Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/185

 1 66 GRAMMAR And a still more confused one of the second person with the verbal particle y before bos, the pronominal suffix ta and the pronoun ge = di : Me ny allaf convethas, y bosta ge ow hendas, cannot understand that thou art my ancestor. The first is analogous to the Welsh " infinitive con- struction," as Rowland calls it, e.g. gwyr fy mod i yn dyfod, he knows that I am coming (lit. he knows my being in coming), only the Cornish form uses the pronominal suffix instead of the redundant personal pronoun. 3. The Absolute Clause. This construction, which answers more or less to the ablative absolute of Latin, and the genitive absolute of Greek, is common to all the Celtic languages. It is translated into English by a sentence introduced by when, while, whilst, or though, with a verb generally in the continuous form of the present or past tense, or by a participle. In the Celtic languages the absolute clause has two forms. a. The affirmative, generally consisting of the con- junction and, a subject, noun or pronoun, and generally a participle. Rowland calls the conjunction, a, ac, of the Welsh form "the absolute particle," and Professor Anwyl identifies it with a, ag, with, in an archaic form. But in Cornish ha or hag is used, and in Gaelic agus, and, in exactly the same way. The following are ex- amples in Cornish, Welsh, and Gaelic : Cornish. An jy a ve gwarnes gan Dew, ha 'n jy ow cusca? they were warned by God, and they sleeping, or, while they slept (Kerew's transla- tion of St. Matth. ii. 12, Gwav. MS.). EL a'n leverys dethy haneth, ha hy yn gwely pur thyfun, an angel said it to her this night, and she in her bed quite awake (Pass. Chr. 2202-4). 1 The spelling and mutations corrected.