Conjunction

Conjunctions link two similar words or phrases together into a single phrase. English conjunctions include and, or, but. In Gaelic the conjunctions include:

• 'ach, "but"
• agus or 's or 'is, "and"
• "no" (pronounced [n^jo], "or"

Nominal coordination with agus 'and'

• Pronoun-agus-Pronoun Coordination

When pronouns are coordinated, emphatic or reflexive forms of pronouns are used rather than plain forms.

Chunnaic	mi	fhin	agus	thu	fhèin	Iain.
see.pst	1sg	self	and	2sg	self	Iain
'I and you saw Iain.'

Chunnaic	mise	agus	thusa	Iain.
see.pst	1sg.emph	and	2sg.emph	Iain
'I and you saw Iain.'

*Chunnaic	mi	agus	thu	Iain.
see.pst	1sg	and	2sg	Iain

• Pronoun-agus-Noun Coordination

Dh'feumainn	fhin	agus	na	fir	agam	dusgadh.
must.cond.1sg	self	and	the	men	at.1sg	wake.vn
'I and my men would have to wake up.'

Emphatic pronouns have contrastive feel and would not be used in coordinated structure.

Nam	bithinn	fhin	agus	Raonaird	a	posadh ...
if	be.cond.1sg	self	and	Rachel	prog	marry.vn
'If I and Rachel were getting married ...'

?Nam	bithinnse	agus	Raonaird	a	posadh ...
if	be.cond.1sg.emph	and	Rachel	prog	marry.vn
'If I and Rachel were getting married ...'

But, emphatic form can be used in the context of non-coordination

Nam	bithinnse	a	posadh	Raonaird ...
if	be.cond.1sg.emph	prog	marry.vn	Rachel
'If I were marrying Rachel ...'

Clausal coordination with agus 'and'

Sheas	Iain	agus	shuidh	Anna.
stand.pst	John	and	sit.pst	Anna
'John stood and Anna sat.' (MacAulay 1992)

Coordination with ach 'but'

'S

ann

ag

obair

diluain

a

bha

mi

ach

's

ann

a'

snamh

dimairt.

Cop

in.3sg.m

prog

work.vn

Monday

Wh-C

be.pst

1sg

but

Cop

in.3sg.m

prog

swim.vn

Tuesday.

'I was working on Monday but swimming Tuesday.' (Adger 1997)

See Also

• Conjunction (definition)
• Complementizer (definition)

External Links

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjunction

References

• Crystal, David. (1997) A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.