Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Apologies if I was a little unclear, my question was asking why we don’t use ‘Dyw’ with neb, considering dyw is the default 3rd person negative word.

i.e. why is it does neb, not dyw neb?

Remember that oes and its negative counterpart does (which is just a historically shortened form of nid oes) are “special” forms of the verb “to be” that are used when talking about existence (or non-existence). So in the same reasoning why you wouldn’t say “Dyw dim plant gyda fi” (the correct form is of course Does dim plant gyda fi.) you also say Does neb yn gwybod instead of “Dyw neb”

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To add to what Hendrik said (because he was quicker typing than me!), it’s because neb is one of the exceptions when it comes to negative words and whilst in English we can say, for example, “no-one is here” in Welsh that sentence requires us to say “there is not anyone here”, and does = “there is not”.

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Diolch pawb! Yet again it seems like one of those things you just have to accept and move on!

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Quick question about a conjunction - I’ve noticed recently that I’ve seen “y” used to mean “that” in a certain phrase and it hasn’t actually been introduced. Ddudodd y dyn ifanc y byddai fo’n licio.

Welsh (mostly I guess) uses a form of bod in this case, so I’m wondering, how does this little y work, and where else would I use it?

Diolch pawb!

The conjunction “that” has no single Welsh counterpart, and y is one of those. It is used if the sub-clause of the reported speech starts with a conjugated verb, be it a conjugated form of bod (as in your example) or any other verb. You’ll often see it in “should”-sentences:
Dw i’n meddwl y dylwn i drio colli pwysau - I think that I should try to lose weight.
(In speech, this y is often dropped.)

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Cheers, Hendrik!

(Incidentally, one of the things I like about Welsh is that no other language would have a word that looks like “ddudodd” :grinning:)

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