Aig (preposition)

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Gaelic preposition, meaning roughly "at". It can also mean "have" when used in combination with the verb Bi (e.g. tha leabhar agam) and in its inflected form can be used to mark posspron possessive pronouns. It governs the dative case, but typically does not trigger lenition on the following bare indefinite nouns.

//For other prepositions see prepositions//

Simple forms

bare form: aig 'at a' definite form: aig an 'at the'

Basic inflected forms

Like most prepositions, at can be inflected for person, number, and gender. For example, to say "at me", we use the single word agam.

""
singularplural
1stagamagainn
2ndagadagaibh
3rdMascaigeaca
Femaice
""

Emphatic Inflected forms

Special emphatic forms are used if we want to emphasize the pronoun in the inflected preposition. (e.g. agamsa "at **me**")

""
singularplural
1stagamsaagainne
2ndagadsaagaibhse
3rdMascaigesanacasan
Femaicese
""


Possessive inflected forms:

There is a special contracted form of aig used with possessive pronouns: Tha mi gam thaigh 'I am at my house'

Contracted forms (typically used in speech)

""
singularplural
1st'gamLgarN
2nd'gadLgurN
3rdMasc gaLganN
FemgaH
"" - //gam// is used instead of //gan// "at their" in front of words beginning with the labial consonant consonants ,

, <m>, and <f>. Note that orthographically this is the same as gam 'at my', but does not trigger lenition (triggering nasalization instead) - These same forms are used with the ProgressiveAspect progressive aspect particle //ag//, when the object is pronominal. See the progressive aspect article for more details.

Special Uses of "aig"

Possessive Pronoun Usage

leabhar agam 'my book'

Usage to mean 'have'

tha leabhar agam 'I have a book'

Modal Usage

Tha agam ri + vn "I have to ...

Experiencer Usages

Chan eil agam air +N "I dislike N"

Partitive Usage

(Mark 2004:15) an dithis aca 'both of them' an dithis agaibh 'both of you' an triùir againn "the three of us"

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).