Verbs

Irish verbs have the following tenses / moods, which are shown in Table 9 with bí ‘be’, bris ‘break’

and cosain ‘protect’. The last two are regular verbs, the former of which is classified into the first conjugation and the latter into the second conjugation. The verb bí ‘be’ is an irregular verb⁷.

Table 9: Verb Forms of bí ‘be’, bris ‘break’ and cosain ‘protect’

bí ‘be’ bris ‘break’ cosain ‘protect’

present (láithreach) tá – –

habitual present (gnáthláithreach) bíonn briseann cosnaíonn

past (caite) bhí bhris chosain

habitual past (gnáthchaite) bhíodh bhriseadh chosnaíodh

future (fáistineach) beidh brisfidh cosnóidh

conditional (coinníollach) bheadh bhrisfeadh chosnódh

subjunctive (foshuiteach) go raibh go mbrise go gcosnaí

subjunctive past (foshuiteach chaite) dá mbeadh dá mbriseadh dá gcosnaíodh

imperative (ordaitheach) bí bris cosain

[based on na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 162; 167; 169)]

Note that go in the subjunctive is the complementiser ‘that’, and dá in the subjunctive past is the conjunction ‘if (hypothetical)’.

An initial consonant of three tenses concerning past events—past, habitual past and conditional (i.e.

past in the future)—is lenited⁸. This lenition is originally triggered by the past particle do^L. This particle

7 Irregular verbs in Irish are as follows: abair ‘say’, beir ‘carry’, bí ‘be’, clois or cluin ‘hear’, déan ‘do / make’, faigh

‘find’, feic ‘see’, ith ‘eat’, tabhair ‘give’, tar ‘come’ and téigh ‘go’.

8 This usage of the lenition resembles the so-called ‘augment’ observed in some Indo-European languages, such as Greek and Sanskrit. For example, in Ancient Greek, in the three tenses concerning past events, the imperfect past, the aorist and the pluperfect, a verb stem bears the augment ἐ- (note that there are some special abbreviations: AOR (aorist), PFM

(perfect marker), PFS (perfect stem) and PLPF (pluperfect)). Below are verb forms with the augment of παιδεύω ‘I educate’

(PRESENT):

ἐπαίδευον ἐπαίδευσα ἐπεπαιδεύκη

e-paídeu-on e-paídeu-s-a e-pe-paideú-k-ē

PM-educate-IMPF.1SG PM-educate-AOR-1SG PM-PFM-educate-PFS-PLPF.1SG

‘I educated (IMPERFECT)’ ‘I educated (AORIST)’ ‘I had educated (PLUPERFECT)’

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itself is normally omitted and only the lenition remains (e.g. bris ‘break’ > do bhris > bhris ‘broke’) except when a verb begins with a vowel (e.g. ith ‘eat’ > do ith > d’ith ‘ate’) or the consonant f (e.g. fan ‘wait’ > do fhan > d’fhan ‘waited’; the consonant f will lose its phonetic value when lenited).

Most Irish verbs have seven tenses (including moods), except for the substantive verb bí ‘bi’, which has the present tense in addition to the other seven. In other words, they lack the present tense and therefore an ongoing event in the present is expressed with the progressive form (na haimsirí leanúnacha

‘the continuous tenses’), which is one of the composed tenses, as in (41).

41) tá Bríd ag rith

tá-Ø Bríd-Ø ag rith-Ø be-PRS Bríd.F-SG.NOM at run-VN

‘Bríd is running’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 155)]

The habitual present and the habitual past are sometimes referred to simply as the present and the imperfect (past), but in this study I will retain the terminology presented in Table 9, following Ó Siadhail (1989) and na Bráithre Críostaí (1999).

The subjunctive past is normally identical to the habitual past except for the initial consonants triggered by the conjunction. In addition, the substantive verb bí ‘be’ has the subjunctive past form, which is different from the habitual past but identical to the conditional. In this dissertation, I do not use the gloss of SUBJ.PST but instead HPST and CND, respectively.

1.4.5.1. Synthetic and Analytic Forms

Irish verbs have synthetic forms (foirm tháite ‘bound form’) and analytic forms (foirm scartha

‘separated form’). The synthetic form includes its subject personal pronoun in one single word, like in (42);

the analytic form does not include the subject personal pronoun, and they are separated into two words, as seen in (43).

42) dúnaimid 43) dúnann siad

dún-aimid dún-ann siad close-HPRS.1PL close-HPRS 3PL.CNJTV

‘we close’ ‘they close’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 159)]

The choice of the two forms varies according to the tense and mood because Irish verbs do not have the complete paradigm and lack some forms for the person and number. In addition, the form used is determined by the dialect.

When the synthetic form is used, the subject personal pronoun cannot appear as in (44).

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44) *dúnaimid muid

dún-aimid muid close-HPRS.1PL 1PL.CNJTV

(‘we close’)

Moreover, the contrastive clitic presented in §1.4.4.3. can be attached to the synthetic form of a verb, as observed in (45) and (46).

45) rachainnse 46) mholamarna

rach-ainn=se ^L mol-amar=na go.FS-COND.1SG=CNTR PM praise-PST.1PL=CNTR

‘I myself would go’ ‘we ourselves praised’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 136)]

The ungrammaticality of (44) and examples (45) and (46) show that the verb in the synthetic form does not accord with the subject in person and number, and the personal pronoun itself is fused into it.

1.4.5.2. Impersonal Form

Irish verbs have a special form for the impersonal subject. When the person and number of the subject is not clear or should not be presented, this form, shown in (47) and (48), is used.

47) Osclaítear an doras in ainm an rí.

oscl-aítear an doras-Ø in ainm-Ø an rí-Ø open-PRS.IMPERS DEF.M.NOM door.M-SG.NOM in name.M-SG.NOM DEF.M.GEN king.M-SG.GEN

‘The door is opened in the name of the king.’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 189)]

48) Thángthas suas leo.

L táng-thas suas leo

PST come-PST.IMPERS up with.3PL

‘One came up with them.’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 189)]

This verb form is sometimes translated like a passive, as in (47), but it can be applied to an intransitive clause, as in (48).

In Celtic studies, this form is often called the autonomous verb (Irish: saorbhriathar ‘free-verb’). In this study, however, I use the term impersonal, which is cross-linguistically comprehensible, so I will gloss it as ^IMPERS (see §1.5.3. for details).

1.4.5.3. Dependent Forms

The dependent form (foirm spleách) is a verb form that is used with some kinds of verbal particles like ní (^NEG), an (^Q), etc. Very few verbs have the special dependent form, which is morphologically

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distinguished from the independent form (foirm neamhspleách) in some tenses. This can be observed in (49).

49) Chonaic mé é. > Ní fhaca mé é.

L conaic-Ø mé é ní^L faca-Ø mé é

PM see-PST 1SG.CNJTV 3SG.M.DSJTV NEG see-PST 1SG.CNJTV 3SG.M.DSJTV

‘I saw him.’ ‘I did not see him.’

[based on na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 170)]

The verb feic ‘see’ has two forms in the past tense, conaic (independent) and faca (dependent), the latter of which is used when the verb is governed by, for example, the negative particle ní. In this study, I will not distinguish between the two forms in the analysis and gloss them in the same way.

1.4.5.4. Verbal Noun and Verbal Adjective

Irish verbs have two derived forms, the verbal noun and the verbal adjective.

As indicated by the term, the verbal noun is a nominalised form of a verb, but it is not normally labelled as the gerund, so here it is referred to as a verbal noun and glossed as VN.

The verbal adjective is an adjectivised form of a verb, which seems to semantically correspond to the past participle of other languages such as English, French, etc., and some scholars use the term past participle. In this study, however, the author uses the term verbal adjective and the gloss VA in agreement with Ó Siadhail (1989).

1.4.5.5. Defective Verbs

In Irish, some verbs cannot be conjugated, or, at least, they have very limited grammatical forms. For example, the verb ar ‘say’ has only two forms: ar, which is used with a contrastive pronoun (a pronoun with a contrastive clitic, see §1.4.4.3.) of the third person seisean ‘he’, sise ‘she’, siadsan ‘they’ and arsa, which is used elsewhere without any distinction of tense or mood.

These are called the defective verbs (briathar uireasach), so in this study the author uses this term and the gloss DFCTV.

1.4.5.6. Substantial Verb and Copula

In Irish, ‘be’ of the substantial verb, as in (50), and that of the copula, as in (51), are distinguished.

50) Bhí rí ann fadó.

L bí-Ø rí-Ø ann fadó

PM be-PST king.M-SG.NOM there long.ago

‘There was a king a long time ago.’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 191)]

23 51) Is éan smólach.

is éan-Ø smólach-Ø be.COP.PRS bird.M-SG.NOM thrush.M-SG.NOM

‘A thrush is a bird.’

[example from na Bráithre Críostaí (1999: 201)]

In the analyses, the same translation ‘be’ will be used for both of them, but in the case of the copula, the gloss COP is added to the gloss, as seen in (51).

In addition, the copula has only two tenses: is for the present tense and ba for the past tense or the conditional mood. Concerning the latter, the author always uses the gloss PST, ignoring the functional difference between the past tense and the conditional mood.