Present tense in Gaelic languages

You ever wonder why doesn’t Scottish Gaelic have the same present tense endings as Irish? “Why did Scottish Gaelic lose present tense?” you might think (but, spoiler alert, that’s not what happened!). If so, let’s dive into it and uncover what actually happened with this verbs stuff.

Classical Gaelic

First we need to take a look at Classical Gaelic and how the verbs worked there. Verbs had separate synthetic endings for most grammatical persons (but already since Middle Irish the “analytic” forms, ie. 3rd person sg. forms with subject pronouns, were used alongside the synthetic forms), and could be put in several tenses and moods:

1. present tense: molaidh sé ‘he praises’, ní mhol sé ‘he does not praise’; molmáoid ‘we praise’, ní mholam ‘we do not praise’, sáora(i) ‘thou freest’, ní sháora(i) ‘thou dost not free’, etc.,
2. past tense (perfect): do mhol sé ‘he praised’, níor mhol sé ‘he did not praise’, do sháoras ‘I freed’, níor sháoras ‘I did not free’, etc.,
3. past habitual tense (imperfect): do mholadh sé ‘he used to praise’, ní mholadh sé ‘he did not use to praise’, do sháorainn ‘I used to free’, ní sháorainn ‘I did not use to free’, do sháorthá ‘thou usedst to free’, etc.,
4. future tense: molfaidh sé ‘he will praise’, ní mholfa sé ‘he won’t praise’, sáorfad ‘I will free’, ní sháorabh ‘I will not free’, etc.,
5. conditional mood: do mholfadh sé ‘he would praise (if something happened)’, ní mholfadh sé ‘he would not praise’, do sháorfainn ‘I would free’, ní sháorfainn ‘I would not praise’, etc.,
6. subjunctive mood in two tenses:
   1. present (used mostly to express wishes and potential future events): go mola sé ‘may he praise, until he praises’, go saorar ‘may I free’, etc.,
   2. past (used to express unfulfilled conditions): dá moladh sé ‘if he praised (but he didn’t and doesn’t)’, dá saorainn ‘if I freed’, etc.,
7. imperative mood: mol ‘praise’, sáoram ‘let us free’, etc.

There also was another past tense sometimes in use, the preterite, which mostly used the ending -s (eg. molas sé ‘he praised’) but it was already archaic during Classical Gaelic times. The first-person -s in do mholas ‘I praised’ comes actually from this preterite thing originally. By Classical Gaelic there was no semantic difference between perfect and preterite, they were both just forms expressing past tense. For more forms, see Léamh.org grammar section.

If you know Modern Irish well, you’ll notice the verbal system overall hasn’t changed much in Irish, the tenses and moods are all still there although subjunctive forms are used pretty much only in set phrases (conditional replaced them in conditions) – but some of the endings certainly differ here. And some definitely look more Scottishy than Irishy.

We’re interested in the present tense here, so let’s zoom in on these forms. And also let’s take a look at the future (since Scottish Gaelic supposedly has a future tense but no present, right? Right?).

Present forms

First let’s notice that for many persons there are actually two different endings: an independent one (used when the verb stands on its own) and a dependent one (after some so-called “conjunct” particles):

• molaidh sé ‘he praises’ vs ní mhol sé ‘he does not praise’,
• sáormáoid ‘we free’ vs go sáoram ‘that we free’, cuirmíd ‘we put’ vs ní chuiream ‘we do not put’,
• éirghid ‘they rise’ vs ní éirghead ‘they do not rise’,
• imridh sí ‘she plays’ vs go n-imir sí ‘that she plays’.

Actually, for the 3rd person singular (the “he” or “she” form) there is a longer alternative dependent ending:

• ní mhol sé or ní mholann sé,
• go n-imir sí or go n-imreann sí.

This alternative ending was an Irish innovation from Middle Irish times, first appearing in the 10th century. In Old Irish there was a set of verbs with -en- in their present stem but not in other forms (eg. OIr. benaid ‘(s)he strikes’, ní·ben ‘(s)he does not strike’; crenaid ‘(s)he buys’, ní·cren ‘(s)he does not buy’). Some forms of compound verbs based on those had this -en strengthened to -enn, -ann via McNeill’s Law. This then spread to other similar verbs, and eventually was reanalyzed as the dependent present ending rather than part of their root.

From this a fairly clear picture arises – Classical Gaelic had independent endings, like: 3rd sg. -idh, 1st pl. -máoid, -míd, 3rd pl. -id, and depedent endings: 3rd sg. -0, -ann, 1st pl. -am, 3rd pl. -ad. Some persons did not have the distinction (eg. in 1st sg. it was cuirim, ní chuirim; molaim, ní mholaim).

One more thing worth noting, Classical Gaelic had a special 3rd sg. relative ending used in relative clauses:

• an fear mholas mhé ‘the man who praises me’.

Future forms

If we take a closer look at the future tense, what we see is that the endings are actually pretty much the same between the two (except for 1st sg.). What changes is the stem of the verb:

• molfaidh sé ‘he will praise’ vs ní mholfa sé ‘he won’t praise’,
• sáorfamáoid ‘we will free’ vs go sáorfam ‘that we will free’, cuirfimíd ‘we will put’ vs ní chuirfeam ‘we won’t put’,
• éireóchaid ‘they will rise’ vs ní éireóchead ‘they will not rise’,
• imeóraidh sí ‘she will play’ vs go n-imeóra sí ‘that she will play’,
• inneósad ‘I will tell’, ní inneós ‘I will not tell’

Notice that some verbs will add an -fa- to the stem (mol- becomes molfa-, cuir- becomes cuirfe-), some verbs will change its vowel to -eó- (éirigh- becomes éireóch-, imir- becomes imeór-; innis- becomes inneós-).

Here too we have the relative ending:

• an fear mholfas mhé ‘the man who will praise me’.

This overview is very simplified: many forms will have variants (with short or long vowels, with -eó- or -é- in the stem, etc.), irregular verbs will often use the dependent endings even in independent context (that’s why it’s ad-chí, do-ní and not *ad-chídh or anything like that), etc. If you want more details you should look at Léamh.org grammar and read the Nua-Ghaeilge Chlasaiceach chapter in Stair na Gaeilge.

Irish

Now, let’s see how this compares to Modern Irish. The first thing to notice is that Irish doesn’t have any distinction between dependent and independent endings anymore:

• molann sé, ní mholann sé ‘he praises, he does not praise’,
• saoraimíd, ní shaoraimíd ‘we free, we do not free’,
• éireoidh sí, ní éireoidh sí ‘she will rise, she will not rise’.

Of course Irish still has some distinction between dependent and independent verbs (tá vs an bhfuil?, in some dialects chí vs an bhfeiceann?, etc.), but it’s no longer a distinction in the verbal endings. Irish in fact lost most of the dependent endings (like 1st pl. -am, future -fa) settling on independent ones (-(a)imíd, -faidh). But note that in the 3rd sg. present tense ending is -ann – the original dependent ending!

This ending is actually innovatory and it seems that it took over the endingless dependent form by around the 15th century (so ní chuireann became more popular than ní chuir in Irish), and then since the 15th century it started taking over the old -idh form (thus cuireann in independent positions started replacing older cuiridh). Note also how this strengthened distinction between the present tense (cuireann sé ‘he puts’) and the future tense (cuirfidh sé ‘he will put’). With the old ending, after the future -f- got weakened in pronunciation to /h/, the distinction would be barely perceivable (cuiridh and cuirfidh would differ only in /h/).

Some dependent endings still exist in dialects as variant forms but they no longer keep the dependent/independent distinction, eg. a Munster speaker might say bainfeam instead of bainfimíd for ‘we will reap’.

In the future, the -eó- forms changed a bit – the stem changes only for verbs ending in -igh, and (outside of Ulster) the -ch- of the stem is dropped, while other verbs get just the ending extracted from the -igh verbs:

• éireoidh sé ‘he will rise’,
• imreoidh sí ‘she will play’ (clasically: imeóraidh).

Munster keeps the old form for the verb inis: neosfad ‘I will tell’ from classical inneósad, compare it to standard inseoidh.

In the present tense of the -igh verbs syncope was lost, thus (ní) éirgheann became éirigheann, today spelt éiríonn.

One more thing worth noting is that Munster dialects lost the relative ending (and most Standard Irish texts don’t use it either, although it’s allowed in An Caighdeán Oifigiúil):

• an fear a mholann mé ‘the man who praises me’ (the standard also allows: an fear a mholas mé),
• an fear a mholfaidh mé ‘the man who will praise me’ (Munster), an fear a mholfas mé (other dialects, also allowed in the standard).

In Connacht the present ending -ann gets the relative -s added on top:

• an fear a mholanns mé ‘the man who praises me’.

Scottish Gaelic

And now take a look at Scottish Gaelic “future tense”:

• molaidh e ‘he will praise’, cha mhol e ‘he will not praise’,
• saoraidh sinn ‘we will free’, cha saor sinn ‘we will not free’,
• èirichidh i ‘she will rise’, chan èirich i ‘she will not rise’.

They… don’t really look like classical future tense, do they?

The fact is, historically those are the present forms! And if you look at texts written by native Gaelic speakers in the 19th and 20th century, you’ll see plenty of those used to express the present, some fixed expression being very common still today (saoilidh mi ‘I think’ is definitely present tense!). It’s commonly used to express habitual present: sgrìobhaidh mi litir a h-uile latha ‘I write a letter every day’.

In fact some grammars (like William Lamb’s Scottish Gaelic: A Comprehensive Grammar) choose to call this tense “non-past” rather than “future” as it clearly covers the present too. What disappeared from Scottish Gaelic is the original future tense (as the present took over its semantics).

Another thing to notice is that there’s no trace of this -ann ending. As was mentioned earlier in this article, this ending was an innovation – specifically an Irish innovation that seems to not have ever reached Scotland. The ending must have been known to Gaelic poets in Scotland as it was a part of bardic linguistic training, but it just never was a part of the common speech in Scotland. The only exception to this is the phrase nach maireann ‘deceased’ (lit. ‘who does not live’) which might have been borrowed from the classical register.

Like in Irish, there is no syncope in the -ich (Irish -igh) verbs: the independent form is èirichidh (cf. classical éirghidh).

The relative ending is preserved:

• am fear a mholas mi ‘the man who praises/will praise me’.

Manx

Like Scottish Gaelic, Manx preserves the dependent / independent distinction in what historically had been present tense endings – but typically expressing the future:

• troggee ad ‘they shall build’ (cf. classical tógaidh sé ‘he takes / builds’),
• cha drog oo ‘thou shalt not lift up’ (cf. classical no-chan tóg tú ‘thou dost not take’).

Manx generalized eclipsis of voiceless stops as a marker of dependent forms (hence cha drog even though classically t- there would be unmutated).

The relative form is also preserved:

• y thie hroggys shiu ‘the house ye will build’.