Re: Welsh - Verb-Nouns

> Perhaps I have taken it wrong since I learned some basic welsh a long
> time ago, but is it not true that when you say something like... "dw i'n
> dysgu" where verb-nouns are used in conjuction with bod, you need a
> marker like yn or wedi before the verb-noun.
Oh, now I see. You were referring to the prepositions.

> When a verb noun is used without a form of bod
> (or not used as an auxilliary to another verb) ,
> then you need a marker like mi or fe usually.
Yes, but then you're dealing with inflected tenses. And it's my
understanding that fe/mi are optional, i.e. some people use fe, some people
use mi, others use nothing. Maybe it's a dialect thing depending on what
region of Wales you come from; I don't know. So, for example, "I learned"
can be "dysgais i", "ddysgais i", "fe ddysgais i", or "mi ddysges i"
depending on the speaker. In any event, in those cases you've got inflected
tenses of the verb, not verbal nouns.

> As for your examples of infinitives and english's -ing ending,
> I would not count them as verbs no. The infinitives are noun
> forms from verb stems
Fair enough. Just a different way of looking at it, I guess. I've always
thought of them as verb forms, since they're formed from verbs!

> and english's -ing is used to form an adjective from the verb.
Actually, -ing in modern English forms both present participles (adjectives)
and nouns: I am reading (adjective); reading is fun, I like reading (noun).
In Old English, however, -ing formed only nouns from verbs. The present
participle ended in -ende. At some point (I don't know when) then fell
together as -ing. My guess is that over time, the d of -ende maybe
disappeared, leaving -ene or -en. Likewise the g of -ing disappeared (we
write -ing, and have that enforced as the "proper" pronunciation, but the
natural, spoken form in both North America and the British Isles is -in),
and the resulting -en and -in were so similar that they fell together. That
is only a guess though; perhaps someone who knows more about the historical
development of English can tell me if I'm totally off base there.

> On another matter that I was just thinking about... a lot of languages
> require another verb for certain tenses, but english require we use
> another verb when we wise to negate. Why is this? For instance, in
> french you can say "Je ne comprends pas" (I think I spelled it right).
> There ne... pas negates the verb without use of another verb as well.
> But in english we say "I do not understand". Why do we need the do?
> Surely we could do what every other european language seems to and say
> something like "I not understand" or "I understand not".
Actually, Old English did just that: ic ne understande. I don't know when or
why we started using "do" as an auxiliary there. For that matter, I wonder
when the negative adverb became "not" after the verb instead of "ne" before
the verb, which was the Old English form. I wonder if "not" derives from
naught (Old English naht < na-wiht "no thing"), i.e. "nothing". As for
negating with "not" alone instead of using "do", we do still do it, though
it's restricted to auxiliary/modal verbs: I am not, I have not, I cannot, I
do not, I would not, etc. In more archaic language, you certainly find it
with other verbs: I know not whereof you speak = I don't know what you're
talking about.

English words are fascinating things. Did you know, for example, that
"nostril" developed out of the Old English nas-þyrel "nose-hole"? And the
word "þyrel" itself derives from the word þurh (through) -- a hole is
something that a thing can pass through. I wish Old English was a required
subject in school, so I could have had more than one college semester of it.

Do you have anything in your Welsh/Tagalog/etc. conlang you could share,
BTW? My curiosity has been aroused! :-)

Regards

Thomas

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