Difference between revisions of "Prepositional Inflection"

Revision as of 19:40, 18 April 2009

For a definition of preposition see the page Preposition (definition) For a list of Gaelic prepositions see the page Prepositions

One rare property of Gaelic prepositions is that they inflect for [[person (definition)|person], number and gender when they take a pronoun as an object. In English you use two words: the preposition and the pronoun "to me", in Gaelic this is all bundled into one word "dhomh". Inflected prepositions never take a full object pronoun. So "*dhomh mi" is not well-formed. In addition, many of the prepositions take special forms when coming before an article. For example, to say "from the", we use the form "bhon" (although bhon an is also possible). Similarly the preposition le becomes leis before the article. These two kinds of inflection are summarized in the first chart below. Much rarer (but frequently used in certain aspectual constructions) are forms of the preposition that inflect for a possessive pronoun. For example, to say "at my" we don't say "aig mo", instead " 'gam " is used. The inflection of the prepositions for possessive pronouns is given in the second chart.

Inflected Prepositions with object pronouns

Inflected Prepositions with possessive pronouns

The 1st person singular, 2nd person singular and 3rd person singular masculine forms here trigger lenition (indicated with a superscript ^L). 1st and 2nd person plurals trigger the prefixation of n- onto words beginning with vowels (nasalization), This is indicated with a superscript ^N. the pronunciation of the a consonant following these and the 3rd person plural is also frequently voiced or nasalized. Finally the 3rd person feminine forms prefix an <h> onto words beginning with a vowel. This is indicated with ^H. The superscript N, H, and L are not usually written out in the orthography of Gaelic and are presented here merely to remind you what Initial Consonant Mutation is being triggered.

Note: of the following only the possessive inflected forms of aig, ann, do and ri are in regular use. All the others quite rare or considered prescriptively inferior.

• Note that the /n/ ending on the 3rd person plural will change to an <m> when the word precedes word beginning with <m, b, f, p>.
• Any preposition not in the list above simply combines the normal preposition with the normal possessive pronoun (e.g. "air mo")

The Inflection of Complex Gaelic Prepositions

Complex Prepositions that end in a simple preposition such as còmhla ri are inflected just like the simple preposition. Complex prepositions that end in a noun (and govern the genitive case) such as air muin are inflected differently. They are inflected uses in the Possessive pronouns, so "on top of him" would be air a mheasg.