Hi. I've began to translate Gearóid Ó'Nualláin's identificatory copulas. I have some questions I was hoping to have clarified if anyone would be kind enough to help please.

Is é leigheas na lobhar is mó chuireadh iongna agus allthacht ar gach aoinne (aon duine) = It was the curing of the lepers that most amazed everyone

alltacht a chur ar dhuine, to amaze, astonish, s.o.
Chuir mé alltacht air = I amazed him?
Why is there an “agus” in the middle of the above Irish sentence? It makes it less comprehensible to me.
Concerning the part of the sentence written “that most amazed me”, where is the relative particle? Have the words “is mó” taken over the function of relativizing the entire sentence and if so, why? Could you provide another example to demonstrate this?
Lastly, why isn't it starting with "Ba é..." if it translates to "It was the curing of the lepers"?

Is é briathar dé an síol = the seed is the word of God.
Why isn’t it “Is é an briathar dé an síol”?

Is í an dias is troime is ísle chromas a ceann = The heaviest ear most lowly bends its head

I’m unsure of the how the English translation was constructed. Why does “is ísle” end up where is its situated?
an dias is troime = the heaviest ear
chromas a ceann = bends its head
I found the verb “crom” meaning to bend on FGB so I’m wondering where chromas is coming from?

Is é an t-éadach a ghní an duine = “Clothes makes the man”
I would translate this as “It is the clothes that make the man”
Would this satisfy too?



‘Type II (a) (VpSP) – Two reasons why the evolution of this type:
(i) A long cumbrous predicate, if placed immediately after “is”, would have spoiled the sentence. It is, therefore, put at the end, a pronoun taking its place after “is”, in order to avoid VS e.g.
Agus is é freagra a fuair sé: “Aingeal is eadh mise. Is mé an trímhadh h-aingeal gur thugais déirc dó indiu ar son an tslánuightheora. Agus anois tá trí ghuidhe agat le fagháil ó dhia na glóire. Iarr ar dhia aon trí ghuidhe is toil leat agus gheobhair iad. Ach tá aon chómhairle amháin agam le tabhairt duit. Ná dearmhaid an trocaire”’

My question here is regarding “Aingeal is eadh mise”. My understanding was when one wants to emphasise the copula, one would say “Aingeal is eadh mé”. Am I right in stating and if so, why is ‘mise’ there?
The quote continues on:
‘ (ii) To put even a short predicate after ‘is’ would sacrifice some important shade of meaning. A vivid, rhetorical form is required and Type II supplies it e.g. “Is é is fada liom go mbeidh an baiste sin déanta” = I long exceedingly to have that baptism accomplished. Or “b’é b’fhada leis go raibh sé amuigh” = The one thing he longed for was to get out.

I would translate the first sentence in (b) as “It is that I long that the baptism is done/accomplished” although that is very literal, granted. Looking at FGB for examples, the following popped up:

I long to see her, is fada liom go bhfeicead í; tá mé ag tnúth lena feiceáil.
Is é is fada liom go mbeidh mé ann, I am longing to be there.

It is clear here that to translate “I long + infinitive” into Irish is “Is fada liom + go”. I guess what is confusing me is: why does ‘go’ replace the infinitive? Is that a common occurrence in Irish and if so, could you provide another example to demonstrate?

Lastly, why are there two copulas each in the above two sentence e.g. “b’é b’fhada…”? It seems an awkward sentence construction to me.

Type II (b) – VpS ná P. – “More vivid and rhetorical than the preceding and should only be used when rhetoric is justified:
(i) B’e chómhartha é sin ná a bhás agus a aiséirghe férnig – This sign meant precisely His own death and resurrection
(ii) Is é rud a dhein Íosa ná ceist a chur chúcha – Jesus simply put to them the question
(iii) Is é rud a dhein sé ná an bhreith do chur ar ath-lá – He simply postponed the judgement
(iv) B’í seoid í sin ná bhaistí – The treasure I mean was Vashti”

I would have translated the following as:
(i) What that sign was/meant was his own death and resurrection
(ii) The thing that Jesus did was ask a question to …. (I’m unsure what ‘chúcha’ means?)
(iii) The thing that he did was … the judgement another day (athlá = another day)
(iv) What that treasure was was Vashti

Would the above translations have sufficed?
First question: in the first sentence, why is there “B’e chómhartha sin”. Shouldn’t it be “B’é chómhartha sin”? with a fada instead?
Second question: my observation is that my translations can be replaced with the phrased “I simply + verb”. Is there any truth to this observation? Are the original translations another way of saying “I simply went, I simply played, I simply found”?

Thank you for your help in advance.

You ignored iongna (CO ionadh ‘surprise, astonishment’). The whole clause is … chuireadh iongna agus allthacht ar gach aoinne ‘(that) used to put surprise and amazement on everyone’, ‘surprized and amazed everyone’. That’s what agus is for – to connect iongna and allthacht, it is a simple ‘and’ here.



Like in many non-standard Munster texts, the relative particle is just ommitted in writing, as it is not spoken. Grammatically it’s is é leigheas na lobhar (an rud) is mó a chuireadh… which I’d understand literally as ‘the biggest/most significant (thing) that surprized and amazed… is the curing of the lepers’ (edit, apparently it is the VpPS sentence, the curing is the predicate).

Cf. this post by An Lon Dubh (he analyzes briefly the same sentence) and this version of Críost Mac Dé from which the sentence comes on corkirish blog where the apostrophe has been explicitly put in place of relative particle (is é leigheas na lobhar is mó ’ chuireadh iúnadh agus alltacht…).



The same reason that it can’t be an briathat an athar – Dia ‘God’ is definite, so briathar Dé is already definite phrase ‘the word of God’, ‘God’s word’.



’ chromas = CO a chromann ‘that bends’ (the old relative ending -s still used in Ulster and sometimes in Connacht, not in Munster, see GnaG about it)

Similarly to the first sentence, there is some implicit noun before is íseal, it should be understood as is í an dias is troime (an dias, an ceann) is ísle a chromann a ceann, lit. something like ‘the heaviest ear (of corn) is the lowest one that bends its head’.



EDIT: if it is a VpPS sentence, then literally ‘what makes a man is the clothes’. I first took it for the VpSP sentence (as the syntax is ambiguous (is + pronoun + def. noun + def. noun, you can’t easily tell which noun phrase is the predicate, which is the subject). Hence my previous, possibly wrong, answer below:

Kinda (as I think it conveys the message in English), but as a literal translation no, I don’t think so. Remember that first comes the predicate (here the pronoun subpredicate é), then the subject (an t-éadach), then the actual predicate (the thing represented by é), so:
Is é an t-éadach a ghní an duine

The clothes are it – (the thing) that makes a man
‘The clothes are what makes the man’

ionadh agus alltacht = wonder and wildness (literally)



There needn't be one.
Mó ends in a vowel, so no "a" can be heard and needn't be written.



Because it's a cleft sentence. There's usually "Is ..." no matter what follows.



Because Dé is definite. And therefore briathar Dé is definite.



Superlative adverbs (most lowly) come first "inside" relative clauses.
Actually there are two relative clauses in a row:
1) is ísle
2) (a) chromas a ceann

PS: Same above with "is mó"



Yes.

You can say either mé or mise here.
Is aingeal mise. -> Aingeal is ea mise.
Is aingeal mé. -> Aingeal is ea mé.

-se just puts some emphasis on "mé".



It doesn't "replace"-
Languages differ whether they accept different kinds of clauses (infinitve clauses or noun clauses) in different situations.
Often both are acceptable but sometimes only one of them can occur.
So, "is fada le" is followed by a noun clause (go ...)



It is a pseudo-cleft (VpSP)

Is é (rud) is fada liom go ... = What I long is that ...
Here, the noun clause (go ...) is predicate. "((an) rud) is fada liom" is subject.

Compare with the "normal" sentence (VPS)
Is fada liom go ... = I long ...
Here, the noun clause (go ...) is subject, fada liom predicate



Yes.



Yes.



I don't know. (I'm bad in English).

Won’t answer about mé/mise in the is ea construction – I cannot yet really grasp when emphatic and when regular pronouns are used. I guess there’s no hard rule here and it really depends on the intuition of the speaker and what they want to put emphasis on.



I think this construction (is fada liom go…) means ‘I find it long (time) until…’, and that’s why there is future tense in Irish, ‘I find the time until I will be there long’. So there is no place for infinitive in Irish there.

But you often can express the same or similar thing using infinitive and without infinitive in English too, eg. you can say both ‘I wish to be there’ and ‘I wish that I were there’, or in Irish ba mhaith liom bheith ann and ba mhaith liom go mbeinn ann.


The double copula is the point Ó Nualláin makes here. Typically such sentences are classification sentences: is fada liom go mbead ann ‘(time) until I will be there is (what) I find long’, go mbead ann ‘(time) until I will be there’ is the subject, fada liom ‘(what) I find long’ is the predicate.

To put emphasis there is a second copula, wrapping it in an identification clause: is é (an rud) is fada liom go mbead ann ‘the thing that I find long is (time) until I will be there’.

The same in the past tense: b’é (an rud a)b’fhada leis go raibh sé amuigh ‘the thing that he was finding long was (time) until he was outside’

Good point.