The morphology of Irish is in some respects typical of an Indo-European language. Nouns are declined for number and case, and verbs for person and number. Nouns are classified by masculine or feminine gender. Other aspects of Irish morphology, while typical for an Insular Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and the initial consonant mutations. Irish syntax is also rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, due to its use of the verb–subject–object word order.[1]
See main article: Irish syntax. Word order in Irish is of the form VSO (verb–subject–object) so that, for example, "He hit me" is Irish: Bhuail [hit-past tense] Irish: sé [he] Irish: mé [me].
One distinctive aspect of Irish is the distinction between Irish: is, the copula (known in Irish as Irish: an chopail), and Irish: tá. Irish: Is describes identity or quality in a permanence sense, while temporary aspects are described by Irish: tá. This is similar to the difference between the verbs Spanish; Castilian: ser and Spanish; Castilian: estar in Spanish and Portuguese (see Romance copula), although this is not an exact match; Irish: is and Irish: tá are cognate respectively with the Spanish Spanish; Castilian: es and Spanish; Castilian: está.
Examples are:
Irish is an inflected language, having four cases: Irish: ainmneach (nominative and accusative), Irish: gairmeach (vocative), Irish: ginideach (genitive) and Irish: tabharthach (prepositional). The prepositional case is called the dative by convention.
Irish nouns are masculine or feminine. To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, Irish: -án and Irish: -ín being masculine and Irish: -óg feminine. While the neuter has mostly disappeared from vocabulary, the neuter gender is seen in various place names in Ireland.
See also: Irish initial mutations.
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Feminine | |||
| Nominative | Irish: anT | Irish: anL | Irish: naH | |
| Genitive | Irish: anL | Irish: naH | Irish: naE | |
| Dative | Irish: an1 | Irish: an2 | Irish: naH |
Names of countries usually take the definite article in the nominative: Irish: An Fhrainc "France", Irish: an Bhrasaíl "Brazil", Irish: an tSeapáin "Japan". Exceptions to this include Irish: Éire "Ireland", Irish: Albain "Scotland" and Irish: Sasana "England".
There is no indefinite article in Irish; the word appears by itself, for example: Irish: Tá peann agam. – "I have a pen", Irish: Tá madra sa seomra. – "There's a dog in the room".
When two definite noun phrases appear as part of a genitive construction (equivalent to the X of the Y in English), only the noun phrase in the genitive takes the article. Compare Irish: Áras '''an''' Uachtaráin or Irish: Teitheamh '''na''' nIarlaí to English the residence of the President, the flight of the Earls.
Irish adjectives always follow the noun. The adjective is influenced by the case, number and gender of the noun preceding it.
Adjectives in Irish have two morphological degrees of comparison: the positive (Irish: bunchéim), e.g. Irish: Tá an buachaill '''cairdiúil''' "the boy is friendly", and the comparative (Irish: breischéim), e.g. Irish: Tá an cailín '''níos cairdiúla''' ná an buachaill "the girl is nicer than the boy". A superlative (Irish: sárchéim) sense is rendered by the comparative in a relative clause, e.g. Irish: Is é Seán an páiste '''is cairdiúla''' den triúr "Seán is the nicest child of the three".
Irish adverbs are used to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.
An adverb can be created from an adjective by adding Irish: go before it, e.g. Irish: go mall, Irish: go tapaidh, Irish: go maith, etc. If the adjective begins with a vowel, is added before it, e.g. Irish: go hálainn, Irish: go híseal, Irish: go háirithe, etc.
Adverbs can often be created from nouns by putting a preposition before them, e.g. Irish: ar bith, Irish: de ghnáth, Irish: faoi dheireadh, etc.
Other categories of adverbs include the following:
Adverbs that describe relation to time, e.g. Irish: uaireanta, Irish: anois, Irish: cheana, etc.
Adverbs that describe relation to place, e.g. Irish: ann, Irish: abhaile, Irish: amuigh, etc.
Adverbs used in questions, e.g. Irish: cathain?, Irish: conas?, Irish: cá?, etc.
Adverbs used for negation, e.g. Irish: ní, Irish: nach, Irish: nár, etc.
Other adverbs, e.g. Irish: áfach, Irish: chomh maith, Irish: ach oiread, etc.
See main article: Irish conjugation.
There are two conjugations and 11 irregular verbs. Tenses or moods are formed by inflecting the stem, and in the past and habitual past tenses and the conditional mood also by leniting any initial consonant. The inflected tense and mood forms are: present indicative, present habitual indicative (differs from present only in the verb Irish: bí "to be"), future, past indicative, past habitual indicative, conditional, imperative, present subjunctive, and past subjunctive. Verbs also have a verbal noun and past participle, and progressive constructions similar to those using the English present participle may be formed from the verbal noun and an appropriate tense of Irish: bí. Examples of tense conjugations: (all third person forms without subject pronoun):
In addition to the passive voice, there is the impersonal form of the verb, termed the Irish: saorbhriathar or "autonomous verb", which serves a similar function (the most literal translation is "You/One/They...[e.g. say, are, do]").
Verbs can be conjugated either synthetically (with the personal pronoun included in the verb inflection) or analytically (with the verb inflected for tense only and a separate subject). However, the official standard generally prescribes the analytic form in most person-tense combinations, and the synthetic in only some cases, such as the first person plural. The analytic forms are also generally preferred in the western and northern dialects, except in answer to what would in English be "yes/no" questions, while Munster Irish prefers the synthetic forms. For example, the following are the standard form, synthetic form and analytical form of the past tense of Irish: rith "to run":
| Person | Standard | Synthetic | Analytic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st sing | Irish: rith mé | Irish: ritheas | Irish: rith mé | |
| 2nd sing | Irish: rith tú | Irish: rithis | Irish: rith tú | |
| 3rd sing | Irish: rith sé | Irish: rith | Irish: rith sé | |
| 1st plural | Irish: ritheamar | Irish: ritheamar | Irish: rith sinn / Irish: rith muid | |
| 2nd plural | Irish: rith sibh | Irish: ritheabhar | Irish: rith sibh | |
| 3rd plural | Irish: rith siad | Irish: ritheadar | Irish: rith siad | |
| Impersonal | Irish: ritheadh | Irish: ritheadh | Irish: ritheadh |
Personal pronouns in Irish do not inflect for case, but there are three different sets of pronouns used: conjunctive forms, disjunctive forms, and emphatic forms (which may be used either conjunctively or disjunctively)
The normal word order in Irish is verb–subject–object (VSO). The forms of the subject pronoun directly following the verb are called conjunctive.
The form in the 1st person plural has only recently been approved for use in the official standard, but is very common in western and northern dialects. The standard and southern dialects have no subject pronoun in the 1st person plural, using the synthetic verb ending Irish: -imíd (alternatively Irish: -imid) instead.
Irish has no T–V distinction, i.e. it does not differentiate between formal and familiar forms of second person pronouns. The difference between and is purely one of number.
There is no equivalent to the English "it". Either Irish: sé or Irish: sí are used depending on whether the thing the speaker is referring to is a masculine noun or a feminine noun. The exception is the pronoun Irish: ea, used in impersonal copula phrases, particularly in the phrases Irish: is ea (> Irish: sea) "yes", "so", "that is so", Irish: ní hea (the opposite of Irish: is ea), Irish: nach ea? "is that not so?", Irish: an ea (Kerry Irish: am b'ea) "Is that so?", Irish: fear is ea é "it's a man", and so on.
If a pronoun is not the subject or if a subject pronoun does not follow the verb (as in a verbless clause, or as the subject of the copula, where the pronoun stands at the end of the sentence), the so-called disjunctive forms are used:
In Munster dialects the form Irish: thú is either (a) archaic (replaced by Irish: tú) or (b) is only found after words ending in a vowel.
Irish also has intensive pronouns, used to give the pronouns a bit more weight or emphasis.
The word (pronounced as //heːnʲ// or pronounced as //fʲeːnʲ//) "-self" can follow a pronoun, either to add emphasis or to form a reflexive pronoun.
"I did it myself."
"Did you hurt yourself?"
is thus "We Ourselves"
As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" prepositions, or, as they are more commonly termed, prepositional pronouns.
| Singular | Plural | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | |||
| Masculine | Feminine | |||||||
| "at" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "on" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "from, out of" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "to(wards)" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "of, from" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "to, for" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "about, under" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "in" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "between" | Simple | — | ||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "with" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "since" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "before, in front of" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "over, beyond, past" | Simple | tharainn | ||||||
| Emphatic | tharainne | |||||||
| "through" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
| "around" | Simple | |||||||
| Emphatic | ||||||||
The possessive determiners cause different initial consonant mutations.
| 1st person | L | E | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd person | L | E | |
| 3rd person | Masculine | L | E |
| Feminine | H | ||
These forms (especially and) can also blend with certain prepositions:
| Possessive pronoun | |||||
| "my" | "your" | "his, her(s), their(s)" | "our(s)" | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "from" | |||||
| "to, for" | |||||
| "about, under" | — | — | |||
| "in" | |||||
| "with" | |||||
| "from" | |||||
| "through" | — | — |
The object of a verbal noun is in the genitive case:
Similarly, if the object of the verbal noun is a pronoun, then it is a possessive pronoun:
More examples:
Interrogative pronouns introduce a question, e.g. the words who, what, which. The Irish equivalents are:
Examples:
| Cardinal | Ordinal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disjunctive | Conjunctive | ||||
| Nonhuman | Human | ||||
| 0 | |||||
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 6 | |||||
| 7 | |||||
| 8 | |||||
| 9 | |||||
| 10 | |||||
| 11 | |||||
| 12 | |||||
| 20 | |||||
| 21 | |||||
| 22 | |||||
| 30 | |||||
| 40 | |||||
| 50 | |||||
| 60 | |||||
| 70 | |||||
| 80 | |||||
| 90 | |||||
| 100 | |||||
| 1000 | Irish: míliú | ||||
Disjunctive numbers are used for example in arithmetic, in telling time, in telephone numbers and after nouns in forms like "bus 13" or "room 2".
Nonhuman conjunctive numbers are used to count nouns that do not refer to human beings, e.g. "horse"
"One" as a pronoun is rendered with (lit. "head") when it concerns things and animals, e.g.:
"I have five horses; one of them is sick."
Human conjunctive numbers are used to count nouns that refer to human beings, e.g. Irish: páiste 'child'
"One" as a pronoun is rendered with (lit. "person") with people. The other "personal" numbers can also be used pronominally, e.g.:
"I have five children; one of them is sick."
"Six people are in the room."
Higher numbers are done as with the nonhuman conjunctive numbers:, Irish: fiche páiste, etc.
See main article: Irish phonology.
A notable feature of Irish phonology is that consonants (except pronounced as //h//) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarized, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalized, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate).
| +Consonant phonemes | Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labio- velar | Labio- dental | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | |||||||
| broad | slender | broad | broad | slender | broad | broad | slender | slender | slender | broad | ||||
| Plosives | voiceless | pronounced as /pˠ/ | pronounced as /pʲ/ | pronounced as /t̪ˠ/ | pronounced as /tʲ/ | pronounced as /c/ | pronounced as /k/ | |||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /bˠ/ | pronounced as /bʲ/ | pronounced as /d̪ˠ/ | pronounced as /dʲ/ | pronounced as /ɟ/ | pronounced as /ɡ/ | ||||||||
| Fricative/ Approximant | voiceless | pronounced as /fˠ/ | pronounced as /fʲ/ | pronounced as /sˠ/ | pronounced as /ʃ/ | pronounced as /ç/ | pronounced as /x/ | pronounced as /h/ | ||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /w/ | pronounced as /vʲ/ | pronounced as /j/ | pronounced as /ɣ/ | ||||||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /mˠ/ | pronounced as /mʲ/ | pronounced as /n̪ˠ/ | pronounced as /nʲ/ | pronounced as /ɲ/ | pronounced as /ŋ/ | ||||||||
| Tap | pronounced as /ɾˠ/ | pronounced as /ɾʲ/ | ||||||||||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /l̪ˠ/ | pronounced as /lʲ/ | ||||||||||||
| +Vowel phonemes | ||||
| Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /iː/ | pronounced as /uː/ | ||
| Near-close | pronounced as /ɪ/ | pronounced as /ʊ/ | ||
| Close-mid | pronounced as /eː/ | pronounced as /oː/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /ə/ (only unstressed) | |||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /ɛ/ | pronounced as /ɔ/ | ||
| Open | pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /ɑː/ |
pronounced as //iə//, pronounced as //uə//, pronounced as //əi//, pronounced as //əu//.