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The Daltaí Boards » Archive: 2005- » 2009 (September-October) » Archive through October 20, 2009 » Question Formation in Irish - A Question « Previous Next »

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Shane Morris (Unregistered Guest)
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Posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 02:08 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Hey guys, question from an intermediate level student.

Is there a difference in Irish between Subject and Object Questions?

For example:

Who did you see?
Who saw you?

Who did he shoot?
Who shot him?



both are past simple questions, but in the English language it is a complex change in grammar (aux-verb., verb form, pronoun case). Other languages have different cases of thew word for "who" to make this differentiation. What's the story with Irish? Please translate the above sentences.



Cé a chonaic tú?.......

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(Unregistered Guest)
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Posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 08:32 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

Who did you see?

Cé a chonaicís?


Who saw you?

Cé a chonaic thu?


Who did he shoot? Well scaoileadh requires use of "le" afterwards. To avoid complicating matters, can we say: who did he hit?

Cé a bhuail sé?

Who hit him?

Cé a bhuail é?



As you can see, with the 1st and 2nd person object, it should be pretty clear who is doing the action, as the verb is in the 3rd person and the pronoun object is 1st or 2nd person. With a 3rd person object, there is still a difference - é instead of sé. The murky bit comes with a noun object?

Who hit the man? Cé a bhuail an fear?
Who did the man hit? Cé a bhuail an fear?

I think there may be a way of clarifying the second version:

Cé hé an fear a bhuail sé é?

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Lughaidh
Member
Username: Lughaidh

Post Number: 3227
Registered: 01-2005


Posted on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 10:37 pm:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

If you use "é" at the end and "cé" at the beginning, have to use the indirect relative:

Cén fear ar bhuail sé é?


The pronouns that have a different form while subject and object are
tú & thú (although sometimes in Donegal you can use tú as an object too)
sé & é
sí & í
siad & iad

mé, muid/sinn and sibh don't change.

Learn Irish pronunciation here: http://loig.cheveau.ifrance.com/irish/irishsounds/irishsounds.html & http://fsii.gaeilge.org/

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Lars
Member
Username: Lars

Post Number: 435
Registered: 08-2005
Posted on Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 11:43 am:   Small TextLarge TextEdit Post Print Post

quote:

Who did you see?
Cé a chonaicís?

Who saw you?
Cé a chonaic thu?


"Chonaicis" (you saw) is used mainly in Munster dialects (rather pronounced "chnuicís" there).
But even in Standard Irish there is a difference:
Whom did you see? = Cé a chonaic tú?
Who did see you? = Cé a chonaic thú?


A problem arises in cases as mentioned:
Who hit the man? = Cé a bhuail an fear?
Who did the man hit? = Cé a bhuail an fear?

So some further information in context would be needed if you'd like to use ambiguous forms as "Cé a bhuail an fear?"

But you can avoid ambiguity and use an indirect relative clause with an additional "é" to clarify, as mentioned by Lughaidh:
Who did the man hit? = Cé ar bhuail an fear é?

Lars



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