So we have 'We cannot use ddim followed by a proper noun, a pronoun or ‘y’. We have to insert ‘o’.
Welais i ddim o Sian. (Welais i mo Sian)
Welais i ddim o’r cathod. (Welais i mo’r cathod)
So far, so good. Then I see this:
Chyrhaedda i ddim Aber erbyn hanner nos.
Well, using the rule above, shouldn’t it be ‘Chyrhaedda i ddim o Aber.’?
Could it be that in the first two ddim is an object meaning here ‘nothing’ and o Siân/o’r cathod describes the ‘nothing’, as it were, whereas in the third example ‘Aber’ is the object of a straight negative??
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Firstly, there are always exceptions to rules!
Secondly, what John said above is pretty much it.
It’s usually best not to try and directly translate as in the examples below (because for one, it’s not always possible anyway), but in this case the way I learnt it was this:
Restructure the sentences in English like this -
I didn’t see Sian > I saw nothing of Sian
I didn’t see the cat > I saw nothing of the cat
These read naturally enough in English, and these need the mo.
Then:
I didn’t see a cat > I saw nothing of a cat
I won’t arrive in Aberystwyth by midnight > I will arrive nothing of Aberystwyth by midnight
These don’t sound natural in English, and they don’t need the mo.
It’s a rule of thumb - there are probably exceptions that I can’t think of at the moment, but it may help.
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Thank you…I think!
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According to Gareth King (Modern Welsh, p 194): “the inflected future in the negative requires mo to precede a definite direct object”, so it should really be “chyrhaedda i mo Aberystwyth erbyn hanner nos”. Your example is from Duolingo, is that right? If you said " Wna i ddim cyrraedd Aberystwyth erbyn hanner nos" or Fydda i ddim yn cyrraedd Aberystwyth erbyn hanner nos", that would a different matter. Me personally, I definitely won’t be reaching Aber before midnight no matter how hard I tried…
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Many thanks.