Scottish Gaelic language

Grammar

Scottish Gaelic is an inflected language. Nouns indicate their relationships with a number of grammatical cases (nominative, vocative, genitive, and 'dative', so-termed in traditional grammars (better - 'post-prepositional' case), and verbs are conjugated to indicate tense (simple tenses are past and future; compound tenses are continuous present, past, and future), mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive), and voice (active, passive).

Related Topics:
Inflected language - Noun - Cases - Nominative - Vocative - Genitive - Dative - Verb - Conjugated - Tense - Past - Future - Present - Mood - Subjunctive - Voice

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Gaelic shares with other Celtic languages a number of interesting grammatical features:

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• Verb Subject Object word order; a relatively uncommon typology among the world's languages
• Prepositional pronouns: pronouns and most prepositions are fused into compound forms, such as agam (at me), agad (at you), ris (to him).
• The absence of a verb to have: instead, possession is expressed prepositionally, with aig (that is by saying that something is at or on a person, cf. Russian u):

:tha taigh agam ? I have a house (lit. a house is at me)

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:an cat aig Iain ? John's cat (lit. the cat at John)

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• Emphatic pronouns: A distinction is made between the ordinary pronouns, like mi and thu, and their emphatic counterparts, mise, thusa, and so forth, which express a contrast to other persons. For example:

:tha i bòidheach ? she's beautiful

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:tha ise bòidheach ? she's beautiful (as opposed to somebody else)

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Grammatical emphasis carries over into other situations:

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:an taigh aicese ? her house

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:chuirinn-sa ? I would put

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:na mo bheachd-sa ? in my opinion

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• "To be": Gaelic has two forms of the verb "to be": tha is used to ascribe a property to a noun or pronoun, whereas in general usage is is used to identify a noun or pronoun as a complement. ('Is' can be used to ascribe a description to a noun or pronoun, but generally this usage is restricted to fixed expressions, for example: 'Is beag an t-iongnadh' lit. 'Is small the surprise'

: tha mise sgìth ? I am tired

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: is mise Eòghann ? I am Ewen.

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It is, however, possible to use tha to say that one thing is another thing by turning it into a

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property:

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: tha mi nam Albannach ? I am a Scot (lit. I am in my Scot)

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: Is e Albannach a th' annam ? I am a Scot (lit. it's a Scot that's in me).

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Articles

Gaelic has a definite article but no indefinite article:

Related Topics:
Definite article - Indefinite article

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:an taigh ? 'the house'

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:taigh ? '(a) house'

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The form of the (definite) article depends on the number, gender, case, and initial sound of the noun.

Related Topics:
Number - Gender - Case

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(i). an, am, and an t- are used with masculine singular nominative nouns:

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:an cat ? 'the cat' (also for nouns which cannot be lenited)

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:am balach ? 'the boy' (nouns which begin with labial consonants)

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:an t-òran ? 'the song' (nouns which begin with vowels)

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(ii). a' is used before a lenited consonant; there are two cases:

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:a' chaileag ? 'the girl' (feminine nominative and dative)

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:leis a' bhalach ? 'with the boy' (masculine dative and genitive)

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(iii). na and na h- (before a vowel) are used in the feminine genitive singular:

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:na mara ? 'of the sea'

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:na h-Alba ? 'of Scotland'

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(iv). na and na h- (before a vowel) are used in the nominative and dative plural of both genders:

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:na cait ? 'the cats'

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:na h-àireamhan ? 'the numbers'

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(v). nan or nam (before a labial) are used in the genitive plural:

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:nan cat ? 'of the cats'

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:nam balach ? 'of the boys'

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