Form: Form
Form has been introduced as a language specific feature for Irish. It covers both the morphology of direct/indirect relative markers, and initial mutation.
Direct: direct
Direct relatives represent the relative marker a in the following contexts:
Examples
(Relativisers where mark:prt applies)
- Nuair a chonaic mé “when I saw”
- Fad a bhí sé ann “while he was there”
Relative pronouns that represent a missing subject or object in the relative clause
- cé mhéad fuinnimh a bheidh le fáil “how much energy would be available” (nsubj)
- rudaí a sheoltar ar ais “things that were sent back” (obj)
Cases of a that are regarded as Pronouns instead of particles (according to FGB https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/a)
- An bhfuair tú a bhfuil uait? Did you get what you wanted? (nsubj in this case)
Indirect: indirect
Indirect relatives represent the relative marker a in the following contexts:
Examples
Relative pronouns that represent a missing oblique (PP head)
- an teach inar thug sé an chuid ba mhó dá óige “the house in which he spent most his youth” (obl)
Resumptive pronouns, whereby the element which is represented is actually still present in the relativised clause
- an scríbhneoir a molann na mic léinn é “the writer who the students praise” (mark:prt)
Possessive relativisers - where the a represents the missing possessor in the relativised clause
- An fear a raibh a mhac san ospidéal “the man whose son was in hospital” (mark:prt)
One of the characteristics of Irish is its tendency for initial mutation (eclipsis and lenition) to occur in certain circumstances. This is triggered by the preceding word and affects the spelling of nouns, adjectives and verbs. Nouns in Irish are divided into classes according to the way they are inflected to form the genitive singular. There are five such noun-classes or declensions. (The Christian Brothers, 1994)
Ecl: eclipsis
This feature occurs when the initial consonant or vowel of a word is eclipsed by a prefixing consonant. This is either a voiced consonant for voiceless consonants, (e.g. /tʲ/ → /dʲ/, /k/ → /g/) or a nasalised consonant for voiced consonants (e.g. /dʲ/ → /nʲ/, /g/ → /ŋ/). Vowels are eclipsed by adding n- or t-.
Not every consonant can experience eclipsis. The consonants that can be eclipsed in Irish are: p, b, t, d, c, g and f.
Eclipsis will happen in a number of environments:
- after the plural possessive nouns ár, bhur and a (“our”, “your (pl.)”, “their”)
- on singular count nouns following the numbers 7-10
- after the preposition i “in”
- on plural nouns in the genitive case after the definite article
- on singular nouns in the dative case after the definite article
- following certain clitics such as interrogative particles (an, nach), complementisers (go, nach) and relativisers (a, nach)
Examples
- a gcuid iarrachtaí “their efforts”
- seacht mbliana “seven years”
- i nGaeilge “in Irish”
- costas na n-oibreacha “cost of the works”
- ar an bhfocal “on the word”
- nach bhfaca sé “he didn’t see”
Emp: emphatic
The emphatic form is a special form a word takes to mark emphasis in Irish.
Examples
- dom “to me”
- domsa “to me (emph)”
- a deirim “I said”
- a deirimse “I (emph) said”
Len: lenition
Lenition is by far the most common means of initial mutation in the treebank. When lenited, h is added immediately after the initial consonant.
These are some of the environments that trigger lenition:
- following the definite article (see Definite for specifics)
- following the vocative particle a (see PartType, Case)
- after certain adjectives (singular possessive pronouns, uile, aon, dhá, etc.)
- after certain simple prepositions (a, de, do, faoi, etc.)
- following the past tense of the copula is
- following preverbal particles in the past tense (níor, ar, etc.)
- verb forms in the past tense
Examples
- an fharraige “the sea”
- A Dhochtúir Van Helsing “Doctor Van Helsing”
- mo chuid oibre “my work”
- faoi cheist “under question”
- Ba mhaith liom “I would like”
- Níor chuir sin “that doesn’t put”
- tháinig “came”
HPref: h-prefix
When two vowels come together in Irish, a h-prefix is inserted before the second vowel in order to simplify pronunciation.
Examples
- go hálainn “lovely”
- na heisimirce “emigration”
- de h-Íde “from Íde”
- ní hamháin “not only”
VF: Vowel form
Vowel form is an indicator of spelling changes that occur in copular verbs when followed by a word that begins with a vowel or a lenited consonant.
Examples
- is copula, “is”
- ab ea iad “they are”
- gurbh é “it was”
- B’fhearr leis lit. “it was better for him”
Form in other languages: [ga] [gd] [gv] [ko] [la]