Hello,

I am new to the forum. I've been wanting to join this forum for a while, and finally I did.

I would like to ask a question about the Irish negator "dheamhan". This question would be directed to native (L1) speakers, if possible. Just for clarity, I am doing research on this negator, and a journal requested some information which I cannot find on corpora, in the existing literature, or anywhere else.

So, right away: can anybody tell me if these sentences are fine to them?


1. Dheamhan mo dhóthain a fuair mé.

2. Dheamhan ina codladh a bhí sí.

3. Dheamhan in aghaidh a chéile atá siad.

4. Dheamhan ar a leas a bhí achan fhear ag smaointeamh.

5. Dheamhan dhá ndíol atá siad.


I would be happy if you could drop any comments about these sentences, if you notice something interesting.

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!
Nioclás

Never heard nor used it. But I looked it up and looks fine. Maybe it might be an Ulster thing (?) the sentences you wrote are otherwise in Ulster Irish. "achan" instead of "gach" is Ulster.

_________________
Séamus Ó h-Uiginn

Cainnteóir dúṫċais - Ṫá seana-ċainnt na nDéise agam
L1 Speaker - I speak an old dialect of Déise Irish

Well, I'm not sure this forum bans non-native speakers from answering any questions. And there are very few native speakers sitting on the Internet to answer questions on Irish. Bríd Mhór, a native speaker of Conamara Irish, may be able to answer your question.

i don't think there is evidence for dheamhan in Munster (an deamhan is found). For dheamhan, you will find a few pages in Mícheál Ó Siadhial's Modern Irish, but my copy is in the loft and I can't remember everything from that. Also look at Ó Siadhail's Jstor article at https://www.jstor.org/stable/30008213?s ... 4685354d44

Have you looked in the Nua-Chorpas at https://focloir.sketchengine.co.uk? There are about 600 hits. Nearly all of them show dheamhan+noun phrase, e.g. dheamhan rud a fuaras (=I found fuck all). Dheamhan a bhfeacadar is another type of noun phrase, as a bhfeacadar is equivalent to a noun phrase. As a non-native speaker, my view that none of the phrases you offer is correct won't carry any weight with you (which is how it should be). Could you contact an academic who is native speaker of Connacht Irish?

Nearly all uses by Amhlaoibh Ó Loingsigh are of an deamhan blúire. The syntax is hard to grasp, as if go follows, it is strong negation, but is ná go follows, it is strong affirmation:

An deamhan blúire ná go raibh beirt mhac ag an seana-mhnaoi!, I’ll be damned if the old woman didn’t have two sons! [AÓL1968].
An deamhan gu’ dócha go ragha mé isteach, I’ll be damned if I won’t go in! [AÓL1968].
An deamhan blúire dhi ná gur thairrig slaitín draíochta agus do bhuail buille don tslaitín air, I’ll be damned if she didn’t get a magic wand and strike him with the wand [AÓL1968]

If you're writing an academic paper for a journal, the connection to the Hiberno-Irish "devil a bit (divil a bit)" and "sorra bit" is worth exploring. And phrases with an deamhan are equivalent to phrases with an diabhal:

An dial blúire do Sheán ná gur dhin féna géin ar muin capaill, agus a chlaíomh aige, I’ll be damned if Seán did not approach it on horseback with his sword drawn [AÓL1968].

Also see: An diabhal gnó agamsa ag dul ann, I have no reason at all to go there, and Ná an diabhal a dtabharfad!, like hell will I give it to you!/no way will I give it to you! [DBÓC1933], from the Irish of Dónall Bán Ó Céileachair.

Diabhal also appears as diabhar: An diabhar pioc, nothing at all.

Other phrases I've collected:

A dhiabhail!, for Pete’s sake! An diabhal!, dear me, damn! An diabhal mhuise!, damn it! Is cuma liom sa diabhal, I don’t give a damn. Cé hé sa diabhal tusa?, who on earth are you? Téir in ainm an diabhail, go to blazes! Cad é an diabhal é sin agat á dhéanamh?, what the hell are you doing? ’Sé an diabhal buí é, it’s pure hell, it’s the very devil, a real torment. Don diabhal a thuilleadh, nothing else. An deamhan me!, Crikey!

I have actually wondered whether the idea Irish has no expletives is tenable. E.g. in Finnish Saatana and Perkele are functional expletive, meaning "Satan/devil", so there are languages where demon/devil are expletives. e.g. "what the fuck!" is actually "cuma sa diabhal" in Irish.

Hi,

thank you both very much for your answers—they are much appreciated.

Ceanntuigheoireacht6, thanks for your judgements. The sentences are versions of some examples I got from a handout on Irish syntax, which I have modified to include dheamhan. They are not meant to be coherent in dialectal terms, but only to test whether these structures with dheamhan are acceptable. I think I read that this kind of emphatic negation is mostly associated with the West of Ireland, so I don't know if dheamhan would sound familiar at all to an Ulster speaker.

djwebb2021, thanks a bunch for the references; I am acquainted with Ó Siadhail's works you quoted, and I've looked into (Hiberno-)English forms like "divil a bit". I have not been using Sketch Engine for the simple reason that the access for my institution has expired and apparently has not been renewed (perhaps too few people were using it), but I see that the corpus you linked is essentially open to the public after registration, and that's great; I have been using the Gaois corpus, the Corpas Stairiúil na Gaeilge and the Foclóir Mháirtín Uí Chadhain, which have pretty interesting data. The constructions you list are also interesting, and I'll look into Ó Loingsigh's production in particular.

Basically, I'm done with most of the syntactic analysis of the construction, but a couple of reviewers wanted some more evidence that the constituent to the right of dheamhan moves to that position from below, and to do this I need to verify if some agreement effects take place (like person-number agreement across the complementiser). Hence the constructed examples.

Thanks a lot again, and I'm looking forward to any further comments.

Interesting question.
I have never seen dheamhan with ina , (dh)á or ag + verbal noun.
There aren’t such examples in focloir.sketchengine.co.uk or in focloiruichadhain.ria.ie.

I wrote a little summary here (in German): https://www.braesicke.de/satz2.htm#diabhal

Well, surely dheamhan has to go next to a noun or noun phrase, and that is why the noun is shifted. so, where on books google com we find " divil a bit did I see her", it wouldn't have been "divil did I see her a bit", right? The "a bit" goes next to "divil".

The one I'm thinking about is "dheamhan mo dhóthain". "Dheamhan mo chos" is on Sketchengine.

i'm sending you Bríd Mhór' email address in a PM - she is from Conamara, but hasn't been on this site for a few months.

Where are you publishing your article?

You could also look at this: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED395506.pdf

Thank you very much! I'll have a look at your summary, it looks very comprehensive.

I believe those examples should be possible; that's because it is possible to focus those constituents to the left of the sentence without dheamhan, so it should also be possible with dheamhan:

Ina codladh atá sí --> Dheamhan ina codladh atá sí.

I know it's a bit of a trivial conclusion, but you know, evidence and all...

That's what I'm trying to demonstrate, but unfortunately the reviewers requested evidence beyond surface structure. Moreover, in Irish you get two constructions, one in which movement seems to be involved (i), and the other in which nothing moves to the right of from the lower clause. Sure, in (i) you get the "movement" complementiser (the direct relative), but the reviewers are not satisfied with the morphology of the complementiser alone and want more cross-linguistically valid evidence. Evidence for movement is not easy to come up with for a construction that is only left-peripheral.



Yes, that and the more idiomatic "dheamhan mo chos ná mo chnáimh", but unfortunately in that case you don't have agreement between the possessive adjective and the subject. So I think the reviewers would not be satisfied with it.



That's really kind of you, but unfortunately it appears I cannot receive PMs. Something about being new to the forum...



The paper is submitted to Glossa, but whether it gets published there or somewhere else depends on whether the editors and the reviewers deem my answers to the objections appropriate enough. I may have to submit it somewhere else.



I did have a look at it; it's very interesting, especially since it shows that it is not too obvious that Hiberno-English got the construction from Irish and not the other way around (hell-words are very common cross-linguistically anyway, as you also noted).

I've sent Bríd an email and I hope she has time to have a look. She used to spend a lot of time in this forum. I've sent a link to Lúghaidh too (not a native speaker, but with a lot of knowledge of Ulster Irish).

Nioclás for PMs you need 10 posts under your belt, and you have made only 4 posts so far....