Year: 1977
Type: article
Abstract: Overlapping Systems in the IrishComparative Construction* 1. Introduction.In the development from Old Irish to Modern Irish, the adjective system has undergone major structural changes.Because these changes have not occurred at a uniform rate for both compared and noncompared adjectives, Modern Irish comparatives display evidence of two overlapping systems.Noncompared adjectives have a structure quite different from that of Old Irish.Superlatives, on the other hand, have retained the Old Irish structure.Comparative adjectival forms can reflect both systems as alternative structures of apparently equivalent meaning.This overlap makes a unified synchronic analysis very difficult.The facts depend crucially, as does so much else in Irish grammar, on the existence of two words for 'be'; the copula is and the substantive verb tti.lAside from cleft sentences, in which almost any constituent can occur with is, the predicate of is most commonly is an NP, or in some dialects an adjective with a subject.,complementsuch as important or significant.Ta takes prepositional phrases, adverbials, and predicate adjectives.Predicate adjectives in Old Irish, however, always required the copula.• The bulk of the data in this article was collected in Ireland from native speakers of the Connacht dialect of Irish, principally from Mairin ni Fhathartaigh of Inis Mean, Aran, to whom I am grateful for her patience in answering and reanswering countless questions and either producing or approving almost all the sentences included in this article.I also had the help of Mairead ni Choistealbha of An Ceathni Rua, Co.
Source: WORD
Author: Nancy Stenson
Institution: Dublin Institute For Advanced Studies
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2244568732