Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/134

 CHAPTER VIII THE VERB IN GENERAL i. THE nucleus of a Cornish verb is its root. This is used without any variation or addition for the third person singular of the present tense, and for the second person singular of the imperative. Other parts of the verb are formed on this root in three ways : i. By the inflected form, that is to say by the addition of certain syllables indicating person, tense, etc., with or without a modification of the root vowel. In older Cornish the word thus formed indicated person as well as tense without the addition of a pronoun, though if emphasis on the subject was intended the pronoun was used before or after it. In later Cornish the pronoun was almost always added after the verb, and as the latter word often ended with the same con- sonant as the former began with, the final consonant of the verb was often, but incorrectly, omitted in writing, as it was in sound. Thus : Root car, love ; first pers. sing, pres., carav, I love, with pronoun, carav vi, pronounced and often written cara vi ; plur., caron, we love, caron nj, often written caro nj>. The inflected form is common in early Cornish, but in the later stages of the language it is hardly ever used, except in negative, interrogative, and dependent sentences, and in certain tenses of the verb to be. Even when it is used, it is more frequently the inflected