case: case marking
The case relation in Scottish Gaelic is used to attach prepositions to the words they qualify.
These are in turn related to their heads with:
- the nmod relation, if their head is a nominal
- xcomp:pred if it is the predicate of bi
- csubj:cleft if it is a cleft
- obl if it is another sort of clause or complement.
There is a small set of simple prepositions (English translations very approximate):
- à ‘out of’
- aig ‘at’
- air ‘on’,
- an, ‘in’. Usually in modern Gaelic this is ann an for indefinite nominals or anns an for definite nominals.
- bho/o ‘from’,
- de ‘of’,
- do ‘for’,
- eadar ‘between’
- fo ‘under’,
- gu ‘to’,
- gun ‘without’,
- le ‘with’,
- mu ‘about’
- os ‘above’
- ri ‘to, against’
- ro ‘before’
- tro ‘through’
and the aspectual marker ag.
There is a large class of compound prepositions which consist of a preposition plus a noun. The nominal the compound preposition marks is then typically in the genitive.
- an dèidh ‘after’
- os cionn ‘above’
- o chionn ‘since’
- ri linn ‘in the time of’, ‘because of’
Some of these are treated as fixed expressions. See fixed for a full list of those to be found in the ARCOSG corpus.
There is more discussion at https://leacan.gla.ac.uk/leacan/index.php?xx=prepositions/prepositions
See also case:voc for the vocative particle a.
Examples
Marking a nominal
Air an là mu dheireadh ‘on the last day’ (pw10_037, train)
Air an là mu dheireadh \n on the day about end
case(Air,là)
det(an,là)
amod(mu,là)
fixed(dheireadh,mu)
Marking a pronoun
cha tàinig e faisg oirnn is eh ‘he did not come close to us and eh’ (p01_008b, train)
1 cha cha PART Qn PartType=Vb|Polarity=Neg 2 mark:prt _ _
2 tàinig thig VERB V-s--d Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _
3 e e PRON Pp3sm Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 2 nsubj _ _
4 faisg faisg ADJ Ap _ 2 xcomp:pred _ _
5-6 oirnn _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
5 air air ADP Sp _ 6 case _ _
6 sinn sinn PRON Pp1p Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs 2 obl _ _
7 is is CCONJ Cc _ 8 cc _ _
8 eh eh INTJ I _ 2 conj _ _
chan urrainn dhomh sin a fhreagairt ‘I can’t answer that’ (p07_003, train)
chan urrainn dhomh sin a fhreagairt \n NEG-COP possibility to me that PART answer
cop(chan, urrainn)
nmod(dhomh, urrainn)
Marking a verbal noun
gu bhith a’ riaghladh an dèidh an ath thaghaidh ‘to be governing after the next election’ (pw10_037, train)
gu bhith a' riaghladh an dèidh an ath thaghaidh \n to be ASP governing in after the next election
case(a', riaghladh)
xcomp:pred(riaghladh, bhith)
case(gu, bhith)
case in other languages: [bg] [bm] [cop] [cs] [de] [el] [en] [et] [fi] [fr] [ga] [gd] [gsw] [gub] [hy] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [ky] [naq] [no] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ro] [ru] [sl] [ssp] [sv] [swl] [tr] [u] [urj] [xcl] [yue] [zh]