djwebb2021 wrote:
Thank you, Ade, for a great explanation. What was the original of the relative pronoun? Maybe roughly similar?
Somewhat more complicated than it is in Modern Irish, I'm afraid, but interesting nonetheless.
Strictly speaking, Old Irish had a nasalising relative particle,
(s)a, but its usage was very restricted. I was only used in constructions like
di-a "to whom", or
la-sa "with which", where the relation of the antecedent to the remainder of the relative clause is expressed using a preposition. It could also be found compounded with conjunctions like
ara "in order that". This particle is itself probably a reflex of the Old Irish neuter article
a (which also nasalised).
Aside from cases such as these, relativity in Old Irish was shown in a few different ways:
1. There were leniting relative clauses (e.g.
for-chomnaccuir "which has happened",
ro-chreitset "who have believed") and nasalising relative clauses (
aimsire m-bítesom isind fognam "of the time which they are in the service",
arndip maith n-airlethar a muintir "so that it is well that he may regulate his people"), whereby the relativity is only apparent by lenition or nasalisation of the verb following a preverbal particle which would not otherwise cause lenition or nasalisation.
2. Simple verbs in 3rd person had discrete relative forms.
3. Simple verbs for all other persons would be preceded by the dummy particle
no.
4. Negative relative clauses had discrete negative relative particles
nád,
ná and
nách (instead of
ní).
5. There is a class of infixed pronoun which are only used in relative clauses, e.g.
no-don-nerta "which strengthens us" vs.
no-n-nert "he strengthens us". Hence, if these pronominal forms were used as the direct objects, it could be understood that the clause was relative.
5.1. Note, the use of the particle
no which occurs in both examples I just gave in point 5 is not the same as the particle I mentioned in point 3. The particle in point 3 is used without any following pronoun. This, by contrast, is the dummy particle which is used to prefix object pronouns to simple verbs, which I mentioned in my last post. As a simple verb,
nertaid would have a discrete relative form in the 3rd sg., as per point 2. As such, this
no does not indicate relativity in
no-don-nerta, so relativity must instead be inferred from the pronoun,
don.
5.2. As you can see, strictly speaking there was only one relative particle, but in fact other particles existed (negative
ná/nád, dummy
no) which could themselves imply relativity, and regular preverbs (
do,
ad, etc.) could be used to infix pronouns which would imply relativity. Even by the Old Irish period, though, this complex system was beginning to break down, and sometimes infixed pronouns other than those of the specific class mentioned in point 5 would be used. In these cases relativity had to be inferred from the context.
I suspect the reason you ask is out of interest as to where the modern Irish relative particles
a and
do originated, and how they relate to each other. Unfortunately, it's not very clear by looking back to the Old Irish system how either of these came to be, and I'm afraid I can only conjecture.
It's tempting to conclude that the modern relative particle,
a, might be traced back to the Old Irish relative particle, also
a. If this is the case, though, it's very hard to explain the loss of nasalisation and development of lenition in the Modern Irish particle. So, this explanation seems unlikely.
I think, instead, the explanation is probably related to the development of the modern Munster particle
do. In the same way as
do acts as a dummy particle to support a fossilised 3rd sg. neuter pronoun, and this pronoun is responsible for lenition in the past tense in Modern Irish (even in dialects where the particle
do is no longer used), I think we can probably trace both of the modern relative particles back to the neuter pronoun also.
In Old Irish, this neuter 3rd sg. pronoun was a leniting
a. While this pronoun is not of the class mentioned in point 5 above, which are always relative, by the time the Old Irish verbal system was breaking down it was quite common for pronouns from other classes to be used in relative clauses also, as I mentioned in point 5.2. When compounded with certain Old Irish preverbs, like
do and the dummy particle
no, this pronoun would have rendered the combinations
da and
na respectively. By the Middle Irish period, when the system was in decay, the forms with and without attached pronouns likely became indistinct, probably being pronounced the same way (
də and
nə). This is how the Modern Irish
do developed, however, at the same time as this was emerging the Old Irish system for showing relativity would have been falling apart because it relied heavily on the now-defunct verbal complex, so it seems likely that these indistinct pronominal forms which emerged also produced a relative
do at the same time.
This is where we get a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. It seems likely that Munster Irish just applied relativity to the particle
do, which was already in use with past tense verbs. The other dialects may have adopted the Old Irish 3rd sg. neuter pronoun, leniting
a, directly, or alternatively, they may have originally used relative
do and later switched to
a. Given the spread of non-relative
do to all dialects, as evidenced by lenition in the past tense and vowel-initial verbs which retain
d', I'm inclined to suspect it's the latter.
Whichever the case may be, though, I think the retention of relative
a in other dialects was likely supported by the survival of the discrete relative form of the substantive verb, atá. As such, when the non-relative
do forms were dropped in other dialects, the relative
a may have been retained by analogy with the substantive verb, even where the non-relative particle
do was dropped entirely.
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