Cornish lesson 10

I have a question about L10.

For “I enjoy”, we are asked to use “My a omlowenha” + “owth” (or “ow”) + what seems to be a verbal noun with a hard mutation. For example

My a omlowenha owth assaya… (I enjoy trying to…)

This “owth” (or “ow”) really took me by surprise as we had been using these words to say things like “I am trying” (it seems to correspond to “yn” in Welsh). But in this kind of sentence after “enjoy” in English, “trying” is a gerund and not a participle. Why [edit] would it be translated with an aspectual particle?

At first, I figured that maybe it was the translation. Maybe “I enjoy” is only a rough translation of “My a omlowenha”. For example, it could be closer in meaning to “I have a good time trying to…”. Then the aspectual particle would maybe make some kind of sense sense. But [edit] later, we have it used with a clear noun “My a omlowenha an chons” (“I enjoy the chance”).

Is there an explanation here? [edit]

@davyth-fear do you have an answer for this question? Or @Courtenay?

Hi Martin, Thanks for the question and sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not a grammarian and so can’t really answer you question in any depth. I can always post the question on a Cornish facebook site and see what the answers are. I suppose that ow(th) + verbal noun operates as both a gerund and present participle. My a omlowenha is ‘I who is enjoying …’ anyway. I’ll get back to you if the more grammatically minded post on FB

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Well that was quick. It seems that omlowenhe means ‘to enjoy oneself’, therefore ‘my a omlowenha assaya gul neppyth’ means I enjoy trying to do something. Some people find ‘my a omlwenha an chons’ as colloquial and fine, but others find it a bit awkward and have started using ‘enjoya’ as the verb (like ‘joio’ in Welsh, I presume.

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