Scottish Gaelic grammar
Encyclopedia
This article describes the grammar of the Scottish Gaelic language.
Gaelic shares with other Celtic languages a number of interesting typological
features:
and slenderisation (also referred to as palatalisation or "i-infection
") play a crucial role in Scottish Gaelic grammar.
Lenition (sometimes inaccurately referred to as "aspiration"), as a grammatical process, affects the pronunciation of initial consonants, and is indicated orthographically by the addition of an h:
Lenition is not indicated in writing for l, n or r. Moreover, it does not affect words that begin with a vowel, or words that begin with sg, sm, sp, or st. In most cases, lenition is caused by the presence of particular trigger words to the left (certain determiners, adverbs, prepositions, and other function words). In this article, the leniting effect of such words is indicated, where relevant, by the superscript "+L" (e.g. glé+L "very").
Slenderisation, on the other hand, is a change in the pronunciation of the final consonant of a word, and it is typically indicated by the addition of an i:
In many cases slenderisation causes more complex changes to the final syllable of the word:
Slenderisation has no effect on words that end in a vowel (e.g. bàta "boat"), or words whose final consonant is already slender (e.g. sràid "street").
Most cases of slenderisation can be explained historically as the palatalizing influence of a following front vowel (such as -i) in earlier stages of the language. Although this vowel has now disappeared, its effects on the preceding consonant are still preserved. Similarly, lenition of initial consonants was originally triggered by the final vowel of the preceding word, but in many cases, this vowel is no longer present in the modern language.
Many word-final consonants have also disappeared in the evolution of Scottish Gaelic, and some traces of them can be observed in the form of prosthetic
or linking
consonants (n-, h-, t-, etc.) that appear in some syntactic combinations, for example, after some determiners (see below).
s: masculine or feminine. Nouns with neuter gender in Old Gaelic were redistributed between the masculine and feminine.
The gender of a small number of nouns differs between dialects. A very small group of nouns have declensional patterns that suggest mixed gender characteristics. Foreign nouns that are fairly recent loans arguably fall into a third gender class (discussed by Black), if considered in terms of their declensional pattern. It is arguable that feminine gender is under pressure and that the system may be becoming simplified with the feminine paradigms incorporating some typically masculine patterns.
Nouns have three grammatical number
s: singular, dual
(vestigially) and plural. Dual forms of nouns are only found after the numeral dà (two), where they are obligatory. For masculine nouns, the dual form is in fact identical to the singular, while for feminine nouns, the dual form has a slenderised final consonant. Plurals are formed in a variety of ways, including suffixation (often involving the suffix -(e)an) and slenderisation.
: nominative, vocative, genitive, and dative (or prepositional) case. There is no distinct accusative case form; the same nominative base form is used for both subject
s and object
s. Nouns can be classified into a number of major declension
classes, with a small number of nouns falling into minor patterns or irregular paradigms. Case forms can be related to the base form by suffixation, lenition, slenderisation, or a combination of such changes. See the example paradigms below for further details. The case system is now under tremendous pressure and speakers exhibit varying degrees of paradigm simplification.
Nouns in the dative case only occur after a preposition, and never, for example, as the indirect object of a verb.
Nouns in the vocative case are introduced by the particle a+L, which lenites a following consonant, and is elided (and usually not written) before a vowel. The vocative form of feminine singular nouns is otherwise identical to the nominative; masculine singular nouns are slenderised in the vocative.
Genitival constructions are syntactically very unusual when compared to non-Celtic western European languages. They have frequently been compared with the construct state in Afro-Asiatic and particularly Semitic languages
.
is found in the 2nd person, with the plural form sibh used also as a polite singular.
The emphatic pronouns are used to express emphasis or contrast:
Emphatic forms are also available in other pronominal constructions:
Adjectives normally follow the noun they modify, and agree with it in gender, number and case. In addition, in the dative singular of masculine nouns, the leniting effect of a preceding definite article (see Articles below) can be seen on both the noun and the following adjective:
A small number of adjectives precede the noun, and generally cause lenition. For example:
, for example for body parts or family members.
As indicated in the following table, some possessive determiners lenite the following word. Before a word beginning with a vowel, some of the determiners have elided
forms, or require a linking consonant.
The 3rd plural possessive an takes the form am before words beginning with a labial consonant: b, p, f, or m.
As discussed above, the linking consonants n- and h- reflect the presence of a final consonant that has disappeared in other contexts. Ar and ur are derived from genitive plural forms that originally ended in a nasal.
The feminine singular a derives from a form ending in final -s, whose only trace is now the prefixation of h- to a following vowel.
To refer to non-permanent possession, one uses the preposition aig, as described above:
but no indefinite article:
The form of the (definite) article depends on the number
, gender
, case
of the noun. The following table shows the basic paradigm, as used when there is no assimilation to the initial sounds of the following word.
The superscript "+L" indicates that the following word is lenited. The actual realization of the capitalised forms in the paradigm above depends on the initial sound of the following word, as explained in the following tables:
The forms of the definite article trace back to a Common Celtic stem *sindo-, sindā-. The initial s, already lost in the Old Irish period, is still preserved in the forms of some prepositions (see below). The original d can be seen in the form an t-, and the leniting effect of the form an+L is a trace of a lost final vowel. The form na h- reflects an original final -s.
verb forms which are marked to indicate person
(the number of such forms is limited), tense
, mood
, and voice (active, impersonal/passive). Conjugational paradigms are remarkably consistent between verbs, with the two copular or 'be' verbs being exceptional. In the paradigm of the verb, the majority of verb-forms are not person-marked and independent pronouns are required (as in English). Alongside constructions involving synthetic verb forms, analytic (or 'periphrastic') verbal constructions are extremely frequently used and in many cases are obligatory; (compare English "be + -ing" verbal constructions). These structures also convey tense, aspect
and modality
.
So-called 'verbal noun
s' play a crucial role in the verbal system, being used in periphrastic verbal constructions preceded by a preposition where they act as the sense verb and a copular verb conveys tense information, in a pattern that is familiar from English. True nouns from the point of view of their morphology and inherent properties (they have gender and case) and their occurrence in what are (or were historically) prepositional phrases, yet playing a verbal semantic and syntactic role in such core verbal constructions, verbal nouns have both verbal and nominal characteristics. English '-ing' forms are in many respects very much comparable. In other constructions verbal nouns play a role like infinitives in for example German.
Traditional grammars use the terms 'past' and 'future tense' and 'subjunctive' in describing Scottish Gaelic verb forms, however modern scholarly linguistic texts reject many of these terms which are borrowed from the traditional study of other languages including Latin and traditional English grammar. Very different from that found in Irish, the tense–aspect system of Gaelic is ill-studied; Macaulay (1992) gives a reasonably comprehensive account.
Is can also be used to ascribe a description to a noun or pronoun, but the most common cases of this usage are in fixed expressions, for example: is beag an t-iongnadh (lit. "is small the surprise"), is mór am beud e (lit. "is great the pity it"), is toigh leam e ("I like it" or "I consider it pleasant", lit. "is pleasant with me it") and is toil leam e ("I want it", "I consider it a wish", lit. "is wish with me it").
It is, however, possible to use tha to say that one thing is another thing by turning it into a
property:
Another way to think of the difference between tha and is is that tha describes temporary states:
Is, on the other hand, describes more permanent conditions — that is, states of being that are intrinsic:
Another use of "is" is to bring a particular word to the front of the sentence, for emphasis (Gaelic does not use stress for emphasis, it uses word order and/or -se/-sa suffix and/or lengthened vowels in pronouns instead). It is generally combined with ann when used for this purpose. For example the unmarked sentence "Thuit i air an t-sràid an-dè" (she fell on the street yesterday) may be modified by fronting as follows
The other copular verbs (for example fairich (feel), fàs (grow/become/get)) have non-copular as well as copular uses.
Present tense is formed by use of the verb "tha" and the verbal noun
(or participle
) form of the main verb.
Simple past tense in regular verbs is indicated by lenition of the initial consonant. For example, the verb bruidhinn .
Unlike English, Gaelic allows for the inflexion of a verb to indicate future tense without a helping verb.
Among other uses, this formation can also denote states, or habitual action as in "I speak (at times/occasionally/often)".
Constructions formed with the verb bi plus the verbal noun can denote states, habitual action or future time:
As in other Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic lacks a number of verbs that are commonly found in other languages. This includes modals and psych-verbs; examples 'like', 'prefer', 'be able to', 'manage to', 'must'/'have to', 'make'='compel to'. These functions are instead fulfilled by periphrastic idiomatic constructions involving various prepositional phrases and the copula or other verb, some of which involve highly unusual syntactic patterns.
All "compound prepositions", consisting of a simple preposition and a noun, govern the genitive case:
Many prepositions exhibit different forms (ending in -s or -n) when followed by the article:
Most simple prepositions do not combine with personal pronouns syntactically. For example, *aig mi "at me" and *le iad "with them" are incorrect. Instead, the preposition takes "conjugated" forms, like a verb (see Inflected preposition
). The follow table presents some commonly used paradigms.
Like the personal pronouns, inflected prepositions have emphatic forms, derived by adding the following suffixes:
When the preposition ann an is followed by a possessive determiner, the two words form a contraction
. This also occurs with the verbal markers ag (related to the preposition aig) and a+L. The resulting forms have the same effects on the following word (lenition, consonant insertion) as the possessive determiners.
Grammar overview
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
features:
- Verb–subject–object basic word order in simple sentences with non-periphrastic verbal constructions, a typologicalLinguistic typologyLinguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
characteristic relatively uncommon among the world's languages. - conjugated prepositions (traditionally called "prepositional pronouns"): complex forms historically derived from the fusion of a preposition + pronoun sequence (see Prepositions below)
- prepositional constructions for expressing possession and ownership (instead of a verb like English have):
- Tha taigh agam — "I have a house" (lit. "A house is at me")
- Tha an cat sin le Iain - "Iain owns that cat" (lit. "Is the cat that with Iain")
- emphatic pronouns: Emphatic forms are systematically available in all pronominal constructions (See Pronouns below).
- Tha cat agadsa ach tha cù agamsa – "You have a cat but I have a dog"
Consonant mutations
LenitionLenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
and slenderisation (also referred to as palatalisation or "i-infection
Affection (linguistics)
In Celtic linguistics, affection is the change in the quality of a vowel under the influence of the vowel of the following, final syllable. The vowel triggering the change may or may not still be present in the modern language.The two main types of affection are a-infection and i-infection...
") play a crucial role in Scottish Gaelic grammar.
Lenition (sometimes inaccurately referred to as "aspiration"), as a grammatical process, affects the pronunciation of initial consonants, and is indicated orthographically by the addition of an h:
- caileag → chaileag "girl", beag → bheag "small", faca → fhaca "saw", snog → shnog "nice"
Lenition is not indicated in writing for l, n or r. Moreover, it does not affect words that begin with a vowel, or words that begin with sg, sm, sp, or st. In most cases, lenition is caused by the presence of particular trigger words to the left (certain determiners, adverbs, prepositions, and other function words). In this article, the leniting effect of such words is indicated, where relevant, by the superscript "+L" (e.g. glé+L "very").
Slenderisation, on the other hand, is a change in the pronunciation of the final consonant of a word, and it is typically indicated by the addition of an i:
- facal → facail "word", balach → balaich "boy", òran → òrain "song", ùrlar → ùrlair "floor"
In many cases slenderisation causes more complex changes to the final syllable of the word:
- cailleach → caillich "old woman", ceòl → ciùil "music", fiadh → féidh "deer", cas → cois "foot"
Slenderisation has no effect on words that end in a vowel (e.g. bàta "boat"), or words whose final consonant is already slender (e.g. sràid "street").
Most cases of slenderisation can be explained historically as the palatalizing influence of a following front vowel (such as -i) in earlier stages of the language. Although this vowel has now disappeared, its effects on the preceding consonant are still preserved. Similarly, lenition of initial consonants was originally triggered by the final vowel of the preceding word, but in many cases, this vowel is no longer present in the modern language.
Many word-final consonants have also disappeared in the evolution of Scottish Gaelic, and some traces of them can be observed in the form of prosthetic
Prosthesis (linguistics)
In linguistics, prosthesis is the addition of a sound or syllable at the beginning of a word without changing the word's meaning or the rest of its structure. The alternative spelling prothesis was first used in post-classical Latin, based on Greek próthesis "placing before" or "in public"...
or linking
Sandhi
Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...
consonants (n-, h-, t-, etc.) that appear in some syntactic combinations, for example, after some determiners (see below).
Gender and number
Gaelic nouns and pronouns belong to one of two grammatical genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
s: masculine or feminine. Nouns with neuter gender in Old Gaelic were redistributed between the masculine and feminine.
The gender of a small number of nouns differs between dialects. A very small group of nouns have declensional patterns that suggest mixed gender characteristics. Foreign nouns that are fairly recent loans arguably fall into a third gender class (discussed by Black), if considered in terms of their declensional pattern. It is arguable that feminine gender is under pressure and that the system may be becoming simplified with the feminine paradigms incorporating some typically masculine patterns.
Nouns have three grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
s: singular, dual
Dual (grammatical number)
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
(vestigially) and plural. Dual forms of nouns are only found after the numeral dà (two), where they are obligatory. For masculine nouns, the dual form is in fact identical to the singular, while for feminine nouns, the dual form has a slenderised final consonant. Plurals are formed in a variety of ways, including suffixation (often involving the suffix -(e)an) and slenderisation.
- masculine: aon òran, dà òran, trì òrain – "one song (sg.), two songs (dual), three songs (pl.)"
- feminine: aon uinneag, dà uinneig, trì uinneagan – "one window (sg.), two windows (dual), three windows (pl.)"
Cases
Nouns and pronouns in Gaelic have four casesGrammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
: nominative, vocative, genitive, and dative (or prepositional) case. There is no distinct accusative case form; the same nominative base form is used for both subject
Subject (grammar)
The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e...
s and object
Object (grammar)
An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon...
s. Nouns can be classified into a number of major declension
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
classes, with a small number of nouns falling into minor patterns or irregular paradigms. Case forms can be related to the base form by suffixation, lenition, slenderisation, or a combination of such changes. See the example paradigms below for further details. The case system is now under tremendous pressure and speakers exhibit varying degrees of paradigm simplification.
Nouns in the dative case only occur after a preposition, and never, for example, as the indirect object of a verb.
Nouns in the vocative case are introduced by the particle a+L, which lenites a following consonant, and is elided (and usually not written) before a vowel. The vocative form of feminine singular nouns is otherwise identical to the nominative; masculine singular nouns are slenderised in the vocative.
- feminine: Màiri, Anna → a Mhàiri, (a) Anna
- masculine: Seumas, Aonghas → a Sheumais, (a) Aonghais
Genitival constructions are syntactically very unusual when compared to non-Celtic western European languages. They have frequently been compared with the construct state in Afro-Asiatic and particularly Semitic languages
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
.
Pronouns
Gaelic has singular and plural personal pronouns (i.e., no dual forms). Gender is distinguished only in the 3rd person singular. A T-V distinctionT-V distinction
In sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction is a contrast, within one language, between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee....
is found in the 2nd person, with the plural form sibh used also as a polite singular.
| simple | emphatic | ||||
| singular | 1st | mi | mise | "I, me" | |
| 2nd | thu | thusa | "you" | ||
| 3rd | masculine | e | esan | "him" | |
| feminine | i | ise | "her" | ||
| plural | 1st | sinn | sinne | "we, us" | |
| 2nd | sibh | sibhse | "you" | ||
| 3rd | iad | iadsan | "they, them" | ||
The emphatic pronouns are used to express emphasis or contrast:
- Tha i bòidheach — "She's beautiful"
- Tha ise bòidheach — "She
's beautiful (as opposed to somebody else)"
Emphatic forms are also available in other pronominal constructions:
- an taigh aicese — "her house"
- chuirinn-sa — "I would put"
- na mo bheachd-sa — "in my opinion"
Adjectives
Adjectives in Gaelic inflect according to gender and case in the singular. In the plural, a single form is used for both masculine and feminine genders, in all cases (although it may be lenited depending on the context).Adjectives normally follow the noun they modify, and agree with it in gender, number and case. In addition, in the dative singular of masculine nouns, the leniting effect of a preceding definite article (see Articles below) can be seen on both the noun and the following adjective:
- (air) breac mòr – "(on) a big trout"
- (air) a' bhreac mhòr – "(on) the big trout"
A small number of adjectives precede the noun, and generally cause lenition. For example:
- seann chù, droch shìde, deagh thidsear – "old dog, bad weather, good teacher"
Possessive determiners
Gaelic uses possessive determiners (corresponding to my, your, their, etc.) differently than English. In Gaelic, possessive determiners are used mostly to indicate inalienable possessionInalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal morphemes based on the fact that they are always possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand...
, for example for body parts or family members.
As indicated in the following table, some possessive determiners lenite the following word. Before a word beginning with a vowel, some of the determiners have elided
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
forms, or require a linking consonant.
| before consonant | before vowel | examples | |||
| singular | 1st | mo+L | m' | mo mhàthair "my mother", m'athair "my father" | |
| 2nd | do+L | d' (or t') | do mhàthair "your mother", d'athair "your father" | ||
| 3rd | masculine | a+L | a | a mhàthair "his mother", a athair "his father" | |
| feminine | a | a h- | a màthair "her mother", a h-athair "her father" | ||
| plural | 1st | ar | ar n- | ar màthair "our mother", ar n-athair "our father" | |
| 2nd | ur | ur n- | ur màthair "your mother", ur n-athair "your father" | ||
| 3rd | an/am | an | am màthair "their mother", an athair "their father" | ||
The 3rd plural possessive an takes the form am before words beginning with a labial consonant: b, p, f, or m.
As discussed above, the linking consonants n- and h- reflect the presence of a final consonant that has disappeared in other contexts. Ar and ur are derived from genitive plural forms that originally ended in a nasal.
The feminine singular a derives from a form ending in final -s, whose only trace is now the prefixation of h- to a following vowel.
To refer to non-permanent possession, one uses the preposition aig, as described above:
- an taigh aige – "his house" (lit. "the house at him")
- an leabhar agam – "my book" (lit. "the book at me")
Articles
Gaelic has a definite articleDefinite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
but no indefinite article:
- an taigh — 'the house', taigh — '(a) house'
The form of the (definite) article depends on the number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
, gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
of the noun. The following table shows the basic paradigm, as used when there is no assimilation to the initial sounds of the following word.
| singular | plural | ||
| masculine | feminine | ||
| nominative | AN | AN +L | NA |
| dative | AN +L | ||
| genitive | AN +L | NA | NAN |
The superscript "+L" indicates that the following word is lenited. The actual realization of the capitalised forms in the paradigm above depends on the initial sound of the following word, as explained in the following tables:
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||
The forms of the definite article trace back to a Common Celtic stem *sindo-, sindā-. The initial s, already lost in the Old Irish period, is still preserved in the forms of some prepositions (see below). The original d can be seen in the form an t-, and the leniting effect of the form an+L is a trace of a lost final vowel. The form na h- reflects an original final -s.
Example paradigms
The following examples illustrate a number of nominal declension patterns, and show how the definite article combines with different kinds of nouns.Masculine noun paradigms
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Feminine noun paradigms
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Verbs
Verbal constructions may make use of syntheticSynthetic language
In linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio, as opposed to a low morpheme-per-word ratio in what is described as an isolating language...
verb forms which are marked to indicate person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
(the number of such forms is limited), tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
, mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, and voice (active, impersonal/passive). Conjugational paradigms are remarkably consistent between verbs, with the two copular or 'be' verbs being exceptional. In the paradigm of the verb, the majority of verb-forms are not person-marked and independent pronouns are required (as in English). Alongside constructions involving synthetic verb forms, analytic (or 'periphrastic') verbal constructions are extremely frequently used and in many cases are obligatory; (compare English "be + -ing" verbal constructions). These structures also convey tense, aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
and modality
Linguistic modality
In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...
.
So-called 'verbal noun
Verbal noun
In linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
s' play a crucial role in the verbal system, being used in periphrastic verbal constructions preceded by a preposition where they act as the sense verb and a copular verb conveys tense information, in a pattern that is familiar from English. True nouns from the point of view of their morphology and inherent properties (they have gender and case) and their occurrence in what are (or were historically) prepositional phrases, yet playing a verbal semantic and syntactic role in such core verbal constructions, verbal nouns have both verbal and nominal characteristics. English '-ing' forms are in many respects very much comparable. In other constructions verbal nouns play a role like infinitives in for example German.
Traditional grammars use the terms 'past' and 'future tense' and 'subjunctive' in describing Scottish Gaelic verb forms, however modern scholarly linguistic texts reject many of these terms which are borrowed from the traditional study of other languages including Latin and traditional English grammar. Very different from that found in Irish, the tense–aspect system of Gaelic is ill-studied; Macaulay (1992) gives a reasonably comprehensive account.
Copular verbs
Gaelic has a small number of copular verbs, two of which both mean "be" (though some grammar books treat them as two parts of a single suppletive verb): bi is used to attribute a property to a noun or pronoun (the complement must be a description - it cannot be a noun or pronoun), whereas in general usage is is used to identify a noun or pronoun as a complement; in most grammars books is is referred to as "the copula" (i.e. the main copular verb of the language).- tha mise sgìth — "I am tired" (tha is the present indicative independent 3rd person singular of bi.)
- is mise Eòghann — "I am Ewan"
Is can also be used to ascribe a description to a noun or pronoun, but the most common cases of this usage are in fixed expressions, for example: is beag an t-iongnadh (lit. "is small the surprise"), is mór am beud e (lit. "is great the pity it"), is toigh leam e ("I like it" or "I consider it pleasant", lit. "is pleasant with me it") and is toil leam e ("I want it", "I consider it a wish", lit. "is wish with me it").
It is, however, possible to use tha to say that one thing is another thing by turning it into a
property:
- tha mi nam shaor — "I am a carpenter" (lit. "I am in my carpenter")
- is e saor a th' annam — "I am a carpenter" (lit. "it's a carpenter that's in me")
Another way to think of the difference between tha and is is that tha describes temporary states:
- tha mi sgith – "I am tired" (or, lit. "am I tired")
- tha an duine reamhair – "the man is fat" (lit. "is the man fat")
Is, on the other hand, describes more permanent conditions — that is, states of being that are intrinsic:
- is beag an taigh e – "it's a small house" (lit. "is small the house it")
- is Albannach mi - "I am Scottish" (lit. "is Scottish I")
Another use of "is" is to bring a particular word to the front of the sentence, for emphasis (Gaelic does not use stress for emphasis, it uses word order and/or -se/-sa suffix and/or lengthened vowels in pronouns instead). It is generally combined with ann when used for this purpose. For example the unmarked sentence "Thuit i air an t-sràid an-dè" (she fell on the street yesterday) may be modified by fronting as follows
- S ann a thuit i air an t-sràid an-dè - (with emphasis on "fell")
- S ann air an t-sràid a thuit i an-dè - (with emphasis on "on the street".)
- S ise a thuit air an t-sràid an-dè - (with emphasis on "she")
- S ann an-dè a thuit i air an t-sràid - (with emphasis on "yesterday")
The other copular verbs (for example fairich (feel), fàs (grow/become/get)) have non-copular as well as copular uses.
Verb forms and tense
Tense is marked in Gaelic in a number of ways.Present tense is formed by use of the verb "tha" and the verbal noun
Verbal noun
In linguistics, the verbal noun turns a verb into a noun and corresponds to the infinitive in English language usage. In English the infinitive form of the verb is formed when preceded by to, e.g...
(or participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
) form of the main verb.
- Tha mi a' bruidhinn. – "I am speaking" or "I speak" (lit. "Am I at speaking")
Simple past tense in regular verbs is indicated by lenition of the initial consonant. For example, the verb bruidhinn .
Unlike English, Gaelic allows for the inflexion of a verb to indicate future tense without a helping verb.
- Bruidhnidh mi – "I speak" or "I will speak"
Among other uses, this formation can also denote states, or habitual action as in "I speak (at times/occasionally/often)".
Constructions formed with the verb bi plus the verbal noun can denote states, habitual action or future time:
- Bidh mi a' bruidhinn – "I speak" or "I will be speaking"
As in other Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic lacks a number of verbs that are commonly found in other languages. This includes modals and psych-verbs; examples 'like', 'prefer', 'be able to', 'manage to', 'must'/'have to', 'make'='compel to'. These functions are instead fulfilled by periphrastic idiomatic constructions involving various prepositional phrases and the copula or other verb, some of which involve highly unusual syntactic patterns.
Prepositions
Prepositions in Gaelic govern sometimes the nominative/accusative case, but more commonly the dative or genitive case.- with nominative: eadar "between", gu(s) "until", mar "as", gun "without"
- with dative: air "on", aig "at", anns/ann an "in", le(is) "with", ri(s) "to"
- with genitive: tarsainn "across", ré "during", chun "towards", trìd "through", timcheall "around"
All "compound prepositions", consisting of a simple preposition and a noun, govern the genitive case:
- ri taobh a' bhalaich – "beside the boy" (lit. "by side [of] the boy")
Many prepositions exhibit different forms (ending in -s or -n) when followed by the article:
- le Iain, leis a' mhinistear – "with Iain, with the minister"
- fo bhròn, fon a' bhòrd – "under sorrow, under the table"
Most simple prepositions do not combine with personal pronouns syntactically. For example, *aig mi "at me" and *le iad "with them" are incorrect. Instead, the preposition takes "conjugated" forms, like a verb (see Inflected preposition
Inflected preposition
In some languages, an inflected preposition, or conjugated preposition, is a word formed from the contraction of a preposition with a personal pronoun. For instance, in Scottish Gaelic, to say "before him," one can not say *, but , which historically developed from a fusion of pronoun and...
). The follow table presents some commonly used paradigms.
| + | mi "me" | thu "you, sg." | e "him" | i "her" | sinn "us" | sibh "you, pl." | iad "them" |
| aig "at" | agam | agad | aige | aice | againn | agaibh | aca |
| air "on" | orm | ort | air | oirre | oirnn | oirbh | orra |
| le "with" | leam | leat | leis | leatha | leinn | leibh | leotha |
| ann an "in" | annam | annad | ann | innte | annainn | annaibh | annta |
| do "to, for" | dhomh | dhut | dha | dhi | dhuinn | dhuibh | dhaibh |
Like the personal pronouns, inflected prepositions have emphatic forms, derived by adding the following suffixes:
- agamsa, agadsa, aigesan, aicese, againne, agaibhse, acasan
When the preposition ann an is followed by a possessive determiner, the two words form a contraction
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
. This also occurs with the verbal markers ag (related to the preposition aig) and a+L. The resulting forms have the same effects on the following word (lenition, consonant insertion) as the possessive determiners.
| + | mo "my" | do "your, sg." | a "his" | a "her" | ar "our" | ur "your, pl." | an "their" |
| ann an "in" | 'nam+L | 'nad+L | 'na+L | 'na [h-] | 'nar [n-] | 'nur [n-] | 'nan/'nam |
| ag "at" | 'gam+L | 'gad+L | 'ga+L | 'ga [h-] | 'gar [n-] | 'gur [n-] | 'gan/'gam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a+L "to" |