Notes on Classical Gaelic Grammar

Classical Gaelic or Classical Irish (Gáoidhealg or Gaoidhealg /ɡɯːð´əlɡ ~ ɡɯːɣ´əlɡ/ in the language itself) was the standard language of bardic poetry in Ireland and Scotland between 13th and 18th century. It was created in late 12th century by poets trying to bring the poetic language closer to the vernacular of that time, the standard allowed a lot of spoken forms used in the dialects of late 12th century, even though it was itself highly prescriptive.

While the spoken language evolved, the grammar of the language used in poetry was kept fixed throughout centuries (although new vocabulary was used in poetry). The spoken language of 13th–18th century Ireland (and one used in prose texts) is called Early Modern Irish while the term Classical Gaelic is typically reserved for the standardized conservative language of the bardic poetry.

This article deals with elements of grammar of this bardic standard (although it might mention some developments rejected in the bardic standard occasionally). But bear in mind it’s more of a random collection of notes (mostly from Bardic Syntactical Tracts and IGT i) than a comprehensive grammar. It’s also a work in progress.

Orthography

Early Modern Irish and Scottish manuscripts vary a lot in the spelling they used. The earliest manuscripts use basically the Middle Irish spelling that’s closer to Old Irish system than to modern orthography, later ones start to write consonants in a more modern way and mark lenition (semi-)consistently using ponc séimhithe (dot placed above the letter, sometimes a little h instead of a dot) but there are several ways to mark eclipsis (namely, the letters t and c are often doubled to tt, cc in eclipsing context). [TODO: expand]

Modern normalized editions of Classical Gaelic and Early Modern Irish texts often use the modern pre-reform Irish spelling as one can find eg. in Dinneen’s dictionary. But that’s often not the spelling used in manuscripts – and one won’t find it often in dyplomatic editions of classical texts.

Among the common differences between the spellings used commonly in manuscripts and the modern normalized spelling are:

1. the clusters /st, sk, sp/ are written sd, sg, sb (this varies in normalized texts), eg. innsgne, subsdainnteach vs inscne, substainteach,
2. the ‘long diphthongs’ and the ao vowel mark their length with a ‘fada’: Gáoidhealg, táobh, síad, íasg, búadh vs modern Gaoidhealg, taobh, siad, iasc/iasg, buadh,
3. the long é before a broad consonant stands on its own, breaking the leathan le leathan rule (while it is the expected éi before a slender one): dénamh, bél, slégar but Éire vs déanamh, béal, sléagar, Éire,
4. eclipsis of t and c written as tt, cc (and pp for p?): a ttigh ‘in a house’ vs i dtigh / a dtigh.

This page follows the spelling conventions of Mac Cárthaigh edition of Irish Grammatical Tracts I, that is, unlike most modern editions, it normalizes the spelling to form closer to the older usage described above.

[TODO: something about spelling of reduced unstressed vowels: a vs u vs o; i vs ei]

Declension

Cases

Classical Gaelic nouns and adjectives were declined in 5 distinct grammatical cases:

• nominative (ainm, lit. ‘name’) – the grammatical subject of the verb and also predicative of copular clauses,
• accusative (often réim, lit. ‘succession’, the term is used generally for ‘an oblique case’, accusative plural is often called tochlaghadh, tochlughadh) – the direct object of a verb, also complement of some prepositions, especially when movement is involved,
• genitive (táoibhréim, lit. ‘side-case, by-case’) – expresses possessor, or otherwise connects two nouns (like in Modern Irish or Scottish Gaelic),
• dative (tuilréim, tuillréim) – used for complements of most prepositions (so perhaps prepositional would be a better name),
• vocative (sometimes agallaimh, gairm agallmha, ‘address, addressing call’, typically not recognized as separate case in classical grammars) – used when directly addressing someone or something.

The case system of Old Irish (which itself lost most of case endings due to apocope) got somewhat eroded during Middle Irish times because of the loss of distinction between unstressed /ə/ and /u/, and also merging of all unstressed absolute final vowels. Nevertheless all the Old Irish cases and their uses survived til Classical Gaelic times even if their forms merged in some noun classes.

Classical grammars recognize two grammatical genders: masculine (feirinnsgne) and feminine (baininnsgne), with the nouns whose accusative singular is the same as nominative singular (ie. mostly nouns declining according to old o-stem pattern) commonly referred to as ‘masculine’, and those whose acc. sg. = dat. sg. (mostly those declining acc. to old ā-stem pattern and consonant stems) referred to as ‘feminine’ (even if actually belonging to the other gender).

Réim connsaine

When a noun was a direct object of the verb it generally had to be in the accusative case and underwent lenition. This lenition is called réim connsaine (lit. ‘consonant accusative’ or ‘consonant case’). If the noun declined according to masculine pattern, ie. it had its acc. sg. form equal to nom. sg., then réim connsaine was optional and nominative could be used instead. When one used a noun with a ‘feminine’ declension (ie. the acc. sg. differed from nom. sg.), then both lenition and accusative form were obligatory:

• do-chiú chnáoi ngil ‘I see a bright nut’ – here the lenited accusative form chnáoi must be used since it differs from nominative cnú, it also must eclipse its attributes, since accusative case requires eclipsis,
• ní fhaca choin ‘I did not see a dog’, ní fhaca bhoin ‘I did not see a cow’ – the acc. sg. forms differ from nom. cú ‘a dog’ and bó ‘a cow’,
• do bhúaileas choin ngil ngirr ccáoich ‘I hit/stroke a blind short bright dog’,

but:

• do-chiú shúil ngil or do-chiú súil gheal ‘I see a bright eye’, because acc. sg. súil is the same as nominative,
• do mharbhas fhear mbeag or do mharbhas fear beag ‘I killed a small man’ – because fear is both nominative and accusative form, either can be used; the only requirement being that if the direct object is lenited (has réim connsaine), then it must eclipse its attribute, because it is visibly accusative.

Since many nouns have accusative plural (tochlaghadh) distinct from their nominative plural, they also are lenited:

• do-chiú fhiora beaga ‘I see small men’ – acc. pl. distinct from nom. pl. fir bheaga,
• also note eg. dún do liobhra ‘close your books’ – acc. pl. distinct from nom. pl. leabhair (even though lenition is not visible in writing, and it’s required here by possessive do ‘your’).

The accusative singular definite article eclipses:

• gearr an ccráoibh ‘cut the branch’ (nom. sg. an chráobh),
• muirfead an bhfilidh ‘I will kill the poet’ (nom. sg. an file)

but the eclipsis is optional in direct objects if the form is the same as nominative (a similar rule to réim connsaine):

• gonfad an bhfear or gonfad an fear ‘I will wound the man’.

[TODO: other situations where acc. form is suppressed – infix pronouns, use of verbal noun phrases, dir. obj. after acht, nó, etc.]

Slégar

Classical Gaelic had a peculiar rule regarding attributed nouns in the genitive case. The rule is called slégar (sléagar in modern spelling, sometimes also slégur, sléagur). As explained in Mac Cárthaigh’s edition of IGT, pp. 295–298, see also his article, slégar can be applied in phrases that have structure like this:

beginning	middle	end
noun	noun (or two) in the genitive	noun in the genitive or adjective or sloinneadh (surname in the genitive form, like mheic Dhiarmada or Í Bhriain)

In phrases like that one can:

• change eclipsis or lack of lenition in the middle part into lenition,
• or remove lenition in the middle part.

Thus the regular grammatical way to state ‘with the wife of Brian mac Taidhg’ would be:

• le mnáoi mBriain mheic Thaidhg (le takes accusative, thus the genitive Briain is regularly eclipsed)

but with slégar applied it can also be:

• le mnáoi Bhriain mheic Thaidhg (with the eclipsis changed into lenition).

And ‘bright Brian’s spear’ would regularly be:

• sleagh Bhriain ghil (sleagh ‘spear’ is a feminine noun, thus it lenites its attribute),

but with slégar applied it also can be:

• sleagh Briain ghil.

Slégar is applicable both to definite and indefinite phrases, for example:

• adhaltras fhear na cruinne ‘the adultery of the men of the world’ is an example of slégar because adhaltras ‘adultery’ is a masculine noun and thus should not lenite its attribute,
• the phrase would regularly be: adhaltras fear na cruinne.

There are situation where slégar is prevented. One of them is that an eclipsed noun in genitive blocks slégar in subsequent nouns:

• ré néimh bhfáinne fir óir is the regular way to say ‘to brightness of a golden man’s ring’ (níamh ‘brightness’ is a feminine noun, it does not lenite its attribute, fir ‘a man’s’, in genitive),
• ré néimh fháinne fhir óir and ré néimh fháinne fir óir are correct with slégar applied (eclipsis turned lenition on bhfáinne, and also possible slégar on fir),
• but re néimh bhfáinne fhir óir is incorrect (because bhfáinne is eclipsed, the subsequent fir must stay unlenited and slégar cannot be applied to it).

Another such case is genitives connected with agus ‘and’, nó ‘or’, or ná ‘nor’ (but slégur may be applied before the conjunction, eg. mac fir óig agus mná without slégar and mac fhir óig agus mná with slégar are both correct).

It’s worth noting that the operation of slégar, in cases where it causes regularly unexpected lenition, is very reminiscent of Modern Irish ‘functional genitive’ – lenition of definite nominative nouns replacing the genitive form (for example ‘Cáit’s house’ being teach Cháit, or ‘the fisher’s boat’s mast’ being crann bhád an iascaire) – but note the differences:

• unlike in Modern Irish, slégar does not prevent the genitive form – all the nouns in a chain in Classical Gaelic are in genitive, note the adhaltras fhear na cruinne example above with gen. pl. fear ‘of men’, in Modern Irish it’d be adhaltras fhir na cruinne,
• slégar affects both definite and indefinite phrases,
• slégar can also undo lenition, changing regularly lenited noun into an unmutated one, and it can change eclipsis into lenition.

Prepositions

Stationary dative vs accusative of motion

Classical Gaelic keeps the distinction between accusative and dative grammatical case used after certain prepositions. Accusative is used to convey the motion (eg. i + accusative means ‘into’) while dative expresses stationary position (eg. i + dative means ‘inside’). It’s the same distinction as can be found in German, Latin (with stationary ablative), Slavic languages (with stationary locative).

[TODO: list all prepositions taking acc/dat depending on meaning]

For example:

• Cuirfead mo láimh ar fear or ar fhear ‘I will put my hand upon a man’ with accusative (motion),
• Bíaidh mo lámh ar fior ‘my hand will be on a man’ with dative (stationarily placed).

But some prepositions take just one of the cases, eg. ós always takes the dative:

• Cuirfead mo láimh ós fhior ‘I will put my hand above a man’ with dative (even though motion is involved here).

There are also compound “prepositions” that take genitive – they are generally phrases with the second element being a noun which itself is either in dative or accusative, and thus they themselves cause either lenition (if the noun-part is in dative) or eclipsis (if the noun-part is in accusative). Some of them change the mutation they cause based on their meaning:

• tar éis fhir or ar éis fhir ‘after a man’ (lit. ‘on, over a track of a man’) – in the meaning ‘after’ éis is in dative and causes lenition,
• tar éis bhfir or ar éis bhfir ‘instead of a man’ (lit. ‘onto, over a track of a man’) – in the meaning ‘instead of’ éis is in accusative and causes eclipsis.

But some of them cause always the same mutation regardless of meaning:

• d’éis fhir can mean both ‘after a man’ and ‘instead of a man’ (do can be used instead of ar or tar in both meanings, but it always takes éis in dative),

With dative

Most prepositions expressing static position take dative, some of them can also take accusative in dynamic meaning (denoting target place of movement) – see #Stationary dative vs accusative of motion above.

• a^H ‘out of, from’
• ag ‘at’
• ar(^L?) ‘on’
• do^L ‘to, for’
• do^L ‘from’
• fa^L ‘under, beneath’ (not clear whether it takes accusative or dative in dynamic meaning)
• go^N ‘with’
• i^N ‘in’
• íar^N, ar^N ‘after’
• ó^L ‘from’
• ós^L ‘above’ (takes dative even in dynamic meaning)

With accusative

These typically take accusative in the singular, but dative in plural (except for mar, dar, gan which take acc. pl. too):

• ar(^L?) ‘onto’
• i^N ‘into’
• idir, eidir ‘between’
• (fa^L ‘under’?)
• gan^L ‘without’ – takes accusative also in plural
• go^H ‘to’
• le^H, lé^H ‘with’
• re^H, ré^H ‘to, against’
• re^N ‘before’
• tar ‘across’
• tre^L ‘through’
• um^L, bha^L, ma^L (fa^L?) ‘about’

With genitive

Those prepositions are actually compounds of a preposition and a noun. The complement of those compound prepositions is put in genitive (because technically it is attributing another noun – the one being the second part of the preposition), and it will be either lenited or eclipsed – depending whether the second part of the preposition itself is in dative or accusative. For example i n-aghaidh meaning ‘against’ eclipse the following noun, because it means literally ‘in(to) the face of…’ and aghaidh ‘face’ is in accusative, eg. i n-aghaidh bhfear ‘against men’ and i n-aghaidh bhfir ‘against a man’, but in the meaning ‘in front of’ (as a stationary location) it lenites: i n-aghaidh fhir ‘in front of a man’ (eg. sitting at a table).

Forms with the article

• a^H ‘out of’: as an, as na + dative
• ag ‘at’: ag an, gan, gun, agan, agon + dative (note the difference between gan fhior ‘at the man’, gan fhear ‘without a man’, gan tshúil ‘at the eye’ and gan shúil ‘without an eye’)
• ar ‘on’: ar an, ar na + dative or accusative
• do ‘to’: don, dona + dative
• do ‘from’: don, dona + dative
• fa ‘under, beneath’: fan + dative (or accusative?)
• go^H ‘until, to’: gus an + accusative (gus an bhfear), anomalously just gus (gus bhfear), gus na + dative plural
• go^N ‘with’: gus an + dative
• i^N ‘in’: sg. san (sa), is in + dative or accusative, pl. sna, is na + dative
• do-chum ‘to’ – generally not accepted in dán díreach, poets used go, gus an instead – even though it is an old compound preposition common in speech
• le^H ‘with’: leis an, leis na (note that it’s always leis before the article, even though it can be lais in conjugated 3rd. sg. form and in the meaning ‘also’)
• um^L, bha^L, ma^L (fa^L) ‘about’: uman, bhan, man (fan)

Copula

Forms

The analytical forms (ie. 3rd sg. forms used with nouns and pronouns) of the copula are as follows:

Tense / Mood	Affirmative	Interrogative	Negative	Negative interrogative	Relative	other forms
present	is (as)	an	níH, nocha (nochan + vowel)	nach	asL (isL)	go ‘that, so that’ + cop.: gur (gurb + vowel), gurab, gonidh(?) gé ‘although’ + cop.: giodh má ‘if’ + cop.: másL muna ‘if not’ + cop.: muna(b)
past	do baL (do badhL, do budhL), robaL, fáH	((n)ár(bh)L???)	níor bh’L, ní ba(L?) (ní badh(L?)), nochar(bh)		dob, fáH	gé + cop.: gér(bh)L (muna + cop.: munar(bh)L?)
future	budh (badh)		ní budh, níbaH		bhus
conditional	budh, do budh, robudh		ní budh
present subjunctive	rob		nára (nárab + vowel)		bhus	go + cop.: gurab, go mbaH gé + cop.: giodh má + cop: madh
past subjunctive	budh		nába(dh)			go + cop.: gomadh gé + cop.: gémadh muna + cop.: munbadh

Sealbhadh (synthetic conjugated forms)

[TODO: add personal forms]

Syntax

Definite subject, indefinite predicative

⟨copula⟩ ⟨predicative⟩ ⟨subject⟩:

• is rí an fear ‘the man is a king’
• is rí maith an fear ‘the man is a good king’

with adjectives more common:

• is maith an rí an fear ‘the man is a good king, the king that the man is, is good’
• is maith na fir an slúagh or is maithe na fir íad an slúagh ‘the host is good men’ vs is maith an slúagh é na fir ‘the men are a good host’

Both subject and predicative definite

When the predicate is definite, it is separated from the copular verb with a pronoun agreeing with the predicate.

⟨copula⟩ é/í/íad ⟨predicative⟩ ⟨subject⟩:

• mo theanga, is é m’arm-sa í ‘my tongue, it is my weapon’ (ie. it is the poet’s means to defend himself and by which he can do harm) – note that the first pronoun agrees with the predicate: masculine é and masculine arm, while the subject is feminine í ‘she’ standing for the feminine mo theanga ‘my tongue’,
• is é an rí Conn ‘Conn is the king’,
• is íad fir an bhaile an slúagh táinig… ‘the host that came was the men of the town…’

If the predicate is a singular collective noun, representing multiple people, the pronoun may be plural íad:

• is í (or íad) an chlíar an chlíar táinig… ‘the group of poets (or clergy) that came was the group of poets/clergy…’ (í or íad can be used, because plural pronoun can be used for collective nouns).

When the subject is understood as a pronoun agreeing in gender with the predicate, it is often omitted (just like subject pronoun is often not expressed with other verbs, and like it wasn’t in Old Irish):

• más é tal mo Thighearna ‘if it be my Lord’s will’ – no subject is explicitly expressed, é is part of the predicate.

But it appears occasionally:

• is é an seanadh é más fhíor ‘it is the old tradition if it be true’ – the first é is part of the predicative (é an seanadh ‘the old tradition’), the second é is the subject ‘it’, and the subject is not repeated for the second copula más fhíor ‘if it be true’.

References

Editions of bardic poetry

• Mícheál Hoyne (2018), Fuidheall Áir: Bardic poems on the Meic Dhiarmada of Magh Luirg, c. 1377 – c. 1637, Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies