Usage of "Achos i mi"

Ok …please… why is bod needed?

Because achos is followed by a ‘that…’ clause - in other words, while in English we say ‘Because they’re coming’, in Welsh we say ‘Because that they’re coming’. Note from what @Iestyn reports further up, though, that not all areas or speakers do this.

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Is the literary “paham” different? E.g. “Paham mae dicter…”

You can get away with all sorts of murder if you call it poetry…

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This kind of raises in my mind (or reminds me) of a fear I had right from the outset of discovering that there were such things as “short-form verbs”, aka conjugated verbs (which made a lot of sense to me as once having had to suffer Latin at a grammar school that wasn’t as good as it thought it was…but basically involved adding endings to stems of verbs to make different “persons” of the verb).

Anyway, the question was (and still is), to what extent are short form (aka conjugated) verbs actually used in practice (as compared to what are known (I gather) in the trade as periphrastic verbs (i.e. the ones that used to be taught at first in SSiW)?
(“verb forms” I think I mean here, since verbs are verbs, whatever the form).

I always suspected that it was only really the very common words: gweld mynd dod cael dweud gwneud clywed …

… and no doubt a few more that I cannot think of for the moment, but basically not a vast number.

And with this in mind, maybe “anghofies i” is not something you’d hear on the streets in a Welsh-speaking town?? Just a question (from someone who doesn’t live in Wales, let alone Welsh-speaking Wales).

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Ah, I see. Diolch yn fawr! :slight_smile:

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Ahem. “If it weren’t for the subjunctive”

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My sister-in-law says she thinks of the short forms as posher, she’d always say “Nes i…” Except there are some they (as a family) mix in. Dwedes i, weles i, and probably a few more I can’t think of. With a less used verb, like anghofio, they’d use nes i anghofio.

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Oh my God. A grammar in-joke made me laugh.

What’s happening to me? :scream:

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Thanks. That explains a lot of issues I’ve been having with the vocab lesson 2 in course 2!

[quote=“aran, post:29, topic:8464”]
Oh my God. A grammar in-joke made me laugh.

What’s happening to me? :scream: [/quote]
Made me laugh, too! And before reading through this I couldn’t have told you what/how/why the subjunctive is/was or how it is used. But I found a good basic summary on the Oxford Dictionaries website, if anyone else (who is as confused as I am) is interested.

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I doubt it.

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The preterite and future conjugated tenses are both current in everyday speech, but the periphrastic alternatives also.

Your suspicion is on the right track, I think - certainly what IS true is that the conjugated tenses do NOT tend to be used with longer or less common verbs. I cannot believe that anyone would say Dadlwythes i for I unloaded, for example - I’m quite sure they would say nes i ddadlwytho or ddaru mi ddadlwytho; and the short future would (I think) be even more unlikely: Dadlwytha i for I’ll unload? Technically correct, of course, but it just doesn’t sound like the obvious first option, which would either be Na i ddadlwytho or Bydda i’n dadlwytho.

Aethon ni (for example) on the other hand, as you rightly surmise for a very common verb, is perfectly normal for We went, and co-exists happily alongside naethon ni fynd and ddaru ni fynd.

You would hear it, though you’d just as often hear nes i anghofio or (in the Land of Gog) ddaru mi anghofio.

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I suspect that was @Baruch 's joke, @louis ! :wink:

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Yes to all that. The short forms sound posher because they’re the standard, I suspect - and are mirrored in the literary language, which certainly doesn’t have anything to do with spoken constructions like nes i… The nes i… preterite is brilliant though - simple and easy to use - and is perfectly good natural spoken Welsh.

Very common verbs like dweud and the irregulars certainly favour the short form preterite much more than other verbs. Many people would automatically say dwedes i but nes i anghofio, even in the same sentence.

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Of course it was.

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Sorry, I read that as ‘Of course it were’…:wink:

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First time through, somehow I read this as “peripatetic”! Enjoying the grammar jokes, but most especially this discussion. Really useful! Diolch i bawb :slight_smile:

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This is really interesting.

It’s totally true.that uncommon verbs and longer words tend to get the “wna’i / wnes i” treatment, but I use (or at least used to use) dadlwytho quite often, and “dadlwythais i” and “dadlwytha’i” sound quite natural to me. Which may mean that I am a freak (I have no problem with that label!), but could also mean that the common-ness of a verb may be partly personal as well.

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Freak!! :open_mouth:

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