Skip to main content

‹‹‹ prev (187)

(189) next ›››

(188)
156 Ehel's Celtic Studies.
When, therefore, .s suffers the so-called eclipse after is (in) as
in Keating — is in t-saoghal (in the world), the dative fomi is
there exceptionally preserved, while 'san seancJms (in the history)
contains the usual accusative form ; it is perfectly according to
rvde that t and d should remain pure after do'n (den, isin) for
they are withdrawn by the ;* from the aspiration which should
occur here ; after other prepositions the strict rule requires, how-
ever, eclipse as well as in the genitive plural. But even the
most abnormal modes of treatment of anlauts (as in Kilkenny
and Tipperary, where b, f, g, suffer eclipse, c and p aspiration
after all prepositions, and s is eclipsed, that is, aspirated by t; a
real dative is preserved here, as the aspiration of the c, p, s
shows, but h and g are assimilated with the nasal to m and ng,
the softening of the / to hli is curious) agree, however, in
this, that t and d, after the article, are nowhere aspirated ; proof
enough that in the Old Irish, also, we have to deal with a dis-
tinct law, and not "with a negligence of writing. If individual
writers have also changed the anlaut of substantives without the
article, e. g., have ecHpscd in the genitive plural, it is because
they have totally misapprehended the cause of the phenomena,
it is, tlierefore, AvhoUy unjustifiable.
That the adjective after the article is subject to the same laws
of anlaut as the noun substantive, may be concluded a priori; but
in general the case occurs very seldom, as the adjective comes
mostly after the substantive, in the opposite case composition
takes place, although they are sometimes separately written, as in
arnoib hriathrmb, Zeuss, 926 (read arnoibbriathraib, as the ab-
sence of the ending requires). In Modern Irish such combina-
tions are, to be sure, mostly wi'ittcn separate, but the adjective
remains unchanged, and the anlaut of the substantive is aspirated
(except in instances like seanduine) so that the composition is
readily recognizable (O'Donovan, 347, 349). — Besides the pro-
nouns each, cech, nach, cdatle, and the cardinal numerals which
regularly precede (indala appears to be compound, the ordinary
numerals besides cetne and tdnatse always precede the substan-
tive) sain occurs now and again inflected before the substan-
tive (saini persin in the nom. fern, plur., but hipersonaib sainib),
mostly, however, compounded ; uile fluctuates, cetne, also, mostly
precedes, but sometimes comes after the substantive; aile and
tdnaise are, on the other hand, always placed after it.
(2.) The same influence of the auslaut on the following anlaut
occurs, of com-se, between adjective (adjectival numeral and pro-
noun) and substantive, whenever the adjective has attributive
value, whether it goes before or after ; the examples in Zeuss are,
however, few, as the aspiration is never noticed in the case of 6, d,

Images and transcriptions on this page, including medium image downloads, may be used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence unless otherwise stated. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence