Scottish Gaelic

2nd Edition

William Lamb, PhD

2002
LINCOM EUROPA
Table of Contents

PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................................. 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................ 4
ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................................................. 5
0 SOCIOLINGUISTICS....................................................................................................................................... 6
0.1 BRIEF HISTORY AND DIALECTOLOGY ........................................................................................................... 6
0.2 DEMOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................. 7
0.3 ECONOMY AND COMMUNITY ........................................................................................................................ 8
0.4 LANGUAGE USAGE ........................................................................................................................................ 9
0.4.1 Age, Occupation, and Gender .............................................................................................................. 9
0.4.2 Register Range and Bilingualism ....................................................................................................... 12
0.4.2.1 Spoken Registers .......................................................................................................................................... 12
0.4.2.2 Written Registers .......................................................................................................................................... 15
0.5 SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................................... 16
1 PHONOLOGY: A BRIEF SUMMARY......................................................................................................... 17
1.1 VOWELS ...................................................................................................................................................... 17
1.2 CONSONANTS .............................................................................................................................................. 18
1.3 DIPHTHONGS ............................................................................................................................................... 18
1.4 WORD STRESS ............................................................................................................................................. 18
1.5 CONSONANT MUTATION ............................................................................................................................. 18
1.6 PREASPIRATION........................................................................................................................................... 20
2 MORPHOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................. 21
2.1 OVERVIEW OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS ................................................................................... 21
2.1.1 Synthesis and Fusion .......................................................................................................................... 21
2.1.2 Morphological Processes ................................................................................................................... 22
2.1.2.1 Prefixation .................................................................................................................................................... 22
2.1.2.2 Suffixes......................................................................................................................................................... 22
2.1.2.3 Stem Modification ........................................................................................................................................ 23
2.1.2.4 Suppletion..................................................................................................................................................... 23
2.1.3 Head/Dependent Marking .................................................................................................................. 24
2.2 NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY ............................................................................................................................ 24
2.2.1 Nouns.................................................................................................................................................. 24
2.2.1.1 Number......................................................................................................................................................... 25
2.2.1.2 Gender/Class................................................................................................................................................. 26
2.2.1.3 Definiteness/Referentiality ........................................................................................................................... 28
2.2.1.4 Case .............................................................................................................................................................. 29
2.2.1.5 Possession..................................................................................................................................................... 32
2.2.2 Pronouns ............................................................................................................................................ 33
2.2.2.1 Personal Pronouns ........................................................................................................................................ 33
2.2.2.2 Demonstratives ............................................................................................................................................. 34
2.2.2.3 Reflexives and Reciprocals........................................................................................................................... 35
2.2.2.4 Interrogative Pronouns ................................................................................................................................. 36
2.2.2.5 Indefinite Pronouns....................................................................................................................................... 37
2.2.3 Numerals ............................................................................................................................................ 38
2.2.3.1 Cardinal Numerals........................................................................................................................................ 38
2.2.3.2 Ordinal Numerals ......................................................................................................................................... 39
2.2.3.3 Numerical Pronouns ..................................................................................................................................... 39
2.2.4 Adjectives............................................................................................................................................ 39
2.2.4.1 Prenominal Attributive Adjectives ............................................................................................................... 40
2.2.4.2 Postnominal Attributive and Predicative Adjectives .................................................................................... 40
2.2.4.3 Quantitative Adjectives ................................................................................................................................ 41
2.2.4.4 Comparison of Adjectives ............................................................................................................................ 41
2.2.5 Adverbs............................................................................................................................................... 43
2.2.5.1 Manner Adverbs ........................................................................................................................................... 43
2.2.5.2 Time Adverbs ............................................................................................................................................... 43
2.2.5.3 Direction and Location ................................................................................................................................. 44
2.2.5.4 Degree .......................................................................................................................................................... 44
2.2.6 Prepositions........................................................................................................................................ 45
2.2.6.1 Simple Prepositions ...................................................................................................................................... 45

2
 2.2.6.2 Compound Prepositions: ADV, N, or ADJ + PREP ............................................................................................ 48
2.2.6.3 Complex Prepositions: PREP + N ................................................................................................................... 48
2.2.7 Nominal Categorisors: Nominalisation and Diminutives................................................................... 49
2.3 VERBAL MORPHOLOGY .............................................................................................................................. 49
2.3.1 Verbs................................................................................................................................................... 50
2.3.1.1 Personal Affixes ........................................................................................................................................... 53
2.3.1.2 Tense, Aspect and Mode............................................................................................................................... 55
2.3.1.3 Negation ....................................................................................................................................................... 62
2.3.2 Verbal Categorisors ........................................................................................................................... 63
2.3.2.1 Valence Increasing Constructions: Causatives ............................................................................................. 63
2.3.2.2 Valence Decreasing Constructions: Passives and Impersonals..................................................................... 64
2.3.3 Verbal Modifiers: Participles and Gerunds ....................................................................................... 66
3 SYNTAX ........................................................................................................................................................... 67
3.1 PREDICATE NOMINALS AND SIMILAR CONSTRUCTIONS .............................................................................. 67
3.1.1 Predicate Nominals: Proper Inclusion and Equation ........................................................................ 67
3.1.2 Predicate Adjectives ........................................................................................................................... 68
3.1.3 Locatives and Possessive Predication ................................................................................................ 68
3.1.4 Existentials ......................................................................................................................................... 69
3.2 CONSTITUENT ORDER AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS ............................................................................. 70
3.2.1 Postposition of Weak Pronominal Objects ......................................................................................... 71
3.2.2 Small Clauses ..................................................................................................................................... 72
3.2.3 ‘Composite Verbs’ .............................................................................................................................. 73
3.3 CLAUSE COMBINATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 74
3.3.1 Coordination....................................................................................................................................... 77
3.3.1.1 Conjunction .................................................................................................................................................. 77
3.3.1.2 Disjunction ................................................................................................................................................... 78
3.3.1.3 Exclusion ...................................................................................................................................................... 78
3.3.2 Subordination ..................................................................................................................................... 79
3.3.2.1 Complement Clauses .................................................................................................................................... 79
3.3.2.2 Adverbial Clauses......................................................................................................................................... 80
3.3.2.3 Relative Clauses ........................................................................................................................................... 85
3.3.3 Cosubordination ................................................................................................................................. 86
3.4 DISCOURSE PHENOMENA ............................................................................................................................ 87
3.4.1 Referential Devices............................................................................................................................. 88
3.4.2 Highlighting of Constituents............................................................................................................... 89
3.4.2.1 The Emphatic Suffix –sa/-se......................................................................................................................... 89
3.4.2.2 Highlighting and Word Order....................................................................................................................... 90
3.4.3 Discourse Particles, Parenthetical Statements, and Interjections...................................................... 95
3.5 INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH .............................................................................................................................. 97
4 SAMPLE TEXT: ORAL FOLK TALE ....................................................................................................... 100

APPENDIX 1: SUPPLETIVE (‘IRREGULAR’) VERBS............................................................................. 104

A. ACTIVE VOICE ........................................................................................................................................... 104
B. PASSIVE VOICE: IMPERSONAL FORMS ........................................................................................................ 105
APPENDIX 2: THE 100 MOST COMMON WORDS OF SCOTTISH GAELIC...................................... 106

GAELIC INDEX ............................................................................................................................................... 108

REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................................. 113

3
Preface
This descriptive grammar has its origins as part of a PhD thesis on register variation in
Scottish Gaelic (ScG) that I have recently completed (Lamb 2002). I felt that it might prove
useful to other researchers interested in the language, particularly with a view to typology.
Although the terminology employed presupposes some familiarity with linguistic jargon, I
have endeavoured to make it useful and accessible to a pedagogical orientation as well. For
instance, many of the tables and charts presented here should help Gaelic students trying to
grasp and recall the rules of its nominal and verbal morphology. For those readers who are
less familiar with grammatical terminology, Trask’s (1993) A Dictionary of Grammatical
Terms in Linguistics and Hurford’s (1994) Grammar: A Student Guide may be helpful. In
coordination with references such as these, the grammar may also serve as an introduction to
descriptive linguistics for readers who are already familiar with the Gaelic language. For
those who desire a ‘teach-yourself’ style introduction to the language, Roibeard Ó
Maolalaigh’s Scottish Gaelic in 3 Months is recommended.

The present work is by no means a complete grammar. Such a publication is still a

desideratum of ScG linguistics and pedagogy. However, it touches on several topics that are
rarely covered in available descriptive literature, such as information structure and clause
combination. Some of the longer examples, particularly those in Section 3, are from a
computerised corpus that I have compiled of spoken and written Gaelic, and I have tried to
highlight a few of the linguistic differences uncovered in this data set. It is my intention at
some future date to expand the grammar and incorporate the new findings. Until then, I hope
that it proves a useful reference work and that it justly conveys the unique characteristics of
this living, but endangered, minority language.

Acknowledgements
Payne’s Describing Morphosyntax (1997) has been indispensable as a starting point in the
writing of the manuscript. I have also been aided by a number of individuals, both personally
and academically. Some of them have helped me unknowingly simply by uttering something
that I had not heard before. Others have generously given their time to help me more directly,
either by commenting on drafts of the work or by acting as informants to various degrees. In
the former capacity are Gordon Wells of Colaisde Bheinn na Faoghla, Professor Jim Miller,
Professor William Gillies, and Dr Wilson McLeod, all of the University of Edinburgh. In the
latter capacity are Kenna Moffat, Alaistair MacDonald, Annie MacDonald, Morag and Allan
MacIsaac, and Willie MacDonald. I am also very grateful to Scott Lamb for custom
developing the tag counting and concordancing software (LinguaStat©) that allowed me to
search and carry out the analysis of my corpus. My great appreciation to Annie MacDonald
of Cnoc na Lùib, who provided the photographs for the cover, and to Anne Mackenzie who
generously donated her time and her skills in designing it. Finally, I would like thank my
wife Kirsty, who has been supportive and patient and who has taught me more about ‘real’
Scottish Gaelic than any other one person. Tapadh leibh uileag.

4
Abbreviations
Where abbreviations in the running text were felt to be in common currency, they are not
listed here. Abbreviations that are in small-caps in the glosses are often in small letters in the
text, followed by a full-stop (e.g. ‘adj.’ for ‘adjective’).

* utterance not grammatical INF infinitive

? questionable utterance; IO indirect object
L
interrogative clause lenition
1 first person LD left-dislocation
1P first person plural LOC locative
1S first person singular MASC, M masculine
2 second person MKR marker
2P second person plural N noun
2S second person singular NEG negative
3P third person plural NOM, N nominative case
3S third person singular NP noun phrase
A most agentive argument of a NUC nucleus
multi-argument clause OBJ object
ACC accusative case OBL oblique
ADJ adjective P least agentive argument of a
ADV adverb multi-argument clause
AGR agreement PART past participle
ARG argument PAST definite past tense
ART article PERF perfect aspect
ASP aspect PL plural
AUX auxiliary PN pronoun
CLM clause linkage marker POSS possessive
COMP complementiser PP prepositional phrase
CONJ conjunction PRED predicate
COP copular verb PREP preposition
CUP Cambridge University Press PRES definite present tense
DAT, D dative (prepositional) case PROG progressive aspect
DEM demonstrative QUAL quality
DEP dependent QP question particle
DERIV derivational suffix RECIP reciprocal
DIM diminutive REFL reflexive
DIR directional REL relativiser
DO direct object S only argument of an intransitive
EMPH emphatic suffix clause
EXIST existential S singular
FEM, F feminine ScG Scottish Gaelic
FOC focus STD standard
GEN, G genitive SUB subject
IMP imperative SUPER superlative
IMPERS impersonal TAM tense, aspect, mode
INDEP independent V verb
INDEF1 first indefinite (‘present-future’) VN verbal noun
INDEF2 second indefinite VOC, V vocative case
(‘conditional/habitual’)

5
0 Sociolinguistics
The following chapter briefly surveys a number of topics relevant to the sociolinguistic study
of Scottish Gaelic: history and dialectology; the economy and demography of its speakers;
characteristics of use and register range; and the patterns of its decline.

0.1 Brief History and Dialectology

Scottish Gaelic, or Gàidhlig [γαλι∞] as it is referred to by its speakers, is a member of the
Celtic family of Indo-European languages and, furthermore, part of the Goidelic branch of
that family along with Irish and Manx Gaelic. While there was once a good deal of argument
concerning ScG’s origins in Scotland, the strong evidence for its importation by Irish
immigrants has all but stamped out an earlier ‘nativist’ stance. Although it is not clear exactly
when or where Irish-speaking people originally landed in the territory known today as
Scotland, it is assumed that this coincided with the decline of Roman power in Britain and
was part of a larger infiltration of Britain’s west coast, about the late 4th century AD
(Macaulay 1992). The Gaelic languages of Ireland and Scotland are today not mutually
intelligible without considerable priming, but there was close cultural, material and linguistic
exchange between the two countries until the collapse of the old Gaelic orders in the 17th
(Ireland) and 18th (Scotland) centuries.

To fully appreciate the proliferation of the Scottish Gaelic dialects, it is best, of course, to
refer to the greater Goidelic continuum, which at one time would have stretched from the
southern-most tip of Munster in Ireland up to the Butt of Lewis in Scotland and included the
Isle of Man in its south-eastern periphery. However, as the language has retracted and
eventually disappeared from many areas along this geographical spread, the linguistic gulf in
the remaining regions has been perceived to widen. Although we now speak of the
‘languages’ of Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx, this is due in part to the demise of the dialects
that once acted as bridges between these areas, e.g. that of Rathlin Island.

In an oft-cited passage, Jackson (1968) says that the Scottish Gaelic dialects divide, in many
ways, roughly east-west and north-south but that perhaps the best way to categorise them is as
a ‘central dialect’ and a ‘peripheral’ group of dialects. The central dialect is characterised as
largely innovating and homogenous. The peripheral group is conceived as more
heterogeneous and fragmented but it has certain broad features in common, notably a
tendency to preserve archaic forms of the language:

…it is possible to say in very broad terms… the central dialect covers the Hebrides as far south as
Mull and sometimes further, Ross exclusive of the north-east corner, Assynt, Inverness-shire,
western Perthshire, and mainland Argyll roughly north of Loch Awe… the peripheral dialects
comprise Caithness and Sutherland exclusive of Assynt, the north-east corner of Ross, Braemar,
eastern Perthshire, the rest of mainland Argyll with Kintyre, and Arran. Moray and the adjacent
lower region of the Spey, the wide valley of Strathspey from Rothiemurchus to the Moray border,
may go with the peripheral dialects, linking up with Braemar and east Perth. (p.67-68)

Thus the Gaelic of the Hebridean region as a whole largely goes with the ‘central’ dialect
while that of the mainland and more outlying areas, where it is now generally moribund or
non-extant, tends towards the characteristics of the ‘peripheral’ group. Discussions of the
differences between a ‘central’ and ‘peripheral’ prototype have tended to centre around the
following key features:

6
•
varieties in the central dialect (Gleasure 1994), ex. cat ‘cat’ - Uist /καΗτ/, Arran /κΕτ/
Pre-aspiration before the stops –c, –p, and -t: absent in the peripheral group, of different

• Svarabhakti: where vocalic epenthesis occurs, it tends to be somewhat stressed and ‘clear’

towards the older schwa [฀], or [ι] (Gleasure 1994), ex. carbad ‘wagon’ – Uist
(resounding the previous vowel) in the central dialect, while peripheral dialects tend

[καραβ฀τ], Arran [καρ฀β฀τ]

• Diphthongisation of some stressed vowels before the sonorants ll, nn, and m where they

pronunciation (Gleasure 1994), ex. mall ‘slow’ - Uist /µαυL/ vs. Arran /µαL:/
are not followed by a vowel: periphery tends towards preserving older non-diphthongised

• Breaking of Old Irish long é: central areas have tended towards diphthong pronunciation

‘mouth’ - Uist /βιαλ/ vs. Arran /βΕλ/

while peripheral areas have preserved older pronunciation (Jackson 1968), ex. beul

Within the Outer Hebrides, it is possible to make a division between the Gaelic of Lewis and
all islands south of it (Harris, N. Uist, Benbecula, S. Uist, and Barra) such that Borgstrøm
(1940, 228) refers to the “‘northern dialects’ of Lewis” and “the Southern Hebridean
dialects”. There are isoglosses such as bùrn ‘water’ in Lewis and uisge elsewhere, as well as
significant phonological variation (ibid.). Gaelic speakers themselves, on both sides, are
acutely aware of these differences. Subdivisions can be further specified between the islands
themselves (e.g. Catholic vs. Protestant Uist) and between bordering villages. With such rich
lexical and phonological variation present in their speech, Hebrideans are sensitive even to the
slightest shibboleth1 and are often able to place each other with remarkable accuracy.

Scholars have long lamented the unavailability of dialectal data on the language, and it has
been customary to proceed with caution when making assertions about the area. The long-
awaited publication of the phonetic sections of the Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland
(Ó Dochartaigh ed. 1994-97) has finally made it possible to begin to rectify this situation.

The grammatical sketch that is presented here is meant to be applicable to most of the
surviving Gaelic dialects although there is a certain bias towards the Gaelic of the Western
Isles and especially that of North Uist, where most of the field-work was done for this
research. For more information on Scottish Gaelic dialectology, see Ó Dochartaigh (ed.
1994-97, vol. I) and the references therein.

0.2 Demography and Ethnography

At the end of the 11th Century AD, Gaelic was the common language of nearly all parts of the
Scottish mainland.2 Today, however, the Gaelic-speaking region or Gàidhealtachd is
confined generally to the Highlands and the islands off the west coast of the country. The last
reported census (1991) revealed that nearly 40% of Gaelic speakers (out of a total population
of 65,978) now live outside of this area, with concentrations especially in the larger cities.
Yet the vast majority of these urban Gaels are emigrants from traditional Gaelic speaking
areas and there are low rates of second-generation transmission outside these areas. (The
following statistics are from MacKinnon 19953.) In the Western Isles, 80.7% of families
(N=1310) with two Gaelic speaking parents raised children who spoke the language. In the

1
For instance, Cairinish, N. Uist, joins with Benbecula and South Uist in having fhìn as its 1S reflexive form
whereas the rest of N. Uist uses fhèin. When teased by their contemporaries about this, Cairinish children used
to rhyme in defence: cha leig thu leas a bhith a’ gaireachdainn - ‘s ann a tha mi fhìn à Cairinis ‘you don’t have
to laugh – I myself am from Cairinish’.
2
For histories of the language see: Durkacz (1983); MacInnes (1992); MacKinnon (1974); and Withers (1984).
3
The author expresses his appreciation to Dr Wilson McLeod for bringing this paper to his attention.
7
Skye and Lochalsh area, this figure was slightly higher, at 87.1% (N=190 families). For the
rest of Scotland, 60% of these families (N=730) had children that were Gaelic speaking. The
most dramatic difference occurred between two parent families where only one was a Gaelic
speaker. In the Western Isles, 24% (N=610) had Gaelic speaking children. The figure was
again higher for Skye and Lochalsh at 40.4%. In the rest of Scotland, out of a total of 2460
families of this type (the highest proportion of the population of Gaelic speaking families in
this area), only 6.8% passed the language on to their children.

Although Gaelic speakers are still, though decreasingly, to be found throughout the Highlands
and Islands as a whole, the 1991 census showed that it is only in the Western Isles (i.e., Barra,
the Uists, Harris, Lewis), Northern Skye, and Tiree that Gaelic speakers constitute a majority
of the population. In the Western Isles, this proportion was 19,546 out of a population of
28,569 (68.4%). The population density in this region is very low overall with most of the
settlements in the form of scattered crofts. What towns there are, Stornoway on Lewis and
Balivanich in Benbecula, tend to be the most English-dominant areas of the islands.

0.3 Economy and Community

Most of the inhabitants of the Western Isles living outside the towns are involved in crofting
to some extent but few are full-time crofters. Often, families keep a small number of sheep or
cattle, supplementing their main income with the proceeds of carcasses or wool. In recent
years however, sheep have become a near liability, with market prices falling to the point that
one suspects they are now often kept out of loyalty to a way of life rather than economic
profit. Although prices have recently risen slightly, the BSE scare and foot-and-mouth
epidemic have had a severe impact. If the agricultural grants that crofters rely upon were to
disappear, crofting would cease to be a viable occupation for most. Fishing is the other main
traditional occupation of the islands. There are more full-time fishermen than crofters at this
point, but the fishing industry, again, is not as fruitful as it once was. Tourism has become
increasingly important to the economic health of the Western Isles and many people earn a
substantial income from house letting or bed and breakfast. Telecommunications and
computerisation have also been growth areas and are seen by some as solutions to the
problems inherent to industrial development in the area, among which are its remoteness and
lack of pre-existing infrastructure.

Although the Western Isles are one of the poorest regions in Britain, outright poverty is scarce
or at least camouflaged by consistently modest housing and a general lack of the
unsightliness that typifies urban poverty. There is a strong tradition of caring for the older
members of the community and the less well-off, seen in neighbours fostering individuals or
families, providing such things as a modicum of fuel and food for them. Although less
common than in the past, there is still much co-operation within communities, especially at
certain crucial periods of the year, such as at shearing and lambing.

Perhaps the most recent major blow to the islands was World War II, which practically
depopulated some areas of their young male generation. The sadness that ensued from its
casualties, horrors and losses, and the new, more technological and material world that it
ushered in, are often cited as major factors in the breakdown of the traditional culture, in
particular, the practice of house visiting or the cèilidh as it is called in Gaelic (see MacDonald
1999). This was the setting for community joining, entertainment and the transmission of
Gaelic culture in the form of songs, stories, music and dance. In recent times the word has
been semantically extended to accommodate a new form of visit—to the community hall—for
an evening of group dancing or, with the modifier ‘traditional’ attached to it, a concert of
Gaelic singing, instrumental music, and Highland or step dance. The major difference,
8
however, is that older ceilidhs would have seen many more participants doing their own
‘party piece’; a clear effect of the passivisation resulting from two generations of dependence
upon electronic media.

Compared to the rest of Scotland, the Western Isles have far fewer professionals in their
workforce (MacDonald 2002)4. For the young adult who graduates from college or
university, there is scant opportunity for returning to a job commensurate with his or her
educational level. The Hebrides are also an area with a growing senior population and
diminishing youth. This fact has clear implications for the Gaelic language as older, Gaelic
dominant speakers are replaced by a fewer number of young, English-dominant speakers.
Depopulation has also been a great problem and newpapers warn of a future crisis if current
rates continue (Ross 2002).

Religion, traditionally one of the vanguards of Gaelic usage, is still influential in the lives of
the people in the Western Isles5 although, like the rest of Scotland, it is losing its sway with
the younger generation. The dividing line between Protestantism and Catholicism is
Benbecula, with most of those north of the island subscribing to the former, and those south,
the latter. On Benbecula itself, there is a mix of the two religions. Gaelic-medium
congregations are still to be found but, inevitably, their viability is tenuous in most areas
(MacKinnon 1998).

One of the main reasons cited by Gaels for the withdrawal of the language is the influx of
people from outwith the Gaidhealtachd and the concomitant decrease in the likelihood that all
members of any given conversation will be Gaelic-speaking. Incomers are sometimes
resented for their perceived diluting of the language’s strength on the islands. Dorian’s work
in Mull (1981b) reported concomitant feelings of resentment amongst non-Gaelic speakers
when Gaelic was used to exclude them from conversations. However, it is surprising to many
incomers that Gaels do not simply speak Gaelic in their presence despite them, especially
when they are not actively participating in a conversation. Some Gaels respond to this by
saying that they have had it instilled in them to always be courteous, with this kind of
exclusion considered rude. But it also betrays a pervasive and deep insecurity regarding the
language and the belief that it is not worth learning if it is not one’s mother tongue.

0.4 Language Usage

0.4.1 Age, Occupation, and Gender
Today, the only Gaelic monoglots are very young children whose parents have made an active
policy of banning English in the house. However, when one begins to look in earnest for
these families, one realises how few there are. In 1998, as part of a funded research project
that the author was involved in, a search was made in the Uists for L1 (not necessarily
monoglot) Gaelic-speaking children between the ages of 3 and 5. Out of a population of over
6,000 only 20 of these children could be located. Even in cases where children are, for all
intents and purposes, monoglots, it is only a matter of time before their exposure to media,
school, and non-Gaelic speaking children result in rapid English acquisition. Many Island
parents begin child-rearing hoping to have a Gaelic household, which does not seem too
exotic as it would have been their experience when young. However, once their children
begin making steady contact with the outside world, English almost invariably takes over in a
4
6.5% of parents of children at Uist’s secondary school (Sgoil Lìonacleit) fell into the ‘professional’ category
compared to 11% in a Lewis school and 15% at a comparable mainland school.
5
See the fervent debate covered in the West Highland Free Press and the Stornoway Gazette concerning ferry
sailings and flights to and from Lewis on the Sabbath.
9
predictable pattern. Increasingly, children begin answering back in English until parents give
in and Gaelic gets consigned to imperatives and choice phrases rather than being a
conversational medium. In the 1991 census, 49.5% of children aged 3-15 were Gaelic-
speaking (although certainly some of these would be 'semi-fluent' speakers, such as Dorian
(1981a) located in her study of East Sutherland Gaelic). Showing the decline that ten years
can bring on however, it appears that less than one third of the children now entering island
schools are fluent in the language (MacDonald 2002).

MacKinnon (1998) compared the Gaelic-English usage patterns found in a 1994/95 survey of
Gaelic speakers throughout Scotland (Euromosaic Project) and a similar one completed in
1988 (Language Maintenance and Viability Survey). He reports that Gaelic usage was being
maintained to a certain extent in the pub and between neighbours but that it was falling in
shops and in the church. The intergenerational use of Gaelic—between parents and
children—was seen to have contracted from the levels of 10 years prior: the number of
respondents indicating that they ‘always’ or ‘mainly’ used Gaelic with their children was
minimal. As expected, this finding was echoed for the use of Gaelic between siblings
themselves. The rise in the number of children speaking only English with each other is
particularly striking, being 10% higher in 1995 than approximately 8 years prior (tables from
p. 61):

Table 1:Language-Maintenance and Viability Survey 1986-1988 (Western Isles Gaelic

Speakers: N=224)
Language By subject Between Between By subject Between
Usage to grand- subject’s subject and to own subject’s
parents own parents spouse6 children own
children
No. No. No. No. No.
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Gaelic 212 212 117 80 45
(95.9) (96.4) (72.7) (55.2) (35.5)
Both equal 3 1 18 37 29
(1.4) (0.4) (11.2) (25.5) (22.8)
English 6 7 26 28 53
(2.7) (3.2) (16.1) (19.3) (41.7)
Total 221 220 161 145 127
(100) (100) (100) (100) (100)
N/R or N/A 3 4 63 79 97

6
There must have been a typographical error in the original publication where this column duplicates the
heading “By subject to own children”. However, on page 55, MacKinnon says that they surveyed use: “…from
the generations of the subjects’ grandparents and parents, to exchanges between spouses/parents of the present
generation, by parents to children, and between children themselves [italics added for emphasis].” Clearly the
heading was meant to be “Between subject and spouse”.
10
Table 2: Euromosaic Survey 1994-1995 (Western Isles Gaelic Speakers: N=130)
Language By subject Between Between By subject Between
Usage to grand- subject’s subject and to own subject’s
parents own parents spouse children own
children
No No No No No.
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Gaelic 195 107 45 38 18
(88.2) (83.6) (59.2) (49.4) (28.6)
Both equal 12 7 12 15 13
(5.5) (5.5) (15.8) (19.4) (20.6)
English 14 14 19 24 32
(6.3) (10.9) (25.0) (31.2) (50.7)
Total 221 128 76 77 63
(100) (100) (100) (100) (100)
N/R or N/A 39 2 54 53 67

If we consider Gaelic-speaking parents in Scotland at large sampled for the 1994/95 study,
approximately 8 percent reported their children as speaking ‘only’ or ‘mainly’ Gaelic
(MacKinnon 1998, 63)7. Clearly, the Western Isles—along with Skye and Lochalsh—still
exhibits higher levels of language transmission than the rest of Scotland, but there is no
guarantee that this will be the case for much longer. MacKinnon states: “Unless tackled
promptly and effectively, the prospect of Gaelic continuing as a family and a community
language is likely to cease with the present generation” (p. 55).

In an earlier study MacKinnon (1994) found that crofters, after professionals and housewives,
evinced the highest intergenerational Gaelic usage levels. We can expect the decline of
crofting to have ramifications on the continuation of the language. He says: ‘There were very
distinct and significant differences in Gaelic usage levels in original and present-day families,
and in intergenerational Gaelic maintenance, between the respondents who were members of
a crofting family and those who were not’ (p.125). Examining the 1981 census data,
MacKinnon found there were still communities which had a proportion of under 25 year-olds
reporting Gaelic usage levels as high or higher than individuals older than that. He says: ‘The
main bulwark of their linguistic and cultural integrity might seem to lie in their essential
character as crofting communities’ (p.126).

Apparently, there is no empirical research indicating how age correlates with language
proficiency. However, although schooling in the past century has ensured that virtually all
adult Gaelic speakers are capable of communicating in English, many older speakers are still
more comfortable speaking Gaelic. At the risk of over-simplification it seems in Uist that
there is a band of people, generally over 60 years of age, who are more Gaelic dominant.
There is another younger band who are equally comfortable in both languages. Speakers less
than about 40 years old may be functionally fluent in Gaelic but tend to be English dominant.
In the crofting townships of North Uist, the generation born in the late 1960’s is reckoned to
be the last for whom Gaelic would have been the language of the playground. The last school
in Uist with children who naturally spoke Gaelic to one another was Stoneybridge primary, in
South Uist, where this continued until the 1980’s. The coming of television is the attributed
7
There is a typographical error on this page as well, a duplicated number, but the frequency for children only
speaking English with each other can be obtained from adding up the rest of the row and subtracting from 100.
11
cause of the switch. For Gaelic speakers below the age of 30 or so—the ‘television
generation’—the language which they use with their contemporaries is almost exclusively
English. One finds, to varying extents, that they will only use Gaelic in restricted situations,
such as being paid to talk on the radio or the television, and/or with only the eldest members
of the population. The only situation in which the author has heard Gaelic used as a
conversational medium within this age group is at the pub, and only after a considerable
amount of ‘tongue-loosening’. Whatever the recent census (2001) indicates, the figures will
need to be tempered in terms of a substantial proportion of returns who, regardless of their
proficiency in the language, contribute a negligible proportion of the overall Gaelic output.

There has been some evidence that young women in Gaelic-speaking communities evince less
support for the language than men and women of other age groups (MacKinnon 1977; 1994;
2000). Although, overall, older women reported the highest usage levels in MacKinnon’s
1994 report, young mothers reported the lowest. This has clear implications for the
transmission of the language. Young women were also reported as being more likely to
migrate than young men and, as was seen above, Gaelic usage is lower overall amongst
children on the Scottish mainland. MacKinnon stresses that these findings should not be
taken as indicating lower loyalty amongst young women towards their first language; those
who do move away to the mainland are often the most fervent Gaelic supporters.

Constantinidou (1994) explores gender effects in the contraction of East Sutherland Gaelic,
citing research by MacDonald (1987) et al. indicating that women are more likely than men to
code switch when in the presence of non-speakers. She also identifies a difference in the
stories of women and men concerning situations where Gaelic was spoken around perceived
non-speakers. Women brought up occasions when they were ‘caught out’ by people who
actually did have the language, and thus were interpreted as more sensitive, therefore, to the
faux pas they had committed. In contrast, men’s stories lacked this social self-consciousness;
there was no mention of being caught, only of cohesion between the speakers. She states: “In
the female world Gaelic contexts of privacy could be breached, whereas in the male world
privacy could be achieved and maintained by means of Gaelic” (p. 121).

0.4.2 Register Range and Bilingualism

0.4.2.1 Spoken Registers
Although Gaelic was once the dominant tongue in Scotland and used at all levels of
situational formality,8 it is today most often the medium of a narrow band of registers. As
virtually all Gaelic speakers are fluent in English, they have a choice as to which language, or
proportion thereof, they use in a given situation. Macaulay (1992) says that there is a
‘normal’ range of register differentiation in Scottish Gaelic. However, the more formal,
official, technical, abstruse or field-specific the subject matter, the less likely it is that Gaelic
will be the language of choice (Macaulay 1982a; Thomson 1994). Exceptions to this
tendency are to be found in religious discourse or technical discussions involving crofting or
fishing, but there are no spoken registers which one can now guarantee will be Gaelic-
medium as so many other sociolinguistic variables assert themselves in determining language
choice.

Macaulay (1982a) mentions that it is easier to imagine contexts where Gaelic is likely to be
excluded than the converse. Perhaps the most reliable context for primarily Gaelic usage
would be one where the conversational setting and theme are informal and non-field-specific,
and where the participants are all older, native speakers, familiar with each other, and in a
8
For instance, there were once formal terminologies for linguistics, rhetoric, and law (Macaulay 1982a).
12
domestic setting. As soon as one steps out of the controlled environment of one’s house, the
likelihood increases that some participants will be English-monoglots or semi-speakers9.
Even in such an idealised situation, however, code switching, or at least borrowing, is the rule
rather than the exception. This is partly due to the lack of a large magnavocabulary in Gaelic,
especially for terms associated with the modern world10. However, when considering the
association of register and language choice in spoken Gaelic, perhaps the crucial determining
factor is not so much the formality or informality of the subject matter, but rather who the
participants are and where they are. The author’s experience has been that individuals who
normally speak Gaelic with one another tend to do so regardless of the topics at hand. Dorian
(1986) concurs, saying that her sample of ESG speakers used Gaelic for the communicative
situations in which individuals spend most of their time, as well as for discussing abstruse
topics:
They could narrate, argue, joke, gossip, tease, discuss health, community, and national affairs, and
business matters; they were fully able to exchange news, advice, plans, and opinions on matters
grave and trivial… Because of the ease with which English loanwords are taken into ESG… even
the most up-to-date and technical subjects could be discussed in Gaelic, and were. (p.259)

There is reason to suspect that Gaelic speakers do not switch to English when discussing
formal topics because of the theme per se, but rather because there is a correlation between
certain types of discourse and the presence of non-Gaelic speakers. If the conversation
between two Gaels who normally speak Gaelic with each other switches to discussing the
latest cloning experiment, they do not need to change language or grammar, but only the
vocabulary they are using, and this is easily taken on loan.

Macaulay was clearly not only thinking of speech though and, as a case in point, the only
biology publication—a field-specific domain—available in ScG is a school textbook by
Ruairidh MacThòmais (1976). He says this about his effort:
…bha mi riamh gu làidir de’n bheachd gu bheil a’ Ghàidhlig glè chomasach air rudan ùra a
thoirt a-steach thuice fhèin agus gur h-e eachdraidh thruagh nan trì ceud bliadhna chaidh
seachad a bha gar bacadh anns an dòigh seo… Mar sin cha bu ruith ach leum gu dhol an sàs
anns an obair seo.

Is dòcha gun deach an ruith gu dabhdail an ceann greise. Chan e obair fhurasda a tha ann an
eadar-theangachadh de’n t-seòrsa seo… Tha deagh fhios agam gum bi pàirt de’n eadar-
theangachadh doirbh, is gum bi grunn de na facail ùra a dheilbh mi trom no mì-fhreagarrach an
dòigh eile. Thig atharrachadh an sud ’s an seo mar a thig luchd-sgrìobhaidh eile chun a’
chuspair seo, agus gu cuspairean eile tha an dlùth-cheangal ris. Ach tha mi’n dòchas gu bheil
toiseach fàis againn an seo, agus gum faic sinn iomadh cuspair eile ris nach robh dùil, air a
làimhseachadh tre Ghàidhlig.

Translation (by current author): ‘I have always been of the opinion that Gaelic is very capable of
embracing new things and it is [only] the sad history of the last three hundred years which has
been hindering us. As such, I rushed at the chance to get involved in this work.

Perhaps my initial rush turned to hesitation after a while. Translation of this kind is not easy work.
I know well that part of the translation will be difficult [to understand], and that many of the new
words that I created will be heavy or infelicitous in another way. Change will occur as other
writers delve into the subject and other subjects that are closely related to it. But I hope that we
have a burgeoning growth here and that we will see many other subjects that we never expected
dealt with through the medium of Gaelic.’

9
It is not unusual to hear conversations between a fully fluent Gaelic speaker and a so-called ‘semi-speaker’
(often simply an unconfident speaker), with the first speaking entirely in Gaelic and the second, following every
word, but speaking only in English.
10
See McNeir (2001) for one government-sponsored attempt to rectify the situation.
13
The issue of magnavocabulary is a pervasive one. MacThòmais’s assertion that Gaelic is
capable of taking on new terms is certainly true, but the litmus test is whether the public at
large adopts expressions once created and, in general, they do not. If the linguistic patrons of
world languages such as Russian and French struggle to maintain purity in the face of global
Anglicisation, Gaelic would seem to have little hope in this regard. A new dictionary of
broadcasting and parliamentary terms has now been published (McNeir 2001)—including
many new words for modern concepts in general. We can be sure that very few of these will
enter common parlance, a situation that can be replicated in many other languages around the
world. However, the Gaelic radio service, Radio nan Gàidheal, is listened to by most Gaelic
speakers and there is the potential that, over time, some of these may be accepted by some.
Or at least used by them when speaking on the radio.

Due to the commitment of Gaelic radio and television personnel towards register expansion in
the language (see Lamb 1999), there is now a wide range of media output found in Gaelic.
The Gaelic radio (BBC) broadcasts on 103.7-104.3 FM, for roughly twelve hours per day
Mon.-Fri., 4 hours on Sat., and 1.5 on Sun. Television broadcasting is more intermittent, with
occasional children’s programmes in the afternoon, and regular adult broadcasting on
Thursday evening. Many programmes are scheduled after 12 am to fulfil broadcasting quotas,
giving prime-time slots to more mainstream programming. A glance at one week’s schedule
of Gaelic broadcasting in the Stornoway Gazette includes these types of programmes:

• News programmes (Telefios, Telefios na Seachdainn)

Television:

• Children’s’ programming (Gocam Go, Splaoid, Dotaman, Coineanaich Ghòrach, etc.)

• Early teenager variety show (Dè a-nis?)
• A travel programme (Air Chuairt)
• A current affairs debate programme (Cunntas)
• A church service (Glòraich Ainm)
• A soap opera (Falach Fead)
• An adult variety show—looking at famous people (Sin Thu Fhèin)

• Morning news programme (Aithris na Maidne)

Radio:

• Weekend summary news (Aithris na Seachdainn)

• Morning talk show (Coinneach MacIomhair)
• Music programmes (Caithream Ciùil, Crunluath, Ceòl an Nos Ùr, Sruth na Maoile, Bàrd

• Chat and music programme (Mire ri Mòir)

nan Òran)

• Religious and inspirational programmes (Dèanamid Adhradh, Tro Shamchair)

• Children’s programme (Aileag)
• A dedication show (Dùrachdan)

Some of these are regular shows, but many come and go throughout the year. For example,
among the recently-televised have been game shows, teenage variety shows, a current affairs
programme (Eòrpa), a documentary on the Book of Kells, and a programme on the history of
Scotland. The impression is that one is able to find a similar breadth of media registers in
Gaelic compared to English broadcasting, but not nearly the same frequency (or quality, some
would argue). This tendency, for breadth rather than depth, is similar to what one finds in the
print media and written registers at large.
14
0.4.2.2 Written Registers
In the 1991 census 58.9% of the country’s 65,978 Gaelic speakers returned as being able to
read the language and 44.6% being able to write it (MacKinnon 2000). Ability aside, only a
minuscule proportion of those with Gaelic literacy would ever choose, or have reason, to
write the language on a regular basis. Indeed, the most informal of written communications
are normally in English, even between individuals who would normally choose to converse in
Gaelic (Macaulay 1982a).11 Much of this can be attributed to a lack, until recently, of Gaelic-
medium education and over 100 years of prohibitionist and awkward school policies have
done great damage to the status of the language overall. Gaelic writers—that is, the small
number of literati as such and those working in the media—have usually been through a
university degree in Gaelic or Celtic, and in some cases now teach in these departments. This
small, highly educated group is responsible for the majority of the prose, poetry, children’s
books, media output, etc., extant in the language.

In chicken-and-egg fashion, there is a lack of forums for Gaelic writing and a concomitant
lack of incentive for Gaelic writers. In 1989, Gairm, the only periodical dedicated to Gaelic
writing solely, had sales of about 1000-1200 per quarter and an estimated readership of 4000-
5000. The West Highland Free Press, Stornoway Gazette, Highland editions of the Press and
Journal, Oban Times, the Inverness Courier and the Scotsman all usually feature weekly
Gaelic columns. An Gàidheal Ùr, a monthly Gaelic newspaper, is published with the West
Highland Free Press. There is also a bilingual quarterly periodical, generally for and by
learners of the language—Cothrom—published by CLÌ, which features a great variety of
writing. Between these publications one can find a wide range of genres: reviews; editorials;
letters to the editor; short stories; general interest stories, cooking columns; news articles;
Gaelic learners’ lessons; advertisements; children’s corners; employment notices; and so on.
The situation has improved for Gaelic writing noticeably in the past 5 years. Whether this has
been accompanied by an improvement in Gaelic reading is another, unanswered question.

Imaginative writing has been limited mainly to poetry and the short story; longer fiction is
almost unknown in the language, save for a few novellas by writers such as Iain Mac a’
Ghobhainn (Iain Crichton Smith), Alasdair Caimbeul, Tormod Caimbeul, and Tormod
MacIlleathain (Norman MacLean). Obviously, with such a small readership, there are meagre
returns awaiting even the most well-received of would-be Gaelic novelists. The themes of
Gaelic short stories and poetry tend to be inward looking, often framed by the bounds of the
Gaidhealtachd itself. To read about Gaelic speakers in outer space or even conversing with a
Edinburgh bus driver seems to require too much suspension of belief. Gaelic drama (see
Macinnes 1994 for an overview) has a long history, and some fine theatre groups such as
‘Tosg’ regularly tour Scotland. Due its being an oral art, at least in the delivery, it has been
able to reach a greater proportion of Gaelic speakers than most print media.

Other types of writing, particularly non-fiction that touches on the wider world, have
generally not been deemed viable since: 1) Gaelic speakers tend to be more comfortable
reading in English and 2) they are readily available and perceived to be of a higher quality in
English. As Thomson remarks (1989; cf. 1976): ‘There is only one book on football, very

11
Ronald Black of the University of Edinburgh said once (1998) that ‘letter writing in Gaelic today is a
deliberate antiquarian exercise’. However, as Dr Wilson McLeod later pointed out to the author, this comment
may not be so valid today in the face of the growth of e-mail correspondence, which benefits from being more
informal and ‘oral’. It would be interesting to know if Gaels who might not have otherwise corresponded in
Gaelic before may sometimes do so today using this new option, where orthography and grammar tend to be less
important than the communication at hand.
15
little on politics, nothing on conservation, nothing on fish-farming, nuclear policy, space
exploration, the Royal Family, fast food, feminism’ (p. 40). There has been little in the way
of writing that is expressly academic, but much that has been written by academics.
Certainly, high-register, expository prose is possible to find in the language, often dealing
with literature, folklore, and linguistics. But, as previously mentioned, there is a very small
market or patronage for Gaelic-medium textbooks and academic periodicals. In earlier times,
particularly pre-World War II (Meek 1990, 16), high-register prose was modelled upon the
language of the Gaelic Bible. Since then, prose per se has moved towards greater
colloquialism. (Even the Bible itself has been recently updated to reflect contemporary
usage.) Finally, industrial and official documents found in Gaelic are often transparently
tokenistic, especially when they are based upon more complete and concise English versions.
When placed alongside original English sources, the extent of the inappropriateness of word
choice and parasitism is readily observed (Cox 1998, McLeod 2000). Certainly there are
documents of this sort written in idiomatic, edited prose, but it is not unusual to read writing
issued by explicitly Gaelic organisations that is rife with orthographical mistakes,
inconsistencies and errors as regards grammar and case marking, and ‘something based on a
dense English set of sub-clauses which just looks contorted in Gaelic’ (Cox 1998, 81).

0.5 Summary
Scottish Gaelic was once spoken throughout much of the Scottish mainland, but is now
confined mainly to its Western periphery and the Islands off the coast of this region.
Language transmission in these areas has declined markedly in the past fifty years and recent
statistics indicate that Gaelic will cease to be a community language in the next twenty years
if current trends continue. The economy of most Gaelic speaking areas is based upon
subsistence farming and fishing with fewer professionals in the workforce relative to other
areas of the country. Overall, the remaining Gaelic-speaking areas are some of the poorest
and most isolated regions in Britain. Part of the language’s decline has been attributed to the
increase of English monoglot incomers. As virtually all Gaelic speakers are now bilingual,
their presence increases the likelihood that any given situation will be English rather than
Gaelic-medium. However, even in conversations between fully fluent Gaelic speakers, code
switching and borrowing is currently the rule rather than the exception.

There is a wide range of print and media (i.e. television and radio) registers available in the
language, but the tendency is for there to be generally few instances, especially in printed
material, of each specific variety. This gives the overall impression of breadth without depth
in register range. About one half of Gaelic speakers returned in the 1991 census as being able
to read and write, but few do so on regular basis. This small readership is a contributing
factor to the dearth of prose in all forms in the language, especially long fiction and academic
writing. In fact, a substantial proportion of Gaelic writing, in particular children’s books,
news reportage, and government documents, are translated from English publications. As a
result, cross-linguistic effects are readily observed contributing to, on some level, the growing
departure in the language from Gaelic-based idiom towards a higher instance of calquing and
decay of native morpho-syntax.

16
1 Phonology: A Brief Summary
In contrast to the many phonetic, mainly dialectal, studies that have been undertaken on ScG,
there are very few full phonological analyses in the literature (but see Oftedal 1956; Ternes
1973; Dorian 1978; Ó Murchú 1989). However, as Ternes (1994) points out, there are several
phonetic studies which, due to their consistent approach, are capable of being phonologically
reinterpreted (i.e. Dieckhoff 1932; Borgstrøm 1937; 1940; 1941; Mac Gill-Fhinnein 1966).

1.1 Vowels
The vowel system has three classes—front-unrounded, back-rounded, back-unrounded—and
four grades of opening (Ternes 1994):

Simple Vowels Nasal Vowels

ι ∝υ ι ∝) υ)
ε Φ ο ο)
Ε ฀ Ε)
α α)
[+/- long] [+/- long except ∝ ]

movement’ and càr /καρ/ ‘car’ readily found. In a broad sense (see Ternes 1973 for more
Vowel length is a major feature in the language, with minimal pairs such as a car /kar/ ‘a

information), vowels undergo nasalisation when in contact with nasal consonants (i.e. m, mh,
n, ng). It seems that nasalisation affects a word in toto rather than just the vowel segment
(Ternes 1994). Ternes says the following:
The vowels enumerated above function as the centres of nasalisation. Every word with distinctive
nasalisation contains one such centre, always located in the stressed syllable. From this centre
nasalisation usually spreads over several segments to the left and right, but not beyond word
boundaries. The precise extension of these nasalized stretches is strictly rule-governed. (p. 102)

/µα)ηαρ ⇔/ [µα)η)α)♦]. True minimal pairs are rare, but do occur: tàmh /τα)ϖ/ ‘rest’
An example of this ‘spreading’ can be seen in a word such as màthair ‘mother’

and tàbh /ταϖ/ ‘fishing net’.

The Gaelic vowels are assigned to two groups: 1) the so-called ‘broad’ or back vowels (a, o,
u) and 2) the ‘slender’ or front vowels (e, i). In the orthography12, this distinction is mapped
onto the consonants (and many consonant clusters) each of which, save the labials13, has a

word ‘cats’ is palatal—cait /κΕτ ⇔Η/ [κΕΗτΣ]—while it is non-palatal in the singular form
‘broad’ (non-palatal) or a ‘slender’ (palatal) form. For instance, the phonological dental in the

of the word: cat /κατΗ/ [καΗτ°]. One might be lead, based upon such an example, to claim
palatalisation in consonants is a case of assimilation to the vocalic environment, with front
vowels assigning palatal allophones and back vowels, non-palatal allophones. However, as is

NOM ‘new’ [υρ] vs. ùir GEN ‘new’ [υ♦]. Although the terminal vowel is phonetically the
represented in the following two examples, this does not seem to be entirely accurate: cf. ùr

same in the two word forms, the first realises an unpalatal /r/ while second realises a palatal
one.

12
There is an orthographic convention that a consonant of one type must always be flanked by vowels of the
same type, known as the slender to slender, broad to broad rule.
13
But see Macaulay (1966).
17
1.2 Consonants
The phonological consonant inventory varies from dialect to dialect, but the following are
widely attested (palatalisation indicated by ‘´’):

Labial Dental Dental´ Velar´ Velar Glottal

Plosives voiced b d d´ g´ g

∅ ⊗
voiceless p t t´ k´ k

Σ
Fricatives voiced v
voiceless f s ç x h
Nasals m n n´ N
Vibrants r r´ R
Laterals l l´ L

Most of the Hebridean dialects (e.g. North Uist) present a 3-way contrast in the sonorants but
the Gaelic of other areas, particular in the periphery, may range from a one-way contrast (as
in the r phonemes of East Sutherland Gaelic: see Dorian 1978) up to a 5-way contrast, as with
the laterals and nasals of the Islay dialect (Hamp 1970, cited in Ternes 1994). In general, the
number of r phonemes tends to be fewer than the others, with most dialects evincing between
3 and 2, usually preserving a contrast between palatalised and non-palatalised forms (e.g. the
Gaelic of Applecross, Rosshire: see Ternes 1973).

1.3 Diphthongs
Due to the interaction of the features of short vs. long vowel length and oral vs. nasal
articulation, there is a considerable proliferation of distinct diphthongs and triphthongs in
Scottish Gaelic. Dialect studies report, on average, between 20-80 diphthongs (Ternes 1994).
MacPherson (1940) gives the following base forms for the North Uist dialect:

1) ‘Rising’ αι, Ει, ฀ι, υι, Φι, αυ

2) ‘Falling’ ι฀, ια, ιυ, ε฀, εο, υα, υ฀, υα, υΦ

Common triphthongs include -eoi-, -iui-, and -uai- as in the words eòin ‘birds’, ciùil GEN
‘music’, and luaithe ‘faster’.

1.4 Word Stress

Very little has been published on ScG prosody and suprasegmentals. Sound beginnings have
been made, however, by Macaulay (1978) and Ó Murchú (1989) and the interested reader
should consult these accounts.

Stress variation is of little importance to word formation in Scottish Gaelic. Full stress is
nearly always on the first syllable (e.g. tàmailteachadh /ταµαλ'τ'฀ξ฀⊗/ ‘shaming’).
Deviations from this are almost always either loans—ex. buntàta /βυντατ฀/ ‘potato’)—or
compounds: cho-dhùin /ξ฀⊗υν'/ ‘concluded’.

1.5 Consonant Mutation

The Celtic languages are famous for the various ways in which their consonants regularly
change in certain conditions. Lenition, sometimes referred to as aspiration or initial
mutation, is the most ubiquitous of these changes in Scottish Gaelic. Synchronically, it is part

18
of the language’s morphophonology and used to mark various aspects of the verbal and
nominal system including tense, definiteness, possession, and case agreement, for instance:

Tense
(1) snàmh thusa shnàmh thusa
swim-IMP 2-SING-EMPH swim-PAST 2-SING-EMPH
‘swim you!’ ‘you swam!’

Definiteness
(2) craobh ‘a tree’; a’ chraobh ‘the tree’

Possession
(3) a cas ‘her foot’; a chas ‘his foot’

Case agreement
(4) taobh ceàrr ‘wrong side’; air an taobh chearr ‘on the wrong side’

Lenition originated as a phonetic phenomenon early on in the history of the Celtic languages,
the product of the weakening of intervocalic consonants both word-medially and at word
boundaries. Orthographically, lenition is represented by an h after so-called ‘lenitable’
consonants. However, this is misleading as all consonants14, as well as some consonant
clusters, change articulation when lenition is applied. The following table, based upon the
basic IPA symbols used in Ó Dochartaigh (ed. 1994-97, 123) provides an simplified overview
of these changes at a phonetic level, with some of the allophones encountered. This is not an
exhaustive list, but rather an illustration of some of the phonetic changes.

Table: Lenition of Initial Consonants

Unlenited Lenited
Spelled Non- Palatal Spelled Non- Palatal

β β ϖ, Β ϖ, Β
palatal palatal
b bh
c κ χ ch ξ Χ
d δ5 δΖ dh ⊗ ∅
f φ, ÷ φ, ÷ fh -, h -, h
g γ  gh ⊗ ∅
l λ5 × l λ, λ5 λ
m µ µ mh ϖ) ϖ)
n ν5  n ν, ν5 ν
p π π ph φ, ÷ φ, ÷
r { ♦, ∆ r ρ n/a15
s σ Σ sh η η
t τ5 τΣ th η η

14
Except for the sonorants l, n, and r which may or may not depending, largely, on the age and dialect of the
speaker.
15
In most dialects, there are no nouns or otherwise lenitable words beginning with a palatal r.
19
Palatalisation is another common morphophonemic process, whereby a normally unpalatal
consonant or cluster becomes palatalised. Palatalisation is a common feature of case and
number marking (see §2.1.1) but also appears in adjectival declension (§2.1.4) and the verbal
system. The example using cait in §1.1 above, is one instance of it being used to mark
number. The following examples show it being used to mark case:

(5) mo chas dheas

1S-POSS foot-FEM-N left
‘my right foot’

(6) air mo chois dheis

on 1S-POSS foot-FEM-D left-D
‘on my left foot’

In the orthography, palatalisation is signalled by vowel changes, normally the addition of i at

the end of a ‘broad’ vowel. However, more extensive changes sometimes occur as seen in (6)
and delineated in the table below.

Table: Vowel Changes in Palatalisation (based in part on Ó Maolalaigh 1996)

Change Example Change Example
a > oi Gall, Goill ia > èi grian, grèin
a > ui ball, buill ia > eòi nial, neòil
ea > i ceann, cinn ia > ì sian, sìne
ea > ei eag, eige io > i sìol, sìl
eò > iùi ceòl, ciùil ìo > ì crìoch, crìch
eu > èi geur, gèire iu > i fliuch, fliche
eu > eòi deur, deòir o > ui roc, ruic

1.6 Preaspiration
Preaspiration is uncommon in the world’s languages but found in some Scandinavian
languages (e.g. Icelandic) and Scottish Gaelic. It is a short breath-like sound occurring
generally before post-vocalic voiceless stops, such as /p/, /k/, and /t/. Preaspiration is not a
feature of some of the peripheral ScG dialects such as Arran, parts of Kintyre, and E.
Perthshire (seen in the transcriptions of Ó Murchú 1989). In other dialects, there is a range of
variation which can be organised into four main types (table from Ó Maolalaigh 1997):

Table: Preaspiration after back vowels16

Type Phonetically Phonemically Illustrative Dialects
h h h
A [ p],[ t], [ k] /p/, /t/, /k/17 Lewis; parts of Sutherland
B [hp], [ht], [hk] /hp/, /ht/, /hk/ Aultbea in Ross-shire
C [hp], [ht], [xk] /hp/, /ht/, /xk/ Outer Hebrides other than Lewis; Isle of
Skye; central Highlands
D [xp], [xt], [xk] /xp/, /xt/, /xk/ Western Perth; eastern Highlands; parts
of Argyll

16
When preaspiration occurs after front vowels, the point of articulation is respectively moved forward and may
resemble [Χ]: ex., mic ‘sons’ [µιΧκ].
17
In these dialects, preaspiration is phonetic rather than phonemic. Also, it tends to be weaker and more breathy.
20
2 Morphology
Although Scottish Gaelic syntax, particular its variation, has not been well covered in the
literature, its morphology has been documented in a number of grammar books and articles.
Calder (1923; see also Nicholson 1936) is the most complete of the grammars, but is
conservative, both in terms of its application and the forms of language it evinces, by today’s
standards.

2.0 Overview of morphological characteristics

2.0.1 Synthesis and Fusion
Scottish Gaelic is a largely fusional language as seen, for example, in its large proliferation of
pronominal forms (see also §2.1.2, and §2.1.6):

(7) air ‘on’; orm ‘on me’; ormsa ‘on me [emphatic]’

(8) ann ‘in’; annad ‘in you; annadsa ‘in you [emphatic]’; ’nad ‘in your’

Its verbal system is less fusional than French or Spanish but approximates that level in some
cases:

(9) bhithinn
be-INDEF2-1s
"I would be"

(10) seallamaid
show/look-IMP-2P
"Let us show/look"

(11) rinneadh e
do-PAST-IMPERS 3S
"it was done"

The 2nd indefinite (also known as the ‘conditional/habitual’), certain passive forms, and the
subjunctive/imperative are the only verb forms currently exhibiting synthesis in Modern ScG.
However, there is a growing tendency in the language for these forms to be replaced by
periphrastic versions (see §3.5). First person marking also infrequently appears associated
with a vestigial ‘present’ (see the TAM system in §2.2.1.2) in some psychological verbs,
almost exclusively in high-register writing and religious discourse:

(12) chìthim cluinneam saoilim

see-PRES-1S hear-PRES-1S think-PRES-1S
‘I see’ ‘I hear’ ‘methinks’

These correspond to the more common usages:

(13) chì mi cluinnidh mi saoilidh mi

see-INDEF1 1S hear-INDEF1 1S think-INDEF1 1S
‘I see’ ‘I hear’ ‘I think’

21
2.0.2 Morphological Processes
There are a number of ways in which ScG stems can be altered: 1) prefixation; 2) suffixation;
3) stem modification; 4) suppletion. Although infixation was a feature of Old Irish (see
Thurneysen 1993), it is not currently evinced in the language. Neither is reduplication a
productive process at the level of root forms, yet adjectives and interjectives (§3.4.3) are
sometimes, as in other languages, repeated in series for intensification: duine mòr mòr ‘a big,
big man’.

2.0.2.1 Prefixation
Prefixation and suffixation occur in three combinations (Macaulay 1992; see also Gillies
1993): 1) prefix + stem; 2) stem + derivational suffix; 3) prefix + stem + derivational suffix.
There are a large number of productive prefixes in Gaelic, but some have become so
inextricably associated with certain stems that they can be considered fused (Calder 1923,
§100-101, §146). Stress on the initial syllable indicates that this is the case, such as in
còmh´la, adv. ‘together’ (co ‘with’ + làmh ‘hand’). Prefix status is indicated where stress
occurs on another syllable or is shared between the first element and another. The following
is a list of some of the more common prefixes:

Adjectives
neo- ‘un’; mì- ‘un’; so- denoting goodness, easiness; do- denoting badness, difficulty;
ioma(dh)- ‘many’

Examples: neo-fhreagarrach ‘inappropriate’ (<freagarrach ‘appropriate’); mì-chùramach

‘careless’ (<cùramach ‘careful’); so-dhèanadh ‘easily done’ ; do-dhèanadh ‘impossible’;
(<dèanadh VN., ‘doing’); ioma-dhathach ‘multicoloured’ (<dathach ‘coloured’)

Nouns18
mòr- ‘big’; fìor- ‘true’; àrd- ‘high’; mì- (as above)

Examples: mòrchuid ‘majority’ (<cuid ‘part’); fìoruisge ‘spring water’ (<uisge ‘water’);
àrdsgoil ‘high-school’ (<sgoil ‘school’); mìrùn ‘disregard’ (<rùn ‘regard’)

Verbs
ath- ‘again’; sìor- ‘continually’; mì- as above; co- ‘with’

Examples: ath-athris ‘repeat’ (<athris ‘relate/narrate’); sìor-fhàs ‘ever-grow’ (<fàs ‘grow’);

mì-thoilich ‘displease’ (<toilich ‘pleasing'); co-dhùin/codhùin ‘conclude’ (<dùin ‘close’)

2.0.2.2 Suffixes
There are a number of common suffixes used in inflectional operations, usually involving
marking of tense, person, number. See §2.2.2 on verbal morphology. Derivational suffixes
include:

Verbal Noun Endings

-ail; -adh; -amh; -ail; -inn
Examples: cumail ‘keeping’ (cùm ‘keep’); moladh ‘praising’ (mol ‘praise’); dèanamh ‘doing’
(dèan ‘do’); leantainn ‘following’ (lean ‘follow’); saoilsinn ‘thinking’ (saoil ‘think’)

18
Current orthographical convention in Scottish Gaelic recommends the use of hyphens only in compound
words in which secondary stress is indicated.
22
Noun Endings
agentive: -air/-eir m., pìobair ‘piper’
diminutive: -ag/-aig f., amaideag ‘female fool’
abstractive: -achd f., siorraidheachd ‘eternity’

Adjectival Endings
The most common is –(e)ach but other ones include –da/-ta/-te, -ail/-eil, -mhor
Examples: sunndach ‘happy’ (<sunnd ‘joy’ + -ach); dearbhte ‘certain’ (<dearbh ‘proof’ + -
te); beòthail ‘lively’ (<beò ‘alive’ + -ail); atmhor ‘swelling’ (at ‘swell’ + mòr ‘big’)

2.0.2.3 Stem Modification

This is generally isolated to: 1) person, gender, and case marking of certain nouns (see
§2.1.1.2); 2) agreement of the same on attributive adjectives; and 3) the comparative and
superlative forms of some adjectives. In all these cases, stem modification takes the form of
generally predictable vowel change along with palatalisation. These are not simply cases of
suppletion and, due to its prevalence, this kind of stem modification could be said to be fairly
productive in the language. For instance:

(a) fear m., ‘man’

Case Singular Plural
Nom. fear fir
Dat. fear fir
Gen. fir fhear
Voc. fhir fhearaibh

(b) geal ‘white’: comparative & superlative: gile

2.0.2.4 Suppletion
Suppletion is characteristic in the paradigms of certain irregular a) verbs (see Appendix 1 for
a chart of these), b) nouns, and c) adjectives:

(a) rach ‘go’

Past-dependent.: deach
Past-independent.: chaidh
Indef1-dependent.: tèid
Indef1-independent.: thèid
Verbal noun: dol

(b) bean, f. ‘woman’

Case Singular Plural
Nom. bean mnathan
Dat. mnaoi mnathan
Gen. mnà ban
Voc. a bhean a mhnathan

(c) math ‘good’; comparative & superlative: feàrr

23
2.0.3 Head/Dependent Marking
Gaelic is a dependent-marking language, seen in the way it treats case marking:

(14) bùth Dhòmhnaill

shop Donald-G.
head dependent
‘Donald’s shop’

(15) le a cheann
with 3S-POSS head-D
head dependent--------
‘with his head’

As is clearly seen, in ScG, it is not the heads of these dependent relations which exhibit
morphological marking, but rather the dependent element. This is signified by lenition and
palatalisation in the first example and lenition only, in the second.

2.1 Nominal Morphology

The Scottish Gaelic nominal system declines for case, definiteness, number, gender, and
person as well as displaying morphosyntactic contrasts for alienability and count. Lenition
and palatalisation take a heavy loading for marking case, gender and definiteness. A levelling
of morphological contrasts is occurring in the language due both to internal trends towards
simplification and the pervasive influence of English. The effects can appear erratic at times.
Use of conservative morphology correlates positively with written and formal registers as
well as speaker/writer age. See Gillies (1980), Macaulay (1982b, 1986) and Lamb (2002) for
more information.

2.1.1 Nouns
The nominal grammatical types evinced in ScG are as follows: 1) common nouns; 2) proper
nouns; 3) pronouns (including possessive pronouns and prepositional pronouns); 4) anaphoric
nouns; 5) mass vs. count nouns; 6) alienable vs. inalienable nouns; and 7) verbal nouns. A
set of derivational suffixes provides the means for coding diminution (e.g. –an, -ag),
abstraction (-ad, -achd), and indefiniteness (e.g., cuideigin f., ‘somebody’; -eigin ‘or another’
< air choireigin).

1) Common noun stems can be simple or compound (cf. Macaulay 1992, 207). Compound
stems are most often formed by noun-noun combinations, adjective-noun ones19, and/or by
adding prefixes and suffixes:

bùth-obrach (bùth ‘shop’ + obrach gen. of obair ‘work’)

mòr-shluagh (mòr adj., ‘big’ + sluagh ‘people’)
ro-shealladh (ro prep., ‘before’ + sealladh ‘view’)
bodachan (bodach ‘old man’ + -an diminutive suffix)

The stem, or final suffix if present, indicates case and number. Nouns that are headed by
another noun, even in compounds, take the genitive case although this is not always heard in
informal speech.

19
There is a closed class of adjectives that only occurs pre-nominally such as deagh, droch, and fìor (see §2.1.4).
Here, we are referring to those that normally come after the noun. This kind of compounding is usually a marker
of more literate, especially poetic, registers.
24
2) Proper nouns in Gaelic take the whole range of case marking and can be adjectivally and
appositionally modified. Surnames, while growing in frequency due to English influence, are
still not the most common way of referring to a member of the community when speaking in
Gaelic. Individuals are more likely to be referred to by nicknames, descriptive epithets (such
as occupation) and patronymics, which may have been maintained over generations, rather
than a fixed family name (Gillies & Matheson 1994).

(16) Dòmhnall Ruadh Choruna

Donald red Coruna-G
‘Red Donald of Coruna’

(17) Òrain Dhòmhnaill Ruaidh Choruna

Songs Donald-G red-G Coruna-G
‘The songs of Red Donald of Coruna’

3) Pronouns (see §2.1.2)

4) Amongst the class of nouns that can act as anaphors (taking their meaning from
surrounding discourse) are: feadhainn ‘some’; cuid ‘some’; fear ‘one’; tè ‘one’; sìon
‘anything’; sgath ‘anything’; dad ‘anything’; rud ‘thing’; càil ‘anything’.

5) Nouns that cannot be counted are most often either mass nouns, such as bainne ‘milk’ and
min ‘meal’, or collective ones such as crodh ‘cattle’ (Macaulay 1992, 207).

6) An alienable versus inalienable opposition obtains in the way that ScG deals with
possession (see §2.1.1.5).

7) Gillies (1993, 204) considers the ‘verbal noun’ in ScG to be ‘in the first instance a noun’.
Evidence that can be adduced for this includes the following: a) it can function as a subject or
object; b) it can take modifiers; c) it can take determiners; d) it can receive case marking; e) it
is assigned for gender. However, it clearly functions in ways that prototypical nouns do not:
a) it can receive objects; b) it can link with a closed set of prepositions for the encoding of
aspect; c) it can take certain modifiers—particularly adverbs—that prototypical nouns cannot;
d) it is clearly not time-stable in the way that most nouns are; e) many cannot form plurals.
For more information about the status of the verbal noun see §2.2 on verbal morphology and
Payne (1997, 34-38).

2.1.1.1 Number
Although a vestigial system of dual number marking exists there is now only a obligatory
contrast in the nominal system between the singular and plural. Plural number in the
nominative is coded most often through palatalisation and suffixation but number marking
interacts with case and gender (see §2.1.1.3 below). The most common plural suffix is -(e)an.

Dual number marking occurs with some short feminine nouns and is identically to their dative
forms (§2.1.1.4)20:

20
The article in dual marking can be either /an/ or /na/ depending on the dialect.
25
(18) mo dhà làimh21
1S-POSS two hands
‘my two hands’

2.1.1.2 Gender/Class
Nouns can be either masculine or feminine. It is sometimes possible to ascertain a noun’s
gender by examining its suffix morphology (see below) or the way it receives case marking,
but assignment is largely arbitrary. For example, there is little correlation between
grammatical gender and physical one (ex. boireannach m. ‘woman’). There are a small
number of nouns with defective gender marking which may be either masculine or feminine
(depending on dialect), or treated differently depending on case. An example of the latter is
muir ‘sea’ which is often masculine when nominative and feminine when genitive (mara G.).
Some of these nouns have roots in an older neuter gender which is no longer attested in the
language.

Calder (1923, 76-77) provides useful information about certain stereotypical endings and
classes associated with grammatically masculine and feminine nouns. Nouns ending in -a,
-adh (verbal noun), -an/-ean (diminutive), -as, -ach , -aiche, and –air are typically masculine.
In addition, words denoting ‘(t)he names of the elements, seasons of the year, days of the
week, metals, colours, grains, vegetables, liquors, and timber’ (ibid., 76) are usually
masculine. Those nouns ending in -a, -ag (diminutive), -achd/-eachd (abstract), -ad/-ead
(abstract), -e (abstract), or –ir (polysyllables only) are generally feminine. Feminine gender
is usually associated with the names of nations, celestial objects, musical instruments,
afflictions, and corpses as well (ibid.). In addition to these road markers, it is very often the
case that feminine nouns end in palatalised, or ‘slender’, consonants (e.g. a’ chòir ‘the right’)
whilst masculine nouns are associated with non-palatal, or ‘broad’, terminal consonants (e.g.
an cor ‘the condition’).

Grammarians have traditionally grouped Gaelic nouns into different classes depending on the
relative forms of their nominative and genitive singular. The following classification is based
on Konstantopoulous (1998), which largely uses Oftedal’s (1956) scheme.

• Nominative singular ends in non-palatal consonant (e.g. fear ‘man’)

Class I: Masculine Nouns Only

• Genitive singular formed by palatalisation (e.g. fir ‘of a man’)

• Plurals formed either by palatalisation (making it homophonous with the G sing.) or

• Nearly all monosyllables form the plural by palatalisation

suffixation: -ean or –an

• Some nouns have a genitive plural form homophonous with the nominative singular

ex. boireannach ‘woman’ m., boireannaich G, PL

sagart ‘priest’ m., sagairt G, sagartan PL

• Nominative singular ends in non-palatal consonant (e.g. craobh ‘tree’)

Class II: Feminine Nouns Only

21
Cf. an làmh na làmhan
ART hand-N ART hands-N
‘the hand’ ‘the hands’

26
• Genitive singular formed through palatalisation and sometimes the suffix –e in mono- and

•
disyllabic words (e.g. craoibhe ‘of a tree’)
The suffix –e tends to be elided in contact with other vowels: e.g. air mullach na craoibh’

•
àirde ‘on top of the high tree’

•
Plural formed by suffixation: -(e)an
Some nouns have a genitive plural form homophonous with the nominative singular

ex. làmh ‘hand’ f., làimhe G, làmhan PL

tunnag ‘duck’ f., tunnaig(e) G, tunnagan PL

• Nominative singular of masculine nouns may end in any consonant

Class IIIa: Masculine and Feminine Nouns

• Nominative singular of feminine nouns ends in palatal consonant

• Genitive singular marked by –e and palatalisation on masculine noun endings which are

• Plural formed by suffixation: -(e)an

not already palatal

ex. tuil ‘flood’ f., tuile G, tuil(t)ean PL

brùid ‘brute’ m., brùide G, brùidean PL

Class IIIb: Identical to IIIa but genitive singular ending –a and depalatalisation occurs with
palatal terminal consonants

ex. loch ‘lake’ m., locha G, lochan PL

fuil ‘blood’ f., fala22 G

• Nominative singular ends in palatal consonant

Class IV: Feminine Nouns Only

• Genitive singular formed by depalatalisation, syncope, and the suffix –ach

• Nominative plural formed by suffix –achan/-ichean, -nnan or –(e)an

ex. litir ‘letter’ f., litreach G, litrichean

dùthaich ‘country’ f., dùthcha G, dùthchannan
bàthaich ‘byre’ f., bàthcha G, bàthaichean

• Only marked, if at all, in the plural (i.e. the genitive singular is identical to the nominative
Class V: Indeclinable Nouns

• Plural is formed irregularly or by suffixing: either –(e)an or -achan/-ichean

singular)

• Loans often fall into this class and usually form the plural by –ichean
• Nouns ending in /e/ and using –ichean to form the plural drop the /e/ if it occurs between
two homo-organic consonants, e.g. coille ‘forest’ > coilltean ‘forests’

ex. duine ‘man’ m. (NOM & GEN), daoine PL

lighiche ‘healer’ m. (NOM & GEN), lighichean PL
compiutair ‘computer’ m. (NOM & GEN), compiutairean PL

22
In some dialects, including Uist, many feminine nouns in the genitive singular are marked by the suffix –adh;
eg. ceòl na pìobadh ‘music of the pipes’. The dative of certain feminine nouns may be also be marked by -
(a)idh; eg. aig a’ bhùthaidh ‘at the shop’ (see ex. (61)).
27
2.1.1.3 Definiteness/Referentiality
Gaelic uses only a definite article; indefiniteness is coded by its absence. The marking of
definiteness is conditioned by gender, case and number in a system of some complexity. The
article always directly precedes the noun and is proclitic to it. It may cause lenition or
nasalisation but, unlike Irish Gaelic, nasalisation is not reflected in the orthography. There are
different forms of the article depending on whether the first phoneme of the noun is: a)
lenitable; b) a vowel; c) a labial consonant; or d) an ‘s’ cluster. No article is used with the
vocative.

The tables below show the permutations of this system. An ‘L’ marks those cases where
lenition occurs. As mentioned previously (see §1.2), dentals are ‘protected’ from article-
imposed lenition due to homorganic blocking. When the article ends in a nasal consonant (as
in the masculine nominative singular and all genitive plurals) it is assimilated to /m/ before
labial consonants. In addition, some dialects (e.g. Uist) feature the assimilation of voiceless
consonants to the voicing inherent to nasal environments. Following nasal consonants, as in

dialects often become voiced, especially in informal discourse; e.g. an cù ‘the dog’ [฀ν κυ >
certain inflections of the definite article (i.e. an, am, nan, nam), voiceless consonants in these

฀ γυ]23. Where a noun begins with /s/ followed by either a vowel or one of the sonorants {l,
n, r}, the article takes the form of an t- in certain cases (e.g. an t-slat [฀ δλαητ]) as seen
below:

a) Masculine noun, consonant-initial

Singular Plural
Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø an/am ø na
Dative ø a’ L/an t-(s-) ø na
Genitive ø a’ L/an t-(s-) L
nan/nam

b) Masculine noun, vowel-initial

Singular Plural
Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø an t- ø na h-
Dative ø an ø na h-
Genitive ø an ø nan

c) Masculine noun, /f/-initial

Singular Plural
Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø am ø na
Dative ø an L ø na
Genitive ø an L L
nam

23
See Borgstrøm (1940) for more information on nasalation in the dialects of the Outer Hebrides.
28
d) Feminine noun, consonant-initial
Singular Plural
Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø a’ L/an t-(s-) ø na
Dative ø a’ L/an t-(s-) ø na
L
Genitive ø na nan/nam

e) Feminine noun, vowel-initial

Singular Plural
Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø an ø na h-
Dative ø an ø na h-
Genitive ø na h- ø nan

f) Feminine noun, /f/-initial

Case Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
Nominative ø anL ø na
Dative ø anL ø na
L
Genitive ø na nam

As mentioned above, the language is in the process of morphological simplification. The

genitive case in particular is inconsistently marked and the nominative (or dative) system is
often used in the place of it. Amongst the effects are the use of na h- instead of nan/nam for
definite plural genitives and the absence of lenition in indefinite genitive plurals.

2.1.1.4 Case
There are 4 cases extant in modern ScG: 1) nominative-accusative24; 2) dative; 3) genitive; 4)
vocative. Nouns in subject and object position take nominative case. Nouns following most
simple pre-positions take dative case. Genitive case marking occurs on nouns following a
small set of simple prepositions (§2.1.6.1), most complex prepositions (§2.1.6.3), verbal
nouns, and other nouns with which they are in a dependent relation. Vocative case is used
most typically to address others and in asseveration (see §3.4.3). Some examples of genitive
case assignment follow:

Genitive marking after the verbal noun:

(19) tha mi a’ sireadh an leabhair bhig ghuirm
be-PRES-IND 1S PROG searching-VN ART book-G small-G blue-G
‘I am looking for the small blue book’
cf. an leabhar beag gorm (NOM) ‘the little blue book’

Genitive marking after another noun:

(20) doras na sgoile(adh)

door-N ART school-G
‘the door of the school’
cf. an sgoil NOM ‘the school’

24
Called thus because there is no contrast between nominative and accusative case marking.
29
When two or more nouns are governed by a preceding noun, only the last is normally marked
as genitive:

(21) doras oifis ceannard na sgoile(adh)

door-N office-N head-N ART school-G
‘the office door of the head of the school’

Similarly, when a noun is preceded by a preposition (air) and that noun (cas NOM; cois DAT)
governs another noun (bean NOM; mnà GEN) in the genitive, the former is usually25 marked as
nominative rather than dative:

(22) thuit a’ chlach air cas mo mhnà

fall-PAST ART stone on foot 1S-POSS wife-G
‘the stone fell on my wife’s foot’
cf. air a cois ‘on her foot’

Case levelling also occurs when a noun governed in the genitive is the object of a following
non-finite verb, with which it forms a small clause (cf. structures in (129) and §3.2.2):

(23) tha mi ag iarraidh an litir sin a chur thugad

is-PRES 1S PROG wanting-VN ART letter-N that AGR put-VN to-2S
‘I want to send that letter to you’
cf. tha mi ag iarraidh na litreach (GEN) sin ‘I am (at the) wanting (of) that letter’

Appositives are always formed in the nominative case rather than the genitive:

(24) tha Dòmhnall an gobha ag obair sa cheàrdaich an-dràsda

is-PRES Donald-N ART smith-N PROG work-VN in-ART forge-D right now
‘Donald the smith is working in the forge right now’

The forms of case marking associated with a particular noun depend largely on its
declensional category (see §2.1.1.2 above). In general, the dative uses the nominative form as
its base, the first phoneme(s) of which may be altered following the rules of lenition and
affixation as presented above. The endings of feminine nouns in the dative undergo
palatalisation where possible (some dialectal variation occurs on this point), although younger
and/or less conservative speakers may not evince this. Most nouns have genitive forms that
differ from their nominative forms to greater or lesser extents. Stem modifications—through
fairly predictable vowel changes and palatalisation—are frequently all that characterise the
genitive forms, but there are a number of nouns which behave irregularly or feature suppletion
(see §2.0.2.4).

Adjectives mark case in a similar fashion to their head noun, through lenition and a certain
degree of vowel harmony. Adjectives modifying plural nouns have the suffix /a/ appended to
them if their form permits it. See §2.1.4 for more information about adjectives.

The paradigms presented below are based upon a conservative morphology. Register,
proficiency level, and speaker age may be associated with deviations from this standard.
Examples in italics offer common reduced forms. Bold text is used to highlight the main
features of the system. Where it is said below that certain conditions of case, gender, number,
25
However, older and very formal texts (e.g. the Bible) preserve dative marking in this situation.
30
or definiteness indicate lenition, palatalisation, or suffixation, this is to be understood as only
being realised in words that have the potential to show these contrasts. For example, words
that are vowel initial are unable to evince lenition, words that end in a palatal consonant in the
nominative will be unable to evince palatalisation in the genitive26, and words already ending
in a vowel will not take suffixation to indicate the plural adjectival form.

I. Masculine Noun + Adjective: fear ‘man’; mòr ‘big’; le/leis ‘with’; taigh ‘house’
Case Indefinite Definite
Nominative fear mòr am fear mòr
Dative le fear mòr leis an fhear mhòr
Genitive taigh fir mhòir taigh an fhir mhòir
taigh fear mòr taigh an fhear mhò(i)r
Vocative fhir mhòir N/A

The base form is the indefinite, nominative fear mòr ‘(a) big man’. In masculine nouns,
definiteness in the nominative does not indicate lenition, either in the head noun or the
attributive adjective (as it does with female nouns) so we obtain am fear mòr (cf. below FEM
a’ chaileag mhòr). The dative form when definite does indicate lenition, on both the noun
and the adjective: leis an fhear mhòr. Much of ScG’s nominal morphology, although
complex on the surface, is redundant, and parallels obtain between different permutations of
number, definiteness and case. An example of this is found in the previous two examples.
Mnemonically, one can pair up the morphology of singular masculine nouns that are definite
and dative, and singular feminine nouns that are definite and nominative.

The genitive in singular masculine nouns is often characterised by palatalisation (see

§2.1.1.2). Adjectives following masculine nouns in the genitive are lenited and palatalised.
When definite, these nouns are also lenitied, with an identical form in the vocative, save for
the absence of the article.

II. Plural masculine noun + Adjective: fir ‘men’

Case Indefinite Definite
Nominative fir mhòra na fir mhòra
Dative le fir mhòra leis na fir mhòra
Genitive taigh fhear mòra taigh nam fear mòra
taigh fir mhòra taigh na fir mhòra
Vocative fhearaibh mòra N/A

Type I masculine nouns form their plural by palatalisation and adjectives following these
nouns are always lenited. Most adjectives agree with plural nouns by the addition of a vocalic
suffix. When indefinite and genitive, all plural nouns are lenited. Type I masculine nouns
often revert back to their singular form when genitive. In other masculine nouns, the plural
form does not change as a result of case. In the vocative, all nouns are lenited but many Type
I nouns additionally evince the suffix –(a)ibh, as above.

26
Although some of these nouns are depalatalised to show the contrast (see §2.1.1.2): e.g., fuil ‘blood’ F, NOM;
fala(dh) GEN.
31
III. Feminine noun + Adjective: caileag ‘girl’
Case Indefinite Definite
Nominative caileag mhòr a' chaileag mhòr
Dative le caileig mhòir leis a' chaileig mhòir
le caileag mhòr leis a’ chaileag mhòr
Genitive taigh caileig(e) mòir(e) taigh na caileig(e) mòir(e)
taigh caileag mhò(i)r taigh na caileag mhò(i)r
taigh a’ chaileag mhò(i)r
Vocative a chaileag mhòr N/A

Singular feminine nouns in the nominative always indicate lenition, where possible, in
attributive adjectives. When definite, singular feminine nouns are also always lenited, except
in the genitive. In the dative case, both the noun and adjectives are palatalised. The genitive
case, while neutralising lenition, evinces palatalisation. A vocalic suffix is also added to
genitive nouns and adjectives if they are 2 syllables or less in length. With those over 3
syllables, these are generally omitted. The vocative is lenited, but not palatalised as in
masculine nouns.

IV. Plural feminine noun + Adjective: caileagan ‘girls’

Case Indefinite Definite
Nominative caileagan mòra na caileagan mòra
Dative le caileagan mòra leis na caileagan mòra
Genitive taigh chaileagan mòra taigh nan caileagan mòra
taigh caileagan mòra taigh na caileagan mòra
Vocative a chaileagan mòra N/A

The marking of feminine plurals and dependent adjectives is identical to the masculine in
every respect except one: no feminine plural forms indicate lenition with following adjectives
as some Type I masculine nouns do (due to palatalisation, e.g. fir mhòra ‘big men’; see
above).

2.1.1.5 Possession
An alienable/inalienable contrast obtains in the way that Gaelic treats possessions. Presenting
a type of iconicity found in many other natural languages, inalienables take a shorter form
while alienables take a longer, periphrastic one. This contrast is not so marked in
contemporary ScG, but certain regularities are still to be found. In general, referents which
are felt to be ‘closer’ to the possessor employ the possessive pronouns: e.g. family, pets, one’s
house, one’s clothes, one’s wife (but, interestingly, not one’s husband in some dialects). The
possessive pronoun directly precedes the word it modifies.

Consonants Vowels
Person/Gender Singular Plural Singular Plural
1 moL ar m’ ar n-
2 doL ur d’ ur n-
3M aL an/am a an
3F a an/am a h- an

(25) mo cheann m’obair

1SG-POSS head 1SG-POSS-work
‘my head’ ‘my work’
32
Vagueness can result, especially in orthography, in the 3SG-POSS if the modified noun begins
with a non-lenitable consonant or cluster. Older speakers will often preserve a spoken
contrast between lenited and unlenited forms of the sonorants (see §1.5), but with most
younger speakers the following would be homophonic: a làmh his/her hand.

In cases where the possessor of an inalienable is fully specified, a genitival construction is

sometimes used:

(26) taigh Theàrlaich

house Charles-G
‘Charles’ house’

(27) còta mòr Màiri27

coat big Mary-G
‘Mary’s big coat’

Alienables most frequently are used with a locative construction to express possession: DEF
ART + N + aig (‘at’) + POSSESSOR. For instance, Mary’s boyfriend would be an gille aig
Màiri, literally ‘the boy at Mary’. If the POSSESSOR is pronominal, one of the forms of the
prepositional pronoun derived from aig is used (see §2.1.6.1). For instance, ‘our television’
would be an telebhisean againn, while ‘my husband’ would be an duine agam. There is a
tendency amongst younger and more progressive speakers to use the periphrastic construction
solely.

There is no verb TO HAVE in Gaelic. To express this notion, one uses a locative construction,
as above with the verb ‘to be’.

(28) tha càr againn

be-PRES car at-1P
‘we have a car’ [Lit. there is a car at us]

(29) bha an iuchair agam

be-PAST ART key at-1S
‘I had the key’ [Lit. there was a key at me]

2.1.2 Pronouns
As was seen in the previous section, pronouns have combined with other elements in ScG to
form hybrids: prepositional pronouns and prepositional possessive pronouns. These are part-
and-parcel of many idiomatic expressions. Also, like French and German, Gaelic has a
limited system of honorifics in the 2nd person. Although there is considerable idiolectal and
dialectal variation (see Macaulay 1982a), the general pattern is that thu forms are used with
familiars and/or contemporaries while sibh forms are used with unfamiliar persons and/or
elders.

2.1.2.1 Personal Pronouns

Pronominals can be given emphasis by using a number of suffixes. The emphatic suffix is
often used for providing contrast or for highlighting purposes, as in ‘that’s my money’ (see

27
Note that some dialects evince lenition of feminine proper nouns, so in this case the form obtained would be
còta mòr Mhàiri.
33
§3.4.2.1). Here is a chart of the free pronouns in ScG with their emphatic suffixes in
parentheses:

Person/Gender Singular Plural

1 mi(se) sinn(e)
2 thu(sa) sibh(se)
3M e(san) iad(san)
3F i(se) iad(san)

Depending on the semantic role of a pronominal referent and how it is coded by the
morphosyntax of a particular expression, there are cases when one of the following will be
used instead of a simple pronoun: a) a possessive pronoun; b) a prepositional pronoun; or c) a
prepositional possessive pronoun. The most frequent occurrence of this is with pronominal
objects to a verbal noun, as demonstrated in the following examples:

a) feumaidh tu a cheannsachadh
must-INDEF1 2S 3M-POSS taming-VN
‘you must tame/control him’

Here, the modal verb feumaidh ‘must’, a one-argument predicate, takes a transitive verbal
complement ceannsachadh. The subject of the complement is omitted through complement
argument omission (it is understood as being the same as the subject of feumaidh). The
object, however, is incorporated in the form of a possessive pronoun. Literally, this clause
could be stated as ‘you must his taming’. See (129) and §3.2.2 for more information on these
kinds of constructions.

b) chaidh an ceannsachadh agad

went-PAST 3PL taming-VN at-2SG
‘they were tamed by you’ [Lit. ‘went their taming at you’]

Similar to the previous example, ceannsachadh is the complement of another verb, chaidh
‘went’. The verb ‘to go’, when taking a verbal argument in this way, has the connotation of
passivisation. To express the ACTOR in these constructions, a locative (aig) is used or,
increasingly in modern usage, the preposition le ‘with/by’.

c) tha iad gad iarraidh

be-PRES 3PL PROG-2POSS wanting
‘They are wanting you’ [Lit. ‘they are at your wanting’]
(cf. *Tha iad ag iarraidh thu)

In this clause, the subject is expressed as a personal pronoun but the object of the verbal noun
must be expressed as a possessive prepositional pronoun. The progressive particle in ScG is
ag ‘at’, which has its roots in the cognate preposition aig. The form gad is a fusion of this
particle and the 2nd person possessive pronoun do ‘your’.

2.1.2.2 Demonstratives
ScG demonstratives encode three degrees of proximity or specificity:

34
Degree English PN/ADJ ADVmovement ADVlocation
1 this/here seo an-seo an-sheo
2 that/there sin an-sin an-shin
3 yon/yonder siud/ud an-siud an-shiud

Demonstrative pronouns have a similar distribution to common nouns; they never combine
with prepositions the way that pronouns do. Demonstrative adjectives, like other adjectives,
follow the noun they modify (e.g. an duine ud ‘yon man’). The demonstrative pronoun is the
same as the demonstrative adjective in the first two degrees of proximity, but deviates in the
third: chì mi an duine ud ‘I see yon man’ vs. chì mi siud ‘I see that’. As can be seen in the
table above and in the following example, demonstrative adverbs in some dialects mark a
contrast between location and movement: the location forms are lenited. Consider the
following:

(30) chaidh sinn an-sin bha sinn an-shin

went 2PL there was 2PL there
‘we went there’ ‘we were there’

Although degrees 2 and 3 are sometimes used interchangeably, when a difference is

maintained between the two, it seems to be mostly down to visibility or accessibility.
Whereas an cnoc ud ‘yon hill’ would refer to a hill that is either obscured from view or just
visible, an cnoc sin would refer to one that is much more discernible and able to be
specifically pointed out. If one were to say an latha ud ‘yon day’, the day would probably not
be specifically fixed in the mind of the addresser whereas an latha sin ‘that day’ would imply
that it is accessible.

A very natural occurrence in Gaelic is the pairing of tense and demonstratives, which
sometimes has the function of introducing referents that are to play a major role in following
discourse (see §3.4.2):

(31) bha sinn ann air an latha a bha seo

was 1-PL EXIST on ART day-D REL was here
‘we were there on this day’ [Lit. ‘we were in it on the day that was here’]

2.1.2.3 Reflexives and Reciprocals

Reflexives
There are few lexical reflexives in the language akin to the sort ‘I shaved’ or ‘I washed’ where
the AGENT and PATIENT roles refer to the same entity. Most reflexive operations involve the
use of fhèin/fhìn, a fairly prototypical analytic reflexive equivalent to English ‘self’:

(32) chunna mi mi fhèin28

see-PAST 1SG 1SG REFL
‘I saw myself’

Fhèin/fhìn can also be used as a prefix (e.g. fèin-eachdraidh ‘self’ + ‘history’ > ‘biography’)
and to intensify or provide contrast:

28
Some dialects use fhìn with 1st person pronouns, eg. chunna mi mi fhìn or chunna sinn sinn fhìn.
35
(33) tha mi fhèin sgìth
is-PRES 1SG REFL tired
‘I myself am tired’ (although you are not) or ‘I am tired also’ (although it seemed as if
I wasn’t)

(34) dhèanadh amadan fhèin sin (from Macaulay 1992, 197)

do-INDEF2 fool REFL that
‘even a fool could do that’

Finally, it can be used to show co-reference between the possessor of an NP and a verbal
argument:

chuala mi mo bhràthair fhèin

heard 1SG 1SG-POSS brother REFL
‘I heard my own brother’

There is a morphological reflexive construction employing the verbal noun where the SUBJECT
and the SUFFERER—which is encoded on the pre-VN aspect marker—are the same:

tha sinni gari losgadh

am 1-PL PROG-2PL burning-VN
‘we are being burnt’

Macaulay calls this Scottish Gaelic’s only ‘genuine passive’ (see §2.2.2.2).

Reciprocals
There are lexical reciprocals such as ‘they kissed’ (phòg iad) where reciprocity is
semantically encoded, but, like lexical reflexives, they seem to be more rare than in English.
Often the strategy is for the analytic reciprocal a chèile to be used, such as in:

(35) marbhaidh sibh a chèile

kill-INDEF1 2-PL RECIP
‘you will kill each other’

(36) bhruidhinn iad ri chèile

spoke 3-PL to RECIP
‘they spoke to one another’

As seen in the second example, prepositions can be inserted directly before the reciprocal,
eliding the a.

2.1.2.4 Interrogative Pronouns

There is a small set of question words for requesting information more elaborate than simple
affirmation or disaffirmation. These occur utterance initial and directly before the verb. One
(càite ‘where’) takes the ‘dependent’ form of the verb while the others take the ‘independent’
form (see §2.2.1). In those taking independent forms, the relative pronoun a is present, but
may be elided in speech before the verb if there is vowel contact. This happens throughout
the spoken language; whenever two vowels are in contact, the first usually elides the second.

Unlike English, most of the interrogative forms are different from equivalent relative forms
(see Ó Maolalaigh 1996 for more information):
36
Question Gloss Relative Form
Word
càite where (cia ‘what’ + àite ‘place’) far
cò who cò
dè, gu dè what (ciod ‘what’ + è ‘it’) na
carson why (cia ‘what’ + a(i)r son ‘for’) airson (‘s), et al.
cuine when (cia ‘what’ + ùine ‘time’) nuair
ciamar how (cia ‘what’ + mar ‘as’) mar

Some examples of each follow:

Question Form Relative Form

(37) càite an d’rinn thu sin? chunnaic mi far an d’rinn thu sin
‘where did you do that?’ ‘I saw where you did that’

(38) cò (a) rinn sin? chunnaic mi cò (a) rinn sin

‘who did that?’ ‘I saw who did that’

(39) dè (a) rinn thu? is toil leam na (a) rinn thu

‘what did you do?’ ‘I like what you did’

(40) carson a rinn thu sin? rinn thu sin airson ’s gum faiceamaid e
‘why did you do that’ ‘you did that so that we would see it’

(41) cuine a rinn thu sin? rinn thu sin nuair a bha sinne air falbh
‘when did you do that?’ ‘you did that when we [EMPH] were away’

(42) ciamar a rinn thu sin? chì mi mar a nì thu e

‘how did you do that?’ ‘I see how you do it’

2.1.2.5 Indefinite Pronouns

There are several ways to encode non-specificity or indefiniteness. With nouns, the usual way
is to use the modifier air choireigin:

(43) cù air choireigin

dog ‘or another’
‘some dog or another’

There is also a small number of words that can be translated as ‘something’ or ‘nothing (at
all)’: càil, sgàth, sìon, dad. The phrase sam bith (~ ‘in the world’), translatable as ‘at all’, can
modify NPs to convey indefiniteness: e.g. rud sam bith ‘anything at all’. The generic forms
of the masculine and feminine nouns, fear and tè respectively, can be used anaphorically to
indicate ‘one’. Other constructions are as follows, generally splitting into those that prepose
the pronominal element (air bith) and those that postpose it (ge be air bith etc.):

cò/ càite/ cuine + air bith ‘who(m)ever’ / ‘wherever’ / ‘whenever’

ge (be air) bith + cò/ càite/ cuine/ ciamar ‘whoever’/ ‘wherever’/ ‘whenever’ / ‘however’
ge brith + (as previous example)…
37
as bith cò + etc...
ge b’e cò + etc.

2.1.3 Numerals
The area of ScG number is very interesting but available space allows only a cursory
treatment. Gaelic is one of the few reported languages with a vigesimal system (base 20). It
has native terms for numbers 1 through 999,999 (Old Irish míle ‘1000’ probably being an
early borrowing from Latin).

2.1.3.1 Cardinal Numerals

There are discrete words for numbers 1 through 10, and for 20, 100, and 1000; other numbers
are built through compounding. For the purposes of reciting numbers, as in counting or
giving telephone numbers (only really done on the radio, where presenters try to adopt an all-
Gaelic style), a particle is used: a h- before vowels and a before all others. Also, in this case
the number two is lenited, becoming a dhà. The following chart provides the cardinal
numbers from 1 to 20 with an accompanying noun:

1 aon(a)L (chù) one dog 11 aon (chù) deug

2 dàL (chù) two dog 12 dà (chù) dheug
3 trì(L) (coin) three dogs 13 trì (coin) deug
(L)
4 ceithir (coin) … 14 ceithir (coin) deug
5 còig(L) (coin) 15 còig (coin) deug
6 sia (coin) 16 sia (coin) deug
7 seachd (coin) 17 seachd (coin) deug
8 ochd (coin) 18 ochd (coin) deug
9 naoi (coin) 19 naoi (coin) deug
10 deich (coin) 20 fichead (cù) twenty dog

As can be seen, some numbers cause lenition. Some also take the singular forms of a noun,
notably 1, 2, and 20 and multiples of 20 and 100. When constructing numbers between 20
and 40, there are two strategies: a) using the preposition air ‘on’ or thar ‘past; b) adding agus
or ’s ‘and’ and then the secondary number. Above 40, the latter is used:

21 aon(a) (chù) air/thar fhichead fichead (cù) agus a h-aon

22 dà (chù) air/thar fhichead fichead (cù) agus a dhà
23 trì (coin) air/thar fhichead fichead (cù) agus a trì
39 naoi (coin) deug air/thar fhichead fichead (cù) agus a naoi deug
40 dà fhichead (cù) identical at this point
50 leth-cheud cù …
51 leth-cheud cù ’s a h-aon
99 ceithir fichead (cù) ’s a naoi deug
100 ceud cù
200 dà cheud cù
1000 mìle cù
1000k millean cù

This system of counting is felt by native Gaels to be cumbersome for larger numbers although
the fact that all adult Gaelic speakers received their mathematical education through English

38
has much to do with this.29 Six thousand six hundred and ninety three (6693) is rendered as
sia mìle sia ceud ceithir fichead ’s a trì deug ‘six thousand six hundred four score and
thirteen’. This is only slightly longer than the English version, but native Gaelic speakers
generally revert to English numbers for those greater than twenty that fall between the scores.
For instance, they may say ‘naoi fichead caora’ for 180 sheep, but if they needed to be more
specific, say, 187 sheep, they would probably say ‘one hundred eighty seven caoraich’.
Dates and phone numbers are usually given in English unless a speaker is trying to avoid code
switching. See Macaulay (1982a) for more information on the sociolinguistic aspects of
Gaelic numerals.

2.1.3.2 Ordinal Numerals

Gaelic has native terms for the ordinal numbers although their use is quite restricted. Ordinal
numbers above 10 are often given in English. Here are the first 10, including 20 and 21:

1st a’ chiad (chù)

2nd an dàrna (cù)
3rd an treas(amh)/tritheamh (cù)
4th an ceathramh (cù)
5th an còigeamh (cù)
6th an siathamh (cù)
7th an seachdamh (cù)
8th an t-ochdamh (cù)
9th an naoidheamh (cù)
10th an deicheamh (cù)
20th am ficheadamh (cù)
21st an t-aona (chù) fichead

2.1.3.3 Numerical Pronouns

These are used for referring to an individual or to groups and are declined for gender:

1. aonan/aonar m.
2. dithis(t) f.
3. triùir f.
4. ceathrar m.
5. còignear m.
6. sianar m.
7. seachdnar/seachdar m.
8. ochdnar/ochdar m.
9. naoinear m.
10. deichnear/deineir m.

When used to modify a noun, those above aonan govern the genitive case: e.g. dithis fhear
two men.

2.1.4 Adjectives
Adjectives in Gaelic cover a wide range of properties ranging from age and value judgements
to physicality and shape. Adjectives can be both attributive and predicative. Postnominal
attributive adjectives, but not predicative ones, agree with their nominal heads in number,
case, and gender. Their distribution indicates that they are morphosyntactically distinct from

29
A decimal system has been recently introduced in the schools, based upon the Irish system.
39
verbs and nouns but there are some which can be nominalised such as na mairbh ‘the dead’
(adj. marbh ‘dead’) or na big ‘the meek’ (adj. beag ‘small).

2.1.4.1 Prenominal Attributive Adjectives

As mentioned there is a set of adjectives that usually or always occur before the noun. These
are all mono- or di-syllabic and communicate basic semantic properties. Although there are
other adjectives that sometimes occur pre-nominally (particularly colours), their use in this
way is confined largely to poetic language.30 Prenominal adjectives always lenite a following
noun except where there is homorganic blocking:

ath next an ath dhuine ‘the next man’

corra odd an corra nighean ‘the odd girl’ (as in ‘one here
and there’)
deagh good deagh latha ‘a good day’
dearbh same an dearbh bheachd ‘the same opinion’
droch bad droch naidheachd ‘bad news’
fìor true fìor charaid ‘a good friend’
sàr excellent sàr obair ‘excellent work’
seann old seann taigh ‘old house’

When definite, these occur after the article and, as they seem to nearly compound with the
following noun, they are subject to the initial mutation and affixation that occur with nouns in
general. For instance, ‘the end of the next month’ is usually rendered as deireadh na h-ath
mhìos (mìos f. ‘month’) while ‘the end of the next day’ would be rendered deireadh an ath
latha (latha m. ‘day’). However, their presence sometimes neutralises case and gender
marking, as in an ath dhuine (duine m. ‘man’). Here, one would have expected an t-ath
dhuine but this is rare.

2.1.4.2 Postnominal Attributive and Predicative Adjectives

These occur directly after the head of the noun phrase. Macaulay (1992, 201) tells us that
they form different subclasses and usually occur in the following order:

size - quality - colour

(44) bàta beag snog geal
boat-MASC small nice white
‘a small nice white boat’

As is apparent here, all attributive adjectives must agree with the head noun for gender,
number, and case. If the noun is in the plural the adjectives change accordingly:

(45) bàtaichean beaga snoga geala

boats small-PL nice-PL white-PL
‘nice small white boats’ (notice that in English, quality precedes size)

Predicative adjectives do not agree with their head nouns:

30
Macaulay (1992, 191) says that the class of pre-nominal adjectives is ‘virtually confined’ to deagh, droch, fìor,
and seann.
40
(46) tha na bàtaichean beag snog agus geal
be-PRES ART boats small nice and white
‘the boats are small, nice and white’

See the tables in §2.1.1.4 for the declension of adjectives with nouns of various case, number,
and gender.

2.1.4.3 Quantitative Adjectives

The words gach and a h-uile are used to convey the notions of ‘every’ and ‘all’ respectively:

(47) bha a h-uile fear riamh ann

was every man ever ‘in it’
‘every single man was there’

(48) gach tè a bh’ ann

every one-F REL was ‘in it’
‘every female that was there’

As can be seen, these act like prepositive adjectives but do not lenite. They require the
singular forms of the nouns they modify. Uile(ag) can also be used postpositively with a
slightly different connotation:

(49) bha na fir uile(ag) ann

was the men all EXIST
‘the men were all there’

2.1.4.4 Comparison of Adjectives

Most adjectives have a comparative form which: a) is derived from the base form through
stem modification (namely palatalisation and vowel changes) and lenition; b) is identical to
the base form; or c) features suppletion. For regularly-formed adjectives, the morphological
alterations are similar to those occurring in Type 2 (female) nouns in the genitive singular, i.e.
palatalisation and suffixation of /e/ to the final consonant, if present. For instance, the
adjective àrd ‘high’ becomes àirde ‘higher/highest’. However, in polysyllabic adjectives,
syncope occurs: milis ‘sweet’ > mìlse; bòidheach ‘beautiful’ > bòidhche.

Payne (1997, 88-89) tells us that grammaticalised comparative constructions have three
crucial elements: “(1) the known standard against which the subject of the clause is
compared; (2) the marker that signals that the clause is a comparative construction; and (3)
the quality by which the subject is compared with the standard.” Consider the following ScG
example (adapted from an Irish example in Payne 1997, 8931):

(50) tha an cù nas motha na an cat

are ART dog MKR bigger-QUAL than ART cat-STD
‘the dog is bigger than the cat’ (= ‘dogs are bigger than cats’)

The marker is nas which contains the copula is and is therefore sensitive to qualities of tense
(see §2.2.1). This word is followed by the comparative form of the adjective. The quality
which is compared here is LARGENESS and motha is the comparative form of the irregular

31
Payne’s labels for the Irish example are misplaced; they ought to parallel the ones here.
41
adjective mòr ‘big’. The standard, reflecting trends in the language for predicates to postpose,
occurs last in the construction.

The previous example uses the tha form of the verb ‘to be’. If the copula is used, the form
changes slightly:

(51) is mise as fheàrr na thusa

COP 1SG-EMPH MKR better-QUAL than 2SG-EMPH
‘It is me who is better than you’

This example would be rare in spontaneous speech today, which would prefer the following:
tha mise nas fheàrr na thusa (similar to (50)).

The superlative is coded syntactically and is very similar to example (51):

(52) is mise as fheàrr

COP 1SG-EMPH MKR-COP-REL better-QUAL
‘I am the best’

With conservative contexts and speakers, the markers tend to agree in tense (being composed
of a copular relative) with the main verb:

(53) bha mise na b’ fheàrr na thusa

was 1SG-EMPH MKR COP-PAST-REL better than 2SG-EMPH
‘I was better than you’

However, in younger and more progressive speakers particularly—and more often in

spontaneous speech than writing—this distinction is not usually upheld:

(54) bha mise nas fheàrr na thusa

The syntax for these expressions can be very flexible, particularly as displayed in poetry and
proverbs. Utterances like the following oral proverb, showing a comparative complement, are
characteristic of carefully edited written language (example from Calder 1923, 111):

(55) Is i a’ bhò fhèin as luaithe a mhothaicheas d’ a laogh

COP 3-F the cow REFL quickest who notices to her calf
‘the cow herself is the first to notice her (own) calf’

There are two equative constructions depending on whether the standard is nominal or verbal.
Both use the word cho meaning ‘as’:

a) Nominal Standards
(56) tha Màiri cho bradach ri Seumas
is-PRES Mary as thievish as James
‘Mary is as thievish as James’

b) Verbal Standards
(57) chan eil Màiri cho bradach agus a tha Seumas
NEG is-PRES-DEP Mary as thievish and REL is-PRES James
‘Mary isn’t as thievish as James is’
42
2.1.5 Adverbs
The definition of a grammatical category ‘adverb’ in Gaelic as in other languages is slightly
problematic and it can end up as a dustbin denomination. There is no one distinct derivational
process associated with adverbs. They are either take the form of: 1) non-inflecting words
and fixed phrases; or 2) an adjective modified by the particle gu, which prefixes h- to vowels.
They are the most syntactically free elements in the clause and can take various levels of its
logical structure in their scope. Probably the easiest way to sort adverbs in Gaelic is by
function. The types include adverbs of manner, time, direction/location, and degree.

2.1.5.1 Manner Adverbs

This is the largest of group of adjectives as most adjectives can form a manner adverb by the
preposing of gu, e.g. trom ‘heavy’ > gu trom ‘heavily’.

gu mòr greatly
gu h-aineolach ignorantly
gu coibhneil kindly
gu fuar coldly

Like adverbs in general, they have a good deal of syntactic freedom:

(58) thuirt i ris gu coibhneil

said she to him ADV kind
‘she said kindly’

cf.: gu coibhneil thuirt i ris; thuirt i gu coibhneil ris

All adverbs of this type can be modified using glèL ‘very’, roL ‘extremely’ and other
intensifying adjectives: e.g. gu glè choibhneil ‘very kindly’. There is also a large number of
manner adjectives formed by a preposition(L) + noun. Some examples:

air èiginn with difficulty

fa sgaoil in dispersed fashion
an làthair present
air chall lost
air seòl sailing
air iteal flying

Calder (1923, 309-313) lists many more of these.

2.1.5.2 Time Adverbs

These are a well-defined class, dealing with present, past, future, and indefinite tense. Some
examples:

43
 PRESENT PAST
an ceart-uair just now an-dè yesterday
an-dràsda now (non-contrastive) a-bhòn-dè day before yesterday
a-nis(d) now (contrastive) an uiridh last year
an-diugh today an-raoir last night
a-nochd tonight a-bhòn-raoir two nights ago
am bliadhna this year mar-thà; already
mu-thràth

FUTURE INDEFINITE
an eara(i)r day after tomorrow an còmhnaidh always
a-màireach tomorrow greis for a while
gu sìorraidh for eternity uaireannan sometimes
an ath-oidhch’ tomorrow night uaireigin sometime
an ath-bhliadhna next year an còmhnaidh always
tuilleadh for ever fhathast still, yet

2.1.5.3 Direction and Location

As mentioned in §2.1.2.2, a contrast is often made in Gaelic between the marking of location
and movement:

English ScG Movement ScG Location

up suas shuas
down sìos shìos
over here a-nall a-bhos
over there a-null thall

There is also an adverb for expressing movement away from up or down, either a-nuas or a-
nìos (neutralising an older, rarely maintained distinction between the two) depending on the
dialect32: e.g. thig a-nuas ‘come down’ (e.g. from upstairs).

The directions of the compass are as follows: tuath ‘north’; deas ‘south’; ear ‘east’; iar
‘west’. There is some variation in these forms depending on whether location, movement, or
adjectival force is communicated. See Calder (1923) for more information on this subject and
for a list of the large number of prepositions used to communicate direction and location.

2.1.5.4 Degree
There are a number of adverbs for the purposes of amplification, emphasising, downtoning,
and hedging:

a) amplifiers: e.g. gu lèir ‘completely’; gu mòr ‘greatly’; dìreach ‘exactly’; glè ‘very’; ro
‘extremely’
b) downtoners: e.g. gu ìre ‘to an extent’; gu ìre bheag ‘to some extent’; an ìre mhath ‘to a
large extent’
c) emphatics: e.g. gu dearbh ‘indeed’; gu deimhinne ‘with certainty’; gun teagamh ‘without a
doubt’
d) hedges: e.g. cha mhòr ‘almost’; ’s dòcha ‘perhaps’; ma dh’fhaoidte ‘perhaps’

32
In Irish, this distinction is not neutralised: anuas means ‘from above’ while aníos means ‘from below’.
44
Gaelic has no epistemic adverbs as such, which code the reported source of a clause’s
information (e.g. hearsay versus first hand observation). However, it does have a few
evidential adverbs, such as those emphatics and hedges found above.

2.1.6 Prepositions
Gaelic has three classes of prepositions:

• simple prepositions, most of which can incorporate pronominal elements (then called

•
‘prepositional pronouns’)

•
compound prepositions, consisting of an adjective, adverb, or noun + a simple preposition
complex prepositions, which consist of a simple preposition + noun.

2.1.6.1 Simple Prepositions

Most simple prepositions are mono-syllabic and take the dative case (D) although a few take
nominative/accusative (N) or genitive (G) case. Some cause lenition (L) of the following
noun:

Preposition Gloss Case it Traditionally Governs

aL ‘to’ (reduced form of do) D
à, às ‘out of’ D
aig ‘at’ D
air ‘on’ D
an, ann an ‘in’ D
(bh)oL ‘from’ D
deL ‘of’ (partitive) D
doL ‘to’/‘for’ D
eadar ‘between’ N
far ‘off’ G
foL ‘under’ D
gu ‘to (the point of)’ D (G if definite)
gunL ‘without’ N
le ‘with’ D
marL ‘as’/‘like’ D33
muL ‘about’ D
rè ‘during’ G
ri ‘to’/‘against’/‘with’ D
ro(imh)L ‘before’ D
tarsainn ‘across’ G
thar ‘over’ G
tro(imh)L ‘through’ D

Of these, some can incorporate the definite article in one of two ways:

1) With a nasal /n/

bhon
gun/ chun < gu

33
Assigns nominative case when definite.
45
d(h)en
don/ dhan < do
fon
mun
ron
tron

2) With a voiceless alveolar /s/ or postalveolar fricative /Σ/

anns
leis
ris

The definite article may be optionally (group 1 above) or obligatorily reduplicated (group 2):
fon taigh/ fon an taigh ‘beneath the house’; a’s an taigh Lit. ‘in the the house’.

46
Prepositional Pronouns
Most of the simple prepositions can be inflected for person, gender, and number.

Singular Plural

Preposition 1S 2s 3s-M 3s-F 1p 2p 3p

aig at agam agad aige aice againn agaibh aca

air on orm ort air oirre oirnn oirbh orra

ann in annam annad ann innte annainn annaibh annta

às out of asam asad às aisde asainn asaibh asda

(bh)o from (bh)uam (bh)uat (bh)uaithe (bh)uaipe (bh)uainn (bh)uaibh (bh)uapa

de off dhiom dhiot dheth dhith dhinn dhibh dhiubh

do for, to dhomh dhut dha dhi dhuinn dhuibh dhiubh

eadar -- -- -- -- eadarainn eadaraibh eatorra

between
fo under fodham fodhad fodha foidhpe fodhainn fodhaibh fodhpa

gu to (th)ugam (th)ugad (th)uige (th)uice (th)ugainn (th)ugaibh (th)uca

le with leam leat leis leatha leinn leibh leotha

mu about umam umad uime uimpe umainn umaibh umpa

ri to, with, rium riut ris rithe rinn ribh riutha

against
ro(imh) romham romhad roimhe roimhpe romhainn romhaibh romhpa
before
tro(imh) tromham tromhad troimhe troimhpe tromhainn tromhaibh trompha
through
thar over tharam tharad thairis thairte tharainn tharaibh tharta

Emphatic -sa -sa -san -se -e -se -san

suffixes

Emphatic suffixes can be added to each of these forms, e.g. agamsa, agadsa, aigesan, aicese,
againne, agaibhse, acasan.

Possessive Prepositional Pronouns

A small number of prepositions have fused with the possessive pronouns: aig, ann, do, and
ri34. Instead of using *ann mo làimh ‘in my hand’ for instance, ’nam làimh or ’na mo làimh is
employed. These are presented in the following table:

34
In the Uist dialect at least, air do ‘on your’ may become orra.
47
 Singular Pronouns Plural Pronouns

Preposition 1S: moL 2s: doL 3s-M: aL 3s-F: a 1p: ar 2p: ur 3p: an/am
aig at gamL gadL gaL ga gar gur gan/gam
ga moL ga doL
ann in ’namL ’nadL ’naL ’na ’nar ’nur ’nan/’nam
’na moL ’na doL
do to/for dhamL dhadL dhaL dha dhar dhur dhan/dham
dha moL dha doL
ri to rimL ridL riL ri ri ar ri ur rin/rim
ri moL ri doL

As the possessive pronoun is integral to these expressions, their use with vowels parallels that
covered in §2.1.1.5, for example: gar n-èiridh ‘at our arising’.

2.1.6.2 Compound Prepositions: ADV, N, or ADJ + PREP

These always take dative case and may incorporate pronominal elements as above:

barrachd air ‘in addition to', ‘more than’

ceangailte ri ‘tied to’
an coimeas ri ‘compared to’
coltach ri ‘similar to’
còmhla ri/ cuide ri ‘along with’
faisg air ‘close to’
goirid air ‘close to’
làmh ri ‘next to’, ‘compared to’
maille ri ‘along with’
seachad air ‘past’
suas ri ‘up to’
an taca ri ‘next to’, ‘compared to’
taobh ri ‘side to’
thairis/ fairis air ‘over’
timcheall air ‘about’

2.1.6.3 Complex Prepositions: PREP + N

As a noun is the terminal element in these expressions, they govern the genitive (except gu
ruige):

a dh’ionnsaidh ‘towards’ am fianais ‘in sight of’

a rèir ‘according to’ am measg ‘in the midst of’
a thaobh ‘about’, ‘regarding’ an àite ‘in place of’
air bheulaibh35 ‘in front of’ an dèidh ‘after’
air chùl(aibh) ‘behind’ as aonais ‘deprived of’
air feadh ‘through’, ‘amongst’ gu ruige (+ N) ‘to’
air muin ‘on the back of’ mu choinneimh ‘opposite’
air sgàth ‘for the sake of’ mu dheidhinn ‘regarding’
air son ‘for the sake of’ mu thicheall ‘about’
air tòir ‘in pursuit of’ os cionn ‘above’
an cois ‘near’, ‘with’ ri linn ‘because of’, ‘during’

48
Complex prepositions are an obvious case of fusion in the language (see Hopper & Traugott
1993, 32-49) where two once separate forms—a preposition and a noun in the dative—have
been reanalysed into a new compound:

[[air] chùlaibh an taighe] > [[air chùlaibh] an taighe]

cf. [[back] of the barn] > [back of [the barn]]

However, there can still be ‘opacity’, ambiguity which in some contexts allows the compound
to be analysed as before, e.g. the way that complex prepositions infix possessive pronouns:

air mo chùlaibh
on my back NB: ‘behind me’, not ‘on my back’ which is air mo dhruim

2.1.7 Nominal Categorisors: Nominalisation and Diminutives

With the hybrid status of verbal nouns, ScG has no need for morphological operations to deal
with action nominalisations such as ‘swimming is good for you’:

(59) tha snàmh math dhut

be-PRES swimming good for you
‘swimming is good for you’

Compare the following:

(60) tha thu a’ snàmh gu math
be-PRES 2S PROG swimming-VN ADV good
‘you are swimming well’

However, there are several productive suffixes for denoting participant nominalisation. These
include –ar (-air(e)/-eir), -aiche, -adair: e.g., fastaidhear ‘employer’ (< fastadh ‘employ’);
snàmhaiche ‘swimmer’ (< snàmh ‘swim’); riaghladair ‘ruler’ (< riaghladh ‘ruling’).

While there are no productive augmentative suffixes in ScG, there are a few semi-productive
diminutive ones. These occur especially in personal names and names of physical objects.
Many nouns occurring with these suffixes are now fixed forms; some of the non-diminutive
forms are non-extant:

Masculine names and nouns: -an/ean; -agan

e.g., fearan ‘wee man’ (fear ‘man’); cnocan ‘hillock’ (cnoc ‘hill’); Dòmhnallan ‘Donny’
(Dòmhnall ‘Donald’); Uilleagan ‘Willie’ (Uilleam ‘William’); cuilean ‘puppy’

Feminine names and nouns: -ag

e.g., duanag ‘ditty’ (duan ‘poem’); Mòrag ‘Sarah’ (<Mòr); Curstag ‘Kirsty’ (<Curstaidh);
piseag ‘kitten’

2.2 Verbal Morphology

While Gaelic is basically a VSO language, the initial verb is not always the predicating
element. Depending on TAM parameters, it is sometimes the verbal noun which establishes
lexical meaning while the initial verb, a sort of pro-verb or auxiliary, serves mainly to code
tense, mood, and the absence or presence of negation. This can be seen in the following
example, demonstrating the difference between the ‘simple past’ and ‘progressive past’:
35
-(a)ibh is the old dative plural ending.
49
(61) bha mi a’ dol dhan bhùth(aidh)
be-PAST 1S PROG go-VN to-ART shop-DAT
‘I was going to the shop’

(62) chaidh mi dhan bhùth(aidh)

go-PAST 1S to-ART shop-DAT
‘I went to the shop’

The grammatical categories central to the ScG verbal system include tense, aspect, modality,
voice, person and number. There are contrasts to be seen, as above, between inflected and
periphrastic forms and, as a whole, periphrasis is more productive.

2.2.1 Verbs
The ScG verbal system is somewhat complex and only the main points can be covered here.
For fuller accounts, the grammars in the bibliography should be consulted.

a) Distribution of the Verb

The finite verb always comes first in an utterance, unless it is preceded by particles (or
‘sentence class markers’ (Macaulay 1992)) marking negation, illocutionary force and
interclausal relations. In transitive, non-periphrastic clauses, the verb is followed immediately
by its two arguments (SUBJECT, OBJECT) as in the following:

V S O
chunnaic Ealasaid Dùghall
see-PAST Elizabeth-N Dugald-N
‘Elizabeth saw Dugald’

In periphrastic cases, the order of the first two elements remains the same, but the position of
the second argument in relation to the verbal noun can vary depending on which
aspectual/modal prepositions are employed:

V S VN O
tha Ealasaid a’ faicinn Dhùghaill
be-PRES Elizabeth-N PROG see-VN Dugald-G
‘Elizabeth is seeing/sees Dugald’

V S O VN
chan eil Ealasaid air Dùghall fhaicinn
NEG be-PRES-DEP Elizabeth-N PERF Dugald-N seeing-VN
‘Elizabeth is not after Dugald seeing’: i.e., ‘Elizabeth has not seen Dugald’

If one takes the semantic element to be the ‘verb’ (i.e. the verbal noun) rather than the finite
one (see arguments in Cram 198), it is possible to interpret these two examples as instances of
SVO and SOV order respectively. However, as there is always an obligatory verbal element
in the first position in Scottish Gaelic, it is misleading to construe the basic syntax as anything
other than VSO.

b) Structure of the Verb

The structure of the verb form depends on whether the verb in question is regular or irregular.
For regular or ‘weak’ verbs, the same root—essentially the form of the 2nd person
50
imperative—is present in all conditions. However, the ten irregular or ‘strong’ verbs feature
suppletion and their stems are anomalously differentiated according to tense and the presence
or absence of certain pre-verbs and sentence class markers. The independent form of a verb is
used in the absence of these pre-verbs and class markers. The dependent form is used when
they are present. As will been seen in the following sections, there are various suffixes used
for marking the TAM system and also a small number of person/number suffixes which
interact with it.

The structure of regular, finite verbs can be represented as follows:

TENSE/ASPECT
(NEG/QP) (AGR)-(PREFIX)-ROOT-(DERIV) PERSON/NUMBER
MODE

STEM

Regular verb: òl ‘drink’

INDEPENDENT DEPENDENT
dh’òl e36 ‘he drank’ an do dh’òl e ‘did he drink’
òlaidh e ‘he will drink’ chan òl e ‘he will not drink’
dh’òladh e ‘he would drink’ nan òladh e ‘if he would drink’

Irregular verb: rach ‘go’

INDEPENDENT DEPENDENT
chaidh e ‘he went’ an deach e ‘did he go’
thèid e ‘he will go’ cha dèid e ‘he will not go’
rachadh e ‘he would go’ nan rachadh e ‘if he would go’

Amongst the pre-verbal particles/sentence class markers—affecting whether it assumes

independent or dependent form—are the following:

Independent Dependent
a relativiser an/am inter. clause marker
ma introduces conditional clause cha(n) clausal negation
na introduces headless relative gun/gum complementiser
clauses
nach neg. relativiser, neg. inter.,
neg. complementiser
nan/nam conditional clause (with DEF
PAST and INDEF2

Some of these cause lenition in the following verb: cha always lenites lenitable consonants
while nach, an/am, and gun/gum (depending on dialect) only lenite ‘f’.

d) The Verbal Noun: Structure and Distribution

The verbal noun is generally comprised either by the root form itself or the root and a small
number of suffixes such as –ail, -aich, -amh, -inn, and the most productive of them: –adh. Its
structure can be represented as: (PREFIX)-ROOT-(SUFFIX). As mentioned before, the VN can

36
Dh is an affix used with vowel-initial verbs in lieu of lenition for certain tenses. See §2.2.1.2.
51
function both as a noun and as a lexical verb. Its distribution, rather than morphology, is the
only clue to its function:

(63) tha e ag òl fìona

be-PRES 3S-M PROG drinking-VN wine-G
‘he is drinking wine’

(64) tha òl fìona ga mharbhadh

be-PRES drinking-N wine-G PROG-3s-M-POSS killing-VN
‘wine drinking is killing him’

(65) tha e ’dol a dh’òl fìona a-nochd

is 3S-M PROG-going-VN drinking-INF wine-G tonight
‘he is going to drink wine tonight’

As is seen, there is no morphological difference between the three examples. Perhaps the best
way to conceptualise the verbal noun, in essence, is as a noun which is: a) not time-stable in
the way other nouns are; which b) can serve as a complement to another VN as in (65) above;
and c) also be dominated by a small set of prepositions which convey aspectual meaning (63).
Although the verbal nouns have been glossed and labelled here according to their functions,
this is not meant to imply that the same form, as in òl above, requires specification three
different times in the lexicon.

e) Verb classes
Macaulay (1992) states that Gaelic verbs are inherently either dynamic or stative but does not
provide evidence for this breakdown. It is clear, however, that this distinction is
morphosyntactically maintained with certain verbs that can assume either a static or dynamic
interpretation. For instance, consider the way that Gaelic expresses ‘stretched [out]’ (state)
versus ‘stretching’ (movement):

(66) tha mi ’nam shìneadh

is I in my stretching
‘I am stretched out’ (state) [as in lying down]

(67) tha mi a’ sìneadh

is I at stretching
‘I am stretching’ (movement)

In English, the grammatical (usually human/animate) subject plays a large syntactic role but
in ScG, as in the older stages of some other Indo-European languages, greater emphasis is
placed on whether a participant is an AGENT or NON-AGENT37. Emotional expression is one of
the areas in which this can be seen. In ScG, the EXPERIENCER of an emotion usually is said to
have it ‘on’ or ‘at’ him/her. For instance, to say ‘I am angry’, the normal way is tha fearg
orm, Lit. ‘anger is on me’. To express ‘she angered me’, one would say chuir i fearg orm,
Lit. ‘she put anger on me’. Jealousy is expressed similarly: tha farmad agam ort ‘there is
jealousy at me on you’ ~ ‘I am jealous of you’.

37
Thanks to Professor Jim Miller for this point.
52
Bodily functioning is managed similarly. Usually, the function itself is a noun and the verb
activating it is of a general sort such as ‘doing’, ‘letting’, ‘putting’ or simply ‘being’. For
example:

‘I am bleeding’ tha mi a’ sileadh fala(dh)

is 1S at dripping-VN blood-G

‘he sneezed’ rinn e sreothart

made 3S-M a sneeze

‘she hiccuped’ rinn i aileag

made 3S-F hiccup

‘she had the hiccups’ bha an aileag oirre

was ART hiccup on her

‘you vomited’ chuir thu a-mach

put 2S out

‘they laughed’ rinn iad gàire

made they laugh

Weather, sensation/perception, cognition and manipulation are other verb classes that we
could highlight in this regard. Available space, however, precludes further examination of
this interesting area.

2.2.1.1 Personal Affixes

In Finite Verbs
Only in the 2nd indefinite (‘conditional/habitual’) and imperative are person and number
normally marked on finite verbs in ScG. This occurs as a suffix attached directly to the verbal
root. In the 2nd indefinite, only the 1S is now regularly marked in this way although some
dialects preserve the 1P form. Using the regular verb cuir ‘put’ we can illustrate the pattern:

2nd indefinite: chuirinn ‘I would put’; chuireamaid ‘we would put’ (conservative use) ~
chuireadh sinn ‘we would put’ (progressive use); cf. chuireadh e/i/sibh/iad

The full paradigm for the imperative is as follows although most younger speakers would
only use the 2S form, and possibly the 2P one:

cuirim let me put

cuir (thusa) you put
cuireadh (esan/ise) let him put
cuireamaid let us put
cuiribh let you (pl.) put
cuireadh (iadsan) let them put

Very rarely, ‘present’ tense forms occur for the 1st person singular, particularly with
psychological verbs. See §2.0.1 for examples.

53
In Non-finite Verbs
When a verbal noun takes a pronominal object, it is incorporated in the form of a possessive
prepositional pronoun, functionally a pronominalised aspect marker:

tha mi ga (aig ‘at’ + a ‘his/its’) thuigsinn

be-PRES 1S PROG-3S-POSS doing-VN understanding-VN
‘I understand him/ it’ [Lit. ‘I am at his/ its understanding’]

Using the same verb and progressive aspect, here is a chart of all of these object pronouns:

gam thuigsinn understanding me

gad thuigsinn ... you (sing.)
ga thuigsinn ... him
ga tuigsinn ... her
gar tuigsinn ... us
gur tuigsinn ... you (pl./polite)
gan tuigsinn ... them

Objects are incorporated into infinitives in a similar way but they are spelled and pronounced
slightly differently. In essence, the progressive of the verbal noun is constructed by ag ‘at’ (<
aig prep.) while the infinitive is marked by a (L) which is a short form of the preposition do (L)
‘to/for’:

(68) tha mi ’dol dha thuigsinn

be-PRES 1S PROG-doing-VN to its understanding-INF
‘I am going to understand it’

Impersonal Affixes
Scottish Gaelic has a set of impersonal suffixes which can be attached to the verbal root.
These are differentiated by tense and whether a verb is strong or weak (irregular or regular).
The suffix –ar38 is used with the present tense (which only occurs with bi ‘to be’) and with all
1st indefinite forms (the ‘future’ tense). It may also be used with the past tense of the verb ‘to
be’: bhathar. The ending –adh is used with the past forms of weak verbs while –as is used
with strong verbs. Finally, –te/-ta/-ist(e) is used with all 2nd indefinite forms (the
conditional/habitual). See Appendix 1 for a chart of all of the strong verb forms. The
following illustrates these endings with the strong verb bi (other strong verbs are formed
similarly), and the weak verb cuir:

INDEPENDENT GLOSS DEPENDENT GLOSS

thathar ga it is being done a bheilear ga is it being done
dhèanamh dhèanamh
bithear … it will be done am bithear … will it be done
bhathas … it was being done a robhas… was it being done
bhite … it would be done am bite … would it be done

INDEPENDENT GLOSS DEPENDENT GLOSS

cuirear e it will be put an cuirear e will it be put
chuireadh e it was put an cuireadh e was it put
38
The ending –as is sometimes used as well in present and past tenses, e.g. chunnacas e a’ tighinn ‘he was seen
coming’ or thathas ga dhèanamh ‘it is being done’. There is a distinction in some dialects between events
implicating human presence or action (–ar) and those without this quality (-as): an ‘impersonal’ impersonal.
54
chuirte e it would be put an cuirte e would it be put

2.2.1.2 Tense, Aspect and Mode

As in many other languages, tense, aspect and mode are not always clearly differentiated in
Gaelic. Temporal interpretation can be quite flexible, especially when an utterance is strongly
irrealis in mode.

Tense
As Macaulay39 (1996) points out, many grammarians working on Scottish Gaelic have been
too ready to impose the tense systems of Classical languages, Classical Gaelic and even
Modern English upon ScG without addressing its own inherent contrasts. He proposes a
paradigm based upon oppositions between tensed and non-tensed on the one hand, and
definite and indefinite ‘mode’ on the other. He maintains (1992) that there are only two
tenses: present (‘non-past’ in Macaulay 1996) and past, which are both definite in modality.
The untensed, indefinite mode is broken down into the ‘first indefinite’—a kind of flimsy
future—and the ‘second indefinite’ which is similarly flexible and deals generally with
conditional and habitual frames of reference. This leads to a more sympathetic account of the
facts. In particular it addresses the tendency in the language to rely on context and
extraclausal periphrastic devices (e.g. adverbials) as opposed to inflection for the placing of
events in relation to the time of speaking.

Scottish Gaelic Tense

DEFINITE MODE (Tensed) INDEFINITE MODE (Untensed)

past non-past Indef 1
Indef 2

The verb bi ‘to be’, often used as an auxiliary in conjunction with a verbal noun (see §2.2.1d),
is the only verb with a ‘definite non-past’ (‘present tense’) form. It is inflected in Macaulay’s
paradigm as follows (adapted from 1992;1996):

Root: bi
DEFINITE INDEP tha
PRES ‘is’
DEP bheil

INDEP bha
PAST ‘was’
DEP robh

INDEFINITE INDEP bidh

ST
1 REL bhitheas/bhios ‘is/will be’
DEP b(h)i

INDEP bhitheadh/bhiodh
ND
2 ‘would be/ used to be’
DEP bitheadh/biodh

39
One of the few native ScG-speaking linguists working on the language.
55
The strong verbs (such as faic ‘to see’) are inflected as above except, as mentioned, they do
not have a definite-non past (see Appendix 1). They also do not have a distinct relative form
(often called the ‘future-relative’) in INDEF1. Weak verbs differ from strong verbs in not
having distinct dependent forms. They do however have a distinct relative form in INDEF1.
Inflectional morphemes and affixes mark the different reflexes of the tense system,
summarised in the following table:

Table: Weak Verb Inflection

PASTcon PASTvow INDEF1con INDEF1vow INDEF2CON INDEF2vow
L L
INDEP stem dh’ + stem + stem + stem + dh’ + stem
stem -(a)idh -(a)idh suffix + suffix
(see §2.2.1.1)
(L) (L)
DEP do + do dh’ stem stem stem + stem +
L
stem + stem suffix suffix

Here, ‘con’ refers to consonant-initial verbs and ‘vow’ refers to vowel-initial verbs. Verbs
beginning with ‘f’ receive the dh’ affix as vowel-initial verbs but lenite as consonants in those
situations mentioned in §2.2.1b above. When a verb begins with a ‘non-lenitable’ consonant
in a lenitable situation, no orthographic change is signified although there may be changes in
pronunciation (i.e. with the sonorants: l; n; r). Orthographically, suffixes are assimilated to
the stem according to the broad-broad and slender-slender rules and whether or not a
dependent form lenites is determined by the particle preceding it (see §2.2.1b):

An illustration of the paradigm for a consonant-initial verb and a vowel-initial verb follows:

Root: coisich ‘walk’

DEFINITE
INDEP choisich
PAST ‘walked’
DEP do choisich

INDEFINITE INDEP coisichidh

1ST REL choisicheas ‘will walk’
DEP coisich

INDEP choisicheadh, etc.

2ND ‘would walk/used to walk’
DEP coisicheadh, etc.

Root: òl ‘drink’
DEFINITE
INDEP dh’òl
PAST ‘drank’
DEP do dh’òl

INDEFINITE INDEP òlaidh

ST
1 REL dh’òlas ‘will drink’
DEP òl

56
 INDEP dh’òladh, etc.
ND
2 ‘would drink/used to drink’
DEP òladh, etc.

Macaulay’s labels for the indefinite mode (1st and 2nd) are deliberately opaque; he is
attempting to side-step the traditional names, which he considers inappropriate. In traditional
grammars, the 1st indefinite is called the ‘present-future’ while the 2nd indefinite is usually
called the ‘past-habitual’. A closer look at the indefinite mode reveals that is actually more
ambiguous than these labels would suggest (adapted from Macaulay 1992, 219):

1ST INDEFINITE
(69) bidh e sa chàr a-neisd40
be-INDEF1 3S-M in-ART car-D now-CONTR
‘he’ll be/is in the car now’ (i.e. he wasn’t before)

(70) bidh e ann a-màireach

be-INDEF1 3S-M ‘in it’ tomorrow
‘he’ll be there/here tomorrow’

(71) bidh e ann a h-uile h-oidhche

be-INDEF1 3S-M ‘in it’ every night
‘he is/will be there/here every night’

(72) bidh e bochd is dòcha

be-INDEF1 3S-M ill perhaps
‘he will be/is ill perhaps’

The first example (69) is the kind of clause that is often used to support calling this the
‘present-future’ as it crosses into both tenses. However, it clearly lacks the conviction of tha
e sa chàr a-neisd ‘he is in the car now’ which is a definite, declarative statement referring to
the ‘true present’. The second (70) has future reference, yet (71) is iterative and (72) is
speculative. It is clear that bidh differs from tha in having a less defined sense of ‘realis’, a
common characteristic of future tense, which by definition has yet to occur. This
characteristic is part of what Macaulay is trying to convey by his label ‘first indefinite’.

The first indefinite is often used to establish ability:

(73) nì mi sin gun trioblaid sam bith

do-INDEF1 1S that without trouble at all
‘I can do/will do that with no trouble at all’

Also, the first indefinite is commonly used with verbs of perception to refer to the ‘true
present’:

(74) an cluinn thu an ceòl sin

INT hear-INDEF1-DEP 2S ART music that
‘do you hear that music?’

40
A-neisd is a dialectal form of a-nis, as used in North Uist.
57
Finally, the verbal noun dol ‘going’ used in conjunction with an infinitive can be used to
convey future time:

(75) tha mi ’dol a choiseachd dhachaidh a-màireach

be-PRES 1s PROG-going-VN walking-INF home tomorrow
‘I am going to walk home tomorrow’

The second indefinite is ambiguous in a similar fashion. For example, one can construe the
following as meaning ‘he would always be there’ both in the ‘habitual-past’ (every Thursday)
and ‘conditional-future’ (if he received steady remuneration)’:

(76) bhiodh e ann an-còmhnaidh

be-INDEF2 he in it always
‘he would always be there/here’

In essence, it is possible to demonstrate that these verb forms do not grammaticalise tense in
the way tha and bha do; they open to a wide range of interpretations depending on context
and peripheral modifiers. The interested reader is referred to the references above for more
information. Macaulay himself says that his suggestions are not meant to be conclusive and
much more could be said about this area.

Aspect
There are three main categories of aspect in ScG: 1) progressive, signifying a continuing,
dynamic process; 2) perfect41, expressing a state in the ‘present’42 resulting from an earlier
situation (usually an activity) as denoted by the verb; and 3) prospective, indicating that
something is going to occur. These are constructed periphrastically using aspectual particles43
in coordination with an auxiliary verb (all the forms of bi are possible) and verbal noun. They
can also combine to create compound aspect.

Progressive aspect is marked by the particle ag or a’ meaning ‘at’:

(77) tha iad a’ togail na cloiche(adh)

be-PRES 3P PROG building-VN ART rock-G
‘they are lifting the rock’ (Lit.: ‘they are at the lifting of the rock’)

Perfect aspect is expressed by the particle air ‘after’:

(78) tha iad air a’ chlach a thogail

be-PRES 3P PERF ART rock lifting-VN
‘they have lifted the rock’ (Lit.: ‘they are after lifting the rock’)

cf. tha iad air a’ chloich (Dat.) ‘they are on the rock’

41
Macaulay calls this ‘perfective’ but the perfective—being a “situation viewed in its entirety” (Payne 1997,
239)—is incompatible with progressive aspect, a combination which occurs in ScG.
42
By ‘present’ is meant being co-temporal with the internal temporal structure of the situation expressed by a
clause.
43
These are clearly cognate with prepositions of similar form (i.e. aig, air, ri, gu) but they do not govern dative
case and have acquired special aspectual connotations.
58
Perfective aspect on the other hand would be expressed through the definite past form: e.g.
thog iad an taigh seo ‘they built (raised) this house’. While one could quite felicitously utter
this clause in combination with … agus thog iad fear eile as a dhèidh sin ‘… and they built
another one after that’, it seems pragmatically strange if combined with one having perfect
aspect: ?tha iad air an taigh seo a thogail agus thog iad fear eile as a dhèidh sin ‘they have
built this house and they built another one after that’.

Prospective aspect is expressed in a similar manner to the perfect, using gu(s):

tha iad gus a’ chlach a thogail ‘they are about to lift the rock’

These are commonly combined to form compound aspect, often using the infinitive form a
bhith ‘being’:

tha iad air a bhith a’ togail na cloiche(adh) (perfect + progressive)

‘they have been lifting the rock’

tha iad air a bhith gus a’ chlach a thogail (perfect + prospective)

‘they have been about to lift the rock’

tha iad gu bhith a’ togail na cloich(eadh) (prospective + progressive)

‘they are about to be lifting the rock’

Perfect aspect and past tense combine to form the pluperfect::

(79) bha iad air a’ chlach a thogail

be-DEF-PAST 3P PERF ART rock-N lifting-VN
‘they had lifted the rock’

Other aspectual distinctions are realised periphrastically and often rely, as with the habitual,
on peripheral modifiers to convey the particular interpretation desired:

chì mi an duine sin a h-uile latha ‘I see that man every day’
(cf. chì mi an duine sin a-neisd ‘I (can) see that man now’)

Mode
Because of the potential confusion created by the terms mode and mood, we will deconstruct
the notion and refer to three different types: a) deontic modality; b) epistemic modality; and c)
illocutionary force (Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). We will take mode to mean, in general, the
way a speaker frames an utterance in terms of its degree and/or kind of reality. In ScG there
are two modal verbs—feum (must, oblige) and faod (can, may)—both of which are inflected
as weak verbs but they only have forms in the INDEF1 and INDEF2.

The distinction between realis and irrealis seems to be grammaticalised to some extent in ScG
strong verbs with realis broadly realised by independent forms and irrealis by dependent
forms. Along with interrogatives and imperatives, negation seems to be treated as irrealis as
well. However, the dependent verbal form is also used in the complement clause (see §3.3.2),
which is immaterial to the issue, therefore the distinction is not fully delineated.

IRREALIS
Imperatives (root form): dèan sin ‘do that’; faigh sin ‘get that’; faic ‘look’
59
Interrogatives & Negatives: cha dèan thu sin ‘you won’t do that’; am faigh thu sin ‘will you
get that’; am faic mi e ‘will I see it?’

REALIS
Declarative: nì mi sin ‘I’ll do that’; gheibh thu sin ‘you’ll get that’; chì iad e ‘they saw it’

a) Deontic modality refers to cases of obligation, ability and permission: essentially a relation
between the subject NP and an action. In Scottish Gaelic, there are several ways to express
obligation:

feum + NPSUB + (NPOBJ) + INF

feumaidh mi dhol dhan bhùth(aidh) ‘I must go to the shop’

bi + aig + (NPOBL) + ri ‘to’ + (NPOBJ) + INF/

bi + (NPSUB) + aig + (NP) + ri ‘to’ + INF
tha agam ri litir a sgrìobhadh ‘I have to write a letter’
tha aig Seumas ri litir a sgrìobhadh ‘James has to write a letter’
tha litir agam ri sgrìobhadh ‘I have a letter to write’
tha litir aig Seumas ri sgrìobhadh ‘James has a letter to write’

is/bu [the copula] + c(h)òir + do + (NP) + (NPOBJ) + INF

bu chòir dhut suidhe ‘you ought to sit’
bu chòir do Bheathaig an obair a dhèanamh ‘Betty should do the
work’

is/b’ + f(h)eudar + (as previous example)

is fheudar dhomh falbh ‘I ought to leave’

Ability is conveyed generally using one of the following:

rach ‘go’ + aig + (NP) + air + (NPOBJ) + INF

chaidh againn air a bhuannachadh ‘we managed to win it’

is/b’ + urrainn + do44 + (NP) + (NPOBJ) + INF

is urrainn dhuibh sin a dhèanamh ‘you (pl.) can do that’

bi + comasach + e + do + (NP) + (NPOBJ) + INF

a bheil e comasach dhut bruidhinn ‘is it possible for you to speak’

amais ‘aim, find’ + NP + air + (NPOBJ) + INF

cha do dh’amais e air a dhèanamh ‘he did not manage to do it’

Permission is expressed using the verb faod:

am faod mi snàmh? ‘may I swim?’
faodaidh tu snàmh ‘you may swim’
thuirt i gum faodainn falbh ‘she said that I was permitted to go’

b) Epistemic modality: necessity and possibility

44
In some dialects, the subject of this construction can be a straight pronominal for some
person/number categories: is urrainn mi ‘I can’
60
As with similar verbs in English, there is some crossover in the way that one can interpret
feum and faod. For instance, feumaidh tu an càr a ghluasad far an rathaid can mean both
‘you are obliged to move the car off the road’ (deontic reading: ‘…by order of the
policeman’) or ‘it is necessary for you to…’ (epistemic reading: ‘…in order for the other cars
to get past’). Similarly faodaidh iad buannachadh could be construed as both ‘they are able
to win’ (deontic reading) and ‘it is possible they will win’ (epistemic reading).

Hedges, such as is dòcha, (ma) dh’fhaoidte, and is mathaid are also used for expressing
possibility with clausal complements:

dh’fhaoidte gum faod sinn snàmh ‘it’s possible that we might swim’ (if the
tide is out)
is dòcha gun tachair e fhathast ‘perhaps it will happen yet’

c) Illocutionary force is signalled in Gaelic primarily through morphology (e.g. lenition,

suffixation, clitics, independent vs. dependent verbal forms) and the presence of verbal
particles. These particles (see §2.2.1b), denoting interrogative utterances, negation, and
interclausal dependency, present themselves before the finite verb.

Declaratives are denoted by the independent verb form and zero marking:
Strong verb: bidh mi air n-ais ‘I’ll be back’
Weak verb: ithidh iad gu luath ‘they eat quickly’

Polar questions are expressed by using an interrogative particle in conjunction with the
dependent form of the verb:

(80) an tèid thu leam a Mhàiri

QP go-INDEF1-DEP 2S with-1S Mary-V
‘will you go with me Mary?’

Polar questions are also called ‘yes/no’ questions in the literature but affirmation and negation
are not lexically grammaticalised in ScG. The closest word to a positive response is seadh
meaning ‘right/aye/go on’, built from the copula and the old neuter pronoun eadh (cognate
with Latin id). Affirmation is expressed by repeating the independent form of the focal verb
from the question while negation is done by using cha(n) in conjunction with the dependent
form of the verb:

thèid ‘yes’ [Lit. ‘will go’]

cha tèid ‘no’ [Lit. ‘will not go’]

Content questions are formed using one of the so called wh-question words (see §2.1.2.4).
When question words have oblique roles, usually adpositions are fronted (pied-piped) but
they sometimes remain with the ‘gap’, especially in less formal registers and in spontaneous
spoken language:

(81) cò ris a bha thu a’ bruidhinn

who to REL was 2S PROG speaking-VN
‘to whom were you speaking?’

cò a bha thu a’ bruidhinn ris

‘who were you speaking to?’
61
Tag questions come in three types: one with similar polarity45 and two with opposite polarity.
These take the form of elided interrogative clauses:

(82) tha thu a’ falbh a bheil [same polarity]

be-PRES 2S PROG depart-VN QP be-PRES-DEP
‘you are leaving, are you?’

(83) tha thu a’ falbh nach eil [different polarity: leading question]
‘you are leaving, aren’t you?’

(84) chan eil thu a’ falbh a bheil [different polarity: leading question]
‘you are not leaving, are you?’

Direct imperatives are formed using the verb stem and any personal suffixes required (see
§2.2.1.1). As mentioned before, only the 2nd person imperatives are very productive today:

dùin do bheul ‘shut up’ [Lit. ‘shut your mouth’]

dèanamaid ùrnaidh ‘let us pray’

The positive and negative interrogative forms of the first indefinite can be used to
communicate indirect imperatives:

am bi thu sàmhach ‘will you be quiet’

nach tig thu ‘won’t you come’

There are a few verbs with special imperative forms such as the verb ‘to go’: thalla/ fhalbh
‘go’; thugainn/tiugainn ‘come’; trobhad ‘come’; theirig ‘go’.

2.2.1.3 Negation
Different parts of the clause can be negated in ScG. The pre-verbal particles cha(n) and nach
serve as analytic clausal negatives:

(85) chan eil iad gu math

NEG be-PRES-DEP 3P well
‘they are not well’

(86) nach eil iad gu math

‘are they not well?’

‘Double negative’ constructions are common in ScG, effectively cancelling each other out:

45
Macaulay (1992) also mentions the following, although I have never heard it in spoken language nor seen it in
writing:

chan eil thu a’ falbh nach eil [same polarity]

NEG be-PRES-DEP 2S PROG depart-VN QP-NEG be-PRES DEP
‘you are not leaving, you’re not?’

62
(87) cha chreid mi nach eil iad gu math
NEG believe-INDEF1 1S NEG-COMP be-PRES 3P well
‘I believe they are well’ [Lit. I don’t believe that they are not well]

Negative imperatives are expressed by placing the particle na before the verb:

(88) na ithibh sin

‘don’t (polite form) eat that’

Constituent negation is accomplished by the prepositions gun (+ NPNOM) and as aonais (+

NPGEN): duine gun chiall ‘a man without sense’; as ur n-aonais ‘without you (2P)’; as aonais
nan each ‘without the horses’. Gun can also be used to negate non-finite complements
(‘small clauses’):

(89) thuirt mi gun na h-uighean ithe

say-PAST 1S neg ART eggs eat-INF
‘I said not to eat the eggs’

Finally, there are various derivational negative prefixes such as mì-, neo-, do- and the
generally unproductive a(i)n-, ao-, and eu-: mì-nàdarrach ‘unnatural; neo-bhlasta
‘unpalatable’; do-sheachanta ‘unavoidable’; an-fhoiseil ‘restless’; aotrom ‘light’ [Lit.
‘unheavy’] eu-choltach ‘dissimilar’.

2.2.2 Verbal Categorisors

2.2.2.1 Valence Increasing Constructions: Causatives
As with most languages, there are lexical causatives in ScG, verbs where the notion of CAUSE
is inherent, such as bris(t) ‘break’: bhrist Seumas an uinneag ‘James broke the window’
[CAUSE(Seumas, BREAK(Seumas, window))]. There are also at least two pairs of semantically
related verbs where one has a causal meaning and the other a non-causal meaning:

bhàsaich Màiri ‘Mary died’ (non-causative)

mharbh Seumas e ‘Seumas killed him’ (causative)

dh’ith a’ bhò ‘The cow ate’ (non-causative)

bhiathaich mi a’ bhò ‘I fed the cow’ (causative)

There are no morphological causatives. Most causative utterances make use of an analytic
construction employing the irregularly formed transactional verb thoir ‘give, get, take’. The
causee is marked by the preposition air ‘on’ and the predicate of effect is the typical Gaelic
‘small-clause’

Intransitive Caused Event

thug Màiri air [Seumas ithe] ‘Mary made Seumas eat’
1 2

Transitive Caused Event

thug Màiri [air a’ bhò a mharbhadh] ‘Mary made him kill the cow’
1 2 3

63
There is also a construction, using a form of thig ‘come’ in lieu of thoir, which omits the
causer:

Thàinig air [Seumas sin a dhèanamh] ‘Seumas was made to do that’

2 3

2.2.2.2 Valence Decreasing Constructions: Passives and Impersonals

Payne (1997, 204) offers a prototype for the definition of passives based upon a set of
semantic, morphosyntactic, and discourse attributes:

•
•
they are semantically transitive (criterion 1)
the participant that is best characterised as AGENT (‘A’) is either omitted or assumes an

•
oblique role (criterion 2)

•
the PASSIVE (‘P’) participant is in subject position (criterion 3)
the verb has any and all of the characteristics of intransitive verbs in the given language

•
(criterion 4)
the discourse function of prototypical passive utterances is to highlight P in cases where it
has more topicality than A (criterion 5)

Furthermore, personal passives imply a specific agent (whether or not it is expressed) while
impersonal passives, which can be formed from both intransitive and transitive verbs, are
used when identifying participants is inconsequential to the speaker’s communicative intent.

There are four main constructions in ScG that function to highlight P over A. Each differs in
terms of how it satisfies the other criteria above and there is no construction that is
categorically ‘passive’ per se. We will take them in turn beginning with the one most like the
prototype and ending with the one most unlike it.

a) Passive Participle
Apparently, Gaelic has no lexical or morphological passives. However, like English, it has a
periphrastic passive in the form of a ‘past participle’. Their distribution is, as expected,
similar to the predicative adjective (§2.1.4) but they are not so productive. Morphologically,
they are characterised by the ending –te/ta:

(90) tha an sgeul sgrìobhte a’s a’ leabhar

be-PRES ART story-N write-PART in the book-D
‘the story is written in the book’

Perhaps a good way to construe the past-participle is as an adjectivised verb. Agents can be
incorporated using the preposition aig ‘at’ or, patterned on the English, le ‘with/by’ which
was traditionally reserved for instrumental rather than agentive uses (Macaulay 1993, 177):

(91) bha an t-iomradh deasaichte aig/le Eàirdsidh

be-PAST ART report-N prepare-PART at/by Archie-OBL
‘the report was prepared by Archie’

(92) bha an t-iomradh deasaichte le compiutair

‘the report was prepared with a computer’

64
As seen, the lexical verb in these examples is semantically transitive (crit. 1 above), A has
been demoted or omitted (crit. 2), P is in subject position (crit. 3), and the verb is
morphosyntactically intransitive (crit. 4). This is an example of a personal passive in ScG.

b. Passives in bi + NP + ASP + (PNPOSS) + (L)VN

When an argument in subject position is co-referential with the pronominal object of an
aspect-marker (air, ag, ri) the utterance takes on a passive interpretation:

(93) tha an rìghi gai mharbhadh aig na searbhantan

is-PRES ART king at-his killing-VN at ART servants
‘the king is being killed by the servants’

(94) bidh an rìghi air ai mharbhadh46

‘the king will be killed’

This expression fulfils criteria 1, 2, 3 and 5. However, as the verbal noun has an object, it
cannot be construed as intransitive (crit. 4). Also, as ScG employs the same morphosyntax
for the expression of aspect with pronominal objects in general, one cannot say that this
construction is passive in form per se:

(95) tha an rìghi gaj mharbhadh

‘the king is killing him’

c. Passives in rach + NP/PNPOSS + (L)VN

These are characterised as ‘non-agentive’ expressions in Macaulay (1993, 177) where rach ‘to
go’ is as an ‘auxiliary’ with the meaning of ‘effect/come to pass’. Usually, this construction
is used with semantically transitive lexical verbs:

(96) thèid am ball a phutadh a-steach

go-INDEF1ART ball AGR kicking-VN in-DIR
‘the ball will be kicked in’

(97) thèid a phutadh a-steach

‘it will be kicked in’

However, it can also be used felicitously with some semantically intransitive verbs (example
and translation from Macaulay 1993, 177):

(98) chaidh falbh

go-PAST departing-VN
‘a departing was effected (?)’

When used with semantically transitive verbs, as it most frequently is, this construction fulfils
all of our criteria for being an analytic impersonal passive. However, when it is used with
intransitive verbs, it fails on criteria 1, 3, and 5.

46
Payne (1997, 173) mentions the synchronic and diachronic relationship between passive voice and perfect
aspect, seen clearly in this construction.
65
d. Impersonal Endings
Touched on in §2.2.1.1, ScG has a set of impersonal suffixes which can attach to the end of a
finite verb. These are differentiated according to tense and whether a verb is weak or strong
(see Appendix 1B for a full list). Clauses featuring them are often translated into English
using its passive construction, but the French use of on is a more accurate parallel. In terms
of morphosyntax, they are in complementary distribution to overt subjects occurring directly
after the verb:

(99) chreachadh am baile

destroy-IMPERS ART town-N
‘the town was destroyed’ ~ ‘(x) destroyed the town’

cf. chreach iad a’ bhaile ‘they destroyed the town’

chreachadh iad a’ bhaile ‘they would destroy the town’

The suffix is not a marker of the passive: an AGENT is marked, it is simply unspecified. As in
the case of the imperative personal endings or those with INDEF2, it is a synthetic pronominal:

chreachamaid am baile ‘we would destroy the town’

creachamaid am baile ‘let us destroy the town’

Therefore, this construction is a case of active voice although, semantically, A is demoted and
P is topicalised.

2.2.3 Verbal Modifiers: Participles and Gerunds

Strictly speaking, Scottish Gaelic does not have participles (Gillies 1993, 205), save the past-
participle as mentioned. Neither does it have a clearly defined class of gerunds. The verbal
noun is found where English and other languages would use participles and gerunds. Some
examples will suffice:

(100) chunnaic mi ag obair air stamh i

see-PAST 1S PROG work-VN on sea-tangle-D 3S-F
‘I saw her working on sea-tangle’

(101) tha a bhith ’g òl beagan fìona math dhut

be-PRES be-INF PROG drinking-VN little wine-G good for-2S
‘drinking a little wine is good for you’

Because the verbal-noun already has nominal status in most conditions, there is no need for
additional morphology:

(102) ’s e fìor dhroch dhraibheadh a bha an-sin

COP-PRES true bad driving-N REL be-PAST there
‘that was truly bad driving’

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3 Syntax

3.1 Predicate Nominals and Similar Constructions

There are two verbs ‘to be’ in Gaelic, tha (§2.2.1.2)—once called the ‘substantive’—and the
defective copula is. The copula has only two inflections, the so-called ‘present-future’ and
the ‘past-conditional’, each with an independent, a dependent, and a relative form:

Tense Independent Dependent Relative

‘Present-future’ is/’s gur/gun as
‘Past-conditional’ bu(L)/b’ gum bu(L)/b’ a bu(L)/a b’

Essentially, both the definite non-past and indefinite 1 are collapsed in the ‘present-future’
form as are the definite past and indefinite 2 in the ‘past-conditional’. The old opposition
between the copula denoting long-lasting and/or inherent characteristics and THA, transient
and/or superficial ones is largely defunct (Gillies 1993, 209-11) but its influence can still be
detected in a limited number of ways as seen below.

3.1.1 Predicate Nominals: Proper Inclusion and Equation

a. COP + NP juxtaposition
Inalienable class membership was once formally denoted by the construction COP + NPPRED +
NPSUB but it is now antiquated or poetic seeming:

(103) is croitear Ùisdean

COP-PRES crofter Hugh
‘Hugh is a crofter’

(104) bu chroitear e ‘he was/would be a crofter’

An equative construction obtains from the order COP (+ e) + NPSUB + DEF NPPRED. If the
subject NP is pronominal, its emphatic form is used (§2.1.2.1). If the subject NP is a proper
noun, is e is always used. The predicate is always definite:

is (e) mise Raibeart ‘I am Robert’

is (e) ise mo mhàthair ‘she is my mother’
is e Iain am bodach sin ‘Ian is that old man’

b. COP + ‘e’ + NPPRED +THA + ANN (+ NPSUB)

The ‘identificational cleft’ is the most common way of expressing proper inclusion. The third
person singular pronoun ‘e’ is frequently associated with the copular verb when used
predicatively:

(105) is47 e croitear a th’ ann an Ùisdean

COP 3S crofter REL be-PRES in Hugh
‘Hugh is a crofter’

ANN is a prepositional pronoun, thus able to incorporate pronominal NPs:

(106) is e croitear a th’ annam ‘I am a crofter’

47
The copular verb is often omitted in speech in these kinds of expressions: croitear a th’ ann ‘he is a crofter’
67
The use of the ‘past-conditional’ form of the copula in cleft-type utterances has declined and,
although it is still felt to be ‘correct’ to use it, tense marking is usually consigned to the
relative verb, as in example (108) below:

(107) b’ e croitear a bh’ ann ‘he was a crofter’ [Lit. ‘it was a crofter that he was’]
(108) ’s e croitear a bh’ ann ‘he was a crofter’ [Lit. ‘it is a crofter that he was’]

c. THA + NPSUB + ANN POSS +NPPRED

In some dialects, there still may be a contrast between this construction and the prior one in
terms of perceived transience and inherence; tha may convey a certain measure of
evanescence in relation to is, which is generally associated with permanence. However one of
my older North Uist informants said they were synonymous to him.

Statement form
(109) tha e ’na chroitear
be-PRES 1S ‘in his’ crofter
‘he is a crofter’

Question form
(110) a bheil thu ’nad chroitear ‘are you a crofter?’

Gillies (1993, 211) uses the following to highlight the potential difference in meaning that b
and c can convey: tha e ’na oileanach ach chan e oileanach a th’ ann ‘he is (registered as) a
student but he is not a student (by disposition)’.

3.1.2 Predicate Adjectives

These are distinct in form from predicate nominals in that they generally must use THA and
not the copula (THA + NPSUB + ADJ):

tha Tòmas àrd ‘Thomas is tall’

*is Tòmas àrd

The form COP + ADJ + NPSUB is found in older texts and poetic usage primarily, similarly to
PRED
COP + NP + NPSUB (see above). However it is occurs in certain set phrases such as is math
sin ‘that is good’, where ‘that’ is properly included in a set of good things whereas in tha sin
math, ‘that’ is simply characterised in a transient sense as being ‘good’ (Gillies 1993).
Another example:

(111) bu bhrèagha a gnùis

COP beautiful 3S-F visage
‘beautiful was her visage’

(112) bha a gnùis brèagha

‘her visage was beautiful’

3.1.3 Locatives and Possessive Predication

Generic locatives are formed similarly to predicative adjectives: THA + NPSUB + LOC. The
location can take the form of a prepositional phrase or demonstrative:

68
(113) bha sinn shìos aig a’ chladach
be-PAST 1P down-LOC at ART shore
‘we were down at the shore’

(114) tha an càr a-muigh

be-PRES ART car out-LOC
‘the car is outside’

There is no verb ‘to have’ in ScG. Similarly to Russian and Estonian, possessives are formed
as locatives using one of the prepositions marking location, usually AIG:

(115) tha leabhar agam

be-PRES book at-1S
‘I have a book’

(116) tha an leabhar aig Mairead

be-PRES ART book at Margaret
‘Margaret has the book’

In general, if the locative-phrase NP is higher on a scale of animacy than the subject NP, the
relation is one of possession. Otherwise, it is understood as location (Macaulay 1992, 182).
If they are equally animate, either reading can obtain:

(117) bidh Dòmhnall aig Sìle ‘Donald will be at Sheila’s/Sheila will have Donald’

3.1.4 Existentials
There is no presentative construction in Gaelic as such. Deixis determines whether a clause is
read as introducing a participant into discourse as can be seen in the difference between the
translation of the following two clauses:

(118) tha eun aig an uinneig

be-PRES bird at ART window-D
‘there is a bird at the window’

(119) tha an t-eun aig an uinneig ‘the bird is at the window’

So-called ‘pure existentials’, performing a substantive function, are formed using the
preposition ann ‘in it’:

(120) a bheil Dia ann

QP be-PRES-DEP God EXIST
‘is there a God’

(121) bidh an sneachd ann ‘there will be snow’

(122) nach bi sibh ann ‘won’t you be there’

Ann is a ubiquitous word in the language, taking its function largely from context and
pragmatics. One of its specialised uses is in emphasising negation, possibly linked with its
existential function:

69
(123) cha bhi mi ag òl ann
NEG be-INDEF1-DEP 1S PROG drink-VN EXIST(?)
‘I won’t be drinking at all’

(124) chan eil mi eòlach air an duine ann

NEG be-PRES-DEP 1S knowledgeable on ART man EXIST(?)
‘I don’t know the person at all’ (eòlach adj. ‘having knowledge of’)

3.2 Constituent Order and Grammatical Relations

It is useful to posit a three-way division between the basic semantico-syntactic roles S, A, and
P as follows: ‘S’ is the single nominal argument of a one-argument clause (‘intransitive’
clause); ‘A’ is the most-agentive argument of a many-argument clause (‘transitive’ clause);
and ‘P’ is the most PATIENT-like argument of a many-argument clause. Scottish Gaelic, like
other nominative-accusative languages, groups A and S together morpho-syntactically while
distinguishing these from P. The pragmatically neutral constituent order is VS/VAP
(traditionally VSO) as can been seen in the following:

V S
(125) ghluais an cat
move-PAST ART cat-N
‘the cat moved’

V A P
(126) ghluais an cat am ball
move-PAST ART cat-N ART ball-N
‘the cat moved the ball’

If the initial verb is an auxiliary, the order becomes AUX-S-VN or AUX-A-VN-P:

AUX S VN
(127) tha an cat a’ gluasad
be-PRES ART cat-N PROG moving-VN
‘the cat is moving’

AUX A VN P
(128) tha an cat a’ gluasad a’ bhuill
be-PRES ART cat-N PROG moving-VN ART ball-G
‘the cat is moving the ball’

A morphologically clear division of P from A and S is seen in the last example. In transitive
clauses with an auxiliary and verbal noun, the nominal argument P is traditionally marked by
genitive case (see discussion in §2.1.1.4) or, if pronominal, incorporated into the aspectual
particle of the verbal noun (see §2.2.1.1). Although case marking does not always distinguish
A from P in Gaelic clauses, syntax or pragmatics always does. Thus it is appropriate to posit
the grammatical relations ‘subject’ and ‘object’ in Scottish Gaelic, ‘subject’ being a
combination of A and S and ‘object’ being P alone.

More evidence of nominative/accusative marking can be seen in the way that ScG handles
complement argument omission (adaptation of examples in Payne 1997, 162-3):

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(129) a. tha Cèiti airson i pòsadh ‘Kate wants to marry’
S omission

b. tha Cèiti airson i Pòl a phòsadh ‘Kate wants to marry Paul’

A omission

c. tha Cèit airson Pòl pòsadh48 ‘Kate wants Paul to marry’ none

d. tha Cèiti airson Pòl ai pòsadh ‘Kate wants Paul to marry her’ none

The word airson ‘for’ is a complex preposition that is interpreted in an optative sense when
associated an AGENT. It can take either an NP, or a non-finite verbal complement as in
example (129) above. In (a) we see that the S argument of an intransitive complement such as
MARRY(x) can be omitted when it is understood to be co-referential with the subject of airson.
The A of the transitive complement clause MARRY(Kate, Paul) in (b) can be similarly omitted
when co-referential with the subject of the matrix clause. In (d) however, this cannot happen
since the subject of the complement clause is not co-referential with that of the matrix clause.
The object of the complement clause must be made explicit, as it is here by a 3S-FEM
possessive pronoun. This is a case of a syntactic process which groups S and A together
while treating P separately. Incidentally, the a in (b) is not a possessive pronoun but an
agreement particle (aL) which indicates that the non-finite verb has a full NP object associated
with it. We will return to these examples and non-finite complements generally in §3.2.2
below.

Indirect objects in ScG, as in ditransitive clauses of transaction, are headed by directional

prepositions which govern the dative case and indicate either sources or destinations:

(130) bheir Brìghde an t-airgead do Chailean

give-INDEF1 Bridget ART money [O] to Colin [IO]
‘Bridget will give the money to Colin’

(131) bheir Brìghde an t-airgead bho Chailean

give-INDEF1 Bridget ART money from Colin
‘Bridget will take the money from Colin’

As can be seen from these examples, while English lexicalises transactional direction on the
verb, ScG only does so according to the preposition employed.

3.2.1 Postposition of Weak Pronominal Objects

It is normal for non-contrastive pronominal objects in Scottish Gaelic to occur last in clauses,
after adjuncts and prepositional phrases. Consider the following examples:

(132) a. chunnaic mi an duine sin san eaglais an-diugh

‘I saw that man in church today’
b. chunnaic mi esan san eaglais an-diugh
‘I saw him in the church today’
(cf. *chunnaic mi san eaglais an-diugh esan)

48
For most speakers today, the normal way of saying this would be tha Cèit airson ’s gum pòs Pòl, which is a 2
clause structure.
71
 c. chunnaic mi san eaglais an-diugh e
*‘I saw in the church today him’

Full object NPs must occur immediately after the subject in clauses where the lexical verb
occurs first (i.e. those that are not aspectually marked). Likewise, the same obligatory order
must occur with emphatic pronominal objects. Yet, as seen in the last example, non-stressed
pronominal objects can and usually do occur in a clause-final position. Adger (1997; see also
Ramchand 1997) indicates that this is a prosodically-motivated phenomenon common to the
Goidelic languages in general and not, as previous researchers have claimed, syntactically-
motivated. The tendency, however, is tempered by the length of intermediating elements:

(133) chunnaic mi [e] san eaglais ùir [e] ri taobh na h-aibhneadh [e] as deidh na coinneimh
aig trì uairean feasgar an-dè [?e]
‘I saw him in the new church [him] beside the river [him] after the meeting at 3
o’clock in the afternoon yesterday [?him]’

Here it would be more intelligible for the pronoun to occur either immediately after the
subject NP or between the place adjuncts and the time adjuncts.

3.2.2 Small Clauses

Small clauses, also called reduced clauses, are syntagms that resemble full clauses in certain
ways but lack a finite verb. In Gaelic, some predicating elements, especially finite verbs and
verbal nouns, but also some prepositions and aspect markers, are able to take non-finite
complements. The simplest form of this is as in (129)a above which, semantically, consists of
a reduced verbal core having an implicit argument that is co-referential with the subject of the
matrix clause. However, as was seen in the other examples, subtle differences in
morphosyntax can result in large differences in interpretation. Intransitive reduced cores, as
seen in (129)a,c are not marked by lenition. Their single argument is either unstated or, if
different from the subject of the matrix clause, marked as a full NP, as in (129)b, or as a
possessive pronoun:

(134) tha Cèit airson a phòsadh ‘Kate wants to marry him’

S PRED O VN

The syntax of a transitive non-finite complement, as seen here, is essentially (object-)subject

(-a(L))-verbal noun. This structure in this example is sometimes called an ‘inverted nominal’
in Gaelic grammars due to the object coming before the verb, in contrast to more basic
transitive clauses such as (128) above.

There is a potential for vagueness when the subject NP is masculine as the agreement particle
mentioned above is homophonous with the 3S-M possessive pronoun:

(135) tha Pòl airson Cèit a mharbhadh

This clause can be interpreted as either ‘Paul wants to kill Kate’ or ‘Paul wants Kate to kill
him’49. When discussing marriage, who wants the other ‘for to’ marry may be
inconsequential, but with other verbs this is not necessarily so.

49
This is one of two cases where Gaelic groups A & P. The other is in relative clauses (see §3.3.2.2).
72
Small clauses are, by definition, unspecified for tense but this does not preclude them from
taking aspect. In fact, transitive clauses marked for perfect aspect are characterised by their
‘inverted nominal’ form:

(136) tha Cèit air Eòin a phòsadh

be-PRES Kate ‘after’ John AGR marry-VN
‘Kate has married John’

Small clauses in progressive aspect are frequently associated with a type of clause
combination known as cosubordination, which in simple terms shares some features with
subordination and others with coordination. Although the clause linkage marker is a
conjunction, the interpretation is temporal and the semantic bond between the two clauses is
tighter that it would be in a case of coordination (see §3.3.3 for more information about these
issues):

(137) chunnaic mi Cèit agus i a’ pògadh Phòil

see-PAST 1S Kate and 3S-FEM PROG kiss-VN Paul-G
‘I saw Kate while she was kissing Paul’ [Lit. I saw Kate and she at the kissing of
Paul’]

3.2.3 ‘Composite Verbs’

There are dative subject (or ‘affective’) constructions in ScG where the subject NP is
obliquely marked while the ‘object’, if present, is in the nominative/accusative case. Many of
these are modal-type expressions, involving obligation, necessity, ability and so-on while
others function in the way that psychological verbs do in other languages:

(138) is toil leam an duine sin

COP-PRES like with-1S ART man-N that
‘I like that man’

(139) b’ aithne dha d’ athair Seonaidh Bàn

COP-PAST acquaintance for/to 2S-POSS father-D Johnny-N ‘White’
‘Your father knew Johnny ‘White’’

(140) is beag orm marag

COP-PRES little on-1S blood-pudding
‘I dislike blood pudding’

The predicate is formed by a copular verb which ‘joins’ with either a nominal or adjectival
element. These are often idiomatic in nature, as in (140) above. These ‘composite’ verbs can
take non-finite complements such as a small clause in (141) and an infinitive construction in
(142):

(141) bu toil leam marag a thoirmeasg ‘I would like to ban blood-pudding’

(142) is beag oirre a bhith ’na cabhaig ‘She dislikes to be in a hurry’ [Lit. ‘in her hurry’]

Others generally only take verbal complements:

73
(143) bu chòir do Sheònaig an còta sin a cheannach
COP ought for/to Jane-D ART coat that AGR buy-VN
‘Jane ought to buy that coat’

3.3 Clause Combinations

There has been considerable debate on how best to categorise clause combinations in natural
language, challenging the traditional definitions of notions such as subordination (Beaman
1984; Foley & Van Valin 1986; Haiman & Thomson 1988; Lakoff 1984; Mathieson &
Thomson 1988; Thomson 1984; Van Valin 1985; Van Valin & LaPolla 1997). It has been
suggested that part of the problem may rest in an underlying bias in linguistics towards the
Indo-European languages which often have overt, lexical realisation of clausal relations. Role
and Reference Grammar (RRG: Van Valin & LaPolla 1997 inter alia) developed out of an
attempt to account for, in the first instance, a wide range of non-IE languages and it has been
particularly useful in clarifying this area. The following is a brief introduction to the way that
RRG views clause combinations and it will inform the discussion in the next few sub-
sections.

In RRG, the clause is construed as having three levels: the nucleus, essentially the predicate;
the core, being the predicate and its arguments; and the clause, which is the predicate, its
arguments, and associated adjuncts:
The Layered Structure of the Scottish Gaelic Clause
CORE PERIPHERY

Dh' ith Iain an t-aran a's an leabhar-lann

Predicate Arguments

(144) dh’ith Iain an t-aran a’s an leabhar-lann

eat-PAST Ian ART bread-N in-ART library-N
‘Ian ate the bread in the library’

This example can also be represented as a tree diagram:

74
 SENTENCE

CLAUSE

CORE PERIPHERY

NUC ARG ARG

PRED

V NP NP PP

Dh' ith Iain an t-aran a's an leabhar-lann

Figure: Tree Diagram of the ScG Clause

Juncture is the linking of two or more of these elements: e.g., a nuclear juncture results from
the linking of two or more nuclei. Juncture is distinguished from nexus, which is the type of
relation that obtains between a given juncture. Three different kinds of nexus are posited:
coordination, subordination and cosubordination. Theoretically, there are nine different
combinations of nexus and juncture, such as nuclear coordination (i.e. nuclear juncture +
coordinate nexus), core subordination, clausal cosubordination, and so. As this section is
mainly dealing with clause combinations, a discussion of nuclear and core juncture would be
digressive. However, the following examples are provided to illustrate, on a general level,
what these would be like (for more information about nuclear and core juncture see Van Valin
and LaPolla 1997, 442-484):

Nuclear juncture: “single cores containing more than one nucleus… the multiple nuclei
function as a single complex predicate taking a single set of core arguments” (Van Valin &
LaPolla 1997, 448):

(145) thalla is faigh an t-òrd tha an-sin

away-IMP CONJ get-IMP ART hammer-N be-PRES there
‘go and get me that hammer’

Core juncture: “single clauses containing more than one core. Each core may have its own
core argument(s) not shared with the other core(s)” (ibid.)
(146) tha mi ag iarraidh am pàipear sin a leughadh
be-PRES 1S PROG wanting-VN ART paper-N that AGR reading-VN
‘I want to read that paper’ [Lit. ‘I am at wanting that paper to read’]

Clausal juncture: “whole clauses are joined, and each clause may be fully independent of the
others” (ibid.)
(147) sgioblaich an seòmar agad agus nigh d’ aodach cuideachd
tidy-IMP ART room at-2S CONJ wash-IMP 2S-POSS clothes also
‘tidy your room and wash your clothes too’

One problem with many accounts of clausal relations is that they fail to discriminate between
structural and operational dependency. If a clause is structurally dependent, it is unable to
‘stand on its own’ as an independent utterance. If it is operationally dependent, on the other
75
hand, it is parasitic on the matrix clause for certain grammatical categories such as mood,
tense, aspect, or illocutionary force. These are fundamentally different from predicates and
their arguments and are referred to as operators in RRG. They are grouped according to the
specific level of juncture to which they pertain. For instance, aspect operates at the level of
the nucleus while tense and illocutionary force operate at the level of the clause, hence they
are called nuclear and clausal operators respectively.

Subordinate clauses can manifest themselves as either being embedded (e.g. functioning as a
core argument) or modifying the periphery of a matrix clause. In both cases, the defining
feature is structural—rather than operational—dependence. Consider the following three
utterances:

(148) cuiridh [eadhon a bhith ag èisteachd ris] dragh orm

put-FUT even be-INF PROG listen-VN to-3S-M annoyance on me
‘even listening to him annoys me’ [Lit. ‘even listening to him puts annoyance on me’]

(149) bha dragh orm [nuair a chuala mi a ghuth]

be-PAST vex on-1S when REL hear-PAST 1S his voice
‘it vexed me when I heard his voice’

(150) thachair iad rithe [agus i ’dol dhachaidh]

happen-PAST 3P ‘to her’ and she PROG-go-VN home
‘they happened upon her while she was going home’

In (148), a non-finite core (eadhon a bhith ag èisteachd ris ‘even listening to him’) is
embedded as a subject within a clause. Because it functions as an argument of the predicate
(cuiridh ‘will put’), this is core, not clausal, subordination (although these are often classified
together in grammars). Example (149) is a case of clausal subordination: there is a relation
between two clauses where an adverbial modifying clause (nuair a chuala mi a ghuth ‘when I
heard his voice’) is structurally dependent on and peripherally modifies a matrix clause (bha
dragh orm ‘a vex (bother) was on me’). Example (150) is fundamentally different than the
others although Boyle (1973) and Ó Siadhail (1984) would classify it as a type as
subordination. The difference is down to the presence of obligatory operator dependence; the
non-finite clause relies on the matrix clause for tense and illocutionary force. In RRG terms,
this is cosubordinate clausal nexus. This type of non-matrix clause also behaves differently to
subordinate ones in certain syntactic tests such as preposing, which is ungrammatical with
ScG cosubordinate clauses but possible with subordinate ones:

(151) nuair a bha i ’dol dhachaidh, thachair iad rithe

‘when she was going home, they happened upon her’

(152) *agus i ’dol dhachaidh, thachair iad rithe

The concept of finiteness relates primarily to full morphological marking of tense and other
clausal operators. In the literature, one frequently encounters discussion of non-finite clauses
in relation to verbal nouns, gerunds, participles and such. It seems more accurate to refer to
these as cores instead. Clauses will be taken to be syntagms with the structural characteristics
mentioned above (§3.3) for which the status of clausal operators, such as tense and
illocutionary, is relevant, even when not specified. The use of ‘non-finite clauses’ will be
limited to instances where a reduced clause is in a relation of operational dependence with a
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fully finite matrix clause, i.e. cosubordinate clauses. Only they have the requirements for
clausal status despite the fact that their clausal operators are parasitically engendered.

To sum up, clausal relations, indeed nexus in general, can be conceived as a three-way
division (from Van Valin & LaPolla 1997, 454):

NEXUS

Dependent Independent
COORDINATION
Structural Operator
dependence dependence
SUBORDINATION COSUBORDINATION

3.3.1 Coordination
There are three main ways of linking constituents of equal syntactic status: 1) conjunction; 2)
disjunction; 3) exclusion. In ScG, these are expressed lexically by a small set of conjunctions.
Because many of the conjunctions used in Gaelic are the same for clausal and phrasal
constituents, both are included in this section. Conjunctions always occur medially, between
the constituents to which they pertain.

3.3.1.1 Conjunction
Conjunction of the type ‘a and b’ is grammaticalised in Gaelic by the word agus and its
shortened forms ‘s, a’s, and is. Zero marking or juxtaposition is not a frequent strategy in
speech although in poetry, adjectives are sometimes strung together one after another. Lists
also sometimes show zero marking, but agus (or more usually ‘s) is ubiquitous and it is often
found tagged on, almost like an affix, any time there is conjunction.

(153) ith do shuipear ’s bi sàmhach

eat-IMP your-2P supper and be-IMP quiet
‘eat your supper and be quiet’

(154) fhuair mi an aithris agus bheir mi sùil a-nochd oirre

get-PAST 1S ART report CONJ give-INDEF1 1S eye tonight on it-F
‘I got the report and I will take a look at it tonight’

Here are two examples of its use as a phrasal conjunction: e.g. iasg is feòil ‘fish and meat’;
tha e mòr is àrd ‘he is big and tall’. Agus also acts—for lack of a better term—as a
‘generalised clause linkage marker’ in a variety of constructions: cho fada agus as aithne
dhomh ‘as far as I know’; air sàillibh ’s gu bheil iad a’ falbh ‘because they are leaving’; mas
e ’s gum bi iad ann ‘if (it is that) they are to be there’ (see (57) for an interlinear translation of
a similar example).

The word na is used with phrasal constituents to convey ‘not a nor b’:

(155) chan ith e feòil na iasg

NEG eat-1INDEF-DEP 3S-M meat nor fish
‘he’ll not eat meat nor fish’
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3.3.1.2 Disjunction
To express phrasal or clausal ‘alternatives’ (a or b), no/neo ‘or’ is used:

(156) dèan feòil no iasg dhe

make-IMP meat or fish of-3S-M
‘take it or leave it’ (Lit. ‘make meat or fish of it’)

(157) tè bheag no tè mhòr

‘a big one or a little one’

A distinction is sometimes made between the meaning conveyed by no and disjunction of the
kind ‘a or else b’ which can be expressed by air neo:

(158) dèan an obair air fad air neo chan fhaigh thu sgillinn ruadh
do-IMP ART work on length otherwise NEG get-INDEF1 2S penny ruddy
‘do all of the work or else you’ll not get a single penny’

The word gus has a specialised use as a disjunctive coordinator between an indirect question
and negative tag:

(159) chan eil fhios am bi i ann gus nach bi

NEG be-PRES of knowledge QP be-INDEF1-DEP 3S-F there or NEG be-INDEF1-DEP
‘it’s not known whether she’ll be there or not’

3.3.1.3 Exclusion
One of the functions of the conjunction ach, much like ‘but’ in English, is to express the
conditions ‘a and not b’ as in the following clausal and phrasal utterance:

(160) gheibhear deoch an-shin ach chan fhaighear

get-INDEF1-INDEP-IMPER drink there-LOC but NEG get-INDEF1-DEP-IMPERS

biadh
food
‘one can get drink there but one cannot get food’

(161) chan eil mi ag iarraidh deoch ach biadh

‘I don’t want drink but food’

Ach also functions as a ‘focus’ particle in a type of pseudo-cleft (§3.4.2.2) and can also
indicate concession in constructions such as the following (adapted from Macaulay 1992,
164):

(162) thigeadh e ach ise falbh50

come-INDEF2 3S-M but 3S-F-EMPH go-VN
‘he would come provided she left’ [Lit. ‘he would come but she leaving’]

50
The most common way of expressing this utterance would be with a conditional clause however: thigeadh e
nam falbhadh ise ‘he would come if she would leave’.
78
3.3.2 Subordination
3.3.2.1 Complement Clauses
Complement clauses are of a syntactically different status than adverbial clauses. The former
serve as logical arguments of a predicate; they can act as ‘subjects’ or ‘objects’. Adverbial
clauses, on the other hand, are adjunctive modifiers of a matrix clause, situated in that
clause’s periphery. In ScG, complement clauses can be headed by verbs, nouns, adjectives
and prepositions. They are generally marked by using the dependent verbal complementiser
gu(n/m)/gur and, if negative, nach rather than cha(n). Examine the following:

Verb-headed complement clause

(163) chan eil mi a’ creidsinn gun tèid e ann
NEG be-PRES-DEP 1S PROG believe-VN COMP go-INDEF1 3S-M ‘there’
‘I don’t believe that he will go there’

In (163), what the subject ‘does not believe’ is ‘that he will go’; the complement clause acts
as a core argument, an ‘object’.

Noun-headed complement clause

(164) chan eil rian nach fhaic thu sin
NEG be-PRES-DEP way NEG see-INDEF1-DEP 2S that
‘there’s no way that you don’t/can’t see that’

Here, the predicate is formed by the noun rian ‘way’ which heads a negative complement
clause.

Adjective-headed complement clause

(165) tha e fìor gun tuirt e seo
be-PRES 3S-M true COMP say-PAST-DEP 3S-M this
‘it is true that he said this’

In this example, there is an empty subject—e, the third person masculine pronoun.
Complement clauses cannot begin statements in Scottish Gaelic the way they can in English;
they cannot act as syntactic subjects. In English, it is acceptable, although rare and mostly
confined to planned writing, to find utterances such as ‘that he said this is true’. It is more
common to postpose the complement clause in English using an empty subject, and this is the
only option in Gaelic: ‘it is true that he said this’.

Preposition-headed complement clause

(166) tha iad airson ’s gun dèanadh tu an ceart-uair e
be-PRES-INDEP 3P for CLM COMP do-INDEF2-DEP 2S right now 3S
‘they want you to do it right now’ [Lit. ‘they are for that you would do it right now’]

The complement clause in (166) again functions as an argument of the predicate (airson
‘for’), specifically its object.

Non-finite complements have a similar distribution but, unlike finite complements, some can
also occur in first position, as for instance in (148), repeated here:

79
(167) cuiridh [eadhon a bhith ag èisteachd ris] dragh orm
put-FUT even be-INF PROG listen-VN to-3S-M annoyance on-2S
‘even listening to him annoys me’ [Lit. ‘even listening to him puts an annoyance on
me’]

The non-finite complement eadhon a bhith ag èisteachd ris functions as the syntactic subject
and occurs in the place normally reserved for subjects in the language. Often, however, these
are postposed with empty subjects as in the following example:

(168) chòrdadh e glan rium an càr sin a dhraibheadh

enjoy-INDEF2 3S-M clean-ADV to-1S ART car that AGR driving-VN
‘I would really enjoy driving that car’ [Lit. ‘it would really be enjoyable to me to drive
that car’]

In (169), the past participle toilichte heads a non-finite complement with a pronominal
argument. Literally, this could be construed as ‘we are pleased your seeing’. The following
example is identical except that the predicate is formed by the complex preposition airson and
there is a temporal adverb modifying the non-finite complement.

(169) tha sinn toilichte ur faicinn

be-PRES 1P pleased 2P-POSS seeing-VN
‘we are pleased to see you’

(170) tha sinn airson ur faicinn a-rithist

‘we want to see you again’

Indirect Questions
Indirect questions have the same syntax as interrogative clauses (see §2.2.1.2 Mode):

(171) a bheil fhios aca càite an deach e

QP be-PRES-DEP of knowledge at-3P where go-PAST-DEP 3S-M
‘do they know where he went’

(172) chan eil iad cinnteach an do dh’fhalbh i mar-thà

NEG be-PRES-DEP 3P sure QP went-PAST-DEP 3S-F already
‘they are not sure if she left already’

3.3.2.2 Adverbial Clauses

Adverbial clauses in Scottish Gaelic cover a wide range of semantic relations. Adverbial
clauses are subordinate in the senses mentioned in §3.3 and are generally able to be preposed,
clefted, and, to some extent, nested within the constituents of the matrix clause.

The morphosyntax of subordination in Scottish Gaelic is of four different types, relating to the
type of verbal complement taken by a particular subordinator:

Type I: subordinator + independent verb form

In Type I, the subordinate clause is only so semantically; if the subordinator were to be
removed, the clause could stand on its own. Some of these subordinators have a variant form
in Type II or IV, but not necessarily vice versa. There may be functional motivations for this
variation, which are explored in the following section.
80
(173) tha fhios a’m glè mhath oir bha mi aig ceann an ròpa
be-PRES knowledge at-1S very well for be-PAST-INDEP 1S at end ART rope-G
‘I know very well for I was at the end of the rope’

Type II: subordinator + agus + dependent verb form

(174) a chionn ’s gur ann aig a’ Chumhang a thugadh na buillean

since and COP-DEP FOC at ART Strait REL give-PAST-IMPERS ART hit-P
‘since it was [Lit. ‘is’] at the Strait that the blows were exchanged’

cf.: a chionn, is ann aig a’ Chumhang… [Type 1: independent copula used]

Type III: subordinator + relativiser + relative verb form51

(175) on a tha thu ’dol a dh’fhalbh

since REL be-PRES 2S PROG-going to depart-INF
‘since you are going to depart…’

Type IV: subordinator + dependent verb form

(176) cha d’fhuair e a’ chroit seach gu robh sublet aige

NEG get-PAST 3S-M ART croft since COMP is-PAST-DEP sublet at-3S-M
‘he didn’t get the croft since he had a sublet’

Reason
Scottish Gaelic has several different ‘reason’ subordinators. Some of these are as follows:

a chionn52 I, II, IV
air sàillibh I, II, IV
air sgàth II
airson I, II, IV
air tàillibh (variant of air sàillibh)
(bh)o I
do bhrìgh IV
leis IV
oir(eadh) I
ri linn II, IV
seach IV
thoradh I, IV

There is dialectal variation in the types of complement available to each subordinator, and
there are certainly fine distinctions in meaning between these words. Type I usage is much
closer to coordinate nexus and, as expected, cannot be preposed (or clefted):

51
There is a distinct verbal form used with weak verbs in the 1st Indefinite (‘present-future’); otherwise, the verb
is identical to the independent form. Consider the following: ma dh’fhàgas tu e ‘if you (will) leave it’; ma
dh’fhàg thu e ‘if you left it’; c.f. fàgaidh mi e ‘I will leave it’ and dh’fhàg mi e ‘I left it’.
52
Many speakers today use a chionn ’s itself as a Type I subordinator: e.g. …a chionn ’s, is ann aig a’
Chumhang a thugadh na buillean (as above).
81
(177) rinn mi sin a chionn bha fearg orm
do-PAST 1S that because is-PAST anger ‘on me’
‘I did that because I was angry’

(178) *a chionn bha fearg orm rinn mi sin

‘because I was angry, I did that’

If, however, a type II or IV form is used, the utterance is acceptable:

(179) a chionn ’s gun robh fearg orm rinn mi sin

Part of the distinction between these forms and their acceptability in different positions may
involve what Chafe calls ‘bound’ and ‘free’ adverbial clauses (Chafe 1984). Bound adverbial
clauses are those that occur, within spoken language, in the same intonation unit as the matrix
clause and, in writing, within the same punctuation unit. What this means is that, in both
speaking and writing, bound adverbial clauses are joined to the main clause in one combined
chunk; there is no pause or break between the two clauses.

Free adverbials clauses on the other hand are those that are separated from the matrix clause
in speech, by a pause, and in writing, by a punctuation mark (usually a comma). In other
words, with a free adverbial clause there is a marked break between it and the matrix clause.
The following examples in English are from Chafe (1984, 439):

(a) Preposed and bound: Because it has such a big memory I decided to buy it
(b) Postposed and bound: I decided to buy it because it has such a big memory
(c) Preposed and free: Because it has such a big memory, I decided to buy it
(d) Postposed and free: I decided to buy it, because it has such a big memory

Chafe says that when a free adverbial clause is postposed, it is like an afterthought with its
relationship to the matrix clause closer to coordination than subordination. Returning to the
Scottish Gaelic examples above, there seems to be a tendency to assign free adverbial clauses
to Type I structures and bound adverbial clauses to Types II, III and IV. The more
‘coordinate’ status of Type I subordinators explains their inability to prepose or cleft. This is
a case of iconicity: the closer the semantic link between two clauses, the more integrated is
the morphosyntax making the link explicit.

NB: Some of the above subordinators can be used with phrasal constituents to convey the
sense ‘because of’, ‘due to’ or ‘for the sake of’:

(180) dh’fhalbh Màiri gu cliobhar air sgàth na sabaid

leave-PAST Mary ADV clever due to ART fighting-G
‘Mary left quickly due to the fighting’

Concessive Clauses
These are realised by the Type I subordinator ged ‘although/even’ as in:

(181) [ged a tha sinn sgìth] cùmaidh sinn oirnn

‘although we are tired, we will keep going’ [Lit. ‘…we will keep on us’]

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Conditionals
In all but INDEF2 and the copula, simple positive conditionals are initiated by the Type III
subordinator ma ‘if’:

(182) [ma dh’fhàg thu an-shin e] bidh e air a ghoid a-nis

if leave-PAST 2P there-LOC it-M bi-INDEF1 it-M after its steal-VN now
‘if you left it there it will be stolen (by) now’

The copula takes the form mas (ma ‘if’ + (a)s - the relative form of the copula) as in the
following:

(183) nì mi e [mas urrainn mi]

do-INDEF1 1S it-M if-COP able 1S
‘I’ll do it if I can’.

In hypothetical conditionals, the second indefinite is used in conjunction with the

subordinator nan/nam (Type IV):

(184) dhèanainn e [nam b’ urrainn mi]

do-INDEF2-1S 3S if COP-INDEF2 able 1S
‘I would do it if I were able’

A special use of nan/nam is with the past definite or second indefinite to convey an optative
sense:

(185) nan robh bàta agam bheirinn sgrìob a dh’Uibhist ‘

if is-PAST-DEP boat at-1S take-INDEF2-1S trip to Uist
if (only) I had a boat I would take a trip to Uist’.

In counterfactuals there is an interesting intermingling of the tense, aspect and mode system.
The clause of condition begins with the subordinator nan/nam and a verb in the 2nd indefinite
or the past definite, as in the previous example. The clause of result is in the past definite.
Gaelic grammarians referred to this as the ‘modal preterit’ although it is not to be found in
any of the grammars53. In essence, there is a clause expressing an irrealis condition
juxtaposed with one expressing a realis result:

(186) nan robh thu air an doras a dhùnadh

if be-PAST-DEP 2S PERF ART door AGR closing-VN
‘if (only) you had closed the door

cha robh a’ chaora air faighinn a-steach

NEG be-PAST-DEP ART sheep PERF getting-VN in-DIR
the sheep would not have got in’
[Lit. if you were after the door closing the sheep was not after getting in]

53
My thanks to Professor William Gillies for this information.
83
(187) nam bithinnsa air falbh an uair sin bha thusa glacte
if be-INDEF2-1S-EMPH PERF leaving-VN ART time that is-PAST 2S-EMPH locked

a-muigh
out-LOC
‘if I had been away [by] then, you would have been locked out’

The previous example could also be expressed in the following way, but with less vivid
impact, perhaps because the result clause is irrealis rather than realis:

(188) nam b’ e ’s gun robh mi air falbh an uair

if COP-INDEF2 3S CLM COMP be-PAST-DEP 1S PERF going-VN ART time
‘if it had been that I had been gone then

sin bhiodh tusa air do ghlacadh a-muigh

then was-INDEF2 2S-EMPH PERF 2S-POSS locking-VN out-LOC
‘you would have been locked out’
[Lit. if it had been that I was after going (at) that time you would have been after your
locking out]

Negative conditionals are formed by mura (Type IV) corresponding to ‘if not’ or ‘unless’:

(189) mura bi iadsan ann cha tig mi fhèin nas motha

if not be-INDEF1 3P-EMPH there NEG come-INDEF1-DEP 1S REFL either
‘if they will not be there I myself won’t come either’

The two comparatives of size ‘bigger’ and ‘smaller’ (§2.1.4.4) can be used idiomatically as
well: nas motha can mean ‘either’ as in (189) and nas lugha ‘smaller/less’ can be used to
express ‘unless’:

(190) nas lugha na tha e shuas an staidhre

unless that is-PAST 3S-M LOC-up ART stair
‘unless he is upstairs’ [Lit. ‘less (lest?) than he is upstairs’]

Manner
These clauses usually involve mar ‘as/as if’, which can be Type III or IV with a
corresponding difference in meaning:

(191) bha i ga giùlain [mar a sheall mi dhut]

is-PAST 3S-F PROG-3S-F-POSS carrying-VN as REL show-PAST 1S ‘to you’
‘she was carrying herself the way that I showed you’

(192) bha i ga giùlain [mar gun robh i bochd]

is-past 3s-F PROG-3S-F-POSS carrying-VN as COMP was-PAST 3s-F ill
‘she was carrying herself as if she were ill’

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Location
The subordinator far ‘where’ is used in dependent structures54 such as the following:

(193) chunnaic mi [far an do chuir thu e]

saw-PAST 1S where put-PAST-DEP 2S 3S-M
‘I saw where you put it’

However, càite ‘where’ is used in indirect questions, such as with fios ‘knowing’:

(194) tha fhios a’m [càite an do chuir thu e]

be-PRES knowledge at-1S where put-PAST-DEP 2s 3s-M
‘I know where you put it’

Temporal Subordinators
The following are the most common, glossed along with their types:

(bh)o(n) ‘since’ Type I, IV

aon uair ‘once’ Type II
fhad ’s ‘while’ Type III
gun ‘until’ Type IV
gus am/an ‘until’ Type IV
mun/mus ‘before’ Type IV
nuair ‘when’ Type III

Clauses headed by these subordinators are able to be preposed and clefted:

(195) [mus tàinig Alasdair a-nuas] ghabh i norrag bheag

before come-PAST-DEP Alasdair down take-PAST 3S-F nap small
‘before Alasdair came over she took a wee nap’

cf. [ghabh i norrag bheag] mus tàinig Alasdair a-nuas

(196) ’s ann [mus tàinig Alasdair a-nuas] a ghabh i norrag bheag

‘it’s before Alasdair came over that she took a small nap’

Simultaneity can be expressed using fhad ’s or a cosubordinate expression with agus (§3.3.3):

(197) bha i ’na cadal [fhad ’s a bha Alasdair a’ feitheamh rithe]

is-PAST 3S-F ‘in her’ sleep ‘while’ REL is-PAST Alastair PROG waiting-VN to-3S-F
‘she was asleep the whole time Alastair was waiting for her’

3.3.2.3 Relative Clauses

Relative clauses are a case of noun phrase subordination; they function as nominal
modifiers and do not constitute clausal nexus as such. In other words, relative clauses serve
to expand or modify the meaning of noun phrases rather than clauses. This can be seen in an
example such as the man [who stole your parasol] is leaving the train, where the relative
clause (in brackets) modifies the NP ‘the man’ and, together, they form a constituent. This

54
Technically, these are headless relative clauses.
85
contrasts to examples of clausal nexus such as the man left the train [when he saw us] where
the subordinate clause serves to modify the main clause as a whole, not just a single part of it.

In ScG, relative clauses always occur post-nominally and are headed by the relativiser a:

HEAD RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE

(198) an trusdar a [ghoid ø an làraidh aig Aonghas Eòin]
ART vagrant REL stole NPREL ART lorry at Angus John
‘the vagrant who stole Angus John’s lorry’

As can be seen, the case recovery strategy is to simply leave a gap (ø) in the restrictive clause.
Because of ScG’s VSO order, this can result in problems recovering grammatical relations (A
& P) if the restrictive clause is headed by a transitive verb. Of course, discourse pragmatics
almost always disambiguate such cases:

(199) sin an duine a chunnaic mi

that-(COP) ART man REL see-PAST 1S
‘that’s the man who saw me’ or ‘that’s the man whom I saw’

All positions on Keenan and Comrie’s relativisation hierarchy can be relativised using the
relativiser-gap strategy except possessors, which use a resumptive possessive pronoun. In
obliques, the tendency is towards pied-piping + ø, but the relativiser-gap strategy is
sometimes used in coordination with a resumptive prepositional pronoun:

Table: Relativisation Strategies

EXAMPLE GLOSS POSITION STRATEGY
sin an gille a tha bochd that’s the boy who is ill subject REL + ø
sin an gille a chunnaic that’s the boy who Kate saw object REL + ø
Cèit (also ‘that’s the boy who
saw Kate’)
sin an gille a thug an that’s the boy who gave the indirect REL + ø
litir do Chèit letter to Kate object
sin an gille air an do that’s the boy on whom oblique PREP +ø
shuidh Cèit Kate sat
sin an gille a shuidh that’s the boy who Kate sat oblique REL + ø +
Cèit air on PREPPNRES
sin an gille a tha a that’s the boy whose mother possessor REL+
mhàthair bochd is ill POSSPNRES
[Lit. ‘that’s the boy who his
mother is ill’]

3.3.3 Cosubordination
There are constructions in ScG that have more than a passing resemblance to both
coordination and subordination. They share with the former the overt expression of a
conjunction (agus) although semantically, they can resemble a relative clause or an adverbial
adjunct. Compare the following, in which each first example is a case of cosubordination and
each second one, either subordination or coordination.

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‘Participle Type’
(200) dh’fhalbh Alasdair ’s an t-acras a’ tighinn air
leave-PAST Alastair CONJ ART anger PROG coming-VN ‘on him’
‘Alasdair left with hunger coming on him’

(201) dh’fhalbh Alasdair ’s bha an t-acras a’ tighinn air

‘Alasdair left and hunger was coming on him’

‘Reason Type’
(202) dh’fhalbh Alasdair agus i ’na suain
leave-PAST Alastair CONJ she in-3S-F slumber
‘Alasdair left because she was fast asleep’ [Lit. ‘…and she in her slumber’]

(203) dh’fhalbh e a chionn ’s gun robh i ’na suain

‘he left because she was fast asleep’

‘Relative Clause Type’

(204) bha duine ann ’s Aogh mar ainm dha
is-PAST man EXIST and Hugh as name ‘for him’
‘there was a man who was called Hugh’[Lit. ‘…and Hugh as a name for him’]

(205) bha duine ann agus bha Aogh mar ainm dha
‘there was a man and Aogh was his name’

‘Temporal Type’
(206) chaidh a chall a’s a’ chèo ’s e ag iasgach aig an àm
go-PAST 3s-M-POSS lose-VN in the mist-D and he PROG fishing at ART time
‘he got lost in the mist when he was fishing’ [Lit. ‘…and he at fishing at the time’]

(207) chaidh a chall a’s a’ cheò agus bha e ag iasgach aig an àm

‘he got lost in the mist and he was fishing at the time’

The problem with analysing the first clause in each case as coordinate is that they are non-
finite, yet like coordinate clauses they cannot be clefted or fronted. They cannot be regarded
as subordinate because of these facts in addition to other syntactic evidence. Structurally,
they are reduced clauses with agus in utterance-initial position - the place usually reserved for
the finite verb. They neatly fit the definition of cosubordination in RRG as they are
operationally dependent on a matrix clause for the categories of tense and illocutionary force
(which are ‘clausal operators’). It is not appropriate to call agus a subordinator, as Boyle
(1973) and O Siadhail (1984) do. Formally, it is simply a conjunction, which has the effect of
being “a virtual red flag, signalling to the hearer, ‘these ideas are related somehow, guess
how’” (Lackoff 1984, 487). Because an explicit relation is not specified, only that there is a
relation, a wide variety of semantic functions can be, and have been, ascribed to constructions
of this type. However, the semantic interpretation of any particular case is simply a product
of human logic which, given the pairing of two propositions, tries to make sense of the
association. So, what we have is logical conjunction, but clausal cosubordination. This is a
clear example of the need to keep formal and functional categories distinct.

3.4 Discourse Phenomena

There is hardly any mention in the literature of the way that Scottish Gaelic treats the
morphosyntactic coding of discourse phenomena. It is certain that the researcher who sets out
87
in earnest to investigate this area will be amply rewarded by new insights into the language.
As this grammar is a sketch, and this is a complex area, it is only possible to give it cursory
treatment here.

3.4.1 Referential Devices

There is no specific construction as such for introducing new referents into discourse
equivalent to there + COP in English, but indefinite deixis typically indicates that the referent
of an NP is unidentifiable. Normally, brand-new referents are anchored in some way, such as
to a possessive pronoun in the following construction:

(208) tha piseag ùr againn

be-PRES kitten new at-1P
‘we have a new kitten’

If there is not some other kind of predicate present for anchoring purposes of NP referents that
are unidentifiable, ann occurs as a sort of generic ‘existence’ particle (§3.1.4). This is the
common fare of ‘world creation’ genres such as storytelling, also used to state that something
simply exists (see §3.1.4):

(209) bha fuamhaire ann is ceithir làmhan air

is-PAST giant EXIST CONJ four arms on-3S-M
‘there was a giant with four arms’ [Lit. ‘there was a giant and four arms on him’]

There is a construction, particularly encountered in narrative, for introducing referents which

are to figure significantly in following discourse (taken from text in §4):

(210) ò bha an t-each mòr geal a bha an-seo a’ tighinn aca

oh is-PAST ART horse-N big white REL be-PAST here PROG come-VN at-3P
‘oh here was this big white horse coming after them’

For referents which are new to discourse but accessible, a left-dislocation construction may be
used, especially in speech. This often occurs with the phrase a bheil fhios agad ‘do you
know…’, prompting the addressee to check for an ‘old file’ dealing with the information to
follow:

(211) [a bhei]l fhios a’d an taigh mòr a tha siud

QP be-DEP knowledge at-2S ART house big REL be-PRES there
‘you know that big house (that is) there

san Àird chaidh a reic an-dè

in-ART ‘Aird’ go-PAST 3S-POSS selling-VN yesterday
in Aird it got sold yesterday’

Active, identifiable referents are usually coded as pronominals with referent switching (and
contrast in general) indicated by emphatic affixes:

(212) agus cha robh na daoinei a’ tuigsinn o’n t- saoghal

and NEG is-PAST-DEP ART men PROG understand-VN from-ART world
‘and the men didn’t understand what in the world

88
 gu dè an aon rud a bha na boireannaichj a’ faighinn
what ART one thing REL is-PAST-DEP ART women PROG get-VN
(was) the one thing that the women were getting

a bharrachd air a’ bheagan a b’ urrainn dhaibh-sani

more on ART little REL COP-INDEF2 able ‘to them’-EMPH
on top of the little that they were able

a thoirt dhaibhj
AGR give-VN ‘to them’
to give to them’

Here, there are two referents (na daoine ‘the men’; na boireannaich ‘the women’) and two
anaphors—prepositional pronouns—referring to them (dhaibh-san ‘to them [emphatic]’;
dhaibh ‘to them’). There is no differentiation for gender in the third person pronoun and in
order to make it explicit that the first occurrence of the anaphor refers to na daoine rather than
the immediately preceding referent na boireannaich, the emphatic suffix –san is used.
Functionally, in this kind of example, it seems to operate as a form of switch reference.
Continuing reference is [-emphatic] while switch reference is [+ emphatic].

3.4.2 Highlighting of Constituents

‘Highlighting’ will be understood here as the means by which a language enables certain
constituents to stand out from others in a clause, sentence, or piece of discourse55. In Scottish
Gaelic this is accomplished primarily by word order and/or an emphatic suffix.

3.4.2.1 The Emphatic Suffix –sa/-se

Dorian (1999) says that this suffix is used to ‘highlight contrasts, to place emphasis, and
generally to mark the speaker’s focus [as well as indicating] changes of focus as the speaker
takes conversational turns or moves along in a narrative’ (p.7). In some dialects, it is also
used as, or synonymously with, the proximal deictic seo (§2.1.2.2):

(213) am fear seo am fear-sa

ART man-N this ART man-N-EMPH
‘this one’ ‘this one’

But most commonly, it is used to highlight and track pronominal constituents, as in (212)
above. Intonation does not seem to be implicated in pronominal emphasis, making ScG very
different from English in this regard. Interestingly, as Dorian (1999) demonstrates, it is
possible to have a long stretch of narrative with frequent use of emphatic suffixes for the
purposes of maintaining intensity and interest. In comparison, a comparable amount of
suprasegmental emphasis in English would be disruptive for the listener56. One of the most
frequent uses of this is with the defective verb arsa57 ‘quoth’, which always takes the
emphatic form of a pronominal subject: e.g. arsa mise; ars’ esan.

55
See Miller (2000) for a typology of focus in the languages of Europe, including ScG examples—supplied by
the current author—and Irish.
56
It is also possible in writing to indicate this kind of suffix based emphasis, without having to resort to italics as
in English.
57
Arsa occurs so frequently in narrative, fragmenting clauses into ‘bite-sized chunks’, that it must serve to aid
comprehension on the part of the addressee.
89
Two examples:
(214) ’s e leabhar gu math doirbh a tha an-sin Iain tha mise a’ smaointinn sin
it’s a book very difficult that is there Ian is I at thinking that

co-dhiubh
anyway
‘that’s a very difficult book John I think that anyway’

(215) a bheil na caoraich aig Aonghas an lùib nan caoraich (sic.) agadsa
are the sheep at Angus in fold the sheep at you
‘are Angus’ sheep together with your sheep?’

It is difficult to translate the exact sense of the suffix as the emphasis is often of a different
quality and not always as pronounced as intonational emphasis is in English. For instance, in
(215) above, the gloss seems to indicate an expression of disbelief on the part of the speaker,
but this is not the case. Rather, because of the presentative nature of the utterance, the
emphatic suffix is needed to activate the referent coded by agadsa, clearly identifiable but
previously inactive.

3.4.2.2 Highlighting and Word Order

Syntactic highlighting in Scottish Gaelic is represented by clefts of various forms and the
occurrence of constituents in non-canonical (preposed and postposed) position.

Clefts
There are four basic kinds of clefting constructions in Gaelic, all employing the copula: 1)
Nominal-type Clefts (is e); 2) Non-nominal Clefts (is ann); 3) Deictic Clefts; and 4) WH-
clefts. Here we will make reference to the structure of each type of cleft, the types of
constituents that can serve as cleft heads, and some mention each cleft-type’s basic discourse
functions.

1) Nominal-type clefts serve to give prominence to NPs and nominalised elements. Like the
others, they are bi-clausal and have the form COP + 3S-M + CLEFT HEAD [REL + CLEFT CLAUSE]
as can be seen in the following:

CLEFT HEAD CLEFT CLAUSE

(216) is e Uibhisteach [a chaidh ann]
COP 3S-M Uist person REL went-PAST ‘in it’
‘it was a Uist person who went there’

CLEFT HEAD CLEFT CLAUSE

(217) is e gun do dh’ith mi am biadh sin [a thug orm a bhith
COP 3S-M CMPL eat-PAST-DEP 1S ART food that REL give ‘on me’ be-INF

cho bochd]
so ill
‘it is that I ate that food which caused mi to be so ill’

This type of cleft can closely resemble the proper inclusion/identificational construction,
(covered in §3.1.1) when the cleft clause contains ann ‘there/in it’ as in (216) above, but it
should be distinguished from it. This is easily accomplished as most nominal-type clefts have
a related, non-marked allosentence whereas most identificational constructions do not:
90
Identificational Construction:
(218) ’s e Uibhisteach a th’ ann ‘he is a Uist man’ [Lit. ‘it is a Uist man that is in him’]
*tha Uibhisteach ann58 ‘a Uist man is in him’

Cleft Construction
(219) ’s e Uibhisteach a chaidh ann ‘it is a Uist man who went there’
chaidh Uibhisteach ann ‘a Uist-man went there’

One of the functions of this kind of cleft is in marking contrastive focus. In the dialogue
below, the negative copula chan e serves to contest the proposition that James left with the car
and speaker 2 asserts, with ‘marked narrow focus’ (Lambrecht 1994), that it was actually Ian
who left with it:

(220) 1> mhothaich mi gun do dh’fhalbh Seumas leis a’ chàr

‘I noticed that James left with the car’

2> chan e ’s e Iain a dh’fhalbh leis

NEG-COP 3S-M COP-3S-M Ian REL go-PAST with-3S-M
‘it isn’t (‘no’) - it is Ian who left with it’

Is e (or ’s e) can never be used with non-nominal elements and should not be confused with
the copular constructions in §3.1.2. For instance, the following is ungrammatical:

(221) *’s e brèagha a bha am boireannach

COP beautiful REL be-PAST ART woman-N
‘it is lovely that the women was’

In order to front adjectives and other non-nominals, the construction covered next must be
used.

2) Non-nominal type clefts serve to highlight constituents such as PPs, adverbials, adjectives,
and adjuncts but never nominals. They have the form COP + ann (+ CLEFT HEAD) [REL +
CLEFT CLAUSE]:

CLEFT HEAD CLEFT CLAUSE

(222) is ann [an-dè] [a dh’fhalbh Iain leis a’ chàr]
‘it is yesterday that Ian left with the car’

This construction can be used to assert contrastive focus as with nominal-type clefts. It can be
also used to highlight whole clauses, with a kind of marked sentence focus difficult to render
in English:

(223) ’s ann a bha e a’ toirt bhuaithe

COP FOC REL is-PAST 3S-M PROG take-VN from-3S-M

a’ chuid a b’ fheàrr dhen bhith-beò chaol a bh’

ART part REL COP-INDEF2 good-COMP of-ART livelihood thin REL is-PAST

58
This is acceptable if the reading is ‘a Uist-man is there’.
91
 aige
at-3S-M
?‘it was that he was taking from him the greater part of the meagre livelihood that he
had’

This kind of construction serves to sum-up and highlight. The speaker is not simply saying
that the ACTOR mentioned took the other man’s livelihood, but that what he did was take from
him his livelihood. However, the construction is intrinsically different than the WH-cleft used
here, and much more facile than the translation provided above would indicate.

Between the two cleft types covered up to this point, almost any constituent can be given
prominence. Using the simple clause ‘Mary will give the money to Neil tomorrow’ we can
see how this plays out (the following examples adapted from Macaulay 1993, 189-90):

(224) bheir Màiri an t-airgead do Niall a-màireach

give-INDEF1 Mary ART money to Neil tomorrow
‘Mary will give the money to Neil tomorrow’

a. is e Màiri [a bheir an t-airgead do Niall a-màireach]

‘it is Mary who will give the money to Neil tomorrow’ (subject NP)

b. is e an t-airgead [a bheir Màiri do Niall a-màireach]

‘it is the money that Mary will give…’ (object NP)

c. is e Niall [dhan toir Màiri an t-airgead a-màireach]

COP 3S-M Neil to-ART give-INDEF1 Mary ART money tomorrow
‘it is Neil to whom Mary will give the money tomorrow’ (NP of PP)

d. ’s ann do Niall a bheir Màiri an t-airgead a-màireach

‘it is to Neil that Mary will give the money tomorrow’ (PP)

e. ’s ann a-màireach a bheir Màiri an t-airgead do Niall

‘it is tomorrow that Mary will give the money to Niall’ (adjunct)

Verbal cores can also be given prominence in this way:

(225) ’s ann a’ toirt an airgid do Niall a bhitheas Màiri

COP-FOC PROG give-VN ART money-G to Neil REL be-FUT-REL Mary

a-màireach
tomorrow
?‘it is giving the money to Neil that Mary will be tomorrow’

Or even full clauses:

(226) ’s ann a bhitheas Màiri a’ toirt an airgid do Niall a-màireach
‘it is that Mary will will be giving the money to Neill tomorrow’

3) Deictic clefts are essentially equative copular constructions with a demonstrative in subject
position followed by the predicate and a relative clause: (COP + 1S-M +) DEMSUB + NPPRED +
[REL + CLEFT CLAUSE]. Some examples:

92
(227) sin am boireannach a bheir an t-airgead do Niall
that ART woman REL give-INDEF1 ART money to Neil
‘that’s the woman who will give the money to Neil’

(228) ’s e siud an seòrsa rud a tha thu ag iarraidh

COP-3S-M that ART kind (of) thing REL be-PRES 2S PROG want-VN
‘that’s the kind of thing that you want’

This construction seems to grammaticalise a function similar to reverse WH clefts in English,

which either direct the addressee to some earlier point of discourse—as for summing up—or
highlight some item from the physical context. It is also possible to have simple deictic
equative constructions without a relative clause:

(229) seo am bràthair aige

this-(COP) ART brother ‘at him’
‘this (is) his brother’

4) WH clefts (sometimes called pseudo-clefts) present a reversal of the focus position59

inherent to the other cleft types above: 1) in nominal-type clefts it occurs immediately after e;
2) in non-nominal type clefts it follows ann; 3) in deictic clefts, it occurs after the
demonstrative. WH clefts, on the other hand, prepose ‘old’ or ‘predictable’ material while
postposing the focus.

PRESUPPOSED FOCUS
(230) is e a th’ ann ach brògan Choinnich
COP 3S-M REL be-PRES ‘in it’ but shoes Kenneth-G
?‘what it is is Kenneth’s shoes’

In this example, the presupposition is that ‘there is something “in it” (there)’. The bit that is
added to make a new assertion is that the ‘something that is in it’ is Kenneth’s shoes. The
word ach is optional—and subject to dialectal variation60—but serves to explicitly set off the
‘old/presupposed’ from the ‘new/unpredictable’ material. The use of ach in this way is
parallel to the exhaustive listing construction:

(231) cha robh ann ach brògan Choinnich

NEG is-PAST-DEP ‘in it’ but shoes Kenneth-G
‘it was only Kenneth’s shoes’ [Lit. ‘it wasn’t but Kenneth’s shoes’]

Semantically, but not pragmatically, equivalent WH-cleft allosentences can obtain depending
on where the copula is placed:

(232) an aon rud a bhiodh math aice ’s e meter fhaighinn

ART one thing REL be-INDEF2 good at-3S-F COP-3S-M meter get-VN
‘the one thing that would be good for her (to have) it’s getting a meter’

59
The ‘focus position’ serves to mark the unpredictable part of the assertion and is not retrievable from context
or previous knowledge (Lambrecht 1994).
60
However, the same cleft type occurs in Irish, also using ach as a kind of focus marker. See Ó Siadhail 1989,
336.
93
(233) ’s e an aon rud a bhiodh math aice (ach) meter fhaighinn
‘it’s the one thing that would be good for her (to have) - getting a meter’

If this is revamped as a nominal-type cleft, it is easy to perceive the difference in focus:

(234) ’s e meter fhaighinn an aon rud a bhiodh math aice

‘getting a meter is the one thing that would be good for her’

Non-Canonical Word Order

Preposed nominals are either pre-core (‘topicalised’/ ‘fronted’) or extraclausal, being in a left-
detached position (also called ‘left-dislocation’ or ‘NC-Clause’: Miller & Weinert 1998):

(235) Canonical: cha ghabhadh Seumas am biadh

NEG take-INDEF2 James ART food
‘James wouldn’t eat the food’

Pre-core: am biadhi cha ghabhadh Seumas øi

‘the food James wouldn’t eat’

Left-dislocation: am biadhi cha ghabhadh Seumas ei

‘the food James wouldn’t eat it’

Lambrecht (1994) explores the differences between these in some depth and Van Valin &
LaPolla (1997) postulate universal syntactic positions to accommodate the fact that
constructions of these types are common in the world’s languages. One of the functions of
left-dislocation is to separate role and reference, which are normally kept apart in speech
(Chafe 1992). It can also be used to introduce new referents which, in canonical position,
would be too heavy or complex (Prince 1997, 124). Lambrecht (1994) also states that left-
dislocation can be used to shift between 2 or 3 active referents in discourse and, in this way,
can be considered to have a contrastive function.

The phrase a thaobh ‘as for’ is sometimes used in writing where simple left-dislocation is felt
to be inappropriate for the register at hand, as in English:

(236) a thaobh an òraini a rinneadh an 1702 chan urrainn

as for ART song-G REL make-PAST-IMPERS in 1702 NEG-COP able

nach e
NEG-COP-DEP it
‘as for the song that was made in 1702 it can’t be that it wasn’t…’

Right- and centre-dislocation also occur in ScG, especially in unplanned, spoken discourse:

(237) Right-dislocation: cha ghabhadh Seumas ei am biadhi

‘James wouldn’t eat it the food’

Centre-dislocation: cha ghabhadh ei Seumasi am biadh

‘he James wouldn’t eat the food’

94
At a basic level, these seem to work to further specify a referent that, although active, might
not be immediately identifiable from context if presented only as an anaphor. Gillies (1993,
208) interprets right-dislocation in ScG as due to the decaying of the copula or the
disappearance of synthetic verbal forms. Evidence in Watson (1927) points to another
interpretation: ‘[the] use of the pronoun with forward reference to a noun which is added as a
sort of afterthought or explanation is an old and characteristic Gaelic idiom’ (p.318). He
substantiates this with an example from Middle Irish: often an infixed third person singular
pronoun is followed by its reference, a full NP, as in ro-s-foglaim na gnímu ‘he has learned
them the deeds’. In light of this, it seems better to construe right-detachment in ScG as the
manifestation of an information structure strategy available to human language rather than a
decaying of some sort.

3.4.3 Discourse Particles, Parenthetical Statements, and Interjections

Schiffrin (1987, 37) defines discourse particles as ‘sequentially dependent elements which
bracket units of talk’. They are characterised as: 1) having low syntactic relevance (they can
be deleted from an utterance without impinging on its well-formedness); 2) frequently
occurring at the beginning of an utterance; 3) having a range of prosodic contours; and 4)
being able to have a variety of meanings depending on discourse characteristics. Scottish
Gaelic has several regularly occurring lexical items fitting this criteria. These deserve a
proper study in context and it would be premature to comment on their specific functions
here.

Discourse particles that have been derived from English are frequent and obvious, especially
to the non Gaelic-speaker: ò ‘oh’; uell ‘well’; so ‘so’; okay. These seem to have been
imported wholesale into the language along with the conventional functions attached to them.
Other discourse particles are clearly Goidelic in origin: seadh ‘right’; ma-tha ‘then’; och; a-
nis(d) ‘now’; an-dà ‘well’61; co-dhiubh ‘anyway’. These feature prominently in almost any
spoken register (except an-dà), especially those that are interactional. It would be interesting
to see if there are any robust collocations between these and other specific phrases.

There are many fixed clausal expressions in Gaelic which can be used ‘parenthetically’ to
modify the force of a proposition (also see the hedges and emphatics in §2.1.5.4). Here is a
sampling, some of which clearly have an epistemic function:

cha chreid mi ‘I believe’62

channainnsa ‘I (EMPH) would say’
feumaidh ‘it must be’
fhios agad ‘you know’
is dòcha ‘perhaps’
tha cuimhne agam ‘I remember’
tha mi ’creidsinn ‘I believe’
tha mi cinnteach ‘I am sure’

Gaelic interjections, exclamations and imprecations, caricatured in ‘Highland literature’ such

as Whisky Galore, are numerous and colourful. One of the better collections of these is
Campbell (1997). Some interjections are seemingly ideophonic, consisting of mono- or di-
syllabic words which can reduplicate (and usually do) for greater effect. One remarkable
Gaelic characteristic is ingressive speech. This is particularly pronounced, and most

61
Uncommon in modern speech, but often seen in folk tale transcriptions.
62
This comes from the double negative—cha chreid mi + a negative complement clause—but the complement
clause is elided.
95
frequently heard with interjections, particularly ‘aye’, which can sound like the speaker,
whilst agreeing with his or her addressee(s), is simultaneously inhaling. But multi-syllabic
words, phrases, and even entire monologues—in particularly skilled ‘circular breathers’—can
be performed ingressively. Although this tendency is easily lampooned in imitations of the
‘Highlanders’, it is not restricted to the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. The first time the author
heard ingressive affirmation was in Cape Breton. He then noticed it throughout Maritime
Canada (settled by Gaelic-speakers in large numbers) and in Ireland. If it were not also a
feature of some Scandinavian speech (possibly a indication of its origins), it could be
appropriately called the ‘Gaelic Gasp’. It is one of the special characteristics of Gaelic
orality, with as yet unascertained discourse functions.

Here are some of the more common interjections to be heard in Uist:

àidh àidh ‘aye aye’ [can be either ‘right/yes’ or ‘yeah right/as if’]
isd ‘be quiet’ [from èisd ‘listen’]
obh obh ‘oh no’; expression of mild disapproval
och och pity, concern
thalla ‘away with you’; disbelief
ud ud ‘tut tut’
uell uell ‘well well’ (should be performed ingressively for full effect)

Exclamations are usually in the form of short phrases, often vocatives which call up a
religious personage or make reference to an abstract feeling or concept:

(a) Dhia Dhia ‘oh God oh God’

(a) Dhia nan gràsan ‘oh God of the graces’
(a) Mhoire Mhàthair ‘oh Mother Mary’ (S. Uist)
(a) Mhoire Mhoire ‘oh Mary Mary’ (S. Uist)
(a) Shìorraidh ‘oh eternity’
(a) Thì nam buadh ‘oh Lord of the virtues’
(a) thiacais fhèin ‘for goodness sake’
(a) Thighearna ’s a Dhia ‘oh Lord and God’
an diabhal mise ‘the devil me’ [‘damn’]
Dia dham bheannachadh ‘God bless me’
Dia dham chuideachadh ‘God help me’
Dia dham shàbhaladh ‘God save me’
m’eudail ‘my dear’
mas fhìor ‘yeah right; as if’
ma thogair ‘it doesn’t matter; who cares’
mo chreach ‘my destruction’
mo nàire ‘my shame’

It is often said that Gaelic has no obscene curse words. However, the crux of the difference
between Gaelic and English, in this respect, may be that lexical obscenity is relative in Gaelic
whereas it tends be categorical in English. Certainly, part of this has to do with prohibitions
concerning the written language, which are not very relevant for a primarily oral language
such as Gaelic. A taboo word like ‘fuck’ is semantically empty (except when having explicit
sexual reference); it is offensive because it is understood as being so. In Gaelic, there seem to
be few such taboo words. As in many other cultures, children are scolded for blasphemy
(many of the above expressions would secure a slap) and for mentioning taboo body parts, but
words like cac ‘excrement’ or galla ‘bitch’ do not seem to be vulgar by nature, only by
96
application. Imprecations are more semantically rich and perhaps more varied than they are
in English. However, like other spoken genres, it seems that Gaelic imprecation is a dying art
and that English curses are quickly supplanting ones like the following (most from
MacPherson 1945):

droch bhàs ort ‘a bad death on you’

gonadh ort ‘wounding to you’
guma h-anmoch dhut ‘may it be late63 for you’
gun bhuaidh ort ‘without success to you’
mhic an deamhain ‘oh son of the demon’
mhic an fhir nach can mi ‘son of the one I won’t say’
mo mhallachd ort ‘my cursing on you’
Taigh Iain Ghròta ort ‘House of John O’ Groats on you’
taigh na galla(dh) ort ‘house of the bitch on you’
thalla is cac ‘away and shite’ (often used in jest)
thoir an droch àite ort ‘take the bad place on you’ [‘go to hell’]

3.5 Influence of English

A sketch of the Gaelic language could hardly be said to be complete without mentioning
English. The influence of English on Gaelic has been pervasive and deep, with consequences
to every linguistic front from phonetics to discourse and register. We can only touch on some
of the general morphosyntactic trends here and much more research is needed on this area, but
interested readers should consult Gillies (1980) and Macaulay (1982b; 1986) for more
information.

Generally, effects are most pronounced, as expected, in those speakers most immersed in
English mass culture. There is certainly a great deal of idiolectal variance in this area with
some speakers exhibiting a firm division between Gaelic and English production and others
constantly mixing and flowing between the two. Most speakers borrow freely from the
English lexicon and use calqued expressions side-by-side native idioms – a natural state of
affairs in this type of language contact situation. Whereas in late 19th century or early 20th
century Uist, one who spoke mostly English would have been thought to be ‘putting on airs’,
nowadays those Gaelic speakers who do not switch and borrow are similarly marked.

Borrowed lexical items can be either assimilated to Gaelic phonology to various degrees,
presented unassimilated, or morphologically calqued (rare and generally contrived for specific
purposes):

•
•
Assimilated: buntàta ‘potato’
Partly Assimilated: a’ train-adh air a shon ‘training for it’ [ ‘train’ + -adh most productive

•
of the verbal noun suffixes]

•
Unassimilated: na sandwiches agad ‘your sandwiches’
Calqued: crios-sàbhalaidh ‘safety-belt’[Lit. crios ‘belt’ + sàbhalaidh ‘saving’ (genitive
case)]

Grammatical and high-frequency words such as prepositions are rarely borrowed, but almost
any content word (e.g. nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbal nouns) can be adopted without

63
Refers to the belief that dead spirits, fairies, and generally bad things were afoot at night and could catch one
unawares.
97
alteration. Nouns and adjectives may or may not inflect for case depending generally on the
speaker/writer’s perceived formality of the situation and whether or not the word form is
capable of such mutation (see §2.1.1.4). Calqued phrases are also ubiquitous, with some
being particularly tenacious and often preferred over native idioms:

Calque English Origin Gaelic Alternative Gloss

a’ dèanamh suas making up a’ cruthachadh ‘shaping’
(creating)
a’ dèanamh suas making up your a’ cur romhad ‘putting before
d’inntinn mind you’
a’ gabhail àite taking place a’ tachairt ‘happening’
ga iùsaigeadh using it ga chur gu feum ‘putting it to
use’
gabh thairis take over gabh os làimh ‘take in hand’
supposed a bhith supposed to be tha dùil gum bi/ ‘it is expected to
tha còir gum bi be’/ ‘it should
be’
tha mi a’ coimhead I’m looking tha fiughair agam ris ‘I have hope of
air adhart ris forward to it tha fadachd orm ris it’
a’ coimhead airson looking for a’ sireadh searching

Although language-internal processes have levelled many of ScG’s indigenous morphological

contrasts over the past centuries, the move towards simplification of the verbal and case
systems has no doubt intensified through contact with English. With each successive
generation of English-speaking bilinguals, a greater amount of these kinds of effects have
occurred. Generally, there is a trend towards the preference of periphrasis over inflection.
Some examples of these trends:

•
•
the decay of person-marking inflection on the verb (§2.0.1)

•
levelling of case and gender distinctions, particularly in genitive constructions (§2.1.1.4)

•
the growing tendency for first-place verbs to be auxiliaries rather than main verbs
the use in younger speakers of tha and chan eil as generalised responses for polar
questions, corresponding to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively (see the discussion of polar

•
questions in ‘Mode’)
use of the INDEF2 copular form only in very limited contexts, such as with ‘composite

•
verbs’ (§3.2.3)

•
lack of tense agreement on the marker of comparatives and superlatives (§2.1.4.3)
substitution of VO order for OV (inverted nominals: see §3.2.2) as in *feuchainn ri stad
a’ bhuill ‘trying to stop the ball’ calqued on English; this would normally be feuchainn ri

•
am ball a stad ‘trying to the ball stop’
blanket use of periphrastic possession with aig where semantic distinctions would have
formerly been made, for example with inalienables (see §2.1.1.5 and Macaulay 1982)

Code-switching is the rule in nearly all natural Gaelic conversations. No empirical study has
been done on the sociolinguistic conditioning factors and syntactic consequences of code-
switching in ScG (but see Cram 1981; 1986; Macaulay 1982) and it does not seem wise to
offer an unsatisfying entry into this enormously complex topic at present. There is much that
could be done, however, and it would be particularly interesting to view the age differences in
this area. It seems reasonable that one of the first steps to researching code-switching in ScG
would be the collection of new data, particularly that garnered through naturalistic recording
98
of informal conversations as opposed to experimental means. Although Lamb (2002) offers a
beginning in this area, there is a clearly a need for large language corpora64 of this kind to
offer a sufficiently extensive and varied data base.

64
Around a million words would be a reasonable goal at this time.
99
4 Sample Text: Oral Folk Tale65
bha am fear seo à Beinn na Faoghla shuas co-dhiubh agus ’s e
be-PAST ART man-N this from mountain-N ART ford-G up-LOC anyway and COP 3s
‘this man from Benbecula was up anyway and it is a man

fear ris an cainnte Mac a’ Phì a bh’ ann

man-N to COMP say-INDEF2-IMPER-DEP MacPhee REL be-PAST ‘in it’
who was called MacPhee who was in it

chan eil fhios a’m dè a’ chiad ainm a bh’ aige co-dhiubh

be-PRES-DEP knowledge at-1S what(COP) ART first name-N REL be-PAST ‘at him’ anyway
I don’t know what his first name was anyway

ach tha e coltach gu robh cù mòr aige agus hà cha robh

but is-PRES 3S-M seem COMP be-PAST-DEP dog-N big at-3S-M and um NEG is-PAST-DEP
but it seems that he had a big dog and um there was

sian a dh’fheum sa chù ’s bhiodh a h-uile duine riamh a’ ràdh ris

any of use in-ART dog-D and be-INDEF2 every man ever PROG say-VN to-3S-M
no use in the dog and every single person would say to him

ò cuir às dhan chù nach robh feum ann ’s fhreagairteadh e

oh put-IMP out to-ART dog-D NEG be-PAST-DEP use in-3S-M and answer-INDEF2 3S-M
oh put the dog down there no use in him and he would answer

an còmhnaidh ’s e gun robh leigeadh aige fhèin aig cù Mhic a’ Phì

always COP-3S-M COMP be-PAST-DEP ability at-3S-M REFL at dog-D MacPhee-G
always it’s that MacPhee’s dog would prove himself someday

agus co-dhiubh bliadhna a bha an-seo chaidh e fhèin

and anyway year REL be-PAST here go-PAST 3S-M REFL
and anyway this [one] year he himself

agus seachdar ghillean eile às a’ bhaile chaidh iad a-mach

and seven-PN boys-G other out of ART town go-PAST 3P out-DIR
and seven other lads from out of town they went out

a chuir air dòigh nan àiridhean a-muigh a rubh’ Eubhal agus an oidhche seo
to put-INF on order ART sheilings out-LOC to point Eaval and ART night this
to put the shilings in order out at Eaval point and this one night

co-dhiubh nuair a bha iad deiseil dhen obair ’s shuidh iad a-staigh
anyway when REL be-PAST 3P ready of-ART work-D and sit-PAST 3P in-LOC
anyway when they were done with the work and they had sat down inside

aig an teine ’s thuirt na gillean ò ars' esan nach bochd a-neisd

at ART fire-D and say-PAST ART boys oh quoth 3S-M-EMPH NEG-COP poor now
at the fire and the lads [sic.] said oh he said isn’t it too bad now

nach tigeadh seachd nìghnean a-staigh ’s ò ars’ am bodach

NEG come-INDEF2-DEP seven girls-N in-LOC and oh quoth DET old man
that seven girls wouldn’t come in and oh said the old man

is sibh a thubhairt an droch rud agus hà co-dhiubh thàinig gnogadh dhan doras
COP 2P REL say-PAST ART bad thing and um anyway come-PAST knocking to-ART door
isn’t it you who said the bad thing and anyway there came a knocking to the door

65
Local legend known as ‘Cù Dubh Mhic-a-Phì (‘MacPhee’s Black Dog’), narrated by Alaistair MacDonald of
Croismoraig, North Uist in 1998.
100
’s a-staigh a thàinig a’ chailleach a bha an-seo ’s seachd nìghnean
and in-LOC REL come-PAST ART old woman-N REL is-PAST here and seven girls-N
and in came this old woman and seven girls

’s co-dhiubh ’s chaidh na gillean ’s na h-ìghnean sìos a cheann

and anway and go-PAST ART boys-N and ART girls down-LOC to end
and anyway and the lads and girls went down down to the far end

shìos na h-àiridhe co-dhiubh agus thà bha am bodach

down-LOC ART shieling-G anyway and um is-PAST ART old man-N
of the shieling anyway and the old man was

cha robh e uabhasach toilichte ’s bha e ’cumail sùil

NEG PAST 3S-M terrible pleased and is-PAST 3S-M PROG-keep-VN eye-N
he wasn’t terribly pleased and he was keeping an eye

’s seo a chunnaic e fuil a’ tighinn a-nuas fon doras

and here REL see-PAST 3S-M blood-N PROG come-VN down under-ART door-D
and here he sees blood coming down from under the door

às a’ cheann eile ’s thuirt e ris a’ chaillich co-dhiubh ars’ esan

out ART end other and say-PAST 3S-M to ART old woman-D anyway quoth 3S-M-EMPH
out of the other end and he said to old woman anyway he said

tha fasan agamsa a h-uile h-oidhche a bhith a’ dol a-mach a choimhead

be-PRES fashion at-1S-EMPH every night to be-INF PROG go-VN out-DIR to look-INF
I have the habit of going out every night to look

gu faic mi dè an t-sìde airson an larna-mhàireach

to see-INDEF1-DEP 1S what-COP ART weather-N for ART morrow-G
in order that I (might) see what the weather is for the morrow

toir sùil air an aimsir ò ars’ ise mun tèid thu a-mach ma-tha
give-VN eye-N on ART weather oh quoth 1S-F-EMPH before go-INDEF1-DEP 2S out-LOC then
have a look on the weather oh she said before you go out then

thoir leat ceann eile dhen t-sìomain tha an-siud

take-IMP with-2S end other of-ART twisted-rope REL-be-PRES there
take with you the other end of that rope there

’ar a bhiodh iad a-staigh air an oidhche bhiodh iad

when REL be-INDEF-2 3P in-LOC on DAT night-D be-INDEF-2 3P
when they used to be inside at night they would be

a’ dèanamh sìomain fraoich aig an teine gus a bhith aca

PROG do-VN twisted-rope heather-G at ART fire in order to be-INF at-3P
making a twisted heather rope at the fire so that would have it

airson an tughadh a chumail air an àirigh is gnothaichean bheir leat

for ART thatch-N AGR keep-VN on ART sheiling-D and things take-IMP with-2S
for to keep the thatching on the shieling and things take with you

ceann an t-sìamain ’s cùm teann e gum bi fios agamsa

end ART twisted-rope and keep-IMP tight 3S-M so be-INDEF1-DEP knowledge at-1S-EMPH
the end of the rope and keep it tight so that I’ll know

gum bi thu aig ceann an t-sìomain ’s nach teich thu air falbh
COMP be-INDEF1 2S at end ART twisted-rope and NEG flee-INDEF1-DEP 2S away
that you are at the other end of the rope and that you won’t run away

101
agus sin a rinn e thug e a-mach ceann an t-sìomain leis
and that-COP REL do-PAST 3S-M take-PAST 3S-M out-DIR end ART rope-G with-3S-M
and that’s what he did he took out the end of the rope with him

agus cho luath ’s a fhuair e a-mach air an doras cheangail e an sìomain

and as fast and REL get-PAST 3S-M out-DIR on ART door-D tie-PAST 3S-M ART rope-N
and as fast as he got out of the door he tied the rope

leis an tughadh a bh’ air bàrr na h-àiridhe ’s dh'fheuch e air falbh

with ART thatch-D REL be-PAST on top ART shieling-G and try 3S-M away
onto the thatch that was on the top of the shieling and he ran off

dhan a’ bhaile cho luath ’s a bh’ aige e fhèin ’s an cù

to ART town-D as fast and REL be-PAST at-3S-M 3S-M REFL and ART dog-N
to the town as fast as he could manage - himself and the dog

agus ach co-dhiubh an ceann ùine thug e sùil as a dhèidh ’s

and but anyway in end time-G give-PAST 3S-M eye-N ‘after him’ and
and but anyway in a short time he had a look behind him and

ò bha an t-each mòr geal a bha an-seo a’ tighinn uca

oh is-PAST ART horse-N big white REL be-PAST here PROG come-VN at-3P
oh here was this big white horse coming at them

tarsainn na mònaidh ò bha an t-each mòr geal a bha seo a’ tighinn uca
across ART moor-G oh is-PAST ART horse-N big white REL was here PROG come-VN at-3P
across the moors oh here was this big white horse coming at them

tarsainn na mònaidh aig astar eagallach as a dhèidh agus thionndaidh e ris a’ chù
across ART moor-G at speed-D frightfull ‘after him’ and turn-PAST 3S-M to ART dog-D
across the moors at a frightful speed after him and he turned to the dog

’s thuirt e ò ars’ esan a chù dubh Mhic a’ Phì mur an do rinn thu
and quoth 3S-M oh quoth 3S-M VOC dog-V black MacPhee-G if-NEG do-PAST-DEP 2S
and he said oh said he oh black dog MacPhee if you have never done it

a-riamh e nì thu a-nochd e agus siud an cù am bad an eich

ever 3S-M do-INDEF1 2S tonight 3S-M and that-COP ART dog-N in place ART horse-G
before you’ll do it tonight and there’s the dog right at the horse

’s thòisich iad ri blàr an-shin

and begin-PAST 3P to battle-VN there-LOC
and they began to battle there and

’s fhuair esan às gu baile co-dhiubh ’s dh'fhàg e

and get-PAST 3S-M-EMPH out-3S-M to town-D anyway and leave-PAST 3S-M
and he got away to town anyway and he left

an t-each ’s an cù a’ sabaid air a’ mhònadh ’s ’ar a thàinig e

ART horse-N and ART dog-N PROG fight-VN on ART moor and when REL come-PAST 3S-M
the horse and the dog fighting on the moors and when he came

dhachaidh chuir e seachd miasan bainne a-mach ri taobh an dorais

home-DIR put-PAST 3S-M seven dishes milk-G out-DIR to side ART door-G
home he put seven dishes of milk out beside the door

's dhùin e an doras ’s nuair a dh'èirich e

and close-PAST 3S-M ART door-N and when REL rise-PAST 3S-M
and he closed the door and when he arose

102
air madainn larna-mhàireach bha an cù an-shin
on morning-D next-day-G is-PAST ART dog-N there-LOC
the next morning the dog was there

’s bha e air am bainne òl ’s hà cha robh sgath gaoisid

and is-PAST 3S-M after ART milk-N drink-VN and um NEG is-PAST-DEP any fur-G
and he had drank the milk and there wasn’t a bit of hair

air a’ chù bha an t-each air a losgadh dheth

on ART dog-D is-PAST ART horse-N PERF 3S-POSS burn-VN off-3S-M
on the dog the horse had burned it off him

sin agad stòiridh a’ choin

there-COP at-2S story ART dog-G
there you have the story of the dog’

103
Appendix 1: Suppletive (‘Irregular’) Verbs
The forms given in the following tables are not meant to be exhaustive as there is significant
dialectal variation with these verbs.

A. Active Voice
Root/Imperative Verbal Form Past Indef. 1 Indef. 1 Indef.2
Noun ‘Future’ Relative ‘Conditional’
Abair say ràdh(a) Ind. thuirt abraidh dh’abras dh’abradh
ràdh(a) thubhairt their their theireadh
ràitinn Dep. tuirt abair abradh
tubhairt
Beir catch, bear breith Ind. rug beiridh bheireas bheireadh
Dep. do rug beir beireadh
Bi66 be a bhith Ind. bha bidh bhios bhiodh
(INF only) bhitheas bhitheadh
Dep. robh bi biodh
Cluinn hear cluinntinn Ind. chuala cluinnidh chluinneas chluinneadh
cluinnteil Dep. cuala cluinn cluinneadh
Dèan do, make dèanamh Ind. rinn nì nì dhèanadh
dèanadh Dep. do rinn dèan dèanadh
Faic see faicinn Ind. chunnaic chì chì chitheadh
Dep. faca faic faiceadh
Faigh find, get faighinn Ind. fhuair gheibh gheibh gheibheadh
gheobh gheobh gheobhadh
Dep. d’fhuair faigh faigheadh
Rach go dol Ind. chaidh thèid thèid rachadh
thalla go away reidheadh
dheigheadh
Dep. deach(aidh)67 tèid rachadh
d’reidheadh
deigheadh
Ruig arrive, ruigsinn Ind. ràinig ruigidh ruigeas ruigeadh
reach ruigheachd
Dep. do ràinig ruig ruigeadh
Thig come tighinn Ind. thàinig thig thig thigeadh
Dep. tàinig tig tigeadh
Thoir take, give, a’ toirt Ind. thug bheir bheir bheireadh
bring a’ toir
Dep. tug toir toireadh

66
For the present tense forms of bi, see §2.2.1.2.
67
In Uist, deachaidh is usually only used in responses and tag questions.
104
B. Passive Voice: Impersonal forms
These should not be confused with true passives as such: see discussion in §2.2.2.2. To
construct the impersonal form of the 2nd indefinite, some dialects (e.g. parts of Lewis) use a
different suffix –ist(e)68. For example, instead of theirte one finds theirist(e).

Root/Imperative Form Past Indef. 1 Indef. 1 Indef.2

‘Future’ Relative ‘Conditional’
Abair say Ind. thuirteadh abrar dh’abrar dh’abairte
thubhairteadh theirear theirear theirte
Dep. tuirteadh abrar abairte
tubhairteadh teirear
Beir catch, bear Ind. rugadh beirear bheirear bheirte
Dep. do rugadh beirear beirte
Bi be Ind. bhathar bithear bhithear bhite
bhathas bhithist
robhar bithear bite
robhas bithist
Cluinn hear Ind. chualadh cluinn(t)ear chluinn(t)ear chluinnte
chualas
Dep. cualadh cluinn(t)ear cluinnte
cualas
Dèan do, make Ind. rinneadh nithear nithear dhèante
nitear nitear
Dep. do rinneadh dèantar dèante
Faic see Ind. chunnacadh chithear chitear chite
chunnacas
Dep. facadh faic(t)ear faicte
facas
Faigh find, get Ind. fhuaradh gheibh(t)ear gheibh(t)ear gheibhte
fhuaras gheobhar gheobhar
Dep. d’fhuaradh faigh(t)ear faighte
d’fhuaras
Rach go Ind. chaidheas thèidear thèidear rachte
rachar reighte
dheighte
Dep. deachas tèidear rachte
d’rachar d’reighte
deighte
Ruig arrive, reach Ind. ràinigeadh ruigear ruigear ruigte
ràinigear
ràineas
Dep. do ràinigeadh ruigear ruigte
do ràinigear
do ràineas
Thig come Ind. thàinigeadh thig(t)ear thig(t)ear thigte
thàinigeas
Dep. tàinigeadh tig(t)ear tigte
tàinigeas
Thoir take, give, Ind. thugadh bheirear bheirear bheirte
bring thugas thoirte
thugte
Dep. tugadh toirear toirte
tugas tugar tugte

68
The dropping of the vowel after a terminal consonant is common to the Lewis dialect.
105
Appendix 2: The 100 Most Common Words of Scottish Gaelic
This list was generated by searching a 60,000 word subset of the corpus. The abbreviations
employed below are glossed on page 5. By referring to the Gaelic glossary that follows,
readers may find examples of these words in the text.

1) a PREP. ‘to’, ‘at’, ‘into’ 22) cha(n) NEG. ‘not’; used with
VOC. used to address a person or thing: e.g. a independent verb forms
Sheumais ‘oh James’ 23) nach NEG. ‘not’; used with
3S-POSS. ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’: e.g. a cù her dog; dependent verb forms
a chù his dog 24) mi 1S. ‘me’, ‘I’
REL. ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘who’, etc. 25) i 3S-F. ‘her’, ‘she’
2) an ART. singular form of ‘the’ 26) eil V. dependent form of the
3P-POSS. ‘their’ present tense verb ‘to be’
3) a’ ART. singular form of ‘the’ 27) mar PREP. ‘like’, ‘as’
4) air PREP. ‘on’, ‘on him/it’ 28) bheil V. dependent form of the
5) tha V. independent form of the present tense present tense verb ‘to be’ (see eil)
verb ‘to be’ 29) ri PREP. ‘to’, ‘with’
6) e 3S-M. ‘him’, ’he’, ’it’ 30) seo DEM. ‘this’, ‘here’
7) na ART. plural form of ‘the’; singular form 31) anns PREP. ‘in’ + definite article
of feminine genitive: e.g. na h-obrach ‘of the 32) de PREP. ‘of’
work’ 33) chaidh V. ‘went’
REL. headless relative meaning ‘all that’ 34) nan ART. genitive plural definite
8) agus CONJ. ‘and’ article before non-labials: e.g. fèis
9) bha V. past tense of verb ‘to be’ nan òran ‘festival of the songs’
10) ann PREP. ‘in’, ‘in him/it’ CONJ. ‘if’
11) ’s CONJ. abbreviation of agus ‘and’ 35) ag PROG. progressive aspect
V. abbreviation of the copular form of verb marker, ‘at’
‘to be’ is (present tense and 1st indefinite) 36) bhith V. infinitive of the verb ‘to
12) gu PREP. ‘to’ be’
PART. occurs before adverbs: e.g. gu 37) eile ADJ. ‘other’
cunbhalach ‘steadily’ 38) le PREP. ‘with’, ‘by’
COMP. ‘that’ 39) fhèin REFL. reflexive marker: e.g.
13) iad 3P-M. ‘them’, ‘they’ thu fhèin ‘you yourself’
14) ach CONJ. ‘but’, ‘only’ 40) mu PREP. ‘about’
15) am QP. question particle occurring before 41) ris PREP. the preposition ri (see
labial consonants above) + the definite article
ART. ‘the’; occurs before singular masculine PREP-PN. ‘to him’, ‘with him’
nouns beginning with labial consonants 42) math ADJ. ‘good’
16) robh V. dependent form of the past tense 43) bhiodh V. ‘would be’ (2nd
verb ‘to be’ indefinite form of the verb ‘to be’)
17) aig PREP. ‘at’ 44) b’ V. abbreviation of the copular
18) sin DEM. ‘that’, ‘there’ form of verb ‘to be’ bu (past tense
19) gun PREP. ‘without’ and 2nd indefinite)
COMP. ‘that’ 45) as V. relative form of the copula
20) do 2S-POSS. ‘your’ (also the marker of the superlative);
PREP. ‘for’, ‘to’ an duine as fheàrr ‘the best man’
21) is CONJ. abbreviation of agus ‘and’ 46) airson PREP. complex preposition
V. abbreviation of the copular form of verb ‘for’, ‘for the sake of’
‘to be’ is (present tense and 1st indefinite)

106
47) esan 3S-M-EMPH. emphatic form of the 76) chur INF. ‘to put’ (from the verb
third person sing. masculine pronoun ‘he’, cuir)
‘him’ 77) gur possessive prepositional
48) dol VN. ‘going’ pronoun meaning ‘at your
49) aca PREP-PN. 3P-at ‘at them’ (formal/plural)’
50) thu 2S. ‘you’ 78) àite N. ‘place’, m.
51) gum COMP. ‘that’ (occurs before labials) 79) taobh N. ‘side’, m.
52) ràdh VN. ‘saying’ 80) idir ADV. ‘at all’
53) bho PREP. ‘from’, ‘since’ 81) eadar PREP. ‘between’
54) cho PREP. ‘so’, ‘as’ (used in comparative 82) fhuair V. ‘found’, ‘received’ (past
constructions) tense of faigh get)
55) sinn 2P. ‘we’, ‘us’ 83) co-dhiubh ADV. ‘anyway’
56) nuair ADV. ‘when’ 84) ma CONJ. ‘if’
57) chuir V. past tense of cuir ‘put’ 85) bliadhna N. ‘year’, f.
58) duine N. ‘man’, m. 86) nam CONJ. ‘if’
59) thuirt V. ‘said’ (past tense of abair ‘say’) ART. genitive plural definite article
60) no CONJ. ‘or’ before labials: e.g. fèis nam bàrd
61) f(h)ios N. ‘knowledge’, m. ‘festival of the poets’
62) aon NUM. ‘one’ 87) uair N. ‘time’, f.
63) dhan PREP. the preposition do (see above) 88) mòr ADJ. ‘big’
+ the definite article 89) tighinn VN. ‘coming’
64) dè ‘what’ 90) obair N. ‘work’, f.
65) leis PREP. the preposition le (see above) + 91) agad PREP-PN. ‘at him/it’
the definite article 92) rinn V. ‘did’, ‘made’ (past tense
66) a-mach ADV. ‘out’ (directional) of dèan)
67) dha PREP. the preposition do (see above) + 93) dìreach ADV. ‘exactly’
the definite article ADJ. ‘straight’
PREP-PN. ‘to him’, ‘for him’ 94) thàinig V. ‘came’ (past tense of
68) cuideachd ADV. ‘too’, ‘also’ tig)
69) fear N. ‘man’, m. 95) rud N. ‘thing’, m.
70) thoirt INF. ‘to give’, ‘to get’ (from the verb 96) far REL. ‘where’ (headless
thoir) relative)
71) aige PREP-PN. ‘at him’ PREP. ‘off’
72) dà NUM. ‘two’ 97) tu 2S. ‘you’
73) bu V. ‘was’; the copular form of verb ‘to 98) bidh V. ‘will be’, ‘is’ (1st
be’ in the past tense and 2nd indefinite indefinite form of bi ‘to be’)
74) ars’ V. defective verb meaning ‘said’, 99) ùr ADJ. ‘new’
often heard in narrative 100) suas ADV. ‘up’
75) ga possessive prepositional pronoun
meaning ‘at his’

107
Gaelic Index

‘s, 78 an ceart-uair, 45 ath-athris, 23

a, 19, 25, 33 an cois, 49 athris, 23
à, 46 an còmhnaidh, 45, 101 atmhor, 24
a bharrachd, 90 an dèidh, 49 bad, 103
a bhith, 67, 74, 77, 81, 91, 99 an earar, 45 baile, 67, 101, 103
a chèile, 37 an lùib, 91 bainne, 26, 103, 104
a' chiad, 40 an prep, 46 ball, 66, 71, 99
a chionn, 82, 88 an uiridh, 45 bàn, 74
a prep, 46 an/am, 33 bàrr, 103
a rèir, 49 a-nall, 45 barrachd, 49
a thaobh, 49, 95 an-còmhnaidh, 59 bàs, 98
a-bhòn-dè, 45 an-dà, 96 bàsaich, 64
a-bhòn-raoir, 45 an-dè, 45, 89, 92 bàta, 41, 84
a-bhos, 45 an-diugh, 45, 72 bàthaich, 28
ach, 79, 101 an-dràsda, 31, 45 beachd, 41
acras, 88 a-neisd, 58, 60, 101 beag, 30, 41, 45, 74, 79, 86
ag, 59, 67 an-fhoiseil, 64 beagan, 90
agus, 42, 43, 77, 101, 103 a-nìos, 45 bean, 24, 31
àidh, 97 a-nis, 45, 96 beannachadh, 97
aig, 28, 46, 65, 101 anmoch, 98 Beathaig, 61
aimsir, 102 ann, 22, 42, 46, 58, 71, 89 Beinn na Faoghla, 101
aineolach, 44 annad, 22 beò, 24
ainm, 88, 101 an-nochd, 45 beòthail, 24
air, 19, 22, 46, 64 a-nochd, 53, 78, 103 beul, 7, 63
air bheulaibh, 49 an-raoir, 45 bheir, 93
air bith, 38 an-seo, 36, 89, 101, 103 bhith, 60
air chùl, 49 an-shin, 103, 104 bho, 46, 72
air dòigh, 101 an-sin, 36, 67 bhon, 82
air fad, 79 an-siud, 36, 102 bi, 55, 56, 78, 79, 99
air falbh, 85, 102, 103 a-nuas, 45, 86, 102 biadh, 79, 91
air feadh, 49 a-null, 45 biathaich, 64
air muin, 49 Aogh, 88 big, 41
air neo, 79 aon, 39, 90, 94 bith-beò, 92
air sàillibh, 78, 82 aon uair, 86 blàr, 103
air sgàth, 49, 82 aonan/aonar, 40 bliadhna, 101
air tàillibh, 82 Aonghas, 87, 91 bò, 43, 64
airaspect, 59 aotrom, 64 bochd, 58, 85, 87, 91, 101
airgead, 72, 93, 94 aprep, 84 bodach, 25, 68, 101, 102
àiridh, 101 ar, 33 bodachan, 25
airson, 38, 49, 72, 73, 80, 82, 'ar, 103 bòidheach, 42
102 àrd, 23, 28, 42, 69, 78 boireannach, 27, 90, 94
àite, 38, 98, 99 àrd-sgoil, 23 bradach, 43
aithne, 74, 78 arelativiser, 52 bràthair, 37, 94
aithris, 78 a-riamh, 101, 103 Brìghde, 72
Alasdair, 86, 88 a-rithist, 81 brist, 64
àm, 88 ars', 102, 103 brògan, 94
am bliadhna, 45 arsa, 90, 101 brùid, 28
am fianais, 49 às, 46, 101 bruidhinn, 37, 61, 62
am measg, 49 as aonais, 49, 64 bu, 68, 74
a-mach, 101, 102, 103 as dèidh, 103 buadh, 97
amaideag, 24 assuper, 43 buaidh, 98
a-màireach, 45, 58, 59, 93 a-staigh, 101, 102 buannachadh, 61
amais, 61 astar, 103 buille, 82
a-muigh, 70, 85, 101 a-steach, 66 buntàta, 18, 98
an àite, 49 at, 24 bùrn, 7
an ath-bhliadhna, 45 ath, 41 bùth, 25, 28, 51
an ath-oidhch, 45 athair, 74 bùth-obrach, 25

108
cabhag, 74 coimhead, 99, 102 dhà, 27
cac, 97, 98 Coinneach, 94 dhachaidh, 59, 77, 103
cadal, 86 còir, 61 dhèan, 37
càil, 26 cois, 20 dheas, 20
caileag, 32, 33 coiseachd, 59 dhuine, 41
Cailean, 72 coisich, 57 Dia, 70, 97
cailleach, 102 coltach, 49, 101 diabhal, 97
cait, 17 comasach, 61 dìreach, 45
càite, 37, 81, 86 còmhla, 49 dithis(t), 40
call, 44, 88 compiutair, 28, 65 do, 33, 75, 87
can, 80, 96, 98, 101 còrd, 81 do-dhèanadh, 23
caol, 92 corra, 41 doirbh, 91
caora, 40, 91 còta, 34, 75 dol, 53, 59, 77, 102
càr, 34, 58, 70, 81, 92 craobh, 19, 27, 28 Dòmhnall, 25, 26, 50, 70
caraid, 41 creach, 97 Dòmhnallan, 50
carbad, 7 creachadh, 67 doprep, 46, 72
carson, 38 creid, 64, 96 doras, 30, 101, 103
cas, 19, 31 creidsinn, 80, 96 do-sheachanta, 64
cat, 7, 17, 71 crios-sàbhalaidh, 98 dragh, 77, 81
ceangail, 103 crodh, 26 draibheadh, 67, 81
ceangailte, 49 croit, 82 droch, 25, 41, 67, 98, 101
ceann, 25, 33, 82, 102 croitear, 68 duan, 50
ceannach, 75 cruthachadh, 99 duanag, 50
ceannard, 31 cù, 38, 39, 101, 103 dubh, 103
ceannsachadh, 35 cuid, 23, 26, 92 Dùghall, 51
ceàrdach, 31 cuideachadh, 97 dùil, 99
cearr, 19 cuideigin, 25 dùin, 23, 63, 103
ceart-uair, 80 cuilean, 50 duine, 23, 28, 34, 60, 71, 72,
ceathramh, 40 cuimhne, 96 74, 87, 101
ceathrar, 40 cuine, 38 dùthaich, 28
cèilidh, 8 cuir, 54, 55, 77, 81, 86, 99, e, 35
Cèit, 72, 73, 87 101, 103 each, 64, 89, 103, 104
ceithir, 39, 89 cùm, 23, 83, 102 eadar, 46
cèo, 88 cumail, 23, 102 eadh, 62
ceòl, 28, 58 Cumhang, 82 eadhon, 77, 81
ceud, 39 cùramach, 23 eagallach, 103
cha(n), 52, 80 Curstag, 50 eaglais, 72
chì, 22 Curstaidh, 50 Eàirdsidh, 65
cho, 43, 78, 91, 103 dà, 39 Ealasaid, 51
choireigin, 38 dad, 26 ear, 45
chun, 46 dàrna, 40 èiginn, 44
chunnaic, 67 dathach, 23 eile, 60, 101, 102
cia, 38 de, 46 èirich, 103
ciad, 101 dè, 38, 101, 102 èisteachd, 77, 81
ciall, 64 deagh, 25, 41 Eòin, 74, 87
ciamar, 38 deamhan, 98 eòlach, 71
cinnteach, 81, 96 dèan, 60, 63, 80, 84 Eubhal, 101
clach, 31, 59 dèanadh, 23 eu-choltach, 64
cladach, 70 dèanamh, 55, 61, 65, 99, 102 eudail, 97
cliobhar, 83 dearbh, 24, 41 eun, 70
cluinn, 22, 37, 58, 77 dearbhte, 24 fa, 44
cnoc, 36, 50 deas, 45 fada, 78
cnocan, 50 deasaichte, 65 fàg, 103
cò, 38 deich, 39 faic, 60, 72, 74, 87, 102
co-dhiubh, 91, 96, 101, 103 deicheamh, 40 faicinn, 51, 81
co-dhùin, 18 deichnear, 40 faigh, 60, 78, 79
coibhneil, 44 dèidh, 60 faighinn, 90, 94
còig, 39 deireadh, 41 faisg, 49
còigeamh, 40 deiseil, 101 falbh, 63, 66, 78, 81, 82, 88, 92
còignear, 40 deoch, 79 faod, 60, 61
coille, 28 dh’fhaodte, 62 far, 38, 86

109
farmad, 53 gonadh, 98 Màiri, 34, 43, 64, 93
farprep, 46, 62 gorm, 30 mall, 7
fàs, 23 gras, 97 mallachd, 98
fasan, 102 greis, 45 mar, 38, 46, 85, 88
fastaidhear, 50 gu, 44, 103 marag, 74
feadhainn, 26 gu dè, 89 marbh, 37, 41, 64
fear, 24, 26, 27, 32, 38, 42, 50, gu dearbh, 45 marbhadh, 53, 66, 73
60, 98, 101 gu deimhinne, 45 mar-thà, 45, 81
fearan, 50 gu lèir, 45 mas fhìor, 97
fearg, 53, 83 gu math, 91 math, 24, 45, 50, 63, 67, 82, 94
feàrr, 92 gu ruige, 49 ma-tha, 96, 102
fèin, 36 gu sìorraidh, 45 màthair, 17, 68, 87, 97
fèin-eachdraidh, 36 gun teagamh, 45 mi, 35
feitheamh, 86 gun/gum, 52 mias, 103
feòil, 78 gunprep, 46, 58, 64, 98 mì-chùramach, 23
feuch, 103 guprep, 46 míle, 39
feuchainn, 99 gus, 79, 86, 102 mìle, 39
feum, 35, 60, 99, 101 gusaspect, 60 milis, 42
feumaidh, 96 guth, 77 millean, 39
fhad ‘s, 86 i, 35, 43 min, 26
fhalbh, 63 iad, 35 mì-nàdarrach, 64
fhathast, 45 Iain, 68, 91, 98 mìos, 41
fhèin, 85, 97, 101, 103 iar, 45 mì-rùn, 23
fheudar, 61 iarraidh, 31, 35, 79, 94 mì-thoilich, 23
fhìn, 36 iasg, 78 mo, 20, 27, 33
fhios, 82 iasgach, 88 Moire, 97
fhuair, 82 ioma-dhathach, 23 mol, 23
fichead, 39 iomradh, 65 moladh, 23
ficheadamh, 40 ionnsaidh, 49 mònadh, 103
fìon, 53, 67 ìre, 45 mòr, 23, 24, 25, 32, 34, 78, 79,
fìor, 23, 25, 41, 67, 80 is, 43, 78, 89, 98 89, 101, 103
fìor-uisge, 23 is dòcha, 45, 58, 62, 96 Mòr, 50
fios, 79, 81, 86, 89, 96, 101, is mathaid, 62 Mòrag, 50
102 iscop, 68, 74 mòr-chuid, 23
fiughair, 99 isd, 97 mòr-shluagh, 25
fo, 46, 102 iteal, 44 mothaich, 43, 92
fraoch, 102 ith, 62, 64, 78, 91 mu, 46
freagarrach, 23 iuchair, 34 mu choinneimh, 49
fuamhaire, 89 iùsaigeadh, 99 mu dheidhinn, 49
fuar, 44 làmh, 23, 27, 28, 49, 89, 99 mu thicheall, 49
fuil, 28, 54, 102 làraidh, 87 muir, 27
gabh, 86, 95, 99 larna-mhàireach, 102, 104 mullach, 28
gabhail, 99 latha, 36, 41, 60 mun/mus, 86
gach, 42 làthair, 44 mur, 103
Gaidhealtachd, 7, 9 le, 25, 32, 46, 65 mura, 85
gàire, 54 leabhar, 65, 70, 91 mu-thrath, 45
galla, 97, 98 lean, 23 na, 28, 38
gaoisid, 104 leantainn, 23 nach, 52, 80
geal, 24, 41, 89, 103 leigeadh, 101 nàidheachd, 41
ged, 83 leth-cheud, 39 nàire, 97
gille, 34, 87, 101 lighiche, 28 nan/nam, 52
giùlain, 85 litir, 28, 31, 61, 87 naoi, 39
glacte, 85 loch, 28 naoidheamh, 40
glè, 44, 45, 82 losgadh, 37, 104 naoinear, 40
gluais, 71 luath, 43, 62, 103 narelativiser, 52
gluasad, 62 ma, 52 nas lugha, 85
gnogadh, 101 ma dh’fhaoite, 45 nas motha, 85
gnothach, 102 mac, 98 neo-bhlasta, 64
gobha, 31 Mac a' Phì, 101 neo-fhreagarrach, 23
goid, 84, 87 madainn, 104 Niall, 93
goirid, 49 maille, 49 nighean, 41, 101

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no, 79 seachad, 49 suipear, 78
norrag, 86 seachd, 39, 101, 103 sunnd, 24
nuair, 38, 77, 86, 101 seachdamh, 40 sunndach, 24
ò, 101, 103 seachdar, 101 tàbh, 17
obair, 25, 31, 33, 61, 67, 79, seachdnar, 40 taca, 49
101 seadh, 62, 96 tachair, 77
obh, 97 seall, 22, 85 tachairt, 99
och, 96, 97 sealladh, 25 taigh, 34, 60, 89, 98
ochd, 39 seann, 41 tàmailteachadh, 18
ochdamh, 40 searbhant, 66 tàmh, 17
ochdnar, 40 seo, 36, 60, 103 taobh, 19, 49
oidhche, 101, 102 seòl, 44 tarsainn, 46, 103
oifis, 31 Seònag, 75 tè, 26, 38, 42, 79
oir, 82 Seònaidh, 74 teann, 102
òl, 52, 53, 67, 71, 104 seòrsa, 94 Teàrlach, 34
on, 82 Seumas, 43, 64, 92, 95 teich, 102
òran, 26, 95 sgaoil, 44 teine, 101, 102
orm, 22 sgath, 26, 104 telebhisean, 34
os, 99 sgeul, 65 thairis, 49, 99
os cionn, 49 sgillinn, 79 thall, 45
pìob, 28 sgìth, 37 thalla, 63, 97, 98
pìobair, 24 sgoil, 23, 30 thar, 46
piseag, 50, 89 sgrìobhadh, 61 theirig, 63
pòg, 37 sgrìobhte, 65 Thì, 97
pògadh, 74 Shìorraidh, 97 thig, 45, 79
Pòl, 73 shuidh, 87 thogair, 97
pòsadh, 72, 73 sia, 39 thoir, 64, 72, 78, 91, 98
putadh, 66 sian, 101 thoirt, 90
rach, 24, 52, 61, 80, 92 sianar, 40 thoradh, 82
ràdh, 101 siathamh, 40 thu, 34, 35, 94
Raibeart, 68 sibh, 34, 35 thugainn, 63
rathad, 62 sìde, 102 thuirt, 44
rè, 46 Sìle, 70 tig, 85, 101
reic, 89 sileadh, 54 Tighearna, 97
ri, 37, 43, 46 sin, 36, 58, 60, 64, 65, 72, 74, tighinn, 88, 89, 102, 103
ri linn, 49, 82 80, 91 timcheall, 49
ri taobh, 103 sinn, 35 tionndaidh, 103
riaghladair, 50 sìomain, 102 tiugainn, 63
riaghladh, 50 sìon, 26 togail, 59
riamh, 42 siorraidheachd, 24 toil, 74
rian, 80 sìos, 45, 70, 102 toilich, 23
rìgh, 66 sireadh, 30 toilichte, 81, 102
rinn, 22 siud, 36, 89, 94, 103 tòir, 49
ro, 44, 45 slat, 29 toirmeasg, 74
ròpa, 82 sluagh, 25 toirt, 92, 93
roprep, 46 smaointinn, 91 tòisich, 103
ruadh, 26, 79 snàmh, 19, 50, 61 Tòmas, 69
rubha, 101 snàmhaiche, 50 treas(amh), 40
rud, 26, 38, 90, 94, 101 sneachd, 70 trì, 39
rùn, 23 snog, 41 trioblaid, 58
's, 103 so-dhèanadh, 23 trìuir, 40
sabaid, 83, 103 sreothart, 54 tro, 46
sàbhaladh, 97 stad, 99 trobhad, 63
sagart, 27 staighre, 85 trom, 44
sam bith, 38, 58 stamh, 67 trusdar, 87
sàmhach, 63, 78 stòiridh, 104 tuath, 45
saoghal, 89 suain, 88 tughadh, 102
saoil, 22, 23 suas, 45, 49, 85, 101 tuigsinn, 55, 89
saoilsinn, 23 suidh, 101 tuil, 28
sàr, 41 suidhe, 53, 61 tuilleadh, 45
seach, 82 sùil, 78, 102, 103 tuit, 31

111
tunnag, 28 Uibhisteach, 91 uisge, 7, 23
uabhasach, 102 uile, 42, 60, 101, 102 ur, 33
uaireannan, 45 Uilleagan, 50 ùr, 89
ud, 97 Uilleam, 50 ùrnaidh, 63
uell, 97 ùine, 38, 103 urrainn, 61, 84, 90, 95
ugh, 64 uinneag, 64, 70
Uibhist, 84 Ùisdean, 68

112
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