User:Kernowek/Cornish language
Cornish grammar is the grammar of the Cornish language, which in many respects is quite similar to that of the other Celtic languages. Like most Indo-European languages, it has plurals, articles and inflections. Cornish nouns have masculine and feminine genders. Other aspects of Cornish morphology, while typical for a Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and initial consonant mutations.
Nouns
[edit]Cornish nouns may be masculine or feminine.
Articles
[edit]The Cornish definite article is an. An causes lenition of singular feminine nouns, and plural masculine nouns that refer to people. There is no indefinite article in Cornish.
Adjectives
[edit]The majority of Cornish adjectives follow the noun. Adjectives get lenited after singular feminine nouns, and plural masculine nouns that refer to people. For example, using [maw] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "boy", [mebyon] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "boys", [mowes] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "girl", [mowesi] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "girls" and [bian] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "little":
- An maw bian
- An vowes vian
- An vebyon vian
- An mowesi bian
Verbs
[edit]All Cornish verbs can be conjugated to represent four indicative tenses (present-future, imperfect, preterite and conditional), two subjunctive tenses (present-future and imperfect) and an imperative mood. In practise however, this is largely restricted to more conservative forms of writing such as poetry, and the everyday language for most purposes uses periphrastic constructions with auxiliaries such as bos 'to be', gwul 'to do' and mennes 'to will, wish' to express the tenses. Furthermore, the distinction between the present-future and imperfect subjunctive has mostly been lost, except in the verb bos 'to be'.
Pronouns
[edit]| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | my | ni |
| 2nd person | ty | hwi |
| 3rd person | ev (masculine) hi (feminine) |
ji, i |
Possessive pronouns
[edit]Some possessive pronouns cause initial consonant mutations:
|
[ow] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "my" aspirates
[dha] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "your" (sg.) lenites
[y] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "his" lenites
[hy] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "her" aspirates
[agan] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "our" does not cause mutation
[agas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "your" (pl.) does not cause mutation
[aga] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "their" aspirates
Prepositions[edit]As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" prepositions, or, as they are more commonly termed, prepositional pronouns.
Numbers[edit]Cardinal numbers[edit]
|