I am ready to begin my notes on the Cornish verb after going over my notes and the materials available to me. I will begin with an overview concerning material from Norris' _The Ancient Cornish Drama_ (1968v2). These notes are drawn from pp. 257-259 of his work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cornish verb has five tenses and three modes or ways the verb can be conjugated: I. The Inflected Conjugation. The inflected conjugation has a seperate form for each tense and number. It appears to be the most common way of conjugating the verb. the present tense of _care_ "to love", appears as this in this mode: caraf I love keryth you love car he/she/it loves keryn we love carough you (pl.) love carans they love II. The Impersonal Conjugation The impersonal conjugation is formed by the personal pronoun + the affirmative particle _a_ (which causes the soft mutation to words following) + the third person singular form of the verb. It seems to be the least used of the three but, of course, each probably has their own useages and places to occur (I will keep an eye open for that and note it as soon as possible). The model verb _care_ appears in the present in this mode like this: my a gar I love ty a gar you love ef a gar he (she: _hy_) loves ny a gar we love why a gar you (pl.) love y a gar they love III. The Compound Conjugation. The compound conjugation mirrors the other two modes by either being formed by pers. pron + affirmative _a_ + 3rd pers. sing. of "to do" + the infinitive or it is formed by the conjugated form of "to do" + the iinf. This mode, however, translates into a habitual or occupational meaning very simular to the English usages of the auxillary "to do". Here's _care_ in both forms of this mode: my a wra care / guraf care I do love ty a wra care / gureth (-yth) care you do love ...etc. _gwra_ would of course be the 3rd pers. sing. of "to do" and _gur_- the stem used in the present. "to do" does not appear on Norris' list of irregular verbs (which I find suprising) but I think it very well may be so I'll keep track of forms. Norris also notes that in this mode, the first way of forming it is more common than the second. A note on the affirmative particles: When the subject follows or is omitted, the form _y_ (_yth_ before vowels) is used (which also causes the soft mutation to following words): yth arghaf: I command A note on the first mode of conjugation: The pronoun rarely used except to note emphasis: My ny gresaf. _I_ don't believe it. (ny: negative particle) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will begin soon on the tenses and their useages. After that I will go into the impersonal forms such as the infinitives and the particles. I may discuss other things however just to give myself a little breather. Anthony Velasquez Oregon State Univeristy (E-mail) velasqua@ucs.orst.edu =========================================================================