Cornish lesson 10

I have a question about L10.

For “I enjoy”, we are asked to use “My a omlowenha” + “owth” (or “ow”) + what seems to be a verbal noun with a hard mutation. For example

My a omlowenha owth assaya… (I enjoy trying to…)

This “owth” (or “ow”) really took me by surprise as we had been using these words to say things like “I am trying” (it seems to correspond to “yn” in Welsh). But in this kind of sentence after “enjoy” in English, “trying” is a gerund and not a participle. Why [edit] would it be translated with an aspectual particle?

At first, I figured that maybe it was the translation. Maybe “I enjoy” is only a rough translation of “My a omlowenha”. For example, it could be closer in meaning to “I have a good time trying to…”. Then the aspectual particle would maybe make some kind of sense sense. But [edit] later, we have it used with a clear noun “My a omlowenha an chons” (“I enjoy the chance”).

Is there an explanation here? [edit]

@davyth-fear do you have an answer for this question? Or @Courtenay?

Hi Martin, Thanks for the question and sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not a grammarian and so can’t really answer you question in any depth. I can always post the question on a Cornish facebook site and see what the answers are. I suppose that ow(th) + verbal noun operates as both a gerund and present participle. My a omlowenha is ‘I who is enjoying …’ anyway. I’ll get back to you if the more grammatically minded post on FB

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Well that was quick. It seems that omlowenhe means ‘to enjoy oneself’, therefore ‘my a omlowenha assaya gul neppyth’ means I enjoy trying to do something. Some people find ‘my a omlwenha an chons’ as colloquial and fine, but others find it a bit awkward and have started using ‘enjoya’ as the verb (like ‘joio’ in Welsh, I presume.

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This far too wordy… for “I enjoy trying to do something” I’d say “Da yw genev assaya gul neppyth”

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Thank you for your answer, @danielprohaska

Could I please ask a favour? Do you by any chance have the missing audios for lessons 21 and 22 of your old Cornish audio course? Desky Kernowek - Awdyogors Kernowek Diwedhes

Thank you very much, @davyth-fear. I appreciate your taking the time to answer me. I’m sorry that my thanks are about 2 years late!

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Hi Martin,
Yes, I’ve got the whole old course. If you give me your e-mail address I can give you access to the Dropbox files. Most of the files are too large to send by e-mail.
Dan

That’s really kind of you, Daniel!

Martinharte dot cfc at gmail dot com

By the way, I have listened to the first lesson of the new course and it is very good. I especially loved the line: “But you’ll miss the magic.”

Just as an update, Daniel Prohaska not only sent the links to the old course that I asked for (including some lessons I didn’t know existed), he also sent me links to some other material that I didn’t ask for. Having tried 6 tracks of this already, I can say that this is very valuable and useful material and very generous.

@danielprohaska, I’ll take the opportunity to thank you here, since the links didn’t include your email. I can’t thank you enough for the surprise new material. Is there some way I can thank you for that? I’m on lesson 6 of that and it’s definitely good enough that I am willing to pay something for the use I am making of these files to study Cornish if that is possible.

Edit: to be clear, Daniel asked me for nothing in return for the files and did not ask for payment. Reading the message back, I can see how I might give people the wrong idea with my wording above.

Ha Martin.
That’s so kind of you. BTW you can contact me via the contact form on my website, and when I respond you’ll have my e-mail. I do not charge for my course, but donations are welcome of course, it is quite a lot of work :wink: You can give as much as you want… whenever…
Dan

This is very exciting news! I’m going to push on through the SSi lessons with the knowledge that I have something else to dive into after that! Brilliant!