May apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere before, but it’s getting rather difficult as the forum threads grow in length and number to winnow out specifics. In any case, I’ve a question.
I’m currently in the intermediate North Welsh course, and this has begun to bother me, so thought I’d seek clarification. Up until about Lesson 16, “every day” is expressed as “bob dydd”. Then suddenly, starting in the 16th Lesson it starts being “pob dydd”. There don’t seem to be other words in the sentences that might have caused a mutation or anything like that, or else I’m just missing it.
So…“bob dydd”?..“pob dydd”? Yr un peth neu rhywbeth arall? Efallai dim bwysig? Diolch.
It’s certainly not very important - people are unlikely to pick up which you’ve used on conversation - it’s one of those tricky little things that depends on the position of the phrase in the sentence - I think I’m right in saying that if it’s being used in an adverbial sense, it should be ‘bob dydd’ - but in general terms, if you want to go around scaring Welsh speakers, you could do worse than ask them about this…
Time when, or time how often - Soft Mutation on the first word. So, similarly for example: deng mlyneddten years, but ddeng mlynedd yn ôlten years ago; blwyddyna year, but flwyddyn yn gynharacha year earlier, bob blwyddynevery year. All good fun.
It reads to me like it should ALWAYS be ‘bob dydd’. And ‘bob (anything time related)’. So I’m guessing this would include things like ‘tymor’ and ‘cyfnod’, etc?
From my shaky recollections of grammar books, and a quick scan, isn’t it that when nouns expressing measure or length of time, or the time of an event are used adverbially (as Aran and garethking conspired to say) then there is soft mutation?
And pob dydd would normally be used adverbially!
Unless in something like “Mae 'na 24 awr ym mhob dydd”, “bywyd pob dydd” (as above) and (presumably! ) the other example.
As always, I could be very wrong.
“pob dydd” isn’t “a noun”, and could well follow its own course.
Yes, very technical this one indeed! I find and found a lot of grammar discussion and knowing rules to be of help to me in learning to speak and read Welsh- I have to say this isn’t one of them! [Especially since I don’t know even know if it is right! ] But getting knowledge on these things sits in the back of your head and if it pops out once in a blue moon when you least expect it, that’s a bonus! Also helps you keep an eye out for things you wouldn’t have kept an eye out for, before- again, sometimes once in a blue moon!
And in that “take it or leave it” spirit, a bit of tangential information vaguely related to the subject from Stephen J Williams’ grammar, "In denoting the time of an event or action with dydd, prynhawn, bore , there is usually soft mutation in N. wales but not in S. Wales
“Af yno ddydd Llun (N.W.)”
“af yno dydd Llun (S.W)”
Make of that information what you will!
Personally I’ll be keeping an ear out on what I hear people saying before I even believe it ;-), keeping an ear out seldomly where before I wouldn’t have at all, and mostly forgetting about it. I find that to be a good mixture! Personally speaking.
For the sake of completeness, every source I could find, printed or online, seemed to be saying that “pob dydd” soft mutates when used as an adverb, but not when used as an object or subject (unless it then mutates for another reason, of course!), thus backing up what- well, what everyone has already said
Yes, if it’s talking about ‘time when’. The only time you would get pob dydd would be in sentences actually saying something about every day, like ‘Every day is different’ - Mae pob dydd yn wahanol. It’s not a time-adverb there, you see.
Good heavens - yes, I think I do actually see (which is a pretty rare thing for me in grammar conversations). So that clears up my unclear sense that sometimes it’s one, and sometimes it’s the other - so I’ll almost certainly end up pausing for thought the next few times I realise that I’m about to use it…
Well, usage in the South certainly tends towards dropping the initial “ch”, and can also tend to keeping the last “ch” instead of changing to “'whe” or whatever in that situation. As for the rule, I’d just put it down to the irregular use of mutations if I heard and noticed it! And the rhythm and sound of the language certainly plays a part in that! Of course, I could of course be wrong.
