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Clauses and syntax – clásail is comhréir
Gaelic is a VSO-language, meaning that the verb comes first in the sentence which is quite uncommon in SAE-languages. To say he buys a calf one has to say „ceannaigh sé gamhain“, and this word order is fixed and cannot be changed. The only time the word order changes is in questions where interrogative markers or the question statements an bhfuil or na bhfuil in any of their temporal forms precedes the verb, the predicate.
A predicate is the action or the statement in a sentence and can be a verb, or a predicate, when the predicate is an identification (he is a man) or a classification (he is the man). In these cases the noun and subject are connected to the copula. A predicate can also be a predicate adjective, as in the sentence she is beautiful, and those sentences are mainly constructed with the verb bí, „tá sí breá“.
A subject is the agent of a sentence, i.e the one doing something in a sentence. The subject can be a noun or a pronoun, however, as Irish have so called synthetic verb forms sometimes a pronoun is included in the verb – Táim, I am, is one of all synthetic verb forms. In a passive sentences the subject is the one that is being e.g killed or built, not the agent.
Objects
'There are three different objects,
- accusative, the object of the action
- dative, object that only occur with prepositions
- genitive, objects, which can only be taken by a verbal noun.
Syntax
In the easiest Irish non-copula sentences, the verb comes first followed by a subject and an object. e.g Mharaigh an cat an francach lit.killed the cat the mouse
If one wishes to make a more complicated sentence, the pattern will look like this; grammar verb subject direct object indirect object local modifier modal modifier temporal modifier
In order to make a sentence negative one simply puts ní or níl in front of the sentence, or as in Donegal, cha or char.
As there is no word for only in the Gaelic languages, they have come up with a way of dealing with it referred to as a semi-negative clause, because of the fact that one says a negative statement followed by ach and the part of the sentence that is supposed to go with only.
Ní raibh mé in SAM ach uair amhain - Not was I in USA but time alone - I have only been in the States once
Yes/No
As there are no words for yes or no, a question always has to be answered with a full sentence, repeating the question verb. Sometimes one may answer with the statements is ea or ni hea, as substitutes for yes and no, but those are only possible answers to a copula sentence.
E.g.
| present affirmative | An + (E) VSO | an ólann tú bíor? |
|---|---|---|
| present negative | Nach + (E)VSO | Nach bpóg tú Sinéad? |
| past affirmative | Ar (L) VSO | Ar phóg tú Sinéad? |
| past negative | Nár (L)VSO | Nár thug tú mo ghamhain? |
Questions
When a question word is needed it is always placed in front of the verb, even if this sounds strange, following the rules that Irish is a strict VSO-language, however there is no rule without an exception, further is a question with two interrogatives impossible to form in Irish.
The question words are as follow;
- cé who
- cad what
- céard what
- conas how
- cá where
- cén fath why
- cén chaoi how
- cé leis with what
- cé air on what
In order to put to sentences together one uses the words go, or nach (with eclipses) for the present tense, and gur and nár (with lenition) for the past.
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| Introduction · Adjectives · Articles and Gender · Cases · Colours · Conjunctions · Mutation · Numbers · Prepositions · Pronouns · Syntax · Verbs |
