Upstart verbs

This dreich Sunday morning I've decided to talk about verbs.

Verbs are a contradiction for me. I love verbs and I hate them. They make or break your skill in a language. They can be simple or horribly complex. With this all in mind, let's take a look at the verb system in Gaelic...

The first main feature of Gaelic verbs is their position. The upstart things come first in a sentence or clause unless following a question word or negation words or such like. For example:

Tha mi sgìth                                - I am tired
Chunnaic i am balach                 - She saw the boy

Tha (from "to be") and chunnaic (from "to see") come first in the above sentences, even before the pronouns mi (I) and i (she). I still find this very hard to get used to as it makes every sentence sound like a question in my mind. Even though I've learnt languages like German where the verb shifts about from the second position to the final position depending on whether it is a conjugated verb, in a subordinated clause, etc., or Latin where the verb is usually at the end, the position at the front seems to mess more with my head because it occupies the verb "question position" in English and so many other foreign languages. That said, I am getting more used to it the more I read and listen to Gaelic.

So how does Gaelic form closed questions if the verb is at the beginning already? It does so by a form of conjugation into a "question form" of the verb and preceding it with the question particle "an" ("am" before labials). E.g.:

A bheil thu sgìth?                        - Are you tired?
Am faca e an nighean?                - Did he see the girl?

Am bheil can also be seen though a bheil seems to be more common. The same process also occurs for negating verbs, where cha(n) is placed before the negative form of the verb. The negative question form is formed in a similar way with nach:

Chan eil i sgìth                           - She is not tired
Chan fhaca sinn an cù                - We did not see the dog

Nach eil iad sgìth?                     - Aren't they tired?
Nach f(h)aca sibh an cat?          - Didn't you see the cat?

This way you have all of the essential ways of using a verb positively or negatively and in statement or question form. I'll take a look at tense and other verb aspects in due course. Meanwhile it's time for mo bhracaist.