Question regarding the sentence "I see you." My English-speaking attempt would be:

Feicim thú.

However, Ó Siadhail asserts that the ordinary (thú) form of a pronoun requires an adverb or adverbial phrase, such as anois. So...

Feicim thú anois.

Is anois serving the same function as ann in Tá fear ann?

For that matter, could one say Feicim thú ann ?

I don't think I agree.

Feicim anois thú (which is what I would say) implies that I see you now, but I didn't a minute ago.

"Tá fear ann" is different.
"Tá fear" alone makes no sense. (a man is)

Feicim ann thú to me means "I see you there (somewhere specific)

Thanks. In any event, is it truly incorrect to say simply "Feicim thú" without any adverb?

Not that I don't trust the esteemed Ó Siadhail, mind you -- it's just a difficult thing for me to understand why that would be wrong, unless it's one of those things that is what it is just because. Thanks again.

quote:

Thanks. In any event, is it truly incorrect to say simply "Feicim thú" without any adverb?

Well, I don't think so... I mean it's the first time I hear someone saying you have to add an adverb in that sentence. But Ó Siadhail is a native speaker and I am not, so I dunno if I should trust my own impressions. I think I've heard "tchím thú" or "cím thú" or "feicim thú" from other native speakers though.

From my perspective -"Tá fear ann" signals an existential state 'A man exists/there is a man' (as it were) which is different to 'Tá fear ansin' -'there is a man there'.

As for Ó Siadhail, remember he is writing as a linguist and has to justify his written statements with respect to some system or model, and who knows, this may lead him to write stuff that satisfies some theoretical framework, more than the actual speech of the Gaeltacht