There are times when you need to be emphatic. Crashing your hand on the table may achieve this effect, but that method is limited in its applicability, since you may not happen to have a table handy (not to mention that it's totally out of the question for written communication). Not to worry! In Welsh, you can emphasize part of a sentence by putting it first. Unfortunately, changing the word order also changes the verb that is needed. In this section, we concentrate on sentences where the subject of the sentence is what is emphasized.
The normal word order has a form of 'bod' first, followed by the subject, followed by the complement:
Mae Aled yma. Aled is here.
Rydw i'n darllen. I am reading.
To emphasize the subject, place it
first in the sentence, and use the special verb 'sy' (or
'sydd'):
Aled sy yma. Aled is here (i.e., not Elwyn).
Fi sydd yn darllen. I am reading (i.e., not you).
As far as I can tell, 'sy' and 'sydd'
may be freely interchanged, and are not related to such things as whether the
following word begins with a vowel, with the former probably being more common
in spoken Welsh. As we will see in Section 0.0, these sentences can
actually be thought of as containing a simple form of a relative
clause.
Emphatic subjects are common in 'who' and 'what' questions and in the answers to those questions (in fact, there is no other way to ask them):
Pwy sy'n dod i fwyta heno? Who's coming to eat tonight?
Aled sy'n dod. Aled is coming.
Beth sy'n digwydd yma? What's happening here?
Dim. Nothing.
No, I'm not talking about statements like "Wow, that's absolutely the most fantastic hair style I've ever seen; how'd you get it to stick like that?". I'm talking about a grammatical complement, not a compliment. The common thread among these sentences is that the subject comes after the verb, which is itself preceded by something that needs emphasis. So, for example, in the following two sentences, the second is emphatic.
Rydw i'n ddysgwr. I am a learner.
Dysgwr ydw i. I am a learner. (i.e., not a teacher)
Notice that 'dysgwr' is no longer
mutated in the emphatic sentence, since it does not follow 'yn'. Also notice
that the form of 'bod' used in the emphatic form is the kind we associated with
questions (see Section
2.2). That observation holds all the way through, except that in the third person
singular,
where either the form 'ydy' or 'yw' may be used [1]:
Problem ydy e. He is a problem.
Problem mawr yw Aled. Aled is a big problem.
Problem mawr iawn ydyn nhw. They are a very big problem.
Emphatic questions are easy. Just take your emphatic sentence and pass it through the 'sed' program with the following script 's/\./?/'. In English, this means to substitute a question mark for the period at the end of the sentence. In spoken Welsh, it means to end the sentence with a rising inflection. Thus,
Bachgen yw e. He is a boy.
Bachgen yw e? Is he a boy?
Fi sy'n achosi'r broblem. I'm causing the problem.
Fi sy'n achosi'r broblem? Am I causing the problem?
So how does one answer these
questions? To say 'yes', use 'ie'. 'No' is 'nage'.
So
Bachgen yw e? Nage.
Fi sy'n achosi'r broblem? Ie, wrth gwrs.
Being possessive isn't always a bad thing. People have things, and things have things. To say that noun A has noun B, just put A after B. Thus, we have
drws y ty+ the door of the house
siop Wil Jones Will Jones's shop
What could be simpler, right?
Well, there is one caveat: in this construction, noun B always winds up being a
definite noun, and therefore to use the definite
article with it is superfluous (can you say "wrong"?). Thus, you
can say
drws ty+ the door of a house
drws y ty+ the door of the house
but not
*y drws y ty+ [2]as we would be tempted to do in translating from English. Part of the problem is that we have three ways in English to express possessives:
a house's door (i.e., the door of a house)
the house's door (i.e., the door of the house)
but you would never say
*the house's the door.
Rydw i wrth y drws. I am by the door.
Rydw i wrth ddrws y cefn. I am by the back door.
(Notice that 'wrth' causes a soft contact
mutation.) All of this naturally raises the question, how do you say "a
door of the house"? There's a fire, and you don't care which door you use.
The short answer is that you can't without using periphrasis, defined by Webster
as the "use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter and plainer
form of expression"; even in English we resort to form (2) above to make
the definiteness more precise. Thus, for this example, you could say:
un o ddrysau'r ty+ one of the house's doors.A little more controversially, you may be able to say
drws i'r ty+ a door to the housewhich some believe is short for
drws sy'n perthyn i'r ty+ a door that belongs to the house. [3]On the other hand, I have had some Welsh speakers react, "I've never heard of such a thing," to examples of this sort.
The English word 'all' is expressed by putting the phrase i gyd after the plural form of the noun or pronoun:
yr afalau i gyd all the apples
ni i gyd all of us
chi i gyd y'all :-)
'Here' and 'there' are relatively straightforward in English; the former is used for things that are close to you and the latter for things that are not. (There's also an interrogative form 'where', but that's neither here nor there.) In Welsh, there are four words. As is often the case, it is impossible to give hard and fast rules as to when to use which form, but here are some general guidelines.
Ond dydw i ddim yno. But I'm not there.However, if your friend is sitting on the other side of the room and asks you to put your arm around him/her, you might say
Ond dydw i ddim yna. But I'm not there.If your friend asks you to read the sign that's atop that distant mountain, you might say
Ond dydw i ddim acw. But I'm not there.And if your friend is knocking on the door to rebuke you for saying something insulting at the party, you might say
Ond dydw i ddim yma. But I'm not here.But I doubt you'd get away with it.
Welsh has one word for 'one', but two words for 'two'. (Don't worry, that progression doesn't continue; learning twelve words for 'dozen' would get to be a real pain, and twenty words for 'score' would be even worse.) There are two important things to remember about 'two':
dau blentyn two children
dwy ferch two girls
In fact there is one more oddity
about 'two': it undergoes a soft mutation itself after the definite
article: [4]
y ddau ddyn the two men
y ddwy ardd the two gardens
A verb in English can have two types of object: a direct object or an indirect object (actually, if there is an indirect object, there must also be a direct object). So in the sentence
He hit his sister.the direct object is 'his sister'. In the sentence
He gave his sister a hit.the direct object is 'a hit' and the indirect object is 'his sister'. It is always possible to paraphrase an indirect object as a prepositional phrase using the preposition 'to' (or 'for'), e.g.,
He gave a hit to his sister.Welsh does not have indirect objects. The periphrasis is always done using the preposition 'i' (don't forget any contact mutation as specified in Section 5.5):
Rydw i'n mynd i brynu anrheg i Nerys. I'm going to buy Nerys a present.One complication is that the preposition 'i' has personal forms in the third person. That is to say, when it is followed by a third person pronoun, it takes on forms specific to that pronoun:
i fi (i mi) i ni
i ti i chi
iddo fe iddyn nhw [5]
iddi hi
Beth am Nerys? Rydw i'n mynd i brynu anrheg iddi hi.Parenthetically, it may be noted that it is possible to get into some trouble with indirect objects. For example, in the sentence
Throw the baby down the stairs a clean diaper (nappy)!you were probably ready to accuse me of child abuse until we got to the end of the sentence, when you reparsed 'the baby' from a direct object to an indirect object. Welsh avoids this problem entirely.
[Some answers can be found in a separate file.]
1. Answer each question negatively and emphasize that the word in parenthesis fits the bill: e.g.,
Ydy'r wyau'n barod nawr? (y cig moch)
Nag ydyn. Y cig moch sy'n barod nawr.
a. Ydw i'n mynd i'r siop? (fi)
b. Ydy Elwyn yn ddiog? (Huw)
c. Ydyn nhw'n achosi problemau? (y bechgyn)
d. Ydy Nerys yn dawnsio'n hardd? (Ann)
e. Ydyn ni'n gweithio'n galed? (fi)
f. Ydy'r llaeth yn y gegin o hyd? (y caws)
2. Change each of the following
sentences to switch the emphasis, e.g.,
Tom yw'r dyn gorau.
Y dyn gorau yw Tom.
a. Fi ydy'r helpwr.
b. Y ferch fach yw Sian.
c. Y gegin ydy'r stafell 'ma.
d. Dysgwr ydw i.
e. Y problem yw'r ci.
3. Construct questions and answers
by choosing one item from each column of the table below.
| Fi | yw'r | problem | ? | Ie. | | Y llew | | fam | | Nage. | | Y ferch | | helpwr | | | | Y plentyn | | plismon | | | | Mair | | dysgwr | | |
Ex. Ydy Gwen yma? (Mam) Nag ydy, ond mae mam Gwen yma. a. Ydy Gwen yma? (Ty+) Nag ydy, ond mae _____ Gwen yma. b. Ydy Gwen yma? (Llaeth) c. Ydy Gwen yma? (Ci) d. Ydy Gwen yma? (Wyau) e. Ydy Gwen yma? (Tegell) f. Ydy Gwen yma? (Siop)5. In the following questions, all of the items in question are not here, but there in the indicated location. Answer the questions, using the appropriate form for 'there'.
Ex. Oes afal yma? (yn y dre) Nag oes, mae'r afalau i gyd yno yn y
dre.
a. Oes wy yma? (yn y cwpwrdd) Nag oes, mae'r ________ i gyd ____ yn
y cwpwrdd.
b. Oes llew yma? (yn Asia) Nag oes, _____.
c. Oes cig yma? (yn y gegin)
d. Oes storm yma? (ar y mynydd)
[A translation of this conversation can be found in a different file.]
a+ (ag) - (prep.) with
dod a+ - (v.) bring
mynd a+ - (v.) take
achosi - (v.) cause
ar o+l - (prep.) after, left (over)
bachgen [bechgyn, m.] - boy
balch - (adj.) glad, proud
beic [m.] - bike
beth - what
beth am - what about
bod - (v.) be
brawd [brodyr, m.] - (n.) brother
brecwast [m.] - breakfast
bwyd [-ydd, m.] - food
bwyta - (v.) eat
byd [-oedd, m.] - world
cael - (v.) have, receive, get
ar gael - available
caled - (adj.) hard
caredig - (adj.) kind
cariad [-au, m.] - love, sweetheart
cefn [-au, m.] - back
cig [-oedd, m.] - meat
cig moch - bacon
cinio [ciniawau, m.] - dinner
cryf - (adj.) strong
cwbl [m.] - all
o gwbl - at all
cwpwrdd [cwpyrddau, m.] - cupboard
dau - (adj.) two
dawnsio - (v.) dance
diddorol - (adj.) interesting
diflas - (adj.) insipid, boring
digwydd - (v.) happen
dim [m.] - anything, nothing
diog - (adj.) lazy
dwy - (adj.) two
dyn [-ion, m.] - (n.) man, person
dysgwr [dysgwyr, m.] - learner
eto - (adv.) yet, again, still
fel - (conj. and prep.) like
gorau - (adj.) best
gweithio - (v.) work
gwir - (adj.) true
gwell - (adj.) better
hardd - (adj.) beautiful, handsome
hynny - (pron.) that
i gyd - (adv.) all
ie - yes
mewn - (prep.) in
mynydd [-oedd, m.] - mountain
nage - no
nawr - (adv.) now [7]
parod - (adj.) ready
perthyn - (v.) belong
popeth [m.] - everything
problem [-au, f.] - problem
pwy - who
siw+r (o) - (adj.) sure
siw+r o fod - that's for sure
'te - (adv.) then
tew - (adj.) fat
wrth - (prep.) by, at
wrth gwrs - of course
wy [-au, m.] - egg
yna - (adv.) there
yno - (adv.) there
[The answers can be found in a separate file.]
1. Translate the following sentences into Welsh.
a. Is Eirug dancing on the back of a bike? No, Eirug's sweetheart
is dancing there.
b. Who is ready to buy her a present? I am.
c. The best problem is Sian's interesting problem.
d. Is that learner lazy and boring? No. That's not true.
e. Who is working there on that mountain? Two policemen.
f. There are two baskets in the cupboard by the kitchen door. I want
to bring all the apples to them.
g. What in the world is happening here? Nothing good is happening,
that's for sure.
h. These two rooms belong to him now. That's the problem.
i. Everything is beautiful on the mountain of Ann's mother. Yes, indeed.
j. I see a big boy and a little girl. Who is the better learner?
The little girl is better.