User:Kernowek/Cornish language

Cornish grammar is the grammar of the Cornish language, which in many respects is quite similar to that of the other Celtic languages. Like most Indo-European languages, it has plurals, articles and inflections. Cornish nouns have masculine and feminine genders. Other aspects of Cornish morphology, while typical for a Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and initial consonant mutations.

Nouns
Cornish nouns may be masculine or feminine.

Articles
The Cornish definite article is an. An causes lenition of singular feminine nouns, and plural masculine nouns that refer to people. There is no indefinite article in Cornish.

Adjectives
The majority of Cornish adjectives follow the noun. Adjectives get lenited after singular feminine nouns, and plural masculine nouns that refer to people. For example, using maw "boy", mebyon "boys", mowes "girl", mowesi "girls" and bian "little":


 * An maw bian
 * An vowes vian
 * An vebyon vian
 * An mowesi bian

Verbs
All Cornish verbs can be conjugated to represent four indicative tenses (present-future, imperfect, preterite and conditional), two subjunctive tenses (present-future and imperfect) and an imperative mood. In practise however, this is largely restricted to more conservative forms of writing such as poetry, and the everyday language for most purposes uses periphrastic constructions with auxiliaries such as bos 'to be', gwul 'to do' and mennes 'to will, wish' to express the tenses. Furthermore, the distinction between the present-future and imperfect subjunctive has mostly been lost, except in the verb bos 'to be'.

Possessive pronouns
Some possessive pronouns cause initial consonant mutations:

ow "my" aspirates
 * penn "head" > ow fenn "my head"

dha "your" (sg.) lenites
 * penn "head" > dha benn "your head"

y "his" lenites
 * penn "head" > y benn "his head"

hy "her" aspirates
 * penn "head" > hy fenn "her head"

agan "our" does not cause mutation
 * penn "head" > agan penn "our head"

agas "your" (pl.) does not cause mutation
 * penn "head" > agas penn "your head"

aga "their" aspirates
 * penn "head" > aga fenn "their head"

Prepositions
As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" prepositions, or, as they are more commonly termed, prepositional pronouns.