The morphology of Irish is in some respects typical of an Indo-European language. Nouns are declined for number, and case, and verbs for person and number. Nouns are classified by masculine or feminine gender. Other aspects of Irish morphology, while typical for a Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and the initial consonant mutations.
The discussion of Irish morphology has been split up into four articles. On this page, the pronouns, inflected prepositions, and numbers are discussed. Irish nouns, adjectives, and the definite article are discussed on the page on Irish nominals. Irish verbs are discussed at Irish verbs. The initial mutations are dealt with on a separate page.
Personal pronouns in Irish do not inflect for case, but there are three different sets of pronouns used: conjunctive forms, disjunctive forms, and emphatic forms (which may be used either conjunctively or disjunctively)
The normal word order in Irish is verb-subject-object (VSO). The forms of the subject pronoun directly following the verb are called conjunctive:
Person Singular PluralThe form muid in the 1st person plural is not used in the standard language, but is very common in western and northern dialects. The standard and southern dialects have no subject pronoun in the 1st person plural but uses synthetic verb endings instead.
Irish has no T-V distinction, i.e. it does not differentiate between formal and familiar forms of second person pronouns. The difference between tú and sibh is simply one of grammatical number.
If a pronoun is not the subject or if a subject pronoun does not follow the verb (as in a verbless clause, or as the subject of the copula, where the pronoun stands at the end of the sentence), the so-called disjunctive forms are used:
Person Singular PluralIn many dialects the form thú is either (a) archaic (replaced by tú) or (b) is only found after words ending in a vowel:[citation needed]
Irish also has intensive pronouns, used to give the pronouns a bit more weight or emphasis.
Person Singular PluralThe forms thusa, eisean and ise are disjunctive forms, while tusa, seisean and sise are conjunctive forms.
The word féin (/fʲeːnʲ/ or /heːnʲ/) "-self" can follow a pronoun, either to add emphasis or to form a reflexive pronoun.
Rinne mé féin é. "I did it myself." Ar ghortaigh tú thú féin? "Did you hurt yourself?" Sinn Féin is thus "We Ourselves"The possessive pronouns cause different initial consonant mutations.
mo "my" lenites; m’ precedes vowels
mo chara "my friend" m'fheirm "my farm" m'athair "my father"do "your (sg.)" lenites; d’ precedes vowels
do chara "your friend" d'fheirm "your farm" d'athair "your father"a "his" lenites
a chara "his friend" a fheirm "his farm" a athair "his father"a "her" takes the radical of a consonant and adds an h to a vowel
a cara "her friend" a feirm "her farm" a hathair "her father"ár "our" eclipses
ár gcara "our friend" ár bhfeirm "our farm" ár n-athair "our father"bhur "your(pl.)" eclipses
bhur gcara "your friend" bhur bhfeirm "your farm" bhur n-athair "your father"a "their" eclipses
a gcara "their friend" a bhfeirm "their farm" a n-athair "their father"The forms a and ár can also blend with certain prepositions:
de & do dá chara "from/to his friend"The object of a verbal noun is in the genitive case:
Similarly, if the object of the verbal noun is a pronoun, then it is a possessive pronoun:
More examples:
Interrogative pronouns introduce a question, e.g. the words who, what, which. The Irish equivalents are:
Examples:
As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" or "conjugated" prepositions.
ag "at" 1 agam "at me" againn "at us"There are three kinds of cardinal numbers in Irish: disjunctive numbers, nonhuman conjunctive numbers, and human conjunctive numbers.
These numbers are used for example in arithmetic, in telling time, in telephone numbers and after nouns in forms like bus a trí déag "bus 13" or seomra a dó "room 2".