Ulster Irish: Encyclopedia II - Ulster Irish - Morphology

Ulster Irish - Morphology

Ulster Irish - Initial mutations

Ulster Irish has the same two initial mutations, lenition and eclipsis, as the other two dialects and the standard language, and mostly uses them the same way. There is, however, one exception: in Ulster, a dative singular noun after the definite article is lenited (e.g. ar an chrann "on the tree"), whereas in Connacht and Munster, it is eclipsed (ar an gcrann). Both possibilities are allowed for in the standard language.

Ulster Irish - Verbs

Irish verbs are characterized by having a mixture of analytic forms (where information about person is provided by a pronoun) and synthetic forms (where information about number is provided in an ending on the verb) in their conjugation. In Ulster and North Connacht the analytic forms are used in a variety of forms where the standard language has synthetic forms, e.g. molann muid "we praise" (standard molaimid, muid being a back formation from the verbal ending -mid and not found in the Munster dialect, which retains sinn as the first person plural pronoun as does Scots Gaelic) or mholfadh siad "they would praise" (standard mholfaidís). The synthetic forms, including those no longer approved in the standard language, may be used in short answers to questions.

The 2nd conjugation future stem suffix in Ulster is -óch- (pronounced [ah]) rather than -ó-, e.g. beannóchaidh mé [bʲan̪ˠahə mʲə] "I will bless" (standard beannóidh mé [bʲanoːj mʲeː]).

Some irregular verbs have different forms in Ulster from those in the standard language. For example:

• ním (independent form only) "I do, make" (standard déanaim) and rinn mé "I did, made" (standard rinne mé)
• tchím [t̠ʲɕiːm] (independent form only) "I see" (standard feicim)
• bheirim "I give" (standard tugaim), ní thabhraim or ní thugaim "I do not give" (standard only ní thugaim), and bhéarfaidh mé "I will give" (standard tabharfaidh mé)

Ulster Irish - Particles

In Ulster the negative particle cha (before a vowel chan, in past tenses char) is sometimes used where other dialects use ní and níor. The form is more common in the north of the Donegal Gaeltacht. Cha triggers a "mixed mutation": /t/ and /d/ are eclipsed, while other consonants are lenited:

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Morphology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki