Are these wrong, then, or acceptable alternatives? My response to the English had …bod nhw’n moyn at the end.
Other forum members provided reasons in the original thread about why ŷn is surfacing there, but I can’t say they entirely explain (to me) what’s triggering it. I always thought ŷn/ydyn (and related yw/ydy) was a form of bod used in non-affirmative clauses - i.e. negative and interrogative - so why is it there if there’s no change in meaning or no preceding word (no nag or os) to trigger it?
I’m looking into this for you as the answer isn’t obvious to me either. It feels right to say it that way, but I don’t know the reason behind it. I’ll try to find out.
I’ve just listened to the Northern version of that lesson, and they have it as Esbonio beth maen nhw’n deud bod nhw isio. So, am I right in thinking that to use bod there in the South would be an OK alternative? Or not really? Or would it be OK in some dialects but not others?
The course is so full of relative clauses (all with bod) by the start of Level 2 that I’m guessing there’s a pattern to where ŷn/ydyn (and yw/ydy) sound right instead. I’m blowed if I can work out what it is, though!
I’m sure it would be fine to use bod there, James. I’ve passed the question on to Iestyn. He didn’t have an answer straight away and he’s pretty busy at the moment, but he’ll let me know when he can answer it
Iestyn apologises for taking a while to answer and congratulates the people who spotted that and questioned it.
Essentially, he feels it’s not actually correct but he suspects that people do say that in casual speech influenced by the presence of beth and because it’s similar to o’n nhw’n dweud iddyn nhw’n moyn which could become o’n nhw’n dweud i nhw’n moyn in fast speech.
However, to say esbonio beth maen nhw’n dweud bo(d) nhw’n moyn is spot on and more correct.
Ah this is really helpful thank you for sharing the response on Slack too. Just wondering if I may (as I do), why bod comes into it as there no ‘that’? If we take the two sentences seperately ‘what they say’ maen nhw’n moyn and ‘they want’ maen nhw’n moyn how come we don’t just get beth maen nhw’n moyn maen nhw’n dweud?
The problem is that the ‘that’ in English is implied - what they say (that) they want. Whilst it’s normal to leave out the ‘that’ in the English, it has to be there in the Welsh, so that’s why the bod is there.
If you remember too, that it often appears as if bod replaces verbs like maen and mae when you join something on the front. This is the same situation e.g.
dw i’n meddwl + mae hi’n oer heddiw => dw i’n meddwl bod hi’n oer heddiw maen nhw’n dweud + dw i’n mynd i ddod nes ymlaen => maen nhw’n dweud bo fi’n mynd i ddod nes ymlaen
So here you have …maen nhw’n dweud + maen nhw’n moyn => …maen nhw’n dweud bod nhw’n moyn
Just spotted in L2C6 the English says ‘they say that they want…’ so I know this thread was about C9 esbonio etc, where the ‘that’ gets dropped in the English, but actually we meet the issue earlier as in C6 the response yn Cymraeg is maen nhw’n dweud maen nhw’n moyn - so I’ve edited my notes to bo’ nhw’n moyn
