Josquin wrote:Well, from the top of my head, I can think of at least four different meanings of "go" in Irish:
1) A particle turning adjectives into adverbs: mall ("slow") --> go mall ("slowly"). This is also obligatory for some adjectives, when they're used with a form of "bí" (to be): Tá mé go maith. ("I am well"), with "maith" meaning "good".
2) A preposition meaning "to": Tá mé ag dul go Chorcaigh ("I'm going to Cork").
3) A conjunction meaning "that": Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil ceart agat ("I know that you are right").
4) A particle used with the subjunctive: Go n-éirí an bóthar leat ("Have a safe trip", literally: "May your road succeed").
Many thanks Josquin!
I don't know if any of these concur with the Welsh usage. Maybe no. 1?
Well, some of the set phrases with "go" are used adverbially, so something like that does seem to be going on, although I don't think it's a general way of forming adverbs (although it may have been used like that in earlier forms of Welsh). The usual way to form an adverb from an adjective in the modern language is to prefix it with the particle "yn". So "da" = "good", and "yn dda" = "well". The "yn" causes a soft mutation in this situation for those letters which can SM (only 9 letters). However, I think Welsh can also use adjectives as adverbs without changing their form or adding anything to them (but I'm not totally sure of my ground here).
Yes, Irish has two sets of mutations: lenition and eclipsis. Basically, lenition turns stops into fricatives by softening them, while eclipsis turns unvoiced sounds into voiced ones. The first is indicated by an "h" that's added after the lenited consonant (Corcaigh --> go Chorcaigh), while the latter is indicated by writing the mutated consonant in front of its unmutated counterpart (fuil --> go bhfuil, ceol --> sa gceol). In this case, only the first consonant is pronounced, the second one only serves as some kind of "reminder".
However, there are also some so-called "prefixes" in Irish, e.g. words beginning with an "s" get a "t" prefixed after the definite article in some cases (masculine nouns: genitive, feminine nouns: nominative): an sagart ("the priest") --> an tsagairt ("of the priest"). In this case, only the "t" is pronounced, the "s" only serves as a reminder.
Also, an "n" is prefixed to words beginning with a vowel after a word causing eclipsis: éirigh ("to succeed") --> go n-éirí leat ("may you succeed"), and an "h" is prefixed to feminine nouns beginning with a vowel after the definitive article in the genitive: Éire ("Ireland") --> na hÉireann ("of Ireland").
Sometimes, a mutation is the only way to distinguish the meaning of a word: a charr (lenition: "his car"), a carr (no mutation: "her car"), a gcarr (eclipsis: "their car"); a athair (no mutation: "his father"), a hathair (h-prefix: "her father"), a n-athair (eclipsis: "their father").
Thanks again! That's looking quite complicated to me at the moment, and I need to get my head around it...
It think it's quite similar in Welsh, isn't it?
Well....I think prefixing in Welsh is more limited. The only one I can actually think of is "h", and I don't think it has any grammatical significance and is probably only there for easier pronunciation or because people thought it sounded better.
However, I can see a certain similarity with possessives, e.g. "his car" and "her car". "her car" = "ei char (hi)". "his car" = "ei gar (o/e)"
(the "hi" and "o" or "e" possessive suffix is often left out, in which case, it's only the "h" that tells you if it's "his" or "her").
Actually I forgot that "his" causes a soft mutation, so "car"->"gar", so that tells you also. A better example is "their car" = "eu car (nhw)".
"ei" and "eu" are pronounced the same (well, by most people I think), so if the "nhw" is left out, it is the absence of the "h" in "car" that tells you it's "their car" and not "her car".
(I actually need to brush up on my possessives, so better not say much more in case I mislead anyone!).
Another slight similarity: After the definite article ("y" for both genders, singular and plural), feminine nouns only take a soft mutation.
e.g. "cath" = "a cat" (fem). "y gath" = "the cat". "ci" = "a dog" (masc) "y ci" = "the dog".
(However in the unusual case of a preceding adjective (most adjectives follow the noun), nouns (beginning with those 9 letters) are soft-mutated regardless of gender:
e.g. "yr hen gi" = "the old dog".
From the example of "ei char" vs "ei gar" vs "eu car", it's tempting to think that mutations in Welsh are there for functional reasons and to help you with the meaning, and that may well have been their origin in older forms of the language that were highly inflected. (I think there was a discussion with Iversen about this on HTLAL, and I did find some academic papers talking about this sort of thing). And it maybe somewhat more true in the literary language, especially poetry. However, in the modern spoken language, I think mutations are just there because they are there; you learn them because the language requires them, and once you get used to them they don't particularly hinder you, but neither do they particularly help you.
An example might be: As well as feminine (singular) nouns taking SM (if they can) after the article, they also cause following adjectives to take SM (if they can - remember it's only 9 letters than can take SM). So it's not a bad idea to learn feminine nouns along with a mutatable adjective, and thus once you know it, you will also know that it's feminine. Great! But actually, will that help you at all? Well, not much.
Other than the pronunciation of following mutatable adjectives, and mutation of the noun itself (if it can) after the article, not much else follows from knowing its gender. So learn the noun and adjective together by all means, then you'll know how to pronounce that noun and adjective pair and to SM the singular noun with the article, but (as far as I know), it doesn't help you with anything else to do with that noun. (whereas in German, French, Spanish, etc., it's probably quite a useful piece of information!).
Again, this is probably something that was completely otherwise in Old Welsh, and genders may be slightly more relevant in literary Welsh (which I have not studied at all).
Soft-mutation is by far the most common sort of mutation in Welsh, and seems to be the only one applied consistently. As well as the above, the main reasons for SM are contact with certain prepositions, and (according to Gareth King who writes grammar books) when a word immediately follows the subject or notional subject of an inflected form of the verb (although his way of looking at this is disputed by some people, but it does simplify things). e.g. "mynd" = "to go". "wnes i fynd" = "I went" (literally: "I did go" - wnes is the 1st person preterite of the verb "to do". But "wnes i ddim mynd" = "I didn't go". It's "dim" (not) which has taken the SM here, and not "mynd" because "dim/ddim" followed "i", the subject.
There is also aspirate mutation: e.g. "Poenu" = "worry". "paid a phoenu" = "don't worry". The "a" has caused the AM.
And nasal: e.g. Cymru=Wales. "yng Nghymru" = "In Wales".
(I'm not very secure on my NM's though, and need to brush up!)
...
By the way, thanks also to Jeff and Galaxyrocker!
