Page:A handbook of the Cornish language; Chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature.djvu/188

THE CONSTRUCTION OF SENTENCES 169 subject and the thing possessed as object. This is not used for the present tense. Lhuyd gives a past tense, mi a gavaz or mi 'rig gavaz, I had, and a future, mi ven gavaz, I will have, but he, Norris, and Williams are all inclined to confuse this with the third form. c. By a peculiar idiom compounded of a form of the verb bos, to be, and the third form of the personal (or else the possessive) pronouns. The explanation, as far as it goes, of this verb is to be found in Breton. Even there it has been confused a good deal, though its use is plain enough. Legonidec calls it " le verbe kaout [ = Cornish cavos], avoir," which he distinguishes from kavout or kaout, trouver ; Maunoir, whose Breton, according to a picture in Quimper Cathedral, was re- ceived miraculously from an angel, wisely does not commit himself, but calls the verb, Latin fashion, after the first person singular of the present. Prof. Loth rightly speaks of it as " le verbe dit avoir," and M. Ernault calls it " Verbe beza [to be] au sens de ' avoir,' " and he explains it to be the verb to be, combined with the"pronoms regimes," which is just what it is. In Breton it is not only used as the ordinary verb to have = to possess, but also as an auxiliary verb in the same manner as avoir, have, kaben, are used in French, Eng- lish, and German. This verb came to be used in Breton with or without the nominative pronoun being expressed. In Cornish the expressed nominative pronoun is less usual, except in the second person singular, where it is the rule. That it should be used at all in either language is a sign that in practice the original formation of the verb has been forgotten. Occasionally in Cornish this oblivion has resulted even in the application of pro- nominal inflections to the verb. This form is found frequently in the Ordinalia and in the Poem of the Passion; it is fairly common in the Life of St. Meriasek, it is rarer in the Creation, and