This paper, which was written for teaching purposes, is a compilation of information on modern Celtic languages and the specific examples of their most prominent morphological and syntactic features. The information and examples were taken from the materials cited underneath each section. Lucie Vinsova Modern Celtic Languages Celtic languages is a group of languages which belongs amongst the Indo-European language family. Celtic languages belong to a large group of languages known as Centum languages, because the number "hundred" was in old Latin pronounced as[k]- thus the label Centum [kentum], as opposed to Satem languages called after the way "hundred"- satem [satamjwas pronounced in the Avestan language. We are going to divide the Celtic languages into P-Celtic and Q- Celtic. This classification is based on the different development of IE. *kw, which was kept amongst the Q-Celtic languages and changed to p amongst the P-Celtic languages. This traditional model of Celtic languages classification is supported by H. Pedersen and K.H. Schmidt. P- Celtic languages correspond with Brittonic languages and from the modern, still used languages include Welsh, Breton and Cornish. Q- Celtic languages correspond with Goidelic languages and include Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. IrisL C.) 3j£mJ£ll!t3Jjy.> Bretagne) Proto-Indo-European (PIE) fcenfum-languages t ANATOLIAN • t TocHAKIAN CELTIC (Proto-Celtic) Continental Celtic satem-languages Balto-Si.avic .Armenian Albanian/ Slavic Baltic indkt iranian t Celtiberian Insular Celtic Golcfelic British t Gaulish (Galfltian) SW-British t Cumbric Old Welsh Old Cornish Old Breton / \ Middle Welsh Middle Cornish Middle Breton f l.ate Cornish t Manx Modern Irish Scots Gaelic (Gaelg) (Caeilge\na (Cäidhlig [im htimmn]) h-Alba]) Illustration 1.1: The Celtic languages and the Indo-European family tree, t - extinct Modern Welsh Neo-Cornish (Cymnteg\ (JCemcivrl;) Modern Breton (Prezhoneg) The Brittonic Languages Breton Language The peninsula Armorica (Gaulish for "place by the seď\ started to be called Bretagne after the colonization of the British Celts coming from southeast England in between the 5th and 7th centuries (thanks to the immigration of Anglo-Saxon tribes to Britain). The name Brez(h)oneg. Today E. Brittany, F. Bretagnecleavly signifies the Celtic origin of the name. (Ad. Václav Blažek, Keltské Jazyk) Old Breton: the language flourished the most in the 9th century. Most of the texts are religious in nature. Middle Breton: (12-17 cent.)The area in which Breton was spoken shrank by almost one half. Most of the preserved texts are translations of religious texts from Latin and French. In the 12. cent., Breton was ceased to be used by the gentry, which caused its continuous decline. Modern Breton: 1659 - the first book of Breton grammar and dictionary was published. Modern Breton is composed of the most diverse dialects of any modern Celtic language. Nowadays, only the western part of the area is Breton-speaking (Basse Bretagne) and even here it is restricted to the countryside. Two-fifths of the ordinary vocabulary is of French origin. Today, it is estimated that 200 000 people use Breton on daily basis. (Taken from Fortson, Indo-European Linguistics, 2010, p. 332) Standard language and orthography There are two standard languages as dialectal varieties of Breton- the Leon and Haut-Vannetais. The Leon dialect has a much greater importance and is taken as standard Breton. The situation of a small country as Brittany to have two main dialects (even referred to as two standard languages) is for its great dialectal diversity in general. These two dialects differ from each other more than any other dialects within the Breton speaking spectrum of dialects, and have rather particular traits. While Leon was chosen for its archaic nature, Vannetais for its literary tradition. This represents a problem because the majority of native Breton speakers fail to understand any of the standard language dialect. Another specific feature of Breton is its multiple orthographies. At the moment, there are used four orthographical systems for standard Breton and two for Vannetais. The orthographies represent not only different ways of dealing with assimilation of the main dialects, but also political ideas that stood behind the decisions. Therefore the questions of orthography can present a very sensitive problem. The most frequently used orthography, and the orthography used in this compilation is so called orthographe unifiée (unified orthography) and it is known as zedachek. The Breton alphabet (lizherenneg ar brezhoneg) Aa Bb Ch ch C'hc'h Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh a be che ec'h de e ef ge hach Ii Jj Kk LI Mm Nn Oo Pp Rr i je ke el em en o pe er S s orSh Tt Uu Vv Ww Yy Z z or Zh es te u ve we ye zed Pronunciation Vowels & diphthongs a ai e ei eu i 0 ou u [a/a] [ai] [£/e] [ei] [0/oe] [i] [0/0] [n] [y] consonants b ch c'h d f 8 sn sw/ sou h [b/p] HI [x/y] [d/ö] [f] [g] [A] [gw] J k kw 1 111 m 11 p 1 [5] M [1] [A] [m] [n] [p] [r/r/i] s t v w >^ Z zh [s] [t] [w] Lj] [2] [zh.Ö] Pronunciation notes: Long e- [%o:] is sometimes written as e Nasality is shown by placing n after the vowel letter- an - [a] i is usually pronounced as [i], but before a vowel, it is generally []]- Zz'vzo«[livju] "colour" ousually corresponds with [o], but before a vowel, it is almost always [w]- c"hoar[xwa:v] "sister". shis pronounced [s] and zh is pronounced [z] The grave accent placed on the u - Vindicates the plural ending and its pronunciation can vary according to the spoken dialect. Geographically ranging from Northwest Leon to Southeast Gwened- [u ] [o ] [0] [ow] [aw] [ai[] or Mutations of initial consonants The initial consonant of a word can change in Breton just like in all other modern Celtic languages. The mutations are divided into four groups: hard, spirant, soft and mixed. Un mutated Soft Spirant Hard Mixed P b 1 t d z k 9 c'h b V P V d z ( t Q c'h k c'h gw w kw w m V V The soft mutation is the most common and is applied after many prepositions (eg. da "at, to, for", en, ur "while, by", war "on", aba "since"), verbal particles (eg. a, ra, ez^), negative particles (eg. na, ne), numbers (daou "two" (masc), div "two" (fern.), possessive pronouns (eg. da "yours (thy)") etc. Examples might be: kador "chair"- da gador "your chair"; penn "head"- da benn "your head"; gwele "bed"- da wele "your bed". The spirant mutation occurs after some numbers (nav "nine",peder "four" (fern.), pevar "four" (masc), teir "three" (fern.), tri "three" (masc.)) and after some possessive pronouns {he "her", o "their", va "my". Like for instance kador "chair"- va c 'hador"my chair"; penn "head"- vafenn "my head". The hard mutation occurs after following words: az\ ez\ V "you, thee", ez "in your, in thy", d in 1,2 endings dindanon davedon dindanout davedot dindanah davedah dindani daveti dindanomp davedomp dindanoc 'h davedoc^h dindano/dindane daveto/davede others: dreist "over" hervez "according to" Others: eget "than" evit "for", in order to" nemet "but, except" The Conjunctions The principal conjuntions are: ha "and" which changes to hag before a vowel, pe "or", «<2"nor" (which becomes nag before a vowel), hogen, met "but", rak "because, for", peogwir "because", ma "that, if, mar "if, pa "when, if, because". A conjunction is usually connected to the verb which follows by the verbal article e: hag e kouezhas "and he fell", peogwir e varvas "because he died". Syntax The Breton syntax is very free, and in case that all the rules observing verbal particles and conjugations are observed, words can be usually placed in the sentence in any order. Interrogation phrases Interrogative phrases donvt differ from positive statements, except of adding (in some) an interrogative word. In the spoken language, a question is distinguished by intonation: dont a rit "you come"; dont a rit? "are you coming?" In the written, especially literary language, an interrogative particle ha or daoust ha can be placed in front of the affirmative sentence. There are no further changes. (daoust) ha chom ganeomp a reot ?"Will you (pi) stay with us?" INTER. stay with-us VPT you will do? If the question has an interrogative word, this is placed at the beginning: piv a zo aze? who VPT is there? pet eur eo? how-many hours is? "Whafs the time?" Articles Breton has a definite and indefinite article, which makes it the only surviving Celtic language with an indefinite article. Both articles always precede the noun and donvt change in respect to gender or number. The variations depend on the initial phoneme of the following word: Definite article: al, an, ar Indefinite article: ul, un, ur. The l-forms are used before /, the n-forms before t, d, n, h or a vowel and the r-forms in all other cases: al loar "the moon" ar pri "the mud" an tad "the father " ur vro "a country" un den "a man" ar broioiiuthe countries" When a noun is qualified by another following noun, the definite article is not applied: ti an tad "the house of the father"; paotr e varc 'h du "the boy on the black horse", as well as certain nouns like for example ker "town" and the names of meals (very similar situation we can see in English): tostaat ouzh ker "come into town"; goude koan "after supper". The definite article is also omitted before a comparative or superlative preceding a noun: brasoc 'h tie o c 'hoazh "it is still a larger house"; kentan ti a welis "the first house which I saw". Proper names, apart from names of some rivers, mountains and towns donvt take the definite article neither: Breizh "Brittany", Europa "Europe". However, as mentioned above, some place names are exceptions: an Elorn "The Elorn", an A/po«"the Alps". Demonstratives There are three degrees of demonstratives in Breton according the distance of the object they refer to from the closest to the furthest away (this, that and that over there). They are formed by the definite article and another particle placed after the noun: an den-man"this person", an dense "that person", an den-hont "that person over there". If the noun is followed by an adjective, the particle is linked to the adjective: an denfall-se "that evil person". "This"- an dra-man: literary "this thing" "That"- an dra-se "That over there"- an dra-hont The possessive The possessive adjectives have the same forms as the direct object personal pronouns. Here we can see them with the respective mutations they cause to the followed noun: va zi"my house" (spirant mutation) da di "your house" (lenition) e rfi"his house" (lenition) he zi"her house" (spirant mutation, hec 'h before vowel) hon ft'"our house" (k changes to c 'h) ho ft"your house" (provection, hoc 'h before vowel) o zi"their house" (spirant mutation) Breton possessive adjectives donvt depend on the number or the gender of the following noun. Just as in English, the third person singular agrees with the gender of the possessor. The genitive A noun can stand in a genitive relation to another noun. In many cases, possession is expressed in this way. If the genitive is is definite, the noun it precedes is used without an article: tog Anna "Anna's hat, the hat of Anna"; marc 'h or milliner "the horse of the miller"; bro va zad "the country of my father"; dor an ti "the door of the house". If the genitive object is indefinite, it simply follows the noun before it and the noun keeps its article: an ti kenwerzh "the house of commerce", un tamm kig "a piece of meat". Materials: Hemon Roparz: Breton Grammar, tenth edition, translated, adapted and revised by Michael Everson. Dublin. 1995 MacAulay Donald: The Celtic Languages, The Breton Language written by Elmar Ternes, Cambridge University Press, 1992. Welsh Language The Welsh call themselves as Cymro, which reflects Bret. *kom-brogos,-is "from the same land", comp.W. bro, Olr. mruig "land". (Ad. Václav Blažek, Keltské Jazyky) The English term Welshcomes, from the Anglo-Saxon name for the Celtic tríbes-wealas, which means „foreigners" (4. - 5. cent.). In that time, the British Celtic population was hardly linguistically differentiated. In the 6. and 7. cent., the areas inhabited by the Celts significantly shrank thanks to the Anglo-Saxon colonization. Old Welsh: (8-12. cent.) followed the period of so called „primitive Welsh". No literature from this period is preserved (the pieces of two important poets- Taliesin and Aneirin fromthe 6. cent.survived in later 12. - 13. cent, versions, of course modernized). From this period we only have short Welsh and Latin texts concerning a lawsuit. Middle Welsh: (12-14. cent.) - during this time, the Welsh language flourished. This period offers copious literature of medieval romances and legends. The most famous masterpiece isMabinogi - a collection of romances. Modern Welsh: the beginning of this era is marked by the translation of theBible in the yearl588 (by the bishop of Llandaff,William Morgan). This translation became the literary standard of the Welsh language for many next generations and it is very likely that without it, the Welsh language would have been long extinct. Since the beginning of the 15. cent., the higher strata of society were becoming Anglicized, and Welsh was completely banned from the use as an official administrative language in the mid. 15. cent. This didn't change until the year 1967). In the yearl993 by so called. Welsh Language Act, the Welsh language was made equal with English in all spheres of public life (law, education, administration, health care). Despite the continuous efforts to spread the knowledge and usage of the language, the number of Welsh speakers continue to decrease (according to the UK Census 2011, the percentage of Welsh speakers decreased from 20.8% (in 2001) to 19% (in 2011). However, the number of today's speakers (about 582 000 people) is greater than in 1991 (about 508 000 people).There is also a small community of people speaking Welsh in Chubut Province in Argentina. The Welsh is spoken mostly in countiesGwynedd andYnys Mon. It is estimated that about 500 000 people use the Welsh language on daily basis. There is also a small community of people speaking Welsh in Chubut Province in Argentina. (Partly taken from Fortson, Indo-European linguistics, 2010, p. 329-331) Types of Welsh First of all, we have to distinguish between the literary and colloquial Welsh. Whereas colloquial, or vernacular Welsh is a native language of some percentage of the Welsh people and can be further divided into dialects, the literary Welsh is nobody's native language and was artificially designed to standardize the written language at the time of the Bible translation in the sixteenth century. In a way, the reason of creating a version of "more sophisticated" or "proper" Welsh was a deliberate move to leave the Welsh of the rural population out of the literary usage. This tendency can be seen in the native population in a form of low confidence in Welsh speaking until these days. Welsh language can be geographically divided into two main dialects- south and north, but they do divide further into their respective east and west varieties. There is also a specific dialect used on the Island of Anglesey. by mm - mm 2 of the welsh dm map Dialectal variation remained a reality of modern spoken Welsh. The dialectal differences are most obvious in respect to the lexis of the language. There are also phonological variants which tend to coincide with the lexical division of the areas and some rare syntactic differences which donvt represent any problems to native speakers (in the respect of understanding each other), but which can be confusing for the learners. Vocabulary: there are north and south variants of certain words, even though they usually concern a small number of very common words. For simplification, the difference is marked here as S for the south dialect and N for the north. North: South: taid" grandfather tadcu «am"grandmothef mamgu rwan"now nawr allan"'outside' mas Pronunciation: the differences in pronunciation are predictable and reflect the division of the north and south dialects. Here Fm giving just a few examples:In the north Welsh areas, the "high mixed" vowel [i] is used, while this vowel sound has merged with [i] in all the south and midland dialects. So dyn "man" would be pronounced [di:n]the north, while [dim] in southern Wales including the midlands. While long diphthongs in monosyllabic words have been retained in the northern dialects, the southern variants tend to monophthongise them: northern maen [ma:in] "stone" corresponds to southern [ma:m]. There are also differences in the incidence of phonemes which involve the lax fricatives in final position. They tend to be lost in all dialects, but in northern dialect [v] and [5] are regularly lost in cases where they are preserved in the southern ones: North South [go:] go/"blacksmith" [go:v] [ko:] co/"memory" [ko:] [bar] £<2r/"beard" [barv] -au which marks plurals sounds like [a] in the north and like [e] in the south: pethau "things"-N. [peea], S [peee]. Syntactic differences: Even though there are not that many syntactic differences, they occur in some very basic patterns (like for example the expression of possession). The standard literary syntax further differs from the both main dialects: ex. standard negative sentence: nid yw efyn mynd NEG is he in go "he is not going" can have very different forms in the northern and southern dialect: Northern: dydy o ddim yn mynd. NEG-is he not in go Southern: nag yw eVz mynd NEG is he-in go To express possession of something- English "to have" differs in the southern and northern dialect. First, there is no corresponding word as such in Welsh and the possession in expressed by using the existential verb (mae, oes) with the preposition "with" gan (North Wales) or (gv)] rn [m] d [d] dd [Ö] n M ■ L>] 1 LI] rn [m] f [v] rh [r] r H (Taken from: https://www.goodexz/search?q=mutations+table+in+welsh&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved= eAhXB66QKHX OrCC4Q AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=626#imgrc=DzoGVbS30BxsxM:) There are three types of the initial sound mutations: soft (which is by far the most frequent), nasal and aspirate. All instances of the mutations in Welsh can be classified either as contact mutation/where a mutation of a word is caused by the preceding word, usually a preposition or a possessive pronoun) or grammatical mutation where the mutation (almost invariably soft) fulfils some grammatical function. Soft mutation (which is in textbooks and dictionaries marked as °in front of the word) occurs in the following cases: Grammatical: a) after the subject of the sentence: naethon nhw° fynd "they went" b) with adverbs of time (occasionally of manner): °ddwy °flynedd yn 61 "two years ago" c) when a noun is used to address or call somebody: dewchfan hyn, °blant! "come here, children!" d) generally with all inflected verbs: °Golles Vr tocyn "I lost the ticket." e) after an "additional" word which is not part of the basic VSO pattern. As we can see in the following example in the case of hefyd "also": Fe °alla i °weld darn o °bapur. "I can see a piece of paper." Fe °alla i °weld hefyd °ddarn o °bapur.ul can also see a piece of paper." Contact: a) There are many prepositions using soft mutations: am, ar, at, dan, dros, gan, heb, hyd, i, o, tan, trwy, wrth. b) Amongst other important words that cause contact mutations, we can mention: /?<2«"when"; rhy "too"; pa "which?"; dyma "here is"; dyna "there is"; neu "or" etc. c) Some sentence particles: fe, mi d) The definite article y with feminine nouns (except of those starting with 11- and rh-). e) After a complement marker yn (nouns and adjectives only, except of those starting with 11- and rh-). f) After numerals 2: dau (f.) and dwy (m.) and 1 un(f.) (except of those starting with 11-and rh-). g) Some possessive pronouns: ei "his", dy "your (sg)" h) Several common prefixes used in word formation also trigger the soft mutation: ex. af- "un-" rhesymol "reasonable"- afresymol "unreasonable" ia"there": y llyfr^ma "this book" and j> llyfr^na "that book". There is no need distinguishing between singulars and plurals: y llyfr^ma "this book"-y llyfrau ma "these books". Pronouns Personal pronouns: Singular Plural 1st i, fi, mi "i, me" ni "we, us" 2nd ti, di "you" chi "you" 3rd elo,felfo hi "he, him" "she, her" nhw "they, them" Notes: a) Welsh doesn't distinguish between subject and object forms of personal pronouns: Mae hi wedi chwaraey roVma o^r blaen. "She has already played this part before." Weles i hi yn y roVma llyned"! saw her in this part before." b) There is no such pronoun that would correspond to English it in the 3 sg. To some extent, English it, especially while talking about the weather or telling the time is replaced with Welsh hi "she": Mae hin bwrw glaw."It is raining" literally "she is raining". Mae hin tri o^r gloch.ult is three o'clock" literally "she is three o'clock". c) Welsh language distinguishes between a singular you- ti and a plural you-chi. They are used while making difference between singular and plural you, but also for formal and informal addressing, just like in French or Spanish. d) In the 1st singular: i is used after verbs: dw i"Iam ", weles i"I said" etc.fi after conjunctions and other miscellaneous words, after prepositions and as the object of an inflected verbs: panty??"why me?", gyda fi "with me", stopioddyr heddlu /T'the police stopped me". e) diis, used as a subject in future in conditional sentences: os gweli dife "if you see him..." or in the reinforced singular command form: aros difan hyn am eiliad "Wait here a moment!" In many parts of North Wales, an alternative chdi is common in spoken language: wela i chdi! "seeyou". f) In the third singular, e/fe is used in the South Wales, while o/fo in the north. For choosing which variant to use, look at the rule mentioned as point d) dealing with i/fi. Demonstrative pronouns: For concrete and non-abstract ideas, the demonstrative pronouns have different forms for number and (only in singular) for gender: masculine Feminine this hwn hon that hwnnw honno these y rhain y rhain those y rheiny y rheiny Examples: Beth dych chVn galw hwn yn Gymraeg ?"What do you call this in Welsh?" Mae^r rhain i chi. "These are for you." There is also a separate pair of singular demonstratives which are used to refer to general, non-tangible ideas: "this"- hyn "that" - hynny Mae hyn oil yn wastraff llwyr o amser "All this is a complete waste of time" There are a few idiomatic expressions which involve hyn or hynny: Examples: serch hynny "despite that" fan hyn "here" ar hyn o bryd "at the moment" erbyn hyn "by now" Interrogative pronouns Amongst the most common interrogative pronouns belong the following: pwy "who", beth "what",/?a Hfi"which one",pa rai "which ones". Pwy dych chi ?"who are you?" Beth vw> lliw^na? "what is that colour?" Numerals and quantifiers Cardinal Ordinal 0 sero/dim 1 un (causes SM) laf cynta(f) 2 dau (m) (causes SM) dwy (f) (causes SM) 2ail ail 3 tri (m) tair (f) 3ydd trydydd (m) trydedd (f) 4 pedwar (m) 4ydd pedwerydd (m) pedair (f) pedwaredd (f) 5 pum(p) 5ed pumed 6 chwe(ch) (causes AM) 6ed chweched 7 saith 7fed seithfed 8 wyth 8fed wythfed 9 naw 9fed nawfed 10 deg lOfed degfed 11 un ar ddeg un deg un lieg unfed ar ddeg 12 deuddeg un deg dau 12fed deuddegfed 13 tri ar ddeg un deg tri 13eg trydydd ar ddeg 14 pedwar ar ddeg un deg pedwar 14eg pedwerydd ar ddeg 15 pymtheg un deg pump 15fed pymthegfed 20 ugain dau ddeg 20fed ugeinfed 21 un ar hugain dau ddeg un 2 lain unfed ar hugain 22 dau ar hugain dau ddeg dau 22ain ail ar hugain 23 tri ar hugain dau ddeg tri 23ain trydydd ar hugain 30 deg ar hugain tri deg 30ain degfed ar hugain 40 deugain pedwar deg 40fed (rhif) pedwar deg deugainfed 50 hanner cant pum deg 50fed (rhif) pum deg hanner canfed 60 trigain chwe deg 60fed (rhif) chwe deg trigainfed 70 deg a thrigain saith deg 70fed (rhif) saith deg degfed a thrigain 80 pedwar ugain wyth deg 80fed (rhif) wyth deg pedwar ugainfed 90 deg a phedwar ugain naw deg 90fed (rhif) naw deg degfed a phedwar ugain 100 cant lOOfed canfed 101 cant ac un (rhif) cant ac un 102 cant a dau (rhif) cant a dau 120 cant ac ugain cant dau ddeg (rhif) cant dau ddeg 200 dau gant 200fed dau ganfed 300 tri chant 300fed tri chanfed 500 pum cant 500fed pum canfed 1,000 mil lOOOfed milfed 10,000 deng mil deng milfed 100,000 mwnt can mil can milfed 1 million miliwn miliyenfed In Welsh, from number eleven on, there are two valid counting systems- the original vigesimal system (based on number 20) and the newer decimal. Some of the vigesimal system based numbers are short and are commonly in use (perhaps more than their easier modern decimal counterparts). This is the case especially with the following: 12: "deuddeg" (vigesimal), „un deg dau" (decimal); 15 "pymtheg" (vigesimal) "un deg pump" (decimal); 18 "deunaw" (vigesimal), "un deg with" (decimal) and 20 "ugain" (vigesimal), "dauddeg" (decimal). The original, vigesimal system is especially used while telling time, years and counting money. In the chart presented below, when there are variants, the vigesimal system is mentioned in the first place and the decimal underneath. In the chart is also marked which numbers cause which mutations to the following noun. Notes for the Welsh numerals: a) Numbers 2-4 have different forms for masculine and feminine nouns, as mentioned in the chart in brackets after the numerals. b) Generally, with low numbers, a singular noun follows the numeral: dwy gath "two cats", pedwar drws "four doors". However, with higher numbers (exceptions might be while counting money, weights or measures), a plural noun follows preceded by a preposition o (which causes SM): deg o gathod "ten cats" (literary "ten of cats"), cant o ddrysiau "a hundred doors". c) Un- even though un "one" has the same form for both, masculine and feminine, it mutates with a soft mutation only the feminine nouns: un ceffyl (m.) "one horse" but un °gath (f.) "one cat". d) Dau, dwy both cause soft mutation to all following nouns and they are also mutated while used with the article y then the meaning shifts to "the two, both": dau °geffyl "two horses", dwy °gath "two cats"; y °ddwy 0 gath "both cats". e) Pump"five"is used only when there is no immediate noun following. If there is, the used form is pum: pum dyn "five men" but pump o ddynion "five men". The same applies for chwech"six" and chwe. f) Deg has got an alternative deng before units of time beginning with m-: deng munud"ten minutes", deng mis "ten months". The same rule applies for numerals: deng mil "ten thousand". g) Hanner cant literary "half of a hundred" is a commonly used alternative for pumdeg "fifty". h) In the vigesimal system, numbers 21-39 are all added onto 20: 33- tri ar °ddeg ar hugain "thirteen on twenty", 39 is pedwar ar °bymtheg ar hugain "nineteen on twenty". i) Ugain "twenty" adds an h- after ar in composite numerals: deuddeg ar hugain "thirty two". The two right hand-side columns of the above chart deal with the ordinal numbers. In daily language, the ordinal numbers above the 10th are rarely needed, except of telling dates. a) Cynta "the first" behaves like a common adjective and comes after the noun: y mis cynta "the first month". b) All other ordinals precede the noun. Ail "the second" mutates booth, masculine and feminine nouns: yr ail °lyfr (m.) "the second book", yr ail °gath (f.)"the second cat". All the other ordinals, with a masculine noun, donvt case any mutations (not even to themselves). However, the ordinals preceding a feminine noun mutate both, themselves and the noun: y pumed dosbarth (m.) "the fifth class" - y °drydedd °goeden (f.) "the third tree" Telling time For telling the time, generally, the native speakers prefer to use the vigesimal counting system. There is no equivalent to 24 hour clock in Welsh. Faint o> gloch ydy/yw /zz7"What s the time?"- themn English is in this case substituted by Welsh hi "she". Below, some most important examples are mentioned: 3:00 tri o^r gloch 3:05 pum tnunud wedi tri 3:15 chwarter wedi tri 3:20 ugain wedi tri 3:30 hanner wedi tri 3:40 ugain munud i °bedwar 3:45 chwarter i °bedwar 3:50 deny munud i °bedwar 4:00 pedwar o^r gloch To the question "what the time is", we usually use the phrase: Mae hVn°... :Mae hin °ddeng munud wedi wyth "if s ten nimutes past eight". Numbers with years The word for year is in Welsh blwyddyn (f.), pi. blynyddoedd, however there are also variants blynedd and blwydd used in certain circumstances. Blynedd is the form used after numbers. Blwydd is used specifically in the sense of how many years old. All of these variants are feminine, and as such use the appropriate feminine forms of numbers 2-4. Dwy °flynedd Two years Tair blynedd Three years Pedair blynedd Four years Pum "mlynedd Five years Chwe "mlynedd Six years Saith "mlynedd Seven years Wyth "mlydedd Eight years Naw "mlynedd Nine years Deng "mlynedd Ten years Blwydd usually appears with oed is phrases telling somebody's age: Mae^r °ferch yn °dair blwydd oed "The girl is three years old". Telling dates With dates, the ordinal vigesimal numbers are used. The preferred way used with telling dates is with the preposition o° "of. There are two usual variants for saying the fifth of November, y pumed o °Dachwedd or y pumed o °fis Tachwedd. Some common expressions of quantity faint? how much/many? sawl? how much/many? sawl un? how many? digon enough gormod too much/many rhagor more llawer a lot tipyn a bit Faint o °fara sy angen dros y Sul? "How much bread do we need over the weekend?" Gormod o °fraster yn °beryg Vr iechyd."Too much fat is bad for your health." The verb Verbal noun The verb stem is either suffixed to mark its function as a verb-noun (VN), or to express tense, mood or a person. It is the verbal noun that is the basic dictionary form and the closest equivalent in English are verbs ending with -ing(gerunds). However, the VN is grammatically a noun in every aspect and must stand in a sentence with other auxiliary-verb components (which themselves will be conjugated according to the person and tense). For this reason, VN can be preceded by an article:c<2«« da "good singing" - y canu gorau "the best singing". Another example of using a VN in a sentence might be: Mae^ch gyrru wedi gwella^n °ddiweddar. "your driving has improved lately." All VN are masculine in gender, except of gafael "to hold". We can also use certain prepositions with VN, like for example: am°, ar°, dan°, gan°, heb°, trwy°, wrth°: Eson nhw o amgylch y pentre dan °ganu. "They went around the village singing". The ending -io is very often an indicator of a VN. This is particularly used while making VN from nouns, especially of nouns of English origin: teithio "to travel" from taith "journey". Example of forming VNs from English loan-forms: stopio "to stop", parcio "to park", starvio "to starve". There are other common endings of VN, like for example: -u, -o, -io, -i, -a, -au: rhifo "to count", crafu "to scratch", berwi "to boil". If the VN expresses an action, it must stand in a sentence together with an auxiliary verb, which is either bod "to be" or gwneud "to do". When the auxiliary verb is bod, a linking element yn is used: Mae (AUX) Elwynyn canu (VN) heno. "Elwyn is singing tonight." From VN, we can derive the verb-stems in order to be able to conjugate the verbs in various tenses. Some verb-stems have quite a predictable form, while others are irregular: a) VNs ending in a vowel usually drop the vowel to make the verb-stem: talu"to pay": tal-; torn "to cut": torr- b) VNs ending with -io follow the same rule with the exception of leaving the -i-: teithio"to travel": teithi- c) VNs ending in -au chsnge this to -eu: dechrau"to begin": dechreu-mwynhau"to enjoy": mwynheu d) The majority of the VNs ending with a consonant donvt require any change: cadw"to keep": cadw- eistedd"to sit": eistedd- e) There are, however, a lot of common verbs with unpredictable stem, for example: cymryd"to take": cymer- gadael" to leave": gadaw-gwrando"to listen": gwrandaw-meddwV'to think": meddyli The tense system Generally, there are two ways of expressing a tense: periphrastic, which involves using another auxiliary verb together with the VN, and inflected, when the VN is converted into a verb-stem and an appropriate ending is added: Periphrastic: (present) Mae^r hen °ddynynllosgi sbwriel yn yr °ardd. "The old man is burning rubbish in the garden." Inflected: (preterite) Llosgodd yr hen °ddyn y sbwriel yn y °ardd."The old man burnt the rubbish in the garden." Welsh tense system as compared to English Present mae e^n prynu he buys/he is buying Imperfect oedde^n prynu he was buying Perfect mae e wedi prynu he has bought Pluperfect oedde wedi prynu he had bought Preterite naeth e °brynu ddaru o °brynu °brynnod e he bought Future °brynnith e bydde^n prynu neith e °brynu he will buy Future perfect bydde wedi prynu he will have bought Conditional basaife^n prynu prynaife he would buy Conditional perfect basaife wedi prynu he would have bought As we can see from the chart above, there are different ways of expression preterite, future and conditional. One way is to use a periphrastic form and the other is to inflect the verb itself, as I have previously mentioned. Some examples of the inflected form in preterite tense: gweld "to see" -gweles i "Isaw ", talu "to pay" - °dallod e °ddim "he didn t pay". These forms are made by adding personal suffixes to a verb-stem. Suffixes for the inflected forms: singular plural 1st -es (i) 1st -on (ni) 2nd -est (ti) 2nd -och (chi) 3rd -odd (e/hi) 3rd on (nhw) In spoken Welsh, affirmative markers mi° or fe° are very common. Their function is to indicate that a statement follows, rather than a question or a negative sentence. It is in all cases optional: (Fe) glywes Vr newyddion ar y radio bore^ma"! heard the news on the radio this morning". (Mi) agora Vr drws i ti. 'Til open the door for you." BOD: "to be" The verb to be is absolutely pivotal in the Welsh language. This is because the verb bod stands not only as a verb on itself, but also as an auxiliary verb in most periphrastic phrases. Bod can be taken as any regular verb except of some special characteristics. Some of the most important are: a) is has inflected forms also for present and imperfect (as well as for future and conditional like other verbs) b) there are different forms for affirmative statements, questions and negatives in present and to some extend in imperfect tenses c) the third person singular appears in distinctive forms to mark three different meanings d) it has two verb stems: bydd- and bu- There are three basic meanings of the verb bod: identification, existence and description. Identification sentences Express who or what a subject is: Pwy ydy hwnna?"Who is that?" Beth sy^n cropian ar dy goes? "What is crawling up your leg?" Existential sentences These correspond with English there is/are. Mae gormod o bobolfan hyn. "there are too many people here." Descriptive sentences Include all uses of bod not mentioned further. This includes all uses of bod as an auxiliary and all the cases where the element following bod is an adjective or adverb. Distinctions in 3rd person singular present The verb bod takes different forms for different fields of meaning in the 3 pers. sing, depending whether the sentence is an affirmative statement (AFF), question (INT) or negatives (NEG): AFF INT NEG identification ...ydy... ...ydy...? Dim...ydy... existential Mae... Oes...? Does dim... descriptive Mae... (...sy...) Ydy...? Dydy... °ddim Example sentences: AFF ident: Ci Stoned ydy hwnna. "Thaf s Sioned's shirt." INT ident: Ci stoned ydy hwnna ? "Is that Sioned's dog?" NEG ident: Dim ci Stoned ydy hwnna. "That isn't Sioneds dog." AFF exist: INT exist: NEG exist: Mae llaeth yn yr oergell. Oes llaeth yn yr oergell? Does dim llaeth yn yr oergell. "There is milk in the fridge." "Is there milk in the fridge?" "There is no milk in the fridge." AFF descr: Mae^r cwrw^man°gryf. "This beer is strong." INT descr: Ydy^r cwrw^man°gryf? "Is this beer strong?" NEG descr: Dydy^r cwrw^ma °ddim yn °gryf. "This beer is not strong." Simplified overview of inflected forms of bod: present imperfect preterite Sing. 1st dw i roeddwn i bues i 2nd (r)wytti roeddet ti buest ti 3rd mae e/hi roedd e/hi buodd e/hi PI. 1st dyn ni roedden ni buon ni 2nd dych chi roeddech chi buoch chi 3rd tnaen nhw roedden nhw buon nhw future conditional Sing. 1st byddaif) i byddwn/baswn i 2nd byddi di byddwn/baswn ti 3rd bydd e/hi byddwn/baswn e/hi PI. 1st byddwn ni byddwn/baswn ni 2nd byddwch chi byddwn/baswn chi 3rd byddan nhw byddwn/baswn nhw Present tense of bod Here all the forms are presented depending on whether the speaker is making a statement, question or a negative sentence. There are also quite significant differences between the North dialects and the South dialects: NORTH: AFF INT NEG Sing. 1st dw i ydw i? (dy)dw i ddim 2nd ti wyt ti? dwyt ti ddim 3rd mae o/hi ydy o/hi? dydy o/hi ddim PI. 1st dan ni ydan ni? (dy)dan ni ddim 2nd dach chi (y)dach chi? (dy)dach chi ddim 3rd tnaen nhw ydyn nhw? dydyn nhw ddim SOUTH: AFF INT NEG Sing. 1st rw i, w i ydw i? (d)w i dditn 2nd ti wyt ti? ti dditn 3rd mae e/hi (mae fe) ydy/yw e/hi? dyw e/hi dditn PI. 1st (yn) ni yn ni? yn ni dditn 2nd ych chi ych chi? (ych) chi dditn 3rd tnaen nhw yn nhw? yn nhw dditn Welsh doesn't really have an equivalent to yes and no while answering a question. The tense and the person must be always kept the same at was in the questions on which we give an answer. The forms are also different according to the dialect: North South Sing. 1st (y) (n)dw ydw/odw 2nd wyt wyt 3rd (y) (n) dy ydy/ody PI. 1st (y) (n) dan ydyn/odyn 2nd (y) (n) dach ydych/odych 3rd (y) (n) dyn ydyn/odyn Example sentences: Tin dwad Vr cyfarfod heno?Ndw. (N) "Are you coming to the meeting tonight? Yes." Wyt tVn dwad o Sbain?Ydw. (S) "Are you from Spain? Yes." To answer no- nag (usually written as nac),we add the negation before the "yes" answer. Sometimes nais used instead of nag: nag ydw "no, I'm not", nag wyt "no, you are not" and so on. It is also important to mention, that the "normalized" AFF conjugations of the verb bod come with prefixed ry. Even though they appear in most textbooks, they are never used by native speakers. Examples would be: dw i — rydw i "I am", ydyn ni — rydyn m"we are" and so on. Other tenses of bod The other tenses of bod will be mentioned in a shorter version: Imperfect AFF INT NEG Sing. 1st o^n i o'n i? o^n i dditn 2nd o^tti o'tti? o^tti dditn 3rd oedd e/hi oedd e/hi? oedd e/hi dditn PI. 1st 0*11 ftj o'n ni? o^n ni dditn 2nd 0V/1 chi o'ch chi? o^ch chi dditn 3rd o^n nhw o'n nhw? o^n nhw dditn Future AFF NEG INT Sing. 1st Byddai Fyddaif) i dditn Fydda(f) i? 2nd Byddi di Fyddi di dditn Fyddi di? 3rd Bydd o/hi Fydd o/hi dditn Fydd o/hi? PI. 1st Byddwn ni Fyddwn ni dditn Fyddwn ni? 2nd Byddwch chi Fyddwch chi dditn Fyddwch chi? 3rd Byddan nhw Fyddan nhw dditn Fyddan nhw? Conditional AFF NEG INT Sing. 1st byddwn i fyddwn i dditn fyddwn i? 2nd bydet ti fydet ti dditn fydet di? 3rd byddaife/hi fyddaife/hi dditn fyddaife/hi? PI. 1st bydden ni fydden ni dditn fydden ni? 2nd byddech chi fyddech chi dditn fyddech chi? 3rd bydden nhw fydden nhw dditn fydden nhw? Periphrastic tenses The vast majority of auxiliary based sentences in formed with the aid of the verb bod. Sometimes gwneud "to do" is used, especially for preterite and future, with darru as an alternative in North Welsh dialects. Present tense: For expressing a periphrastic present tense, the present tense of bod is used together with yn and VN: Dach chVn darllen y papur newydd^na? "Are you reading that paper?" Dw I °ddim yn siarad Cymraeg yn rhugl. "I don't speak Welsh fluently." Note that this form of tense can express English present simple and continuous, and as such can also have a future meaning: Maen nhw^n mynd I Tenerife am °ddeufis. "They are going to Tenerife in two months." Perfect tense: The perfect tense is created exactly like the present tense, only wedi is placed before the main verb of the sentence: Compare: Mae^n cymydog yn gwerthu ei °dy. "Our neighbour is selling his house." Mae^n cymydog wedi gwerthu ei ° blaen "before" lan y grisiau "upstairs" ffordd^na "that way" ofnadwy o °ddrud "awfully expensive" Prepositions Even though some prepositions might have a consistent translation into English- for example /ieZ> °"without", most of them can change their English equivalents according to the context and their idiomatic usage. There are currently about twenty-five commonly used prepositions. Most of them cause mutations to the following words and undergo specific rules of infliction with names, nouns and pronouns. The commonly used prepositions are: a (AM), am°, ar°, at°, cyn, (o) dan°, dros°, efo, gan°, ger, gyda (AM), heb°, hyd°, i°, mewn, o°, oddiar°, rhag, rhwng, tan°, trwy°, tua (AM), wrth°,yn (NM). As it is seen from the list above, most prepositions cause a soft mutation to the following word: am°ddim "for nothing", dan°ofal "under care", i° Fangor "to Bangor", ar°fwrdd "on the table"... When used with pronouns, a linking syllable is inserted in between the preposition and the pronoun. The syllable is specific to each preposition, and a pattern similar to the conjugation of verbs appear. However, there are prepositions which are non-inflecting. Compare the non-inflecting prepositions gyda "with" with the inflecting ar "on". with name: gyda Sian ar Sian with noun: gyda^r ferch ary°ferch with pronoun: gyda hi ami hi Example of an inflected preposition ar "on": singular plural 1st arna i arnon ni 2nd arna ti arnoch chi 3rd arnofo/fe ami hi arnyn nhw Naturally, prepositions are very much used in idiomatic language. Examples with the preposition ar "on": Faint dy arna i i chi? "How much do I owe you?" Rhowch °gynnig arni!"Gi\e it a try!" Conjunctions: There are four coordinating conjunctions that can be used to connect clauses or single words: a(c) "and, ond "but", neu° "or" and na(c) "nor". There are of course many more conjunctions conveying a whole variety of meanings and determining different status between the clauses. Examples might be: achos "because", ar 61 "after", cyn "before", ers "since", wedi "after", wrth "while" and others. Materials: MacAulay Donald: The Celtic Languages, The WelshLanguage written by Alan R. Thomas, Cambridge University Press, 1992. Gareth King: Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar. London, 2003 Late Cornish Cornish language is most closely related to Breton. It was spoken by the Celtic inhabitants of southwest England who remained after their neighbours migrated to Brittany in the sixth and seventh centuries, when the Anglo-Saxons spread over south England and cut the Cornish people from their Welsh neighbours (who both spoke dialects of British). The Anglo-Saxon migration also caused some of the Cornish communities to move to Armorica, which was then by the Celtic new inhabitants, named as Bretagne. (Transl ad. Václav Blažek, Keltské Jazyky and taken from Fortson, Indo-European Linguistics, 2010, p. 334) Conventionally, there are three historical periods ascribed to the Cornish language® Old Cornish period includes thefirst texts written in Cornish, which were amost without exception religious glosses(anotations) from the 9thcent. In the year 1100,the longest Cornish text of this period was written- Vocabularium Cornicum „ Cornish Vocabulary". In the earlier medieval era, Cornish was also spoken in Devon and western part sof Somerset. However, already in the 10th century, it was completely confined to the present area of Cornwall. Middle Cornish describes the Cornish langure between the 14th and lóthcentury. In the earlier medieval era, Cornish was also spoken in Devon and western part sof Somerset. However, already in the 10th century, it was completely confined to the present area of Cornwall. From this period, there are about 10 000 preserved lines, mostly translated from English, from so called miracle plays- religious theatre pieces. Towards the end this period, at the beginning of the 17th century, the estimated number of Cornish speakers was not higher than 20 000. The numbers continued to drop, until, about a century later, only about 5000 speakers still used Cornish as their native tongue. Late Cornish is the last century of Cornish existence as the first lanaguge and is dated from the end of the 17th century until the death of the last native speakerDolly Pentraeth of Mousehole inl777. Today, revival of the Cornish languages is supported- and the product of these efforts is calledNeo-Cornish (Kernewek) or also modern Cornish. In the last few decades, Cornish has been once again actively used by a few communities in the region as their second language. In this assignment, a late Cornish version will be dealt with, for it is the real "modern" form of this Brythonic language, even though it is no longer spoken. Late Cornish speakers called their language Curnoack [karnuak]: Curnow [karno] Cornwall or Cornish person linked with a suffix (adjectival marker) - [ak] usually used to denote languages. As all modern Celtic languages, the Cornish was, especially in its late period heavily influenced by English. Amongst the most significant features belong: the overuse of the definite article (the definite article is used more times in one clase), the use of the English plural marker (-s): poscaders "fishermen", the usage of uninflected preposition at the end of clauses, the preferred use of [gwe:r] "green" at the expense of [gla:z]"grue- blue and green" which has been traditionally used in Celtic languages to describe plants, some words of English origin used side by side with their more traditional equivalents. There are no clearly discernable dialectical variations, since the area where late Cornish was spoken was quite limited and most surviving information comes from West Penwith peninsula. There is a dialectal alternation, however, between medial -dj- in western Cornwall as opposed to medial -z- in mid-Cornwall. It is also possible, that the pre-occlusion of -n and -m to -dn and -dm represents a dialectal variation rather then a diachronic difference. Cornish alphabet and pronunciation Cornish alphabet A a B b en ch D d E e F f H h s be cia ■:le e ev S£ 1-?, 1 i Jj K k LI M m N n 0 o Pp i je ka el em ei pe R r S s Tt U u V V W w Yy er te j ve ■.ve ye Pronunciation {Common CornisrWKernewek Kemmyn) Vowels a e eu L 0 oe Oil U y [mc] [e c:] [oc] ] M >:] [I~e] Consonants b ch d dh f gh h hw [b] [tf] a :o Ls] [V M J k 1 111 ii ag P i" :ki ::" [m] [ni [p] W "si t th V \v y ;] :»] >■: Li] Taken from: https://www.omniglot.com/writing/cornish.htm The Common Cornish orthography version (Kernewek Kemmyn) was devised by Dr Ken George and was adopted by the Cornish Language Board in the 1980vs. Even though this system found a lot of opposition, it is currently the most popular version in use. The greatest inconsistency throughout the orthographies is the different way the vowel [a] is represented. Across all possibilities, it might be "e", "eu", "u", "uy", "o", or "ey ", so for example the word [mar] "big" can appear as "meur", "mur", "mer" or "meyr". As for consonants, the symbol 3 may in some cases refer to [5]. All vowels in late Cornish, except of [a], could be long or short. There are a few diphthongs, four with w: iw, ew, aw, ow and posibly free with j: aj, oj and uj- Mutations As it is the case in all other Celtic languages, Cornish is characterised by mutations of initial consonants in various word classes. There are complex rules taking into account many grammatical considerations. In late Cornish, there are three separate groups of mutations: lenition, spirantisation and provection. Lenition or soft mutation, as it is preferred to be sometimes called (especially in Welsh) involves voicing plosives and frictionalisation of the voiced stops. Spirantisation is manifested by frictionalisation of voiceless plosives and provection devoices the voiced plosives. Below, see a chart of initial consonant mutations: lenition spirantisation provection k-g k-h g-k t-d t-e d-t p-b p-f b -p g-0 d-d b-v m — v gw -w Lenition is the most common of all applied mutations and there are a several triggers putting its rules into practise. The lenition is especially linked to the usage of feminine nouns- it is for example applied to the first letter in the feminine noun if it is preceded by a definite article an or after some possessive determiners- his, your: an drea [an dre] "the town" devran [divran] "breasts" pednglin [pedn'glim] >pedndowlin [pedndowlin] "knees" Howeve, many duals were lost as compared to Middle Cornish, since the duals forms were replaced with suffixed plurals: lagaz [lagas] "eye" >lagagow [lagad3o] "eyes" gar [gar] "leg" >garro [garo] "legs" The Article Like most Celtic languages, Cornish lacks indefinite article. The definite article an [an]/[an] is soften reduced before consonants to a [a]: a venen [a venan] "the woman"; an deez [an di:z] "the men" Gender There are two grammatical genders for nouns: masculine and feminine. The fact whether the noun is masculine or feminine decides upon its possible mutation. Generally, in masculine nouns, there are no mutations (there are exceptions, however, like for example plurals referring to condition or occupation of men that triggers lenition after the definite article: [klevjan] "sick people" >an glevyan [an glevjan] "the sick" (pi.)). A noun of a feminine gender may cause a mutation to a following adjective or may undergo a lenition while preceded by the definite article. However, it is important to note, that the plural form of feminine nouns are not lenited, nor do they cause a lenition to the following adjective. chy [tfaj] "house" (m.) > [an tfaj bian] "the small house" (no mutation) benen [benan] "woman" (f.) > [an venan vian] "the small woman" (mutation of the noun as well as of the adjective) [an benenas bian] "the small women" (f. pi.) (no mutation) Adjectives The Adjectives in Cornish almost always follow the noun they describe and remain invariable, except for their comparative and superlative forms. They undergo a lenition while following a singular feminine noun. bennen younk [benan jonk] "a young woman" bennen vaaz [benan va:z] "a good woman" den kóth [de:n ko:9] "an old man" Amongst the few exceptions of adjectives that come before nouns belong the adjective "ugly" hagar [hagar] and a small number of English origin adjectives: hagar musi [hagar vozi] "ugly girls" (mutation of the noun after adjective) hagar auall [hagar awal] "storm" LIT "ugly wind" hujeth tra [hiwd3a tra] "a huge thing" hugez meneth euhall [hiwd3a menaó iwal] "an exceedingly high mountain" Comparatives and superlatives Comparative and superlative forms are both made by adding a suffix -a[-a] and can be from each another distinguished only by the definite article, which comes with the superlative: Adjective Comparative Superlative [bro:z] "big" [bro:sa] "bigger" [an brosa] "the biggest" The suffix -a[-a]unvoices the final consonant or the consonant clusters it is attached to: hagar [hagar] "ugly" > {an) hackra [(an) hakra] "uglier/the ugliest" teag [te:g] "beautiful" > {an) tecka [(an) teka] "more beautiful/the most beautiful". Changing adjectives to their comparative and superlative forms may also cause lengthening of sonants and doubling -n- to -nn- which led to a further, regular change to -dn-, -tn: kear [ke:r] "dear" >kerra [kera] "more precious" bean [bian] "small" > (an) behathna [(an) bihatna] "smaller/the smallest" There are a few irregular comparative and superlative forms from which, there are a few most commonly used chosen in the table below: Adjective Comparative Superlative [lias]"many" mouy [muj] "more" an moya[an muja] "the most" [da:] "good" gwe/[gwel] "better" an gwella[an gwela] "the best" [dro:g] "bad" gwaeth[gwe:Q]/ lacka[lakz] "worse" an gwela[an gwe0a]/[an laka] "the worst" [nebas] "few, little" Ze[le:] less an leha[an lea] "the least" [ogas] "near" nez[ne:z] "nearer" an nessa [an nesa] "the nearest" Superlatives forms are usually placed before the noun they describe, even though, there are some exceptions to this rule. Compare: an brossa mine [an brosa majn] "the biggest stones" an gwella ternuan [an gwela ternuan] "the best side" with an cor gwella [an kor gwela] "the best beer" an Dew euhella [an diw iwela] "the highest God" When using comparisons in sentences, vel [vel] "than" is used: kerra vel au'r [kera vel owr] "more precious than gold" To express equativity in sentences, a phrase (ma)gd... ve/"as ... as" is applied: ky gtier vel gtielz [ga gwe:r vel an gwelz] "as green as grass" However, while followed by a verbal form, the phrase changes to (ma)g9... tor "as ... as": magga pel ter el eve heathes [maga pel tar el e:v hedas] "as far as he can reach" Demonstrative particles There are two demonstrative particles: ma "this" and na "that". Just like in Welsh, these are placed immediately after a noun with a definite article: a tacklow ma [a taklo ma] "these things" an powna [an pow na] "that district" However, when the noun is followed by one or more adjectives, the demonstrative particle comes after the last adjective: an gwas bras sigirna [an gwa:z bro:z zigar na] "that big lazy fellow" Colours Colours represent a fastcinating topic in linguistics. The basic colours if Celtic origin that were used in Late Cornish were: due [diw] "black", gwidden [gwidn] "white", loos [lu:z] "grey", galze [gla:z] "all hues of blue and green together with some hues of grey", reeth [ri:Q] "red" and mellon [melan] "yellow". Gtier [gwe:r] "green" was a loan word from Latin. Traditionally, in Cornish, as well as Welsh, the galze [gla:z] was used to refer to the verdancy of plants, and this word was used to describe all hues of blues and greens together with some hues of grey. However, in Late Cornish, it seems that gtier [gwe:r] "green" replaced galze [gla:z] in order to describe the greenery of plants and grass and even bloti "blue" was introduced into the equation, meaning that the original galze [gla:z] most probably would not be any longer used for "blue". There were also other colours mentioned in Late Cornish, but they were compound words, like for example kigliti [kigliw] "pink" LIT "meat colour" and ruthvelyn [riSvelan] "orange" LIT "red yellow". Personal pronouns In Cornish personal pronouns, gender is marked only in the 3rd person singular. The 2nd person plural has also become, probably in Late Cornish, a formal way of addressin "you" in a singular meaning- very much like in Welsh (ti/chi "you" informal/ "you" formal). Independent personal pronouns: singular plural 1st [mi] "I, me" [naj] "we, us" 2nd [tji] "you" [waj] "you" 3rd (m.) [e:(v)] "he, him" (f.) [haj] "she, her" [(an')d3aj ~ aj] "they, them" The only suffixed personal pronoun which takes upon itself a different form is vi "I, me" in Late Cornish. All the others have the identical forms. Possessive determiners singular plural 1st [a]/[ma]+ spirantization "my" [(a)gan] "our" 2nd [öa] + lenition "your" [(a)gas]"your" 3rd (m.) [i] + lenition "his" (f.) [i] + spirantization "her" [(a)ga] + spirantization "their" Usually, possessive determiners are found as object pronouns preceding verbs: e rat ha rowlia [e ra öa rowlja] "he will rule you" (sg.) LIT "... your ruling". me vedn e thone [mi vedn i öo:n] "I will carry it" LIT "...its carrying" Just like in Welsh, the possessive determiners preceding the nouns they refer to, were with time reinforced by a corresponding post=positioned personal pronouns (in case of the 1st sg, the form of independent personal pronoun vi is used rather than mi): a bredyr vi [a bredar vi] "my brothers" gun tavaz ny [gan tavas naj] "our language" This dual marking of possessive adjectives made the gradual replacement of the possessive determiner by the personal pronoun possible. Very similar phenomenon happened in spoken Welsh in the 20th century: wreag vee [gre:g vi] "my wife" kar ve [ka:r vi] "my friend" dreav nye [tre:v naj] "our village" lagagow an gie [lagad^o an'd^aj] "their eyes" Numerals Late Cornish counting system shows both, vigesimal and decimal based characteristics. There are numbers 10-20 repeated 30-39, 50-59, 70-79 and 90-99. Below is the chart of Late Cornish numerals, cardinal and ordinal: Cardinal Ordinal 0 mann, zero 1 o«e«[anan]; idden/ydn[idn](before noun) kensa[kenz3] 2 deaw [dew](m.); dew[diw](f.) nessa [nesa] 3 try [traj](m.); tayr [tajr](f.) tridga [trid33] 4 pager [pad3ar](m.); pider [pedar] (f.) padgurra [pad3ora] 5 pemp[pemp] pempas [pempas] 6 hwea [we:] wheffas [wefas] 7 zz7/z[zaj9] sithas [zajQas] 8 eath[e:Q] eathas [eQas] 9 naw[naw] nawas [nawas] 10 deag[de,:g] deagvas[de,gv3s] 11 ednack [ednak] ydn'hakvas [ednegvas] 12 dowthackldowdsk] dowthegvas[dowde,g\3s] 13 tarthack [tarQak] 14 puzwarthack [pad3war5ak] 15 punthack [panQak] 16 whettak [wetak] 17 zitack [zajtak] 18 itack [ajtak] 19 nownjack [nownu^ak] 20 iggans [igans] iganzvath [iganzvas] 21 onen warn iggans [anan war n igans] 22 deaw warn iggans [dew war n igans] 30 deg warn iggans [de:g war n igans] 40 duganz [dugans] 50 hanter kanz [hantar kanz] deg ha duganz [de:g ha dugans] 60 tri uganz [tri igans] 70 deg ha tri uganz [de:g ha tri igans] 80 pager egance [pad3ar igans] 90 padzhar hanz ha deg [pad3ar igans ha de:g] 100 kanz [kanz] 1000 meel[mi:l] There more examples of the order the individual numbers are ordered within compound numerals (similar tendencies are found in spoken Welsh): deg ha duganz [de:g ha dugans] "50" douthak ha dogans [dowSak ha dugans] "52" try egence a pemp [traj igans ha pemp] "65" Noun follows the number. When the numeral is compound, the noun follows the first element: whe sithon warn egans [we: zajQan war n igans] "26 weeks" Generally, when units are added to decimals, conjuction ha "and" is used. However, numbers 21-39 use the preposition warn [war]"on" instead: dewghans ha try [dugans ha traj] "43" onen warn iggans [anan war n igans] "21" deaw warn iggans [dew war n igans] "22" Number "one" has two forms. The form onen [anan] is independent, whereas the form idden/ydn[idn] is ised before noun and causes lenition to feminine nouns: ow onyn perfect [a anan perfakt] "my perfect one" ydn mark [idn mar] "one horse" ydn dra [idn dra] "one thing" In Late Cornish, numerals don't tend to cause mutations as it is usual in Welsh, for example. The exception is the number "2", whose both- masculine and feminine forms cause lenition and are themselves lenited by the definite article. an dheaii [an Sew] "the two" Ordinal numbers usually precede nouns: an kensa journa [an kenza d3urna] "the first day" an nisau Methan [an nesa bleöan] "the next year" Verbs and verbal structures The regular verbs of Late Cornish period have kept a reduced conjugation system, and only a small number of auxiliary verbs have been preserved in all their conjugations. These few auxiliary verbs are: bo:z "being", gwi:l "doing, making", godds "knowing", medtid "willing" and galfos "being able". The scarcity of the conjugated forms may be connected with the common use of the SVO construction pattern of sentences in Late Cornish which meant that the commonest conjugated form was the 3sg. There are six tenses and moods in Late Cornish: present, present subjunctive, past, preterite, future and conditional. The punctual present and past originally existed only in the case of the verb bo:z "being", while all other verbs only had the habitual present form (which also served for future) and habitual past (which also served as conditional). The original punctual present and past conjugations of bo:z "being" have developed to express the habitual present and past in Late Cornish. So for example: therama suppoga "I suppose" LIT "I am supposing" therama pederee "I think" LIT "I am thinking" thera ni giielez "We see" LIT "we are seeing" In some other verbs, we can also see the lack of distinction between the punctual and habitual past and present tenses. theram cara whye e^n colan "I love you (pi.) in the heart" LIT "I am loving you..." Although in Late Cornish, the conjugation of verbs was broadly analytic, forms we may call synthetic also existed. There were syntetic variants for all singular masculine persons and also for the 3 PI. The 3 PI syntetic variants seem to be older in usage. The syntetic form of the 2pl. only survived into the 17th century in the case of the present tense and the imperative. analytic syntetic lsg. (locat.) [era vi] [erama] "I am" 3sg. (locat.) [ma e] [mava] "he is" lsg. (desc.) [o vi] [oma] "I am" 2sg. (desc.) [otji] [osta] "you (sg.) are" 3sgm. (desc.) [ew e] [ewa] "he is" 3sg. (desc.) [o:a] [ova] "he was" lsg. (cond.) [mend33 vi] [mend3ama] "I would" 3sg. (cond.) [gak^a e] [gald3ava] "he could" 3pl. pres. (locat.) [man'd33j] [monz] "they are" 3pl. pres. (desc.) [en'd33j] [enz] "they are" 3pl. pres. (subj.) [bon'd33J] [bonz] "they are" 3pl. fut. and pres. [gran'd33j] [granz] "they do" 3pl. pret. [grigan^aj] [grigan(s)] "they did" Verb bos[bo:z] "being" The present and past forms of the irregular verb bos[bo:z] differ in positive and negative statements, as well as in questions: Initial positive statement: [0 era vi/ 0 o vi]"I am" Dependent positive statement: [... era vi/... o vi] ".. .1 am" Positive question: [era vi? / o vi?]"am I?" Negative statement: [nag era vi / nag o vi] "I am not" Negative question: [nag er bos[bo:z] "being" vi? / nag o vi?]"am I not?" As we can see fron the sentences above, positive statements are preceded by the particle eth [0]. Dependent positive statements follow a phrase and negative statements and questions are preceded by the negative particle nag [nag]. In positive questions, there used to be an interrogative particle a at the beginning of the sentence, but it ceased to be used in the Late Cornish period. There are descriptive and locative forms in the past and present tenses. The locative forms are used while giving a location of the subject: thera viybma [9 era vi: abma] "I am here" Future of bos[bo:z] "being" singular plural 1st [beda vi ~ bedama] [beda naj] 2nd [beda t(i ~ besta] [beda waj] 3rd masculine [be:5 e ~ beda] [bedan d3aj] ~ bedans] 3rd feminine [be: 5 haj] Preterite of bos[bo:z] "being" singular plural 1st [bi vi ~ bima] [bi najl 2nd [bi t(i ~ bista] [bi wajl 3rd masculine [bi e ~ biva] [bind3aj ~ bonz] 3rd feminine [bi haj] The construction of possession based on the 3 sg. of [bo:z] should be translated as "having" rather than "being": mee a vee owne [mi a vi: own] "I was frightened" LIT "I had fright" termen arall why veth moye [terman aral waj we:5 muj] "another time you will have more" Verb [gwi:l] "doing, making" The conjugated forms of the verb [gwi:l] are used only as auxiliary verbs linked to other verb-nouns: t e ra guile whele [tTi ra gwi:l wel] "you will do work" future and present singular plural 1st [gra vi ~ grama] [gra najl 2nd [gra tfl ~ grasta] [gra waj ~ greo] 3rd masculine [gra e ~ grava] [gran'd3aj ~ granz] 3rd feminine [gra haj] preterite singular plural 1st [griga vi ~ grigama] [griga najl 2nd [griga tfi ~ grista] [griga wajl 3rd masculine [grig e ~ grigava / gra:z] [grigan'd3aj ~ grigan(s)] 3rd feminine [grig haj] conditional and past habitual singular plural 1st [gresa vi ~ gresama] [gresa najl 2nd [gresa t(i ~ gresta] [gresa waj] 3rd masculine [gresa e ~ gresava] [gresan'd3aj ~ gresan(s)] 3rd feminine [gresa haj] Verb gallus [galas] "being able to" The verb gallus "being able to" also fulfils the role of an auxiliary verb. present (with possible ac ditional future meaning) singular plural 1st [gela vi ~ gelama] [gela najl 2nd [gela t(i ~ gelasta] [gela wajl 3rd masculine [gel e ~ gelava] [gelan'd3aj ~ gelans] 3rd feminine [gel haj] conditional and past habitual singular plural 1st [galena vi ~ gald3ama] [gora najl 2nd [gald3a t|I ~ gald3asta] [gora wajl 3rd masculine [gald3a e ~ gald3ava] [goran'd3aj] 3rd feminine [gald33 haj] Example sentences: gy el e glowas [an'd3aj el i glowas] "they can hear him" (LIT "... his hearing") elo why clapier Kernuack? [el a waj klapja karnuak] "Can you speak Cornish?" Negation Na/nag is a negative particle in Late Cornish negative sentences and causes a lenition of the first letter in the following verb. The form nag is used before a vowel except for the case when because of the lenition g is dropped. na ges travith [na e:z tra ve:9] "there is nothing" nag 6 an vartshants [nag o: an vartjants] "the merchants were not" na vedn an Arleth [na vedn an arlaS] "the Lord will not" na olguma e clappia [na ak^ama i glapya] "I could not speak it" Questioning Originally, an interrogative particle in positive questions was a, however, this elided before the Late Cornish period, leaving behind it, as a trace, the lenition of the following verb: yti an wz na gyz hor? [ew an vo:z na gaz ho:r] "is that girl your sister?" ez kez? [e:z ke:z] "is there cheese?" elo why clapier kernuack? [eta waj klapja karnuak?] "Can you speak Cornish?" To indicate a negative questions, the negative particle Na/nag is used: nag ez? [na:g e:z] "Is there not?" The difference between a negative questions and statement is therefore just in the tone. Answering Just like in other modern Celtic lanaguges, there is not a single word expressing yes/no. The verb or the auxiliary verb is used instead to indicate positive or negative respond. However, the Late Cornish varients eea [ia] "yes" and na [na] "no" were used in specific cases and donvt seem to be loanwords from English. Past participle Past participle is marked by adding -as to the verb base. Below, there are a few examples of past participles together with the matching verb-nouns. verb-noun verb base past participle kelly [keli] [kol-] Mies [kelas] "lost" ladha [lada] lethez [ledas] "killed" [gan-] gennez [genas] "born" There are some commonly used irregular past participles: verb-noun past participle [do:z] "coming" devethez [davedas] "came, has come" [mo:z] "going" gellez [gelas] "went, has gone" [gwi:l] "doing" gwreaze [gre:z] "did, has done" Past participle was in Late Cornish used principally to convey the perfect tense, passives together with the 3rd of the preterite tense of the verb to be: me a hunnen ve gennez... en Collan [me a hanan vi: genas ... en kolan] "I myself was born in Collan" Order of the elements in a sentence In Neo-Cetic languages, the VSO (verb - subject - object) order of the elements within a sentence is often stressed as one of the most notable characteristics. In Late Cornish, the above mentioned order of elements is found only in the present and past conjugations of the verb bo:z "being", and the most natural component order within a sentence is SVO (subject -verb - object). In positive statements, the present and past conjugations of bo:z "being" mostly prefer a verb-fronted order. In all other cases, a subject-fronted construction is used: me ra bose [mi ra bo:z] "I will be" Deew a ore [diw a o:r] "God knows" ni venja pea [naj vemlja pea] "we would pay" However, if the sentence is a question or a negative, it keeps its VSO structure. Some auxiliaries To express "can, be able to", the verb [galas] "can" is used: gy el e glowas [an'd3aj el i glowas] "they can hear him" mi or mos [mi o:r mo:z] "I can go" To express "should, ought to", the 3rd sg. of the verb [koda] "falling" was used: me a goth... gorthya Dew [mi a go:5 gorja diw] "I should worship God" Prepositions As in other Celtic languages, in Cornish language, prepositions are inflected. Some prepositions are regularly inflected (like for example urt "at, by"; thurt "from" or en "in"), while others are less regular (like for example genz "with"; war "on" or a "of). For example: [genama] "with me" < [genz] "with" [3a3a] "to him" < [3a] "to" [raga waj] "for you" < [rag] "for" Below is an example of the inflicted form of the preposition [5a] "to" singular plural 1st [5a vi ~ 5ema] [5a naj ~ San] 2nd [5a t(i ~ Siz] [5a wa j ~ Sao] 3rd masculine [5a e ~ 5a5a] [5a n'cljaj ~ Sa5a(ns)] 3rd feminine [5a haj ~ 5a5i] Materials: Iwan Wmffre: Late Cornish. Miinchen. 1998 MacAulay Donald: The Celtic Languages, The Cornish Language written by Alan R. Thomas, Cambridge University Press, 1992. The Gaelic languages Irish Language History of Irish The proper name of Ireland is Eriu (W. Iwerydd). The oldest documented words of goidelic origin are found in Ptolemy's Geography (around 150 AD), where in the description of Ireland, he mentioned more than 30 place and tribal names. Proto-Goidelic This language is considered a prehistoric ancestor of Irish, and was spoken in Ireland at least at the beginning of the Christian era, if not earlier. Primitive Irish (Ogam Irish) The earliest preserved Irish is found in about 300 stone inscriptions written in Ogam (Ogham) script. The origin of the Ogam script is unknown and most of the inscriptions originate in southern Ireland and date back between the fourth and seventh centuries AD. Usually, they represent short burial inscriptions. Tradition names for Ogam letters have come down to us in medieval manuscrips. Often tree names are used for the names of the individual letters, but many of the identifications are dubious. Also not all original phonological values of the Ogam letters are absolutely clear. In the fifth century, Ireland converted to Christianity and this resulted in the introduction of the Roman alphabet. In the following two centuries, the Irish language changed radically and started resembling the Irish we know from the most popular medieval Irish literature. Old Irish Approximately from the seventh to the mid-900s. Religious manuscripts brought to the Continent (Milan, Turin, Wiirzburg) by Irish missionaries in the eighth and ninth centuries represent our only contemporary documentation of the Old Irish classical period (commentaries on the psalms). They survived on the Continent, for nobody understood them and they were not worn out from continuous use and recopied with modernized spellings. Many texts that have survived were copied into much later manuscripts. Old Irish possesses an extremely high number of phonemes in comparison to other European languages (esp. consonants). 18 letters are thus used to express 66 sounds, which means that on average, every letter has more than 3 sound meanings. In modern Irish, the number of phonemes was reduced to 52. This is dealt with by introducing broad and slender consonants (palatalization)- further dealt with in the text below. Middle Irish 10-13 th century There were a lot of far-reaching changes in the morphological system of the language-simplification of verb conjugations and reduction of phonemes. In the old Irish, for example, the article, noun and adjective, all inflected for nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive and dative cases in singular, plural and dual in masculine, feminine and neuter gender. With time, during the middle Irish period, the flectional system of the spoken language was gradually declining. By the end of the 13th century, the language was effectively as we know it today. Modern Irish The modern Irish period begins with the codification of a normative form of the language by bards and other literary elite in the 13th century. In the early 1600s, however, different regional varieties appeared (Munster, Connacht and Ulster)- they exist until these days. During the 17th century, Ireland received an English speaking ruling class and the status of the Irish language quickly deteriorated and became a language of the rural poor. During the potato famine (1845-1849) much of the Irish speaking population died and about a million and a half migrated into America. During the twentieth century, the historically rich case-inflection of nouns has been largely abandoned and Irish grammar became simplified. Today, more people learn Irish as L2, but the future of the Irish speaking community, Gaeltacht, remains uncertain. Pronunciation Modern Irish has threedialectical variants: Ulster, Connacht and Munster. At the present moment, there is no standard spoken pronunciation. The notes below give approximate sound values as compared to English. Irish is a language very rich in sounds- especially consonants. This fact makes the Irish phonetical system and its reading quite complicating. The map depicting the main Irish accents. Taken from https://en.wikipedia.Org/wiki/Gaeltacht#/media/File:Gaeltachtai le hainmneacha2.sv Vowels There are five basic vowels in Irish represented by letters a,e, i, o and u, each of them can be pronounced as either short or long. The difference between the short and long vowels can indicate the meaning. a [a] cat "cat" a [a:] la "day" e[e] te "hot" e[e] me "i, me" i[i] sin "that" min "smooth" o[o] donn "brown' 6 [0:] mor "big" u[u] bus "bus" u [u:] cul"back" The vowels can combine in a large variety of ways in Modern Irish. In many cases, the pronunciation of vowel combination vary in different accents (amongst the main variants, we count the Ulster, the Connacht and the Munster accents). ai [a:] cailc "chalk" ao [i:]/[ei] saol "life" ea [a:] fear "man" ea [a:]/ [io] mean "middle" eai [a:]/ [io] coinn eail "keeping" ai [a:]/ [oi] pairc "field" ei [e] peil "football" ae [e:] tae "tea" ea [e:]/[ie] beal "mouth" ei [ei] fein "self aei [ei] traein train" ia [i:a] bia"food" io [a]/ [iu] fionn "fair" ai[i:] scealai "storyteller" oi [i:] oiche "night" ui [i:] sui "sitting" uio [ui:] buiochas "thanks" io [i:] s iol "seed" oi [a] coill "wood" eo [o:] ceol "music" eoi [io:] beoir "beer" eo [o:] seo "show" oi [o:] oi r "because" ui [u:] cuis "cause" ua [u:a] fuar "cold" iui [ui] ciuin "quiet" iai [ia] fiaile "weeds" uai [ua] duais "prize" In the middle of words, combinations a(i)dh, a(i)gh, o(i)dh, o(i)gh, eidh, eigh are pronounced as [ai]: radharc [raik] "view", oighear [aiar] "ice". In a similar position, (e)amh is pronounced as [au]: samhradh [sauru] "summer". In some dialects, similar pronunciation applies for (e)abh, obh, omh, odh, ogh: leabhar [jaur] "book". Consonants The feature that makes Irish most distinct amongst other languages spoken in the western European area is its consonantal system. Irish has for example nearly twice as many consonants as English. The reason for this is the fact that each consonant has two sound varients depending on the letters that precede or follow the consonant in question. These varieties are called slender and broad. In written Irish, slender consonents are are preceded or followed by the vowels e or i, whereas the broad ones are preceded or followed by the vowels a,o or u. Thus p can be braod in a word pór "seed" and slender in a word peaca "sin". Broad consonants are velar or velarized (they have a noticeable velar offglide before the front vowel which sounds like Englisj w made without rounding the lips. On the other hand, the spender consonants are palatal or palatalized with a palatal offglide (not unlike English y) before the back vowels: broad: bui [bnvi:]"yellow" / slender: tiubha [t>ju:] "thick" Initial mutations Under certain conditions (which are in modern Irish listed in a complex set of rules), the initial letters of some words undergo a change of form. There are two kinds of initial mutations in Irish (not as many as in other Celtic languages) and both are caused by a preceding word. Some words cause lenition(séz7n/iřHÍn Irish) (may be considered as a form called soft mutation in Welsh), while others (a considerably smaller number) cause eclipsis {urú in Irish) - which means that unvoiced plosives become voiced, while voiced plosives are changed to nasals. Other possible change to an initional consonant involves h-provection to an initional vowel. In the tables below, we can see the mutated consonants with their approximate pronunciation values with the notes on the most frequent occurences: Lenition pronunciation consonant lenited broad slender P ph [f] [f] b bh [v] or [w] [v] m mh [v] or [w] [v] n no change [n] [n] t th [h] [h] d dh [ó] m c ch [x] [?] g gh [ó] m 1 no change [1] [1] f fh not pronounced not pronounced s sh [h] [h] or as [c] before diphthongs eo, iu and in some case bofore ea a) The definite article an lenites singular feminine nouns in cases other than genitives: cearc "hen"- an chearc "the hen". b) Singular masculine is lenited in genitive: gairm an choiligh "cock-crow" (coileach -nom. "cock") c) The vocative particle a lenites the following noun: a Phddraig. d) The possessive pronouns mo "my", do "your" and a "his" cause lenition:c<2rr "car"-mo charr "my car". e) The numerals 1-2 and 3-6 cause lenition while followed by a singular noun: mi "month"- ceithre mhi "four months"; carr "car"- tri charr "three cars". f) Many common prepositions mutate the initial letter with lenition, most regular are do, de,faoi, 6: do Shedn "to John" (Sean); 6 mhaidin "since morning" (maidin). g) Frequently the second of two consequitive nouns in cases where the second qualifies the first: bo bhainne "milch cow" (bdine), muintir Chiarrai "the people of Kerry" , tine mhona "peat fire" (mona "peat"). h) Feminine singular nouns in all cases except of the genitive and masculine nouns in the genitive singular cause a lenition to a following adjective: bean mhaith "good woman" (maith "good, kind"), anfhir mhaith "of the good man". i) The first letters of the verb forms in imperfect, conditional and past tenses and the first letters of the verbs in relative clauses with nominative or accusative relationship: (mol "to praise"): mholainn "I used to praise", mholfainn "I would praise", mholas "I praised", an fear a mholfadh "the man who would praise", etc. j) The particle ni which forms negatives and other verbal particles and conjugations ending in -r, as well as md "if mutate the following verbs: nimholaim "I don't praise", nior mholas "I didn't praise", md mholaim "if I praise". Eclipsis pronunciation consonant lenited broad slender P bp [b] [b] b mb [m] [m] m not eclipsed - - n not eclipsed - - t dt [d] [] r, rr t rVr ] r. rr [ ] s [s] s [J] t EtAl t [4H] rd; tr 14**\ Taken from: https://www.omniglot.corn/writing/gaelic.htm The broad (non-palatal) consonants are those which are preceded or followed by the broad vowels a, o or u. The slender (palatal) consonants are those preceded or followed by the vowels i or e. Most consonants have different phonological value depending whether they appear at the beginning of the word or elsewhere. The phonological register also varies across the dialects. Mutations Lenition In the Scottish Gaelic, lenition (aspiration, initial mutation) which "weakens" the sound of the initial consonant is the most common of all the consonantal changes. It is deeply embedded in the language's morphology and marks various aspects of the verbal and nominal system like tense, possession or case agreement. For most letters, lenition is indicated simply by putting an h after the first consonant in the mutated word. Example: caora "sheep" > a' chaora "the sheep". Consonants /, n and r, however, show no orthographic change. In the chart below, the lenition is demonstrated with each consonant. radical lenited example (radical) example (lenited) p[ph] ph [f] paileat [phaiAahťj 'a pilot' aig a'phaileat [egj a faiAaht] 'at the pilot' b[b] bh [v] bodach o o [bodax] 'an old man a bhodaich o [a vodic] 'old man (voc.)' t [th] (broad) th [h] tuathanach [thuahanax] 'a farmer' a thuathanaich [a huahanic] 'farmer (voc.)' t [tf] (slender) th [h] teachdaire [tfexgifJa] 'a messenger' a theachdaire [a hexgirJa] 'messenger (voc.)' d[d](broad) dh[Y] duine [duna] 'a man' a dhuine [a Yujia] 'man (voc.)' d [d3] (slender) dhQ] diiirach o [d3u:rax] 'a jura-man' a dhiilraich [aju:nc] 'jura-man (voc.)' c [kh] (broad) ch [x] cailleach [khaÄax] 'an old woman' aig a' chailleach [egj a xaAax] 'at the old woman' c [c] (slender) ch [c] ceannaiche [kJhanYica] 'a salesman' a cheannaiche [a ^an^ica] 'salesman (voc.)' g[g](broad) gh[y] gobha [go. a] 'a smith' aghobha [a yea] 'smith (voc.)' g [gj] (slender) gh[j] gille [gJiAa] boy' aghille [ajiAa] 'boy (voc.)' f[f] fhnull frangach [frangax] 'a frenchman' a fhrangaich [a rangic] 'frenchman (voc.)' s [s] (broad) sh [h] suipear [suhpar] 'supper' do shuipear o [da huhpar] 'your (sg.) supper' s [f] (slender) sh [h] seôladair o Qb:ladirJ] 'a sailor' a shedladair o [a ho:ladirJ] 'sailor (voc.)' m [m] mh [v] math [ma] 'good (masc.)' mhath [va] 'good (fern.)' n [m] (broad) n[n] nasg a nasg [n*asg] [a nasg] 'a link' 'his link' n [n] (slender) n[n] nighean a nighean [pi: an] [a ni:.an] 'a daughter' 'his daughter' 1 [TJ (broad) 1[1] latha a latha DM] [a la.a] 'a day' 'day (voc.)' 1 [A] (slender) 1[1] leabhar a leabhair [Ao:r] [a b:rJ] 'a book 'book (voc.)' r [rv] r[r] ruith ruith [r*uc] [rue] 'run 'ran' (imperative)' Partly taken from https://gaelicgrammar.org/~gaelic/mediawiki/index.php/Lenition Lenition can be a marker of: a) tense: Ex: snamh thusa > shnamh thusa swim-imp. 2 sg. emph swim-past 2 sg. emph "swim you!" "you swam!" b) definiteness: craobh "tree" > a' chraobh "the tree" c) possession: a cas "her foot" > a chas "his foot" d) case agreement: taob cearr "wrong side" > air an taobh chearr "on the wrong side" Palatalisation Palatalisation is also quite a commonly occuring form of the mutations. It is realized by palatalisation of normally unpalatal consonants or even clusters. It may mark case or number, but also appears in adjectival declensions. In the orthography, palatalisation is featured by vowel changes- most commonly by the addition of i at the end of the broad vowel. Ex: mo chas dheas lsgposs foot-fem left "my right foot" air mo chois dheis on lsgposs foot-fem-D left-D "on my right foot" Preaspiration Preaspiration is found apart from some Scandinavian languages in Scottish Gaelic. It is realized by a short breath-like sound occurring before the post-vocalic voiceless stops, like for example p, k and t. Some dialects (Arran, parts of Kintyre) donvt share this feature. Nouns Nouns in Scottish Gaelic are formed into a complex inflectional system. They manifest inherent and contextual features such as countability, animacy, gender, case and person. The nominal grammatical types are: common nouns, proper nouns, pronouns, anaphoric nouns, mass and count nouns (collective nouns), alienable and inalinable nouns, verbal nouns. Noun stems are principally simple or compound. The compound noun stems are frmed by noun-noun combination, adjective-noun combination or they are formed by adding prefixes and suffixes. Ex: buth-obrach "workshop" < buth "shop" + obrach "work" bodachan dimunitive "old man" < bodach "old man" + -an dimunitive suffix morchuid "majority" < mor "large" + cuid "portion" Number Even though the vegisimal system with its dual number marking is still used in some instances (like for example in the case of pair organs), the only obligatory contrast exists between the singular and plural. Plural number is most often marked by palatalisation and suffixation and interacts with case and gender. The most common plural suffix is -(e)an. Amongst other common suffixes, there are -icheanf-achan, -(an)nan ox—tean. Below, there are a few examples: cuileag "fly": cuileagan cuilean "puppy": cuileanan alternative plural formed with a stem-consonant mutation: cuilein balla "wall": ballachan ainm "name": ainmnean sgoil "school": sgoiltean Gender Nouns in Scottish Gaelic can be either masculine or feminine. For the majority of nouns, the gender can be told by their suffix morphology and the case marking. However, the telling of the gender is not always straightforward, since there are a lot of possible exceptions and there is little correlation between the grammatical gender and the physical one: ex. boireannach m. "woman". There is also a number of nouns to which either gender can be assigned depending on case or dialect. A good example of a noun which takes upon itself different gender across the case system is muir "sea" which is often masculine when nominative and feminine when genitive (mara G). Some of these words developed from an older neuter gender which doesn't apply any more. There are a few stereotypical endings and meaning values by which we can guess the gender of the given noun: Masculine are typically nouns ending with -a, adh (verbal nouns), -anl-ean (diminutive), -as, -ach, -aiche, -air. Also words referring to the names of elements, seasons of the year, days of the week, metals, colours, grains, vegetables, liquirs and timber. Masculine nouns very often end with a broad consonant. Examples: boireannach "woman" balach "boy" sagart "priest" loch "lake" cor "condition" Feminine nouns usually end with -a, -ag (dimunitive), -aechl-eachd (abstract), -adl-ead (abstract), -e (abstract), or-zr. Feminine nouns are usually associated with the names of nations, celestial objects, musical instruments, afflictions and corpses. Feminine nouns tend to end with a slender consonant. Examples: caileag "girl" duthaich "country" litir "letter" a' choir "the right" Definiteness Scottish Gaelic lacks, like most modern Celtic languages the indefinite articles. Thus it markes only deginiteness while the indefiniteness stays unmarked. The form of the definite article depends on the gender, case and number and its pattern is rather complex. The article always directly precedes the noun and may cause lenition or nasalization (which is not reflected in orthography). The form of the article varies according to the first phoneme of the noun and can undertake forms as for example an, am, nan, nam or even an —t. Case In the modern Scottish Gaelic, there are four remaining cases: nominative-acusative, dative, genitive and vocative. These cases are nor realized with all nouns and the dative can be more referred to as "prepositional dative". The Scottish Gaelic is still in the process of the case simplification and some genitive forms are not used any more. Nouns can be devided into eight surviving declensional types. In non-definite phrases, the prepositional case doesn't tend to be marked (except in the feminine "correct" style or in fossilized phrases). In definite phrases, however, the prepositional dative gets marked. Non-definite: Masculine Feminine NOM balach "boy" caileag "a girl" GEN ainm balaich "a boy's name" ainm caileige "a girf s name" DAT air balach "on a boy" air caileag/ air caileig "on a girl" Definite: Masculine Feminine NOM am balach "the boy" a' chaileag "the girl" GEN ainm a' bhalaich "the boy's name" ainm caileige "the girf s name" DAT air a" bhalach "on the boy" air a" chaileig "on the girl" In the plural, both- the masculine and feminine, definite and indefinite donvt differ in the prepositional dative from the nominative form: Masculine Feminine NOM balaich "boys" caileagan "girls" GEN ainm bhalach "boys' name" ainm chaileag(an) "girls' name" DAT air balaich "on boys" air caileagan "on girls" Masculine Feminine NOM na balaich "the boys" na caileagan "the girls" GEN ainm nam balach "the boys' name" ainm nan caileag(an) "the girls' name" DAT air na balaich "on the boys" air na caileagan "on the girls" Pronouns In Scottish Gaelic, pronous have combined with other elements creating propositional pronouns and prepositional possessive pronouns. These language elements are very often a part of some idiomatic expressions. There is also a formal and informal form for the 2nd sg. (just like in French or Welsh), when the 2nd sg. thu is used for familiars and the well known people of similar status and sibh (2nd pi.) is used with unfamiliar persons and elders. In the chart below, there is a set of free pronouns: singular plural 1 mi sinn 2 thu/tu sibh 3 masc. e fem. i iad Pronouns can be given emphasis by using a number of suffixes. The emphasized forms are often used for highlighting the meaning or creating contrast. Below, find a chart with the free pronouns and their emphatic suffixes in parenthesis: singular plural 1 mi(se) sinn(e) 2 thu/tu(sa) sibh(se) 3 masc. e(san) fern. i(se) iad(san) feimaidh tu a cheannsachadh must-INDEF 1 2S 3M-POSS taming-VN "You must control him" In the demonstrative three degrees of proximity and specificity are distinguished. Demonstrative pronouns, in Scottish Gaelic, have a similar character to common nouns. For example, they never combine with prepositions as the personal pronouns do. Bolow, see the chart with demonstrative pronouns: degree English PN/ADJ ADV movement ADV location 1 this/here seo an-seo an-sheo 2 that/there sin an-sin an-shin 3 yon/yonder siud/ud an-siud an-shiud Demontrative adjectives follow the the noun they modify, just as any other adjectives does: an duine ud "yon man". In the first two degrees of proximity, the demonstrative pronoun is identical to its adjectival counterpart. However, in the third degree, it takes upon itself a different form: chi mi an duine ud "I see yon man" vs. chi mi siud "I see that" In some dialects, demonstrative adverbs can differ in forms whether they describe a location, or a movement. The location forms get lenited: chaidh sinn an-sin bha sinn an-shin Went 2PL there Was 2PL there "We went there" "We were there" Very often, the second and third degree of proximity are used interchangeably. What very often decides which one would be used is visibility and accessibility. Thus an cnoc ud "yon hill" would indicate a hill that is either invisible or nearly invisible, while an cnoc sin "that hill" a hill which is far away, but discernable and possible to be poined out. Interrogative pronouns stand directly before the verb. Caite "where" takes the dependent form of the verb, while the others take the independent form. Those taking the independent forms are linked with the relative pronoun a, which may be elided in speech before the verb if there is vowel contact. Question word Gloss Relative form caite where (cia "what" + aite "place") far CO who CO de, gu de (ciod "what" + e "it") na carson what (cia "what" + a(i)r son "for") airson cuine when (cia "what" + uine "time") nuair ciamar how (cia "what" + mar "as") mar Below are some examples or question and relative forms used in short sentences: Question form Relative form cdite an d^rinn thu sin? "where did you do that?" chuinnaic mi far an d^rinn thu sin "i saw where you did that" cd (a) rinn sin ? "who did that" chunnaic mi cd (a) rinn sinn "i saw you did that" de (a) rinn thu? "what did you do?" is toil learn na (a) rinn thu "i like what you did" carson a rinn thu sin ? "why did you do that?" rinn thu sinn airson \v gum faiceamaid e "you did that so that we would see it" Possessives Possessive meaning can be expressed in three ways: by a juxtaposition of nouns or a noun phrase, with the help of personal pronouns and with the means of prepositional phrases. The possessive noun comes after the object in possession. The possessive noun is in its genitive form: taigh Chaluim house Calum-GEN taigh a' bhalaich bhig house (the boy little-GEN) "the little boy's house" There are two types of the prepositional possessive phrase. Definite phrases the locational preposition aig, while the non-definite the preposition le: Definite: an cii aig a' bhalach the dog at the boy "the boy s dog" Non-definite: cii leis a 'bhalach dog with the boy "a dog of the boy" Pronominal possessives come before the possessed object and are the set of linked pronouns. Notice the possessive pronouns which cause the lenition: mo chil (L) "my dog" do chil (L) "your dog" (sg.) a chil (L) "his dog" a cil "her dog" ar cil "our dog" ur cil "your dog" (pi.) an cu "their dog" Numerals Scottish Gaelic countic system is vigesimal- based on thr number 20. Except of the number for 1000 mile (old Irish mile), which is most probably an early borrowing from Latin, the numerals are all originally native. The basic numbers from which all the others are combined are: 1, 10, 20, 100 and 1000. If the number is not followed by an accompanying noun (in the case of reciting counting or telling telephone numbers), a particle a h- is used. In this rare case, the number two is lenited taking upon itself a form a dha. The chart below gives cardinal numbers while accompanied by a noun (in this case cil "dog"). In the compound numerals, note that the counted noun goes in between the units and tens. Where the numeral causes lenition, it is marked as "L". When constructing numbers between 20 and 40, there are a few possible versions: using a preposition air "on" or thar "past" or adding agus or "and" and then the secondary number. Above the number 40, the latter option is the rule. 1 aon(a) 1 chu "one dog" 11 aon chil deug 2 da 1 chu "two dogs" 12 da chil dheug 3 trilcoin "three dogs" 13 tri coin deug 4 ceithir1 coin 14 ceithir coin deug 5 cdig 1 coin 15 cdig coin deug 6 sia lcoin 16 sia coin deug 7 seachd coin 17 seachd coin deug 8 ochd coin 18 ochd coin deug 9 naoi coin 19 naoi coin deug 10 deich coin 20 fichead cu In the chart below, the two possible ways of putting the compound numerals are shown. As it is mentioned above, after the number 40, there is only one option (adding agus or "and" and then the secondary number). 21 aon(a) chü air/thar fliichead fichead cü agus a h-oan 22 da chü air/thar fliichead fichead cü agus a dhä 23 tri coin air/thar fliichead fichead cü agus a tri 39 naoi coin deug air/thar fliichead fichead cü agus a naoi deug 40 da fliichead cü 50 leth-cheud cü 51 leth-cheud cü a h-aon 99 ceithir ficheadn cü "s naoi deug 100 ceud cü 200 da cheud cü 1000 mile cü 6693: sia mile sia ceud ceithir fichead ^s a tri deug "six thousand six hundred four score and thirteen" It is very common, that in everyday speech, speakers switch to English while expressing larger or more precise numbers. This is due to the fact that the compound numerals in Gaelic are longer than their English equivalents, but also due to the fact that most Scottish Gaelic speakers received their mathematic education through English. Ordinal numerals: 1st a chiad (chü) 2nd an därna (cü) 3rd an treas(amh)/tritheamh (cü) 4& an ceathramh (cü) 5th an cdigeamh (cü) 6th an siathamh (cü) an seachdamh (cü) 8th an t-ochdamh (cü) oft an naoidheamh (cü) 10th an deicheamh (cü) 20th amficheamh (cü) 21st an t-aona (chü) fichead Adjectives Adjectives in Scottish Gaelic can be both- attributive or predicative. The postnminal attributive adjectives (but not the predicative ones) agree with the nouns they describe in number, case and gender. Although most adjectives come after the noun they describe, there is a set of adjectives that usually or always appear before the noun, as well as some exceptions (colours) occurring for poetical reasons. Prenominal attributive adjectives always lenite the noun that they precede. Below, a few examples of the most common pronominal attributive adjectives are given: ath next an ath dhuine the next man deagh good deagh latha a good day droch bad droch naidheachd nad news fior true fior choroid a good friend sár excellent sär obair excellent work seann old seann taigh old house If there is a definite article preceding the adjectives, it causes it to lenite and to undergo affixation: deireadh na h-ath mhios "the end of the next month" (mios "day") Postnominal attributive and predicative adjectives occur directly after the head of the noun phase. In case there are more adjectives, their order is: size, quality, colour: bdta beag snog geal boat-MASC small nice white "a small nice white boat" All attributive adjectives agree with the noun they describe in gender, number and case. Thus if the noun is in plural, the adjective changes its form too: bdtaichean beaga snoga geala boats-PL small-PL nice-PL white-PL "nice small white boats" Predicative adjectives donvt agree with their nouns: tha na bdtaichean beag snog agus geal be-PRES ART boats small nice and white "the boats are small, nice and white" Comparatives and superlatives Most adjectives have comparative forms which are either identical to their base form or (most commonly) derived fron their base forms by stem modification and lenition- most commonly palatalisation of the final stem consonant and the suffix -e: glas "grey" > glaise "greyer, the greyest". For marking a comparative sentence construction nas is used: example a) base: tha an t-eun glas is ART bird grey "the bird is grey" comparative: tha an t-eun nas glaise is ART bird MRK greyer "the bird is greyer" example b) irregular adjective tnbr "big" > tnotha "bigger" tha an cii nas motha na an cat are ART dog MRK bigger than ART cat "the dos is bigger than the cat" (meaning "dogs are bigger than cants") The difference between comparative and superlative is in different sentence structure. In the comparative, there is tha (pres. ind.) and in superlative is (copular verb), which both are forms of the verb "to be". is e t-eun as glaise COP is it bird MRK greyer "the bird is the greyest" is mise as fhearr COP is lsg-EMPH MRK better "I am the best" Adverbs Adverbs are simple or compound. Most commonly, they are either non-inflecting words and fixed phrases or an adjective modified by the article gu, which causes an h- preceding potential vowel at the beginning of the adverb. Examples: math "good" > gu math "well" cinnteach "sure" > gu cinnteach "surely" trom "heavy" > gu trom "heavily" aineolach "ignorant" > gu haineolach "ignorantly" thuirt i ris gu coibhneil said she to him ADV kind "she said to him kindly" All adverbs of this type we can modify by using quantifiers like for example: gle "very" or ro "extremely". Some of these (including the two mentioned above cause a lenition): gu gle choibhneil "very kindly". There are many time, location and direction adverbs in Scottish Gaelic. Most of them are compound or fixed phrases. Below, see a few as examples: Time: an-diugh "today", a-nochd "tonight", am bliadhna "this year", an-de "yesterday", mar-tha "already", gu siorraidh "for eternity", an cdmhnaidh "always"... Direction: tuath "north", deas "south", ear "east", iar "west" There is often a contrast made in Scottish Gaelic between the location and movement towards: English Movement Location up suas shuas down sios shios over here a-nall a-bhos over there a-null thall Verbs and verbal system Even though Scottish Gaelic belongs into VSO languages, the initial verbs donvt always need to be the element carrying the main sentence meaning, for it is sometimes the verbal noun which establishes the lexical meaning, while the initial verb might serve only as an auxiliary or a pro-verb which marks tense, mood and the absence or presence of negation. This can be demonstrated on the two following examples: Simple past: chaidh mi dhan bhuth(aidh) go-past lsg to-ART shop-DAT "I went to the shop" Progressive past: bha mi a'* dol dhan bhuth(aidh) BE-past lsg PROG go-VN to-ART shop-DAT "I was going to the shop" The synthetic verb forms are marked for person, tense, mood and voice. There are not many irregular verbs and the conjugational patterns are very consistent (with the two copular or "to be" verbs being the most irregular). Verbal nouns play a very important role in the Gaelic verb system, for they are used in periphrastic verbal constructions and link with prepositions acting as the verb carrying the main sentence meaning. Whereas in English, the grammatical subject (usually human/animate) plays the most important syntactic role, in Scottish Gaelic, as well as in other older stages of Indo-European languages, greater emphasis is placed on the fact whether a participant is an agent or non-agent. This may be the most clearly seen in emotional expressions, where the one who experiences an emotion is said to literary have it "on" or "at" him/her: tha fearg orm is anger on me "I am angry" chuir i fearg orm she put anger on me "she angered me" In a similar way, bodily functions are dealt with, the function being basically expressed by the suitable noun and the verb activating it being of a general sort like "doing", "letting", "putting", "being" etc.: tha mi a" sileadh fala(dh) is lsg at dripping-VN blood-G Tm bleeding" rinn e sreothart made 3sg-M a sneeze "he sneezed" rinn iad gdire made they laugh "they laughed" Tense According to Macaulay (1992), there are only two tenses in Scottish Gaelic: present (non-past) and past, both of which are definite in modality. The untensed, indefinite mode is then divided into "first indefinite" (future) and "second indefinite" (conditional). This reflects the tendency of the language to rely on context and periphrastic devices as opposed to inflection. Verb "be", root bi present independent tha "is" present relative a tha "is" present dependent bheil, eil "is" present imperfective, future independent bidh "is, will be" present imperfective, future dependent b(h)i "is, will be" past perfective independent bha "was" past perfective dependent robh "was" past imperfective bhiodh "would be", "used to be" Examples with other verbs No other verb apart from "to be" in Scottish Gaelic has a present tense form in the strict sense. If something needs to be reffered to as happening now, this is expressed periphrastically with the help of the verb tha and the lexical verb as its complement: Tha Iain a'* leughadh is Iain at read-VN "Iain is reading" chi "see": an example of a strong verb definite present independent dependent ~ past independent dependent chunnaic faca "saw" "saw" indefinite first independent dependent chi faic "sees", "will see" "can see" second independent dependent chitheadh faiceadh "would see" "used to see" seall "look": an example of a weak verb definite present independent dependent ~ past independent dependent sheall sheall "looked" "looked" indefinite first independent dependent seallaidh seallaidh "looks" "will look" second independent dependent shealladh shealladh "would look" "used to look" Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as the verbs beginning with/- receive the dK affix. In certain forms, initial consonant of the verb undergoes lenition. Examples illustrating the paradigm for a consonant-initial verb and a vowel-initial verb: coisich "walk" definite present independent dependent ~ past independent dependent choisich do choisich "walked" "walked" indefinite first independent coisichidh "will walk" dependent coisich "will walk" second independent choisicheadh "would walk" dependent coisicheadh "used to walk" dl "drink" definite present independent dependent ~ past independent dependent dh'bl do dhdl "drank" "drank" indefinite first independent dlaidh "will drink" dependent ol "will drink" second independent dh'bladh "would drink" dependent dladh "used to drink" Aspect As far as the aspect is concerned, there are three categories: progressive (continuing, dynamic process), perfect (a state in the present resulting from an earlier situation) and prospective (expressing that something is going to occur). These aspects are formed by aspectual particles linked to an auxiliary verb (all forms of bi "be" are possible). Progressive aspect: is constructed by combining the particle ag or a "at": tha iad a' togail na cloiche(adh) be-PRES 3pl. PROG building-VN ART rock-G "they are lifting the rock" (LIT: "they are at the lifting of the rock") Perfect aspect: is marked by the particle air "after": tha iad air a' chlach a thogail be-PRES 3pl. PERF ART rock lifting-VN "they have lifted the rock" (LIT: "they are after lifting the rock" Prospective aspect: has a construction pattern very similar to the perfect aspect, using gu(s): tha iad gus a' chlach a thogail be-PRES 3pl. PROS ART rock lifting-VN "they are about to lift the rock" Negation In Scottish Gaelic, different parts in the sentence can be negated. As clausal negatives, particles cha(n) and nach are used: chan eil iad gu math NEG be-PRES-DEP 3pl. well "they are not well" Question is indicated by intonation only: nach eil iad gu math ? "are they not well" There are common double negative constructions, each pair of negatives cancelling each other: cha chreid mi nach eil iad gu math NEG believe-INDEFl lsg. NEG-COMP be-PRES 3pl. well "I believe they are well" (LIT: "I don't believe they are not well") By placing the particle na before the verb, a negative imperative is formed: na ithibh sin "don't eat that" (in a polite pi. form) Interrogatives In the case of a yes/no question, there is the interrogative particle an coming in the initial position: an robh am balach anns an sgoil? "Was the boy at school?" an ceannaich Iain an leabhar? "Will Iain buy the book?" The commonest form of a question has the question element in the first position in the sentence: cd a bha anns an sgoil? who REL was in the school? de a cheannaich Iain? what REL bought Iain "what did Iain buy?" cdite an robh Iain? where PART was-DEP Iain? "Where was Iain?" Prepositions There are three categories of prepositions: Simple prepositions which can assimilate with pronominal elements. They are mostly monosyllabic and take the dative case (although there are a few examples which govern nominative/accusative or genitive cases). Many of those cause lenition to the following noun. Most of the simple prepositions are inflected for person, gender and number: Example: preposition mutation it causes translation case it traditionally links with a L "to" DAT aig "at" DAT far ~ "off GEN gun L "without" NOM singular plural Prep. ISg 2Sg 3Sg-M 3Sg-F 1P1 2P1 3P1 aig "at" agam agad aige aice againn agaibh aca air "on" ortn ort air oirre oirnn oirbh orra gu "to" thugam thugad thuige thuice thugainn thugiabh thuca thar "over" tharam tharad thairis thairte tharainn tharaibh tharta Compound prepositions consist of an adjective, adverb or a noun combined with a simple prepositions. They always take dative case. Examples: barrachd air "in addition to" an coimeas ri "compared to" coltach ri "similar to" seachad air "past" Complex prepositions consist of a simple preposition and a noun. Because the noun is the terminal element in the phrase, they come with the genitive: a reir "according to" airfeadh "through" air son "for the sake of mu thicheall "about" Materials: MacAulay Donald: The Celtic Languages, The Scottish Gaelic Language written by MacAulay Donald, Cambridge University Press, 1992. William Lamb: Scottish Gaelic, Languages of the world/materials 401, 2003.