Boergstrom, Really Old, like 1950s old

Mutation:

NOUNS

• Lenition of initial consonants: cat- dà chat
• Prefixation of a nasal consonant: cat- an cat; phonemically: /(ə) Nkahd/
• Palatalization of final consonants on root morphemes: an cat – a’ chait, na cait; this is often accompanied by, or even replaced by, vocalic mutation: an ceann- na cinn.

VERBS

• Palatalization of final consonants occurs, but is ‘relatively unimportant’
• Lentition (a & a dh’) is productive in characterizing the relative mode of all tenses

Borgstroem makes the claim that the syntax of the modes of verbs parallels that of the cases of nouns:

• Nominative – independent
  • Can be used without a sentence, ie. as an answer to a question
  • In the sentence the verb comes first and the nom second
• Genitive – relative
  • The genitive noun is always governed by some antecedent
    • A noun
      • Biadh a’ choin

The dog’s food A verbal noun governs its object in the genitive Thà a’ bhò ‘g ithe an fheòir The cow is eating the grass A compound preposition: air son, an aghaidh Sometimes a simple preposition fad, bharr The adjective làn Làn fala Full of blood Also, two nouns in genitive case maybe coordinated without repetition of the antecedent The relative verb is always governed by some antecedent a noun Baidh a dh’itheas an cù food that the dog will eat Certain conjunctions 'nuair, mà, mar, agus Interrogatives Cò thuigeas sin? Who can understand that? Topicalized(?)/left dislocated(?) words ‘s ann am maireach a thilleas e ‘it is tomorrow he will return’ Dative – dependent A noun in the dative is always governed by a preposition Of the 15 prepositions that can be conjugated, all except chun and eadar govern a noun in the dative Unlike in the above cases, when dative nouns are coordinated, there must be a preposition before each one. A verb in the dependent case is always governed by a proclitic particle as in the dative noun case, when dependent verbs are coordinated, the particle must be repeated in each instance

INTERIM SUMMARY Nom/indep forms do not presuppose any antecedents Gen/rel forms presuppose antecedents which are often nouns or have a certain affinity to nouns; the antecedent need not be repeated in coordinated phrases Dat/dep forms presuppose immediately preceding antecedents which are not nouns, adjectives, or verbs.

Where the parallelism breaks down NOM nouns can fill-in for other forms in certain contexts After verbal nouns ‘g ithe feur Before another noun in GEN Air cas a’ ghille After the prepositions gun and eadar The independent form of the verb, however, never occurs after a governing antecedent

Discussion of morpheme boundaries (Key Points):

Stressed syllables are with few exceptions, word initial Munster Irish diverges Root morphemes are with few exceptions, word initial Gaelic may be a “mildly synthetic” language