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AN GAOḊAL.
THE VERBS ÓL and DEUN.
Editor of The Gael :
For some time past I have noticed much of your
space occupied by a controversy respecting the ter¬
mination of the Conditional mood of the verbs
Ól & Deun, some holding that it should
end in faḋ, and others, with yourself,
agreeing that it should end in oċaḋ.
It appears to me that this difference of opinion
arises from provincialism, each party holding that
the form used in the locality in Ireland whence he
came is the correct one. Provincialism, how¬
ever, must be looked upon as a very bad criterion
when the question at issue is one regulating the
construction of certain words ; and it must be par¬
ticularly so in a question discussing the formation
of a certain mood or tense in the Irish language, a
a language which for hundreds of years, has been
used only as the oral medium of a people oppressed
and persecuted, and coerced into ignorance to such
an extent that one per cent of them did not even
know the number of letters in the alphabet of their
language, or whether it ever had an alphabet. It
is needless to say that the vocabulary as well
as the construction of a language so circumstanced
must have suffered a material change for the worse
— a fact which makes itself manifest to any person
with a knowledge of Irish, traveling through the
Irish speaking districts of Ireland, for he will ob¬
serve that many words and phrases, borrowed from
the English language, are used as freely as if they
were native Irish, and that many Irish words are
modernized beyond cognition by the addition of
English prefixes and suffixes ; while tenses, moods,
number and person are used without the slightest
regard to the time or circumstance that ought to
regulate their correct application. But thanks to
the energy and perseverance of our ancient histor¬
ians and bards, the Irish as a written language
has not ceased to exist. In its original purity and
correctness it still lies in our beautiful manuscripts :
and grammars, having for their foundation the in¬
flection of the words, and the grammatical con¬
struction of the language, as it is written in these
manuscripts, have been left us by the industry and
talent of such scholars as O'Molloy, Windisch, O'¬
Donovan. Let us, therefore, throw provincialism
aside and refer to written authority for the termin¬
ntion of the coditional mood, and settle the dispute
about the verbs ól and deun.
The termination faḋ and ocaḋ in the
conditional mood belong to two distinct classes of
verbs.
1st Class. — Verbs whose first person sing. nom.
case indicative, is a word of two syllables and
whose root (2nd sing. imperative) consists of one
syllable, form their future indicative by adding
faiḋ or fiḋ to the root, according as
its last vowel is broad or slender in conformity
with the rule. —
"Caol le caol, agus laṫan le laṫan," as
glanfaiḋ sé, he will cleanse, brisfiḋ sé,
he will break. From the future thus formed is ob¬
tained the conditional mood by changing
faiḋ or fiḋ into faḋ or feaḋ,
aspirating the initial of the root if it be an aspirable
consonant, as; ġlanfaḋ sé, he would
cleanse, ḃrisfeaḋ sé, he would break ;
and if the initial be a vowel prefixing the particle
ḋ, if the verb affirm, as; d'iarrfaḋ sé,
he would ask ; but if the verb is used
in a negative sense the particle ní is
prefixed whether the initial be a vowel or a conso¬
nant, as, ní ġlanfaḋ sé, ní ḃrisfeaḋ
sé, ní iarrfaḋ sé.
2nd Class —. Verbs active whose first person sing
nom. c. indic. ends in uiġim of iġim,
consisting of two or more syllables, and whose root
consists of two or more syllables, form their fut¬
ure indicative by changing uiġim or
iġim into eoċaḋ, as árduiġim, I exalt
airdeoċaḋ sé he will exalt, soillsiġim
I shine, soillseoċaḋ sé, he will shine.
The conditional of this class of verbs is formed by
changing the final syllable of the future
(aḋ) into ainn for the first per. sing, (as¬
pirating the initial if it be an aspirable
consonant, and, if a vowel, prefixing
the particles ḋ or ní, | according as the
verb is used in an affirmative or nega¬
tive sense,) as, ṡoillseoċainn, I would
shine : into ṫa for the sec. per. sing.
as, ṡoillseoċṫa, thou wouldst shine, d'
airdeoċṫa, thou wouldst exalt, while
the third person sing. of this mood only differs from
the same person of the future indicative by having
the initial aspirated, or prefixing the affirmative
or negative particle as the case may
be ; as, ṡoillseoċaḋ sé, he would shine
ní airdeoċaḋ sé, he would not exalt
&c.
Now, these being the general rules for regulating
the formation of the conditional mood, no great dif¬
ficulty should present itself in forming the condit¬
ional of the verbs ól and deun, for, since
their nominatives singular first person indcative.
are dissyllables olaim, and deunam and
the roots of ól and deun, being monosy¬
llables, it is manifest they belong to the class of
verbs first mentioned and form their conditional —
not with oċaḋ, but with the termina¬
tion faḋ, thus: d'ólfaḋ sé, he would
drink, ḋeunfaḋ sé, he would do.
It is, indeed much to be regretted that many of
our modern Irish grammarians are not only
obscure, but misleading and contradictory in their
explanation of these rules. Col. Vallancey for in¬
stance, in his “Grammar of the Irish Lauguage,
Dublin 1791, says ; “All verbs whether regular
or irregular have im pure or mixed in
the present, and as pure or mixed in
the past tense, and in the future all
regular verbs terminate in fad, fead
or ad, and such as terminate in ġim,
in the present tense, make their future
in eoċad oċad, fad or ad". Now, if
