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154 EheTs Celtic Studies.
tical, and the contradictoiy rules of the grammarians respecting
the anlaut of adjectives (p. 110-117), appear to make the matter
completely inexplicable. But if we examine this phenomenon
closer, and compare the use of the prepositions and the examples
from Keating (p. 394, seq.), light will be thrown upon this pecu-
liarity, in which the confusion of speech among the people, and
the foolish caprice of grammarians, have gone hand in hand, and
immediately the exceptions become satisfactorily explicable. At
p. 78 seq. (ante) attention has been before directed to the confu-
sion in the case-endings, which had partially begun already in Old
Irish, and which has been carried to an extreme in the Middle and
Modern Irish ; we can now complete and correct what has been
there said. In the first place, almost every distinction between
nom. and ace. has disappeared, in the singular, the nominatiA^e
form, in the plural at one time the latter, at another time the
former, has alone been preserved, and even where in an isolated
instance both forms occur, they appear to be promiscuously used ;
the accusative form has verv early replaced the nominative in
the plural of the article ; in the singvilar, on the other hand, tlie
nominative has replaced the accusative, of Avhich the Middle
Irish already affords examples (cf. cler in the Allemannian dialect
of German). The syntactical peculiarity of the Old Irish of
putting the accusative in many instances in place of the nomina-
tive, especially in the passive, and the complete similarity of
both cases in the plural, which often originally existed or arose
at an early period, as well as the slight difference in the singular
masculine, which completely disappeared before tenuis, and s,
f, facilitated this intermixture ; in addition to this, in the article,
both were from the beginning alike in tlie feminine plural ; and
in the noun, the accusative and vocative jDlural Avere the same,
the latter being the only true accusative form, which is still pre-
served, and which may also be recognized as such by the unal-
tered anlaut of a following adjective. The confusion has gone
so far in the spoken language, that this form occurs for the dative
in the plural even after prepositions, one says, indeed, do na
fearaibh (to the men), but also do na capitil (to the horses),
O'Donovan, 83 seq. = 7rpog rovg (rote) 'iTnroi; O'DonoA^an directs
the supposed accusative to be put after ga7i (without), and idir
(between), in the singular, in reality, therefore, the nominative.
The true accusative form is to be found, on the other hand, in
the so-called dative singular, for o'nm-bdrd is as little a time
dative as the French au poete (irad ilium poctam). Even in
Old Irish the dative distinguished itself fi-om tlie accusative in
the vowel only in the a- (ia-) and rt-stems, which were capable
of an u umlaut, and this distinction must have ceased in Modern