Thanks, Richard. That’s very helpful.
In particular, the insight that Welsh needs to rephrase the English an X of the Y into one of the X of the Y – that was one of the things that was getting me a little confused.
But your examples also helped me to realise that any specificity seems to ‘infect’ the rest of the phrase so that all the elements become specific and the need for ‘y’ drops away
Diolch!
Well, that was me rephrasing it in English, but I think un o wragedd y ffermwr would work the same! My point was more that the specificity in English and in Welsh works in very much the same way: the extra “the” that English sticks in doesn’t actually seem to add anything to the meaning.
I came across this one the other day and it confused me. Can anyone help me understand the purpose of the additional “yn” between “ni’n” and “gwybod”? It seems a bit superfluous. It’s only when I saw the translation that I picked it up, not apparent from the spoken words. Thanks.
You’ve got two verbs there, with two different subjects, so each verb-noun gets its own yn:
So ni’n gwybod - we(S) aren’t(V) knowing(VN)
beth oedd yn mynd - what thing(S) was(V) going(VN)
i ddigwydd - to happen.
ETA - I haven’t done the southern course, so I’m not wholly sure of the tense of so ni’n: I’m taking this to be “We don’t know what was going to happen.” If So ni’n can cover the past, it might be “we didn’t know”, but everything else is the same.
Short answer: Yes.
But I believe that all mutations other than soft are increasingly felt to be a bit weird, fussy and literary, so you’ll encounter exceptions from first language speakers. I don’t know if this is more likely to be bad Street Welsh or bad Google Welsh. (Or perfectly good Street Welsh.)
Hi Richard, it’s the “yn” between ni’n and gwybod I’m referring to i.e. “so ni’n YN gwybod” I would have thought “so ni’n gwybod” was enough (southern course, “we don’t know”)
Blimey - I so didn’t expect it to be there that my eyes skipped over it! (Despite it being clear from your post that that was your point.) - You’re right, it’s a typo, I’m inattentive!
Diolch @nigel-28. There’s a collection of things that need looking at in Welsh South Black Belt at Introduction of new words and phrases (Welsh South) so I’ve copied your screenshot there.
I do apologise, I believe I have asked this before.
Why I’d wrtha fi sometimes replaced by wrtha i?
I haven’t been able to work it out, so have to ask a grown up 
.
Diolch
It’s often just personal preference - you can have wrthaf i, wrtha i, wrtha fi (and the 1st and 3rd options sound the same) - so take your pick 
Thank you, i realised I’d missed off the wrtha’f’.
So the course is offering it for variety, because we have to be able to adapt to people who aren’t Catrin or Aran 
.
