I was just reading the following sentence in Séadna:

"Is cuma dhuit cé hé mé, ach béarfad an oiread airgid duit anois agus cheannóidh an oiread leathair agus choimeádfaidh ag obair thú go ceann trí mblian ndéag, ar an gcoinníoll so..."

Just to make sure I'm not getting things completely wrong I would understand this as:

"It doesn't matter to you who I am, but (in the sense of except that)I will give so much money to you and buy so much leather and I will observe you working for thirteen years, on this condition...."

However I must admit I don't really understand why ceannóidh and coimeádfaidh are being lenited. My only suspicion is that it is to do with the meaning of "ach" or possibly there is some sort of relative construction going on, but that's probably wrong!

Any help?

(Message edited by darran on March 12, 2011)

There's a direct relative pronoun to be understood before each of those verbs, Darran. (Look for "forainm coibhneasta díreach" in your Irish Grammar book.)

Here's how I'd read it: "Is cuma dhuit cé hé mé, ach béarfad an oiread airgid duit anois agus a cheannóidh an oiread leathair agus a choimeádfaidh ag obair thú go ceann trí mblian ndéag, ar an gcoinníoll so..."

The first a has an oiread airgid as its antecedent and the second has an oiread leathair. An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire was the acknowledged master of Irish prose writing in his day and for generations after.

What version of Séadna are you reading, Darran? The original or ...?

GRMA, a Jeacín!

I thought it might be an implicit relative but I haven't really seen or heard much implicit relatives outside of words where it is obvious (mar, nuair, e.t.c.)

So if:

an oiread leathair agus a choimeádfaidh ag obair thú

has

an oiread leathair

as it's antecedent, how should one "literally" read the sentence?

What I'm basically asking is does the relative have a "who" meaning?

"It doesn't matter to you who I am, but (in the sense of except that)I will give so much money to you now and (who) will buy so much leather and (who) will observe you working for thirteen years, on this condition...."

i.e. I am the one who will give so much money to you now.

I have the original I think, it has synthetic forms, datives, Munster spellings, e.t.c. so I believe it's the real thing.

There is no doubt the man had beautiful Irish.

The relative refers to the antecedent so it can be translated to English by whatever words are appropriate in that language i.e. who / whom / whose / which / that / etc

<<"is>>

Who I am does not affect you, but I will give you as much money now as will buy enough leather to keep you working for [the next] thirteen years, subject to this condition ....

That's not a literal translation but it is close and conveys the meaning.

A literal translation might include that will buy and that will keep

The relative refers to the antecedent so it can be translated to English by whatever words are appropriate in that language i.e. who / whom / whose / which / that / etc

<<"Is cuma dhuit cé hé mé, ach béarfad an oiread airgid duit anois agus cheannóidh an oiread leathair agus choimeádfaidh ag obair thú go ceann trí mblian ndéag, ar an gcoinníoll so..."
>>

Who I am does not affect you, but I will give you as much money now as will buy enough leather to keep you working for [the next] thirteen years, subject to this condition ....

That's not a literal translation but it is close and conveys the meaning.

A literal translation might include that will buy and that will keep

Perfect, I didn't manage to explain myself very well in the last post, but you cleared up my confusion anyway.

GRMA!

Tá fáilte romhat, Darran. Cad é an chéad cheist eile?