This article describes the grammar of the Scottish Gaelic language.
Gaelic shares with other Celtic languages a number of interesting typological features:
Lenition and slenderisation (also referred to as palatalisation or "i-infection") play a crucial role in Scottish Gaelic grammar.
Lenition (sometimes inaccurately referred to as "aspiration"), as a grammatical process, affects the pronunciation of initial consonants, and is indicated orthographically by the addition of an :
Lenition is not indicated in writing for words beginning with . Nor does it affect words that begin with either a vowel, or with . In most cases, lenition is caused by the presence of particular trigger words to the left (certain determiners, adverbs, prepositions, and other function words). In this article, the leniting effect of such words is indicated, where relevant, by the superscript "+L" (e.g. <sup>+L</sup> "very").
Slenderisation, on the other hand, is a change in the pronunciation of the final consonant of a word, and it is typically indicated by the addition of an :
In monosyllabic words, slenderisation can cause more complex changes to the vowel:
Slenderisation usually has no effect on words that end in a vowel (e.g. "boat"), or words whose final consonant is already slender (e.g. "street"). In rare cases, for example in words where a historic silent final consonant is elided in spelling, this may re-appear in the slenderised form, e.g. (< ) usually slenderises to .
Most cases of slenderisation can be explained historically as the palatalizing influence of a following front vowel (such as -) in earlier stages of the language. Although this vowel has now disappeared, its effects on the preceding consonant are still preserved. Similarly, lenition of initial consonants was originally triggered by the final vowel of the preceding word, but in many cases, this vowel is no longer present in the modern language.
Many word-final consonants have also disappeared in the evolution of Scottish Gaelic, and some traces of them can be observed in the form of prosthetic or linking consonants (, etc.) that appear in some syntactic combinations, for example, after some determiners (see below).
Gaelic nouns and pronouns belong to one of two grammatical genders: masculine or feminine. Nouns with neuter gender in Old Gaelic were redistributed between the masculine and feminine.
The gender of a small number of nouns differs between dialects. A very small group of nouns have declensional patterns that suggest mixed gender characteristics. Foreign nouns that are fairly recent loans arguably fall into a third gender class (discussed by Black), if considered in terms of their declensional pattern. It is arguable that feminine gender is under pressure and that the system may be becoming simplified with the feminine paradigms incorporating some typically masculine patterns.
Nouns have three grammatical numbers: singular, dual (vestigially) and plural. Dual forms of nouns are only found after the numeral (two), where they are obligatory. The dual form is identical in form to the dative singular; depending on noun class, the dual is therefore either the same in form as the common singular (the nominative-accusative, Class 1 nouns, Class 3 and Class 4 nouns), or have a palatalised final consonant in nouns of Class 2 and Class 5. Plurals are formed in a variety of ways, including suffixation (often involving the suffix ) and slenderisation. Pluralisation, as in Irish Gaelic and Manx, can vary according to noun class, however on the whole depends on the final sound of the singular form.
For counting, or with numerals that are not followed by a noun, the form is slightly different.
Nouns and pronouns in Gaelic have four cases: nominative, vocative, genitive, and dative (or prepositional) case. There is no distinct accusative case form; the nominative is used for both subjects and objects. Nouns can be classified into a number of major declension classes, with a small number of nouns falling into minor patterns or irregular paradigms. Case forms can be related to the base form by suffixation, lenition, slenderisation, or a combination of such changes. See the example paradigms below for further details.
The case system is now under tremendous pressure and speakers exhibit varying degrees of paradigm simplification.
Nouns in the dative case only occur after a preposition, and never, for example, as the indirect object of a verb.
Nouns in the vocative case are introduced by the particle <sup>+L</sup>, which lenites a following consonant, and is elided (and usually not written) before a vowel. The vocative form of feminine singular nouns is otherwise identical to the nominative; additionally, masculine singular nouns are slenderised in the vocative.
In the genitive construction, the genitive follows the word it governs: house my father (genitive) "my father's house".
Gaelic has no indefinite article. may mean either "dog" or "a dog", and may mean either "dogs" or "some dogs."
The definite article is discussed below in full under articles. A noun or noun phrase is considered to be definite if it fulfils one of the following criteria.
Gaelic has singular and plural personal pronouns (i.e., no dual forms). Gender is distinguished only in the 3rd person singular. A T-V distinction is found in the 2nd person, with the plural form used also as a polite singular.
In most cases the Classical Gaelic lenited form of , i.e. , has become generalised. is retained in constructions where it is preceded by a verb ending in - - or - (incl. historic -):
The emphatic pronouns are used to express emphasis or contrast:
Emphatic forms are found in all pronominal constructions:
Adjectives in Gaelic inflect according to gender and case in the singular. In the plural, a single form is used for both masculine and feminine genders, in all cases (although it may be lenited depending on the context).
Adjectives normally follow the noun they modify, and agree with it in gender, number and case. In addition, in the dative singular of masculine nouns, the leniting effect of a preceding definite article (see Articles below) can be seen on both the noun and the following adjective:
A small number of adjectives precede the noun, and generally cause lenition. For example:
Gaelic uses possessive determiners (corresponding to my, your, their, etc.) differently from English. In Gaelic, possessive determiners are used mostly to indicate inalienable possession, for example for body parts or family members.
As indicated in the following table, some possessive determiners lenite the following word. Before a word beginning with a vowel, some of the determiners have elided forms, or require a linking consonant.
The 3rd plural possessive a takes the form am before words beginning with a labial consonant: .
As discussed above, the linking consonants n- and h- reflect the presence of a final consonant that has disappeared in other contexts. and are derived from genitive plural forms that originally ended in a nasal. The feminine singular derives from a form ending in final -, whose only trace is now the prefixation of h- to a following vowel.
To refer to non-permanent possession, one uses the preposition , as described above:
Emphatic suffixes are used with possessive determiners, and other parts of speech, to lend emphatic or contrastive power. They are used following nouns preceded by possessive pronouns to emphasize the pronominal element. Notice that replaces in the first person singular in comparison to the pronominal emphatic suffixes above.
Gaelic has a definite article but no indefinite article:
The singular article is often used to designate an entire class.
Abstract nouns consistently take the singular article, as well.
The form of the (definite) article depends on the number, gender, case of the noun. The following table shows the basic paradigm, as used when there is no assimilation to the initial sounds of the following word.
The superscript indicates that the following word is lenited. The actual realization of the capitalised forms in the paradigm above depends on the initial sound of the following word, as explained in the following table:
Putting all of those variants together into one table:
The forms of the definite article trace back to a Common Celtic stem *sindo-, sindÃÂ-. The initial , already lost in the Old Irish period, is still preserved in the forms of some prepositions (for example "with" becomes before an article, similarly "in", becomes â see below). The original can be seen in the form , and the leniting effect of the form <sup>+L</sup> is a trace of a lost final vowel. The form reflects an original final -.
The following examples illustrate a number of nominal declension patterns, and show how the definite article combines with different kinds of nouns.