§ 2 The Possessive Pronouns
1. First Person Singular. English, my.
ow, governing the third state.
When the initial of the noun has no third state, ow governs the first state:—
ow thâs, my father; ow gwlas, my country.
After a preposition ending in a vowel, after en, in, changed to e, or after the conjunction ha, and, my is generally represented by ’m, which governs the first state:—
dhô’m tâs, to my father; ha’m tâs, and my father.
e’m corf, in my body.
Sometimes in these cases the preposition or conjunction is combined with ow. This is especially common in Jordan’s play of The Creation. The initial, if possible, is then in the third state:—
me haw mab, I and my son; thow thas, to my father.
2. Second Person Singular. English, thy.
dha (older form dhe, dhy), governing the second state:—
dha dâs, thy father.
After a preposition ending in a vowel, after en, or after ha, thy is represented by ’th, generally governing the second state, but sometimes, when the initial following it is d, the fourth.
dhô’th dâs, to thy father; ha ’th dâs, and thy father.
e ’th gorf, in thy body; a ’th trôk (R.D., 1730), from thy evil.
Very often these mutations were not written in the Dramas. In later Cornish this form was not always used, but one often finds dhô dha, ha dha, en dha, etc. instead.
3. Third Person Singular, masculine. English, his.
e (older form y), governing the second state.
This, altered to y, coalesces with a preposition ending in a vowel, forming a diphthong, which is written with an apostrophe between the two vowels. It still governs the second state:—
e dâs, his father; dhô’y (pron. dhoy) dâs, to his father; ha’y dâs, and his father.
4. Third Person Singular, feminine; English, her.
î, governing the third state, or when there is no third state, the first. It coalesces with prepositions ending in a vowel and with ha in the same way as the masculine:—
î thâs, her father; î gwlas, her country; ha’i thâs, and her father.
In the earlier MSS. both these possessive pronouns were written y, the only distinction being in the initial mutation which followed. In the later MSS. î is often written e.
5. First Person Plural. English, our.
agan, governing the first state:—
agan tâs, our father.
6. Second Person Plural. English, your.
agas, governing the first state:—
agas tâs, your father.
7. Third Person Plural. English, their.
aga, governing the third, or failing that, the first state:—
aga thâs, their father; aga gwlas, their country.
When preceded by a preposition ending in a vowel or by ha, the three plural possessive pronouns lose their initial a:—
dhô ’gas, ha ’gan, etc.
The a of the last syllable of agan, agas, aga is obscure, and is often found represented by e, o, or u in the MSS. Even when not preceded by a vowel these words are often found as gan, gas, ga (gun, gen, gon, gus, guz, ges, go).
When a pronoun is the object of a verb in the infinitive or of a verb formed with the auxiliary verbs gwîl, to do, menny, to will, etc. and an infinitive, the pronoun-object is represented by the possessive pronoun preceding and governing (as to initial mutation) this infinitive:—
ev a wrîg ow tholla, he did deceive me.
mî a vedn e grejy, I will believe it.
mî a wrîg agas danvon, I did send you.
The reason of this is that in Cornish, as in the other Celtic languages, the infinitive is counted as a verbal noun, signifying the act of doing. This conception of the infinitive explains many Celtic constructions. The literal force of the above examples would be “he did (or made) the deceiving of me,” “I will the believing of it,” “I did the sending of you.” Similarly, when the object is a noun, it really follows the infinitive as an appositional genitive.
Frequently the second form of the corresponding personal pronoun follows a noun preceded by a possessive pronoun. This ought to be for emphasis, and, when it is so, the sound of the personal pronoun would be its full sound; but it is frequently merely redundant, and then it is enclitic, forming as it were an unaccented additional syllable tacked on to the noun:—
agan Tâs ny, Our Father (nearly ’gun Tázny).
dhô ’m brodar vî, to my brother.
agas levar why, your book.
herlya yu ’gan gwary ny, hurling is our sport.
The last sentence is a good example of possible pronunciations. If it is an independent statement, the phrase emphasis being on hurling and sport, it would be accented hérlya yugan guaryny. If, however, we wish to say that hurling is our sport but football is yours (herlya yu ’gan gwary nŷ, mes pella-drôs yu ’gas gwary whŷ), the second phrase-emphasis would be on nŷ and whŷ, and they would be sounded as the English words nigh and why.
Sometimes the personal pronoun as a genitive following the noun, with or without the preposition a, of, was used instead of a possessive pronoun, but in this case it was probably not enclitic. Thus in a letter in verse by John Boson, in the Gwavas MS., dated 1710, we find:—
Ma goz screfa compaz, den fir o (for a) vî, your writing is correct, my wise man, or, wise man of me.
And in a song by John Tonkin of St. Just in the same MS., the probable date of which is about 1700, we find:—
An Prounter ni ez en Plew East, our parson who is in the parish of St. Just.
Or perhaps more correctly in a copy of one verse of this song in the Borlase MS.:—
Prounter nei (ez) en pleu Est,
for the article an before a noun followed by an appositional genitive seems incorrect, though one finds in the earliest known version of the Lord’s Prayer, given in John Davies’s Welsh translation of Robert Parsons’ Booke of Christian Exercise (1632), An Tas ni, though this may be a mistake for agan. In the song quoted above one finds also:—
Dewe reffa sowia an eglez ni, Ha an prounterian da eze et an gy, God save our churches and the good parsons that are in them. And in Boson’s version of the Commandments we find gwitha gerrio ve for “keep my commandments.”