Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/135

n6 GRAMMAR form of an auxiliary verb with the infinitive or participle of the main verb. 2. By the impersonal form, as the Breton gram- marians call it. This has inflections of tense but not of person, the latter being indicated by the personal pronouns, placed before the verb, which, being im- mediately preceded by the particle a, has its initial in the second state. This verb is the third person singular of the required tense. Thus : Root car, third pers. sing, past, caras. Impersonal form. Mi a garas, ti a garas, ev a garas, etc. This form is frequently used in early and late Cornish for a direct affirmative sentence, beginning straight off with its nominative, or preceded only by and or but, etc. ; but not so frequently in late Cornish, as the impersonal form of an auxiliary verb, with the infinitive of the main verb. 3. By the auxiliary form, either inflected or im- personal, with the infinitive or a participle of the main verb. The auxiliaries are : Gil or gwil (older forms gwrthil, gwithil, etc.), to do. Menny, to wish, to will. Gaily, to be able. Gdthvos, to know. Bos, to be. (a). Gwil is used to form several tenses, and is used (i) in its impersonal form in principal affirmative sen- tences, (2) in its inflected form in negative, interroga- tive, or dependent sentences, with the infinitive of the main verb, more frequently than any other form, for the present, preterite, conditional, and imperative. Its use is similar to that of do, in the Cornish manner of speaking English. Thus : Mi a wra cara, I love, lit. I do love. Ti a wrig cara, thou didst love.