Ambiguity of erioed

Apologies if this has been raised before, but I am still a bit confused about the fact that ‘erioed’ can mean both ‘never’ and ‘ever’. So ‘Dw i wedi byw yma erioed’ means ‘I have always lived here’ but could equally mean ‘I have never lived here’?. Gareth’s grammar (section 409) says confidently ‘context always makes it clear which translation from Welsh is appropriate’, but is this entirely true?

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I think what is meant by the context (and I’ve had this asked to me before!) is that although your example…

although this is ambiguous admittedly - this isn’t a sentence anyone would really just say out of the blue (I would worry about them if they did!) This is what I think is meant by the context setting up the scene.

In situations like this, where there is doubt I’ve heard people go with eriod/byth for never - and something like “wastad” for always for a positive response.

“dw i byth cael sglodion ddydd sul” I never have chips on a sunday.
“dw i wastad cael sglodion ddydd sul” I always have chips on a sunday.

In colloquial/relaxed kind of Welsh, I’ve heard people work around the potential problem by doing that.

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byth and erioed can both mean both ever and never - the way I was taught them was this:

In present & future time use byth, in past time use erioed.

To change from ever to never, erioed usually has a negative marker in the sentence (ni/nid…), but byth usually depends on position in sentence… byth at the end = ever (e.g. Cymru am byth), so at the beginning it = never (e.g. byth eto - never again)

As with most things it’s not always as simple as that, but as a basic rule of thumb it seems to help.

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If it’s any comfort, the same “ambiguity” arises with the French word “jamais” but context always makes the meaning clear. :smile:

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When choosing example sentences, please bear in mind that this is a family-friendly community that includes children.

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@Davids - I notice in your examples though that you are (partly at least) conflating ever with always - and there is a nice word wastad for always, as @Nicky mentions.

:slight_smile:

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Really it’s not that it’s at the end, but that am byth is a set phrase, to be learnt as a one-off.

Byth at the end can mean never:

Anghofia i byth
I’ll never forget

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in my defence, I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous remark… :wink: :joy:

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This is another example I would’ve said - but long since forgot :smiley:

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Oh I hope you never feel you need to defend yourself from me! :joy:

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Byth! :laughing:

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O - diolch byth!

(see what I did there, @siaronjames?) :wink:

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OK, thanks for the responses, and I apologise for the use of Sunday in my example sentence and will be careful to avoid it in future, but I’m still a bit confused. Are we saying that it’s all about positioning such that ‘Dw i wedi byw yma erioed’ means ‘I have always lived here’ but ‘Dw i erioed wedi byw yma’ means ‘I have never lived here’? Or are we saying that in practice one avoids the ambiguity of the first by saying ‘Dw i wedi byw yma yn wastad’? Or are we saying that if you want to say ‘I have never lived here’ you need a negative marker so you have to say ‘Dw i ddim wedi byw yma erioed’?

What we ARE saying is that you don’t need a ddim with erioed for never if you put it in the normal place (before the wedi),

dw i erioed wedi byw fan hyn

but that if you want to place the erioed at the end, then you would put in a ddim:

dw i ddim wedi byw fan hyn erioed

:slight_smile:

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dw i erioed wedi byw yna - I have never lived there

fydda i byth yn byw yna - I will never live there.

Usually
erioed wedi - past
byth yn - future

I was kind of hoping you might edit it out, actually.

OK, done, anything to oblige. Not too sure about, though, about the title of this book someone keeps advertising on the forum. Maybe change it to ‘Some Light Gardening and a Hill’? :slight_smile:

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I’m struggling to understand the problem with using the word Sunday in the example. Can someone please explain.?
Thanks

It wasn’t really the word Sunday that was the issue. It was another word/phrase that has long been deleted. Nothing to worry about.