Hi all.

I’m trying to tell somebody “I said that I would prefer to use it (Irish)” but im not too sure of my use of the copula in a relative clause like this. I translated it as follows:

Dúirt mé gur bhfear liom í a úsáid

I’d really appreciate if anyone could correct me here.

Thanks in advance,
Ade.

I don't know the rule(s), but it should be

gur fearr

Dúirt mé gur fearr liom í a úsáid I said that I prefer to use it

Also you can say Dúirt mé go mb'fhearr liom í a úsáid if you want to say "I said that I would prefer to use it" if you like.

Wait for more input to be sure. Someone else should be able to explain the grammatical side of it.

Thanks, gumbi.

It sounds like “gur fear” is in the present tense rather than the conditional mood, “prefer” vs. “would prefer”. Is that right?

I’ve never heard of “go mb’fhearr” before. It looks odd to me. I thought the b was the urú that gets used before words beginning with f. So to me this looks like double eclipses with the mb.

Standard Irish
is fearr liom = I like better / I prefer -> gur fearr liom = that I like better / that I prefer
b'fhearr liom = I'd like better / I'd prefer -> gurbh fhearr liom = that I'd like better / that I'd prefer

In many dialects:
b'fhearr liom = I'd like better / I'd prefer -> go mb'fhearr liom = that I'd like better / that I'd prefer

So:
Dúirt mé gurbh fhearr liom í a úsáid
Dúirt mé go mb'fhearr liom í a úsáid

b'fhearr = ba (copula past tense) + fhearr
in "go mb'fhearr" the copula-b is eclipsed.
in "gurbh fhearr" the copula-b is lenited.


(BTW: These aren't relative clauses)

Sorry, my own ignorance showing itself here. Wasn’t sure what type of construction this was.

Thanks very much for the detailed answer.

From what I have heard, in addition to "go mb'fhearr" for "gurbh fhearr" you will also hear "an mb'fhearr" instead of "arbh fhearr"

I have not, however, heard "Is b'fhearr liom" so I think this is just for dependent forms (if that is the correct term )

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"Is" is a copula form (present tense), "b'" is a copula form (past/conditional). So "Is b'" doesn't make any sense.

In "an mb'fhearr" "an" is a verbal particle. The copula ba follows (shortened to b' and eclipsed, so mb')
an mb'fhearr = an + ba + fearr
In "arbh" three different words are combined: an (interrogative verbal particle), ro (perfect verbal particle) and ba (past copula)
arbh fhearr = an + ro + ba + fearr

So, the difference between "arbh fhearr" and "an mb'fhearr" is the occurence or absence of the perfect particle ro, shortened to the letter -r-.

AFAIR, ro occured originally only in past tense but not in conditional mood (as it still does with most "normal" verbs, eg. an mbainfeadh sé? vs. ar bhain sé? ar = an + ro)
So the difference between arbh fhearr and an mb'fhearr (and between gurbh fhearr and go mb'fhearr) was the difference between past tense and conditional.
But this difference is blurred and in dialects both forms compete in all historical tenses (past, imperfect, conditional). Forms with ro prevail and made their way into Standard Irish.
(though even in Standard Irish two phrases without ro, go mb'fhéidir and go mb'fhiú, should be used acc. to GGBC).

Hahah of course not! I just had no idea why until...

This is absolutely brilliant, exactly the missing link in all of our understanding, thanks!!!

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