to _am_ instead of _av_ is not uncommon in certain verbs of late Cornish, when this tense is used in a subjunctive clause.

The inflected verb at the beginning of a sentence is often preceded in Middle Cornish by the verbal particle _y_ (or before a vowel _yth_), which does not mean anything in particular. _y_ causes the third state in verbs whose radical is _p_, _c_, _t_, and the fourth state in those whose radical is _d_, and changes _gw_ to _wh_. In late Cornish it is rarely used except with the present of _môs_, to go, and (in its apocopated form _th_ or as _ăth_) with the present and imperfect of _bos_, to be.

A reflexive verb may be formed from any transitive verb by prefixing _ŏm_ (older forms _ym_, as in Welsh, and _em_, as in Breton), changing the initial to the second state.

_cregy_, to hang; _ŏmgregy_, to hang oneself.

_brêsy_, to judge; _ŏmvrêsy_, to judge oneself.

_disqwedhas_, to show; _ŏmdhisqwedhas_, to show oneself.

_gweras_, to help; _ŏmweras_, to help oneself.

Sometimes the prefix gives a mutual rather than a reflexive sense.

_ŏmsewa_, to follow one another.

_ŏmladha_, to fight, contend (cf. French _se battre_).