Air (preposition)
for information on the use of air see Air (disambiguation)" For other prepositions see prepositions
Gaelic preposition, meaning roughly "on". It governs the dative case, but does not usually trigger lenition on following indefinite nouns (except in certain idiomatic phrasings).
Contents
Forms
Simple forms
bare form: air 'on a' definite form: air an 'on the'
Basic inflected forms
Like most prepositions, air can be inflected for person, number, and gender. For example, to say "on me", we use the single word orm.
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | orm | oirnn | |
| 2nd | ort | oirbh | |
| 3rd | Masc | air | orra |
| Fem | oirre | ||
Emphatic Inflected forms
Special emphatic forms are used if we want to emphasize the pronoun in the inflected preposition. (e.g. ormsa "on **me**")
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | ormsa | oirnne | |
| 2nd | ortsa | oirbhse | |
| 3rd | Masc | airsan | orrasan |
| Fem | oirrese | ||
Possessive inflected forms:
No Special forms are used for possessives, although occasionally one might find the abbreviated orraL 'on your' instead of air do (not to be confused with orra "on them"). (Mark 2004:20)
| singular | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | air moL | air arN | |
| 2nd | air doL | air bhurN / air urN | |
| 3rd | Masc | air aL | air anN |
| Fem | air aH | ||
Note: am is used instead of an "their" in front of words beginning with the labial consonants <m, b, p, f>
Uses
References
Mark, Colin (2004) The Gaelic-English Dictionary/Am Faclair Gàidhlig-Beurla. London: Routledge
Notes
In this document, as elsewhere, L indicates lenition and N indicates nasalization, (prefixation of an n- before a word beginning with vowels, and a nasalization of the next consonant (not indicated in the orthography) and H indicates Antilenition (the prefixation of h before words beginning with vowels).
