"I will phone you later on."

Translation: Ffonia i ti nes ymlaen.

[JamesTWils]

So, this verb form means both present (I am phoning) and future (I will phone)?

[ibisc]

In the more formal language, yes, the tense is a combined present and future, 'non-past' perhaps. In colloquial usage it is normally limited to the future meaning.

The system of conjugated verbs in Welsh is actually quite limited as far as tenses go, apart from with bod which has a wider range of separate tenses. That is probably why constructions with bod + yn/wedi + verb-noun are so often used.

[y_ddraig_las]

This is confusing me. isn't it 'ffonia i' I will phone, 'ffoniais i' I did phone and 'dw i'n ffonio' I am phoning. Or can 'ffonia i' also be used for present tense (albeit rarely used in speech)?

[ibisc]

Yes, and yes.

In informal use, as taught on this course and many others, the ffonia i form is used for 'I will phone', if it is used at all - bydda i'n ffonio or gwna i ffonio are much more common.

In more formal usage, ffoniaf or ffonia i is used both for 'I phone' and for 'I will phone'

[y_ddraig_las]

Diolch yn fawr am hwnna

[deactivated user]

I gave 'ffonia i di....' as my answer and the result said I had a typo and said it should have been 'ffonia i ti' Really?

[ibisc]

Yes, really.

[Estel785882]

So the soft mutation for an object of a short-form verb doesn't apply to "ti" after a future verb?

[Margaret885737]

I think a moderator has replied elsewhere that 'ti' resists mutation as an object. It may be more complicated than that, but that's what I've remembered of the reply.

[DaibhidhR]

There's a lot of discussion of this, but if you put all the little bits together you get something like this:

• Pronouns generally resist mutation
• i mi and i fi are equally common

• You always say dy gath di. However (my opinion), this is a very unusual use of what appears to be a pronoun, and there is no obvious reason for ti to mutate here, so who says it was ti in the first place? It matches the dy.

• Names of people, but not places or organizations, also resist mutation.

• A randon collection of other words resist mutation (I'll add to this list if anyone flags any more up)

• • gêm, garej, giât (all apparently borrowed from English)
• • braf for reasons possibly lost in the mists of time, according to ibisc
• • nos da and wythnos diwetha This may be an example of a weak soft mutation. In Gaelic we do not soften the tu in bhios tu. Once upon a time dentals (counted as d, n, t, l, r (in Welsh), s) were less likely to take a soft mutation after any dental. This is discussed in the case of Gaelic here (note that in Gaelic any letter with an h after it is a soft mutation, or lenition as they call it).

The only thing I can find in the notes is

Note that ti generally resists mutation:

• Mae e'n fwy na ti - He is bigger than you are

There are also seven examples of i fi and no example or mention of i mi, so clearly a bit needs added to the notes.

[DanWeston5]

Is the connotation of "Gwna i ffonio" an intent, and "Ffonia i" a prediction? Can you say "Wneith hi fwrw glaw?", or does that sound funny since there is no agent to intend it to happen?

[ibisc]

The meaning is the same whether you use the short-form simple future or the long-form with gwneud.

Both are widely used.