V Tree
A large V shaped pine tree on the Antony estate near Torpoint...
Seaton Beach
Located at the bottom of the Seaton River valley this sand and shingle beach is popular with families. At low tide it joins up with Downderry around the headland...
Seaton River
The Seaton River as it flows out of the valley and through the village of the same name...
Portwrinkle
Looking down over the one time fishing village of Portwrinkle. In the background is the start of Whitsand Bay as it stretches 4 miles down the Rame Peninsula...
You are using "Goky" as a name. That makes it definite already. All the Celtic languages work like that, so does Cornish. It's like "Chy Jowan" is "John's house", or "the house of John". **An chy Jowan is as ungrammatical in Cornish as **house of the John would be in English.
No, but it helps you in the long run to learn from mistakes. The possessive construction of the Celtic languages appears to be particularly difficult to grasp for learners, especially those with English as their first language. So, no shame, no spanking. Just useful information given out for free.
In Welsh, I found the easiest way to remember how NOT to do it was with a totally incorrect translation of the phrase, the head of the man, which in Cornish would come out as *an pen an den.
When you learn to cringe at the mere thought of that phrase, you're on the right track, I found! And you'll fairly naturally gravitate towards the correct phrases: pen an den -- definite form pen den -- indefinite form
What about these? I think I can handle them just about but am I presuming?
The door of a man's house = an daras a ji den
A door of a man's house = daras a ji den
The door of the man's house = an daras a ji an den
A door of the man's house = daras a ji an den
These - not as simple as they seem - I would like you to discuss (some idea of the context is given in bracket):
The danger of war (strikes fear into one's heart) =
A danger of war (is that young men die needlessly) =
The danger of the war (was that other nations might become involved) =
The danger of a war (is not often understood until afterwards) =
Nothlenn whek, several thoughts come to mind about your interesting examples.
(1) I wouldn't have used the preposition 'a'. 'darras a jy' would mean something like 'a door from a house' and might be found in a sentence like, 'Y-brenys darras coth a jy dyswrys' (I bought an old door (that had come) from a demolished house'.
In your sentences, there's a true genitive relation between the two objects, so 'darras chy' would be right.
(2) The indefinite article 'un' is used to denote 'one, a certain, a particular'.
(3) Possession can be expressed in K. by either 'gans' or 'dhe'. I'm not sure, but it might be possible to use something like '?darras dhe'n den' for 'a door of the man's'. (NJAW in his dictionary gives 'a son of mine' as 'mab dhym').
(4) In what follows, I've put 'the/a' together in places because, apart from the obvious syntactic differences between the two languages, I don't think Cornish has quite the same idiom for definiteness-indefiniteness as English does. Contrast the following 4 pairs, where only 1 is the same in both languages:
I'm going (to bed / to town / home / indoors) --> my a-vyn mos (dhe'n gwely / dhe'n dre / tre / y'n chy)
With these points in mind, I'd translate your 'house' phrases like this:
-- darras chy den: a door of a man's house
-- darras chy an den: a door of a house of the man; a door of the man's house; the man's house-door
--?? darras an chy dhe'n den: a door of the house belonging to the man
-- darras a jy an den: (the burglar stole) a door from the man's house
-- an darras a jy an den: (the burglar stole) the door from the man's house
And how about:
-- ? darras an chy den: this would suggest to me some sort of 'house for men', where 'den' plays an adjectival role to 'chy'. Let's consider this pair to illustrate the idea:
-- pen an ky deves: the/a head of the sheep-dog
-- pen ky an deves: the/a head of the dog who belongs to the sheep
As for the 'war' phrases:
-- peryl bresel: the/a danger of (any) war
-- un peryl bresel: a (certain) danger of war
-- peryl an vresel: the/a danger of the war; the danger of war
-- peryl un vresel: the danger of a single war (as opposed to 2 wars); the danger of a certain/particular war
In all these cases 'darras' is defined by 'chy den', 'chy an den' or 'an chy' and can only, in my mind, be 'the door' - either the only door, or the one we've just been talking about.
I'm uncomfortable with the use of 'dhe' in the last example. I've heard 'ev yw koweth dhymm', 'yw hi kares dhodho?' and on that basis 'mab dhymm' sounds OK. But with nouns I think we only ever use the long form of 'bos' as in 'yma ki dhe Wella', 'yth esa koweth dhe Vorwenna'. I think we would (always?) say 'ottomma ki Wella' and not 'ottomma an ki dhe Wella'. Doesn't the latter sound odd to everyone (the imminent arrival of pages of textual evidence in support of it notwithstanding!)?
I think I'd use 'dhiworth' in these examples, although 'a' is OK.
And then there's Nothlenn's dangers of war.
I don't think this one is genitive at all. I think it is English shorthand for 'the danger that there might be a war', 'the likelihood of war breaking out'.
I think these are genitive. In the first I would probably use 'unn' but whether I did or didn't, I think I'd follow 'peryll' by 'a' to keep it indefinite - 'unn peryll a vresel' or 'peryll a vresel'. I prefer the one with 'unn'. The second and third are straightforward for me - 'peryll an vresel' and 'peryll bresel'.
Discuss. The answers to these questions account for 75% of the total marks for this assignment.
My difficulty comes from recognising these instances:
According to Wella Brown at least (§57), ‘The preposition a ‘from, of’ (§126) can be used to express several of the relationships described above thus allowing the first noun to be left either undefined or defined in some way.’
This is very important if we want to be precise in our treatment of ‘a’ and ‘the’.
Using my own examples which might not be the best examples,
The danger of war (strikes fear into one's heart) = peryll bresel
A danger of war (is that young men die needlessly) = (unn) peryll a vresell
The danger of the war (was that other nations might become involved) = peryll an vresell or an peryll a'n vresell
The danger of a war (is not often understood until afterwards) = an peryll a vresell
So would I, but I am asking if perhaps there might be times when my The door of a man's house = an daras a ji den
A door of a man's house = daras a ji den
might be equally correct.
Thank you for answer. I suspected it was "the" but always best to be sure.
Also, would the webmaster, or someone, please tell me why I never receive notice of replies despite checking the box to receive them. I must be doing something wrong - a special gift of mine. Thank you again.
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