I’m reviewing my understanding of tense use, and would appreciate some clarification. I understand that in the North at least, it is the done thing to use gwneud as an auxiliary verb when forming the past tense, outside of the imperfect tense, and, I believe, outside of clywed, gweld, dweud and cael, which use the short form more commonly in speech. Hopefully this is right…!?
Now, my question concerns the future tense. We have learnt that the short form present and future are the same (wela i = I see, and I will see), but my question involves use of gwneud as an auxiliary again, because we could also say wna i weld. So, at least for the North, is there a similar thing going on wherein some future forms are more commonly expressed using gwneud as an auxiliary? I know when to use the auxiliary in the past, and would love to be able to know when to use it in the future in order to work towards a more natural, colloquial expression.
I just checked through the lessons and the wela i section is Northern Course 3, Lesson 5. It’s all explained there right at the beginning, Huw (and apologies if this is a “spoiler” and you haven’t reached this stage). As for the past tense bit, I think that is in Course 2 somewhere. I’ll check later.
So, at least for the North, is there a similar thing going on wherein some future forms are more commonly expressed using gwneud as an auxiliary?
Yes…
But it varies from area to area and person to person (as is true of the past) so you can’t learn a list of which to use - you just have to accept picking it up by osmosis through listening to enough Welsh…
Thanks, pawb. I use 'nes I often and just forgot its root.
I’ll check on the “wela i” issue in the hwntw version. I had persuaded myself that I as up to date in Course 3 but I must clearly do some revision!
Don’t think that there’s an issue, the question is one of when to use “wna’i weld” and when “wela i”, to which Aran’s answer is that there is no rule, only local custom.
Diolch Aran, I’ve always been a fan of osmosis… I also wondered about the prevalence of ddaru mi instead of wnes i in the NW and how far the use of this extends east and south?
Huw - I’m, actually running over Course 3 again as well specifically for some of the short form versions, which I suppose you could call revision. There’s so much to learn that it’s hard to keep it all pinned down sometimes, particularly with other commitments and so on.
I also wondered about the prevalence of ddaru mi instead of wnes i in the NW and how far the use of this extends east and south?
In terms of being understandable, everyone would get it - in terms of usage, my impression is that it’s fairly common in the north-east (in fact, more so than in Gwynedd, but that may just be the skew of personal experience), but not much otherwise…
Thanks, Geek. There was an issue for me, in fact, because, as I said earlier, I had always thought of the construction “wela i” to be a short form of the future only. Having re-listened to Iestyn & Cat’s Lesson 3/5 I have now heard (again) that it can mean present and future from y geg ceffyl hwntw :-).
I’m well used to short forms and local variations by now (You’ve got to be in Ystrad Meurig) but this particular usage had slipped my memory.
Bontddu: So, at least for the North, is there a similar thing going on wherein some future forms are more commonly expressed using gwneud as an auxiliary?
I can think of one situation in which the reverse is true: it’s more common to use short-form verbs than long-form verbs after the word pan. So, pan ddes i nôl rather than pan wnes i ddod nôl.,pan ddo’i nôl rather than pan wna i ddod nôl, and so forth.
After I read that ‘rule’ somewhere (probably in Gareth King), I started noticing that it seemed true in practice.
