Chapter IV - The Pronoun

§25. — The Pronoun in General

There are six kinds of Pronouns, viz. — Personal, Possessive, Relative, Demonstrative, Interrogative, and Indefinite. The compound pronouns need not be considered as a separate class, as they are merely personal pronouns with prepositions.

§ 26. — Personal Pronouns

There are four personal pronouns: — mé. I; tú, thou; sé, he; and sí, she , with their plurals ; which, when used emphatically, take an additional syllable, called the " emphatic increase." We give here the two forms, simple and emphatic. It will be observed that the genitive case admits of no emphatic increase. The genitive is in common parlance the possessive pronoun. Vid. § 28.

This so-called " emphatic increase" appears in the Scotch Gaelic, Welsh, and Cornish, as well as the Irish. That added to the first person plural, namely ne, is, as Zeuss bas shown, a repetition of the pronoun ; sni being the older form of the first person plural, afterwards, the s being rejected, ni. The Welsh has also an emphatic or reduplicated form of ni, nyni. Similarly, in Cornish, thyn means to us, and is also found reduplicated thynny. The Welsh used reduplicated forms for all the persons ; thus, mi, I, myvi (v being the secondary form of m), cliwi, you, chwychi, &c. The Cornish also frequently repeats the pronoun in what Mr. Norris calls the second state; as, worty, against her, worty hy, id.; hy being the third pers. sing. fem. ; it has also a broad increase similar to the Irish ; as, dys, to thee ; emphatic, dyso.

Sesean and siadsan may perhaps be reduplicated forms, as the increase seems sometimes to be used without the pronoun being adjoined; as, ann san do ḃí beaṫa, in him was life. Zeuss gives similar instances, and notes that the ancient form was som and sem, alike for singular and plural.

Sinn, siḃ, sé, sí are the forms generally used for the nominative, and é, í for the accusative; the forms inn, iḃ are now nearly in disuse.

Disin is used for dise when contempt is intended.

Féin, self, is often affixed tot he personal pronouns; as mé féin, myself, &c,

§ 27. — The Personal Pronouns with Prepositions

The following combinations of the personal pronouns with prepositions occur so frequently that they ought to be carefully committed to memory. There are fifteen of them in common use, many others areused in the ancient language, and similar combinations are to be met wtih in all the Celtic Languages.

1. With ag, at

2. With as, out of

3. With ar, upon

4. With ċum, towards, to

5. With de, from, off

6. With do, to

7. With eidir, idir, between

8. With fa, fo, under

9. With ann, in

10. With im, um, upon or about

11. With le, re, with

12. With o, or ua, from

13. With roiṁ, before

14. With tar, beyond

15. With tré, through

The emphatic increases for these compounds are, in the singular, sa for the first and second person, sean for the third person. In theplural, ne, ni, for the first person; sa, se, for the second person; and san, sean, for the fhird person.

Observe allthrough the rule caol le caol, 7c.

§28. — Possessive Pronouns.

The possessives are: — mo, my, do, thy, a his or hers, ár, ours, ḃur, yours; and a, theirs.

The possessives mo, do, and ḃur take the emphatic increase sa, or se ; ár takes na or ne ; and a takes san, or sean, according to the rule caol le caol, 7c. ; but the increase is always postfixed to the noun qualified by the possessives, or if that noun has an adjective, to the adjective; e.g., mo lámsa, my hand; ár g-cinnne, our hands; a láṁ ḋeassan, his right hand.

Mo, do , and a, his, aspirate the initial mutables of their nouns ; as, mo ḃean, my wife; ár, ḃur, and a, theirs, , eclipse the same; as, ḃur mbráṫair, your brother. The eclipsis arises from the fact that these pronouns originally ended in n, which form appears before vowels and the mediae d and g; their original forms were arn, farn, or forn, and an; a, hers, prefixes h to nouns beginning with a vowel. The a, his, is the Sansk. asya, ending in a vowel, hence it aspirates ; a, hers is in Sansk. asyds, ending in a consonant, hence no change except before vowels ; a, theirs, was in its full form an, Sansk. eshdm, Lat. eorum. This coincidence was shown some twenty years ago by Bopp, the founder of Comparative Philology in his essay on the Celtic Languages, of which it formed one of the most brilliant points.

The following are the combinations of the possessives with prepositions : —

1. With do, to

2. With le, with

3. With an, in

4. With ó, from

§29. — Relative Pronouns.

The relative pronouns are a, who, which, or what; noċ, who, which ; náċ, which not. The primitive form of the relative a for all genders was an, which by phonetic rule is intact before vowels and the mediae d, g, , and becomes am before b, ar before r and a before s , f, and the tenues. Vid. Zeuss, p. 348.

Contractions frequently take place when the relative is preceded by a preposition ending with a vowel; as, bar, ler, &c

Dárb, dárab, and lerb may be analyzed, as the case may be, d'a ro ba, to whom was, or d'a ro ba, to whom is ;bean dárb aimn Maire , a woman whose name was Mary, or whose name is,etc

Do, the sign of the past tense, frequently appears to stand for the relative in the modern language, but the cases cited may be explained on the simple view of supposing the relative to be omitted. "

Dá is used frequently as a relative ; this dá must be distinguished from dá, a compound of de, of, and the relative a, which would be better written d'a, of what.

§30. — Interrogative Pronouns.

The interrogatives are cia or ce ; plural, ciad, who, what; cad, creud, g0 dé, what; cá, gá , what or where..

Cad (anciently cid, ced), seems to have been the neuter of cia, though this use is lost in the modern language. Go dé was enciently cote; vid. Zeuss, p.361.

§31. — Demonstrative Pronouns.

The demonstrative pronouns are : — so, this, these; sin, that those; rúd or úd, yonder. They are all indeclinable.

'When so follows a word whose last vowel is slender, it is written si or se, and sometimes seo; as na h-aimsire si, of this time (Keating's Hist. page 2); and sin, when it follows a word whose last vowel is broad, is written san or soin (sean?)"—O'Donovan. These chanages are to accord with the rule caol le caol, 7c.

"Súd is generally used with personal pronouns, and úd with nouns.@ —Connellan. Examples are:—an fear úd, the man younder; tú sé rúd, it is he yonder.

§32. — Indefinite Pronouns

These are:—Éigin, some; gibé or cibé, whoever; aon, any; eile, other; a ċéile, eachother; gaċ, every, each; gaċ uile, every; cáċ, any other; neaċ, any one; ceaċtar, or neaċtar, either; an té, the person who; uile, all. Cáċ makes cáiċ in the genetive singular; the rest are indeclinable. Some of these, it will be observed, are mere compounds which have obtained a sort of pronominal use, and others aremore strictly pronominal adjectives.