Hi everyone (and thanks in advance for any help).

I'm working my way through gaschaint.ie with regards to the munster Irish section and I ran across an unexpected construct: 'An gcodlaís go maith?"
See 2nd item down in the link here https://www.gaschaint.ie/category/1/morning/early-morning#gc_14 and there's audio if you click on the section.

Going off my knowledge of Irish (and double checking with braesicke.de) I was only expecting bí ,abair, déan, faigh, feic, téigh to be using 'an' here. So I would have thought that 'ar chodlaís go maith?" would have been expected.
Braesicke link here, discussed on page's first paragraph: http://braesicke.de/part.htm#frag.

This all said, I'm sure that there's some grammar rule that I'm not aware of that's coming into play here as opposed to the speakers being incorrect.
From what I can tell, the munster speakers on gaschaint seem to be from Cork, so maybe there's some muimhneachas (or corcachas?) I'm not aware of at play.

Hopefully someone can help me clarify what's happening here, and perhaps, if codail takes 'an' in the preterite, perhaps other verbs do too?

Mini bonus question, I noticed the gaschaint speaker pronounces the 'd' in 'gcodlaís'. I was expecting it to be unpronounced, or at least, I've never heard it pronounced. This is extra interesting as the speaker for the cork irish blog's audio for the preterite does not sound the 'd' in the past tense, see here: https://corkirish.wordpress.com/verb-conjugation/codlaim/.

Is this all a case of idiolect or is it more common throughout cork and perhaps munster?

The r particle is being phased out in modern Munster Irish, e.g. níor dhein>>> ní dhein.

In Kerry, an gcodlaís is said, I believe. You have to be accepting of a wider variety of dialectal norms in Irish.

It can be chodlais (without the d pronounced) or chodalaís with the d pronounced. Donncha Ó Céileachair in Muskerry stated that both were correct. Note that this verb is in the 2nd conjugation in the Standard, but is a syncopating verb in traditional Munster Irish (= a verb that has 2nd conjugation style forms only in the future and conditional, so codlód, do chodlóinn)

Thanks for the quick response! The help is much appreciated.


Very very interesting thanks for clarifying! So we had 'ro' at some point then the 'r' forms (ar, níor, nár etc.) and now munster is innovating and ousting the remnants of 'ro'?


In terms of this overall particle loss, would you have an idea of the prevalence of it throughout munster?
As, based on what you say in the above quote, I'm assuming that the loss is more prevalent in Kerry and that "ar chodlaís go maith?" would be a perfectly acceptable Cork form?
Listening to Eoiní on Cork Irish he seems to retain the 'r' in his 'níor's at least.

Lastly, in speakers without the r forms, would it be the case that all preterite verbs can now take an+urú (instead of ar+seimhiú) etc?


No doubt, the more I dive into Irish again, the more fury I feel with the Irish I learnt at school. Absolutely none of this was taught, even though it's very interesting.


So this is super interesting having listened to Eoiní again.
He seems to give the preterite as [xo'li:s], [xo'li:sʹ], [xodilʹ] etc. which fits neither description.
So I suppose it's another valid pronunciation on top of the two you gave?


Thanks for the extra context. TYI goes into this a little bit and it seems these style of verbs are nowadays more or less part of the second conjugation outside of the imperative 2nd person singular and preterite 3rd person singular.
As in, it's still codail, cosain etc. in munster as opposed to. codlaigh, cosnaigh etc.

Happy to be corrected on anything I've assumed.

It's present everywhere in Munster, but it's more common in Kerry


Yes.

An gcuais?
An ndreapais?

Note this involves a loss of all "r" forms. So speakers will use sara+eclipses as opposed to sarar+lenition and so forth.

_________________
The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Thanks Lon Dubh, that's really helpful!

I found some mention of the same topic on this thread in the meantime, could help the next equally confused learner: https://www.irishlanguageforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7095.

The distinction is in the number of syllables, and where the stress falls. Chodal, you would expect to be pronounced [xodilʹ], because the stress falls fully on the first syllable, cho-, whereas in chodlas and chodlais there is extra (not full) stress on the ending syllable also.

In terms of the development of the form, there are only two syllables in chodal. The reason the inflected forms, chodlas and chodlais, have more stress on the second syllable, however, is that this inflectional ending would have been the third syllable if not for syncope. Orthographically these forms show only two syllables because the second of three developmental syllables has been syncopated. In other words, chodalas and cohdalais would be redundant spellings because the words would never be pronounced with three syllables, but these are the spellings you might expect without syncope.

The result of this syncope is that the inflected endings -as and -ais take a greater stress in speech than the uninflected -dal of codal, just as they would be expected to if they were the third syllable. This greater stress has the effect of reducing the sound of the d to nothing.

I suspect this syncope is what djwebb intended to flag when he noted the following, rather than drawing attention to the conjugation, but maybe he can correct me if not:



This process isn't a modern thing in Irish, by the way. The same thing must have occurred in the prehistory of the language because, even by the earliest Old Irish writings, the definite article showed a similar reduction. The regular forms of the article in/inna/a etc, are all vowel initial. Articles generally are unstressed, but when compounded with a preposition like la they become even less stressed. The result, in this case, is the form lasin, but it happens with many prepositions, i + in = isin, co + in = cosin, etc. The s that keeps popping up in these compounds is the initial of the old Proto-Indo-European article *sindos.

In this respect this s is like the d of codal. It only appears when the syllable is very unstressed. The difference is purely orthographical. Modern Irish orthography retains the silent letter d, even where it might not be pronounced, whereas Old Irish orthography only included this s where it would be pronounced.

On an underlying phonological basis the stem is codl-, and the verb only gains an extra vowel in codail because there is a rule against -l on its own as a final syllable. This was pointed out by Raymond Hickey, who stated that codl as a word "violates the sonority cline for codas which demands that sonorants come before obstruents word-finally in monosyllables". But I think the way the language directly presents itself to native speakers and learners in a more superficial way is that codail is seen as the base word, which then loses a syllable when additional syllables are added. Some traditional forms of this verb would be seen as strange today: codaltar cois tine istoíche - this would be codlaítear or codlaítar nowadays (pr. colaítar). I of course would say codalhar, but as I'm not in Ireland, I can please myself.

Got it, that makes sense now thanks for clarifying.


For completeness I'm assuming this rule extends to l, n and r? Which would explain cosain and the like.
Out of interest then, if the stem is 'codl' with a broad l, is there any particular reason why the terminal consonant in the imperative is slender instead?


Out of interest, how is a change in grammar like this perceived amongst native speakers?
Is it considered 'bad irish' or would people care at all?
Personally I have no view, but I'm curious.

They barely notice it and I have never met someone who cared about this particular change.

_________________
The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

That's interesting, I have never heard "an gcuais." I didn't know that was said at all, even by people who normally have that structure.