Aig (preposition)

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Gaelic preposition, meaning roughly "at" or sometimes "by" or "near". 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 possessive pronouns. It governs the dative case, but typically does not trigger lenition on the following bare indefinite nouns.

For other prepositions see prepositions

Form

Simple forms

bare form: aig 'at a'

definite form: aig an 'at the'

Basic inflected forms

Like most prepositions, aig 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
be.pres 1s at.my house
"I am at my house."


Contracted forms (typically used in speech)

singularplural
1st'gamLgarN
2nd'gadLgurN
3rdMasc gaLganN
FemgaH
  • NOTE: gam is used instead of gan 'at their' in front of words beginning with the labial consonant consonants <f, b, p, m>. Note that orthographically this is the same as gam 'at my', but does not trigger lenition. Instead, it triggers eclipsis.


These same forms are used with the progressive aspect particle ag, when the object is pronominal. See the Progressive aspect article for more details.

Special Uses of "aig"

Possessive Pronoun Usage

an leabhar agam 'my book'

Possessive Marker

an leabhar aig Iain "Iain's 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"
  • Chan eil fios agam "I don't know"

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).