Ritheann siad gan a bheith cortha, siúlann siad rompu gan tuirse a teacht orthu.

"They will run without growing fatigued, they will walk without growing tired"

I'm just wondering why the Irish constructions of each part of this sentence are so different. I'm used to things like hunger, tiredness and thirst to being "on someone," and so "gan tuirse a teacht orthu" makes sense. That being said, I wonder if we could remove "a teacht" and get the same message across....

Is it correct to say that:
"gan tuirse orthu" = WIthout tiredness on them
"gan tuirse a teacht orthu" = without tiredness coming on them

Then, for the first part of a sentence, the idea is exactly the same yet the construction is completely different:"
"Ritheann siad gan a bheith cortha"
We bust out a form of the verb "to be", and there is no mention of the fatigue being "on them"....

Why are there such different constructions for the first and second part of the sentence when the idea is completely the same?

They are distinct because cortha "exhausted" is an adjective (specifically, the verbal adjective of the verb coir "to tire/exhaust") while tuirse "tiredness" is a noun. With an adjective, you use the verb "to be", i.e. "they are tired", however, with a noun like tuirse, you use the "on" construction, i.e. "tiredness is on them". In English, both fatigued and tired are adjectives, so it gives the false sense that you could translate them the same way, but Irish doesn't work like that.

Your suggestion, gan tuirse orthu, doesn't sound right. You would need a verb. You could say gan tuirse a bheith orthu "without tiredness being on them", but gan tuirse a teacht orthu makes more sense when translating "without growing tired" rather than simply "without being tired".

or: gan tuirse a bheith orthu = without being tired



"a teacht" is wrong.

gan tuirse a theacht orthu (so in ABN)



cortha is an adjective, a verbal adjective, not a noun like tuirse.
The corresponding verb is coir - to tire, to exhaust.
Tá siad cortha. = They are exhausted.
bheith cortha = to be exhausted
gan (a) bheith cortha = not to be exhausted, without being exhausted.

Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!