I have seen these all before a verbal noun. Can someone clerify what the difference is. In TYI they give Tá sé ag bualadh = he is beating/striking but Tá sé dá bualadh he is being beaten. I guess I kind of undertsand that, but is it constant? like Tá sé ag ithe and Tá sé dá ithe for it is being eaten. But I have no idea how to use á before a vn.

This is discussed in many posts in the archive.

We can add "a" and "do" into the mix.

Ag bualadh - beating. Takes the genitive as the noun object. Tá sé ag bualadh an ghadhair - he is beating the dog.

Á bhualadh - has two means Let's start with meaning 1: the pronoun object of the verbal noun. Á bhualadh means "beating it or him". Note, this is inflected for gender, so "á bualadh" means beating her, and á mbualadh beating them. Tá an fear á bhualadh - the man is beating it. Note: this form was historically written 'ghá bhualadh - but the pronunciation is, at least today, just á bhualadh.

Á bhualadh - meaning 2) passive sense "being beaten", with "ag" showing the agent. Tá an gadhar á bhualadh ag an bhfear - the dog is being beaten by the man. This is also inflected for gender. Note: this form was historically written dá bhualadh - but the pronunciation is, at least today, just á bhualadh. mid-19th century grammar books railed against the writing of it as "dá", saying that it was a mistaken etymology - I would query the idea that it was ever actually pronounced dá. As there are two meanings of á bhualadh, it was probably useful to differentiate them in spelling.

A bhualadh - "a" is just the particle governing the verbal noun, and this construction is used in an infinitive-style construction where the object precedes the verbal noun. Ba mhaith liom an gadhar a bhualadh - I would like to beat the dog. Ba mhaith liom é a bhualadh.

Do bhualadh - the meaning is the same as "a bhualadh" above, as "do" is believed to have weakened into "a". Ba mhaith liom an gadhar do bhualadh.

(Message edited by corkirish on November 29, 2010)

Thanks again. Dillon did explain that "a" was "do" pronounced "a" and is now so written, except before a vowel where it retains the d or dh as in dh'ithe. But he only gave us one example of dá before a vn. I had thought that dá and á might be similar. I am happy to finaly understand it though.

off topic - CorkIrish, I downloaded a PDF the other day that says its Séadna an dara chuid. Are you aware if it is infact part 2 of Séadna or a different book alltogether? this site says its scots, but others say Irish: http://www.archive.org/details/sadnadaracurow00oleauoft

also came accros this as well, its PUL
http://ia311328.us.archive.org/2/items/sgeuluidheachtc00unkngoog/sgeuluidheachtc 00unkngoog.pdf

yes, the first of those is part 2 of Séadna and is not in Scottish Gaelic. But if you want the original text of Séadna, Anton Green is transcribing it on Wikisource at http://wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Seadna.djvu It is nearly complete.

The other PDF you linked to was not by Peadar Ua Laoghaire, but by Pádraig Ó Laoghaire, a native speaker from somewhere near Inches, Eyeries in Co. Cork.

You can of course ask grammatical questions here, but you can also get the answers to almost all grammatical questions on Lars Braesicke's site at http://www.nualeargais.ie/gnag/gram.htm

thanks again, sorry about the PUL mislead. Didnt read it right i guess.

I have understood it this way:


1) Tá mo charr salach. Táim ag a|á ní.

I am "at its washing".


2) Tá mo charr do a|dá|á ní ag cailín uchtnocht.

It is "for its washing".

Curiousfinn if that helps you to think of it that way, then good, but that is not the etymology.

See John Donovan's grammar from 1845 (http://www.archive.org/stream/grammarirish00odonuoft#page/n478/mode/1up and the following page). John Donovan was writing when 50% of the population spoke Irish, and he was in fact "the mother ship" - his grammar is the only thorough treatment of the Irish language. But he makes clear the passive meaning is from "ag" and not from "do". The spelling dá is simply spurious. Simply "dom bhualadh" and such forms are highly questionable. If the Conemara forms have a guttural fricative in, it is from gh, originally from the g of ag, and not from dh -as is shown by the Mayo and Scottish forms. John Donovan is one of the most famous of Irish scholars - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Donovan_(scholar)

Similarly, Ulick Bourke's grammar from 1856 points out that dá was starting to become widespread in his time, when these are from the ag of ag, including the passive ones. See the bottom of http://www.archive.org/stream/collegeirishgra00bourgoog#page/n170/mode/1up