I've noticed that "sin"/"san" and "seo"/"so" seem to sometimes be used as if they contained an invisible copula, somewhat similar to that of interrogative pronouns like "cé", only with the word following them acting as the predicate rather them being the predicate themselves

Ex. "Sin lacha" = "This is a duck"??

Is that actually the case or am I misinterpreting? How exactly do I use this?



(Also I'm new to this forum so I'm so sorry if I broke any rules or didn't post this properly)

Yes, that's right, but sin lacha means "that's a duck", not "this is a duck". seo lacha means this is a duck.

I think sin is a combination of is+demonstrative.

Sin ceist - that is a question
B'in ceist - that was a question. Often written b'shin. B'in ceist nár tuigeadh.

Also note that in Munster and Connacht you’ll often see a pronoun added before definite nouns: seo é mo thigh ‘this is my house’, sin í a mháthair ‘that is his mother’, etc.

Historically it actually didn’t have anything to do with the copula (see this thread and this bit on Classical Gaelic grammar) but at least since the 16th century (and maybe even earlier) it’s been reinterpreted as containing the copula and equivalent to sentences like is lacha (é) sin (and hence also forms like the past b’in).

Omg lmfao I knew about "sin" being "that" but I always mix it up cause of the English "this" having an i like in "sin"

Thank you so much for helping

Woah that's really fascinating tysm!