Habemus infinitivum necne

O Goireasan Akerbeltz
Am mùthadh mar a bha e 23:04, 20 dhen t-Sultain 2015 le Akerbeltz (Deasbaireachd | mùthaidhean) (But I have a book which says there is an infinitive)
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First things first




What's the attraction?

Well, on the whole, the infinitive is the basis for inflection if the language in question has an inflection system. If in English, ignoring irregular verbs, you know (to) place then you know that by adding -(e)d you get the past, by adding -(e)s you get the he/she/it form (he/she/it places) and by adding -ing you get the participle (placing).


What about languages which are not English?



walowáŋ I sing
yalowáŋ you sing
lowáŋ he/she/it sings
lowáŋ we two sing
lowáŋpi we (more than two) sing
yalowáŋpi you (plural) sing
lowáŋpi they sing


leugh! read!
seinn! sing!
gearr! cut!





Get to the darned infinitive already



I've written before that it's important to distinguish between how something is constructed and how it's translated. On the surface, those forms looks like infinitives because the English translations have "to go" and the Gaelic has the handy little word a which in the dictionary means "to".


tha mi a' dol a bhualadh
be.PRES.IND I at going to LEN.hitting dog
I am going to hit a dog


tha mi a' dol a bhualadh
be.PRES.IND I at going towards LEN.hitting dog
I am going to(wards) hitting a dog

You're probably already comfortable with that construction, so just swap the bhualadh with a place name, for example:

tha mi a' dol a Ghlaschu
be.PRES.IND I at going to(wards) LEN.Glasgow
I am going to(wards) Glasgow

...and in doing that you most likely wouldn't bat an eyelid. It's the same a (« do "to(wards)").


But what about that other one?


bu toigh leam leabhar a leughadh
COND agreeableness with.me book INF reading
I would like to read a book
bu toigh leam a bhualadh
COND agreeableness with.me dog INF LEN.hitting
I would like to hit a dog


English has a genuine infinitive, the un-changed and basic form of verbs: (to) sit/eat/drink/run/read/like, and so on. You can use the infinitive in English to derive other verb forms: like » likes; liked; liking; liketh. Or, you can use it to make sentences with infinitive constructions that contain a verb in the infinitive, such as I like to read.

Still with me? OK, so what we have in those Gaelic sentences are infinitive(-like) constructions. They are called infinitive-like because they get translated into English by using an Englsih infinitive form. But look again at the verbs in the Gaelic sentences. Yes, they're just verbal nouns, reading and going with an a slapped in front of them. Nevertheless, the a is called an infinitive particle because of its function. Unlike in English, it is not followed by a verb in the infinitive form but rather followed by a verbal noun. The particle a causes lenition and you may want to check out the page on The many functions of ə.


What about a dhol and a bhith?


bu toigh leam seinn
COND agreeableness with.me singing
I would like to sing
faodaidh tu falbh
may you going
You may go
chan urrainn dhomh snàmh
NEG ability to.me swimming
I cannot swim

But if the verbal noun happens to be dol or bith (and in some dialects tighinn), the infinitive particle gets put in front of dol, bith (and tighinn), causing them to lenite:

bu toigh leam a dhol dhan sgoil
COND agreeableness with.me INF LEN.going to.the school
I would like to go to school
bu toigh leam a thighinn dhachaigh a-rithist
COND agreeableness with.me INF LEN.coming homewards again
I would like to come home again
an caomh leat a bhith ag éisteachd?
INTERR gentle with.you INF LEN.being PARTICIPLE listening
would you like to be listening?

Just those two. Don't ask me why. Of course you can combine them:

bu toigh leam a dhol a Ghlaschu
COND agreeableness with.me INF LEN.going to(wards) LEN.Glasgow

But I have a book which says there is an infinitive

Paper is patient as the Germans say. It will hold E=m² just the same as an election leaflet promising a land of milk and honey.

First of all, there are many different particles in Gaelic which are just written a and keeping them apart. Secondly, many people writing about grammar have come from a university background where traditionally the description of grammar (of any language) is or was heavily influenced by Latin and Greek. Like a pair of shades, it kind of colours your vision without thinking. I had the same issue when I ran into Native American languages the first time where very few of the European concepts of grammar go very far.

So one is a bit prone to seeing these Latin and Greek categories and trying to make them fit and describe everything else as "exceptions". Take unit 95 from (the otherwise excellent) Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks where you're told that:

Infinitive are used with the following auxiliary verbs and idioms:
(a) the modal verbs feum and faod
(b) modal idioms expressing obligation
(d) verbs expressing motion or intent
(e) the verb sguir 'cease'

This list unfortunately conflates at least three different things, which isn't helpful. To begin with, (a), (b) and (c) are really the same thing. It's a longish way of saying "modal verbs and expressions" - for starters, there are others aside from feum and faod.

The fourth one, (d), kind of refers both to a-c (the intent) part and expressions of motion - which is something else as we saw. The examples in Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks under (d) are really what we already talked of above, instances of the reduced form of do "to(wards)":

chaidh Iain a cheannach
(PAST).go Iain to(wards) LEN.crying
Iain went to buy it (« towards buying it)

This is blatantly obvious in the third example:

thàinig Anna a dh'fhaicinn
Ann came to see (« towards seeing)

The combination of dh' appearing alongside lenition is textbook behaviour for do "to(wards)". Compare sentences like the following you'll be very familiar with:

thoir an leabhar do dh'Fhionnlagh
give DEF.ART book to(wards) dh'.LEN.Finlay
give the book to(wards) Finlay
thug e ubhal do dh'Fhearchar
PAST.give he apple to(wards) dh'.LEN.Fergus
he gave an apple to(wards) Fergus

And (e) is again a misreading of the a that appears in such constructions. Some verbs simply take certain prepositions, sguir normally taking de. So the a in the case of sguir is just the worn down form of de. So re-analysing the example from Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks, it's a simple case of:

squir iad a chaoineadh
(PAST).stop they PART LEN.crying
they stopped crying (lit. they stopped from crying)

being the shortened version of

sguir iad de chaoineadh
(PAST).stop they PART LEN.crying
they stopped crying (lit. they stopped from crying)

Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks then goes on to talk about Indirect objects of infinitives - there isn't a hint of anything infinitive-ish in the Gaelic and the only reason why the chapter is called thus is because the English translation uses infinitives. In Gaelic, it's just our friend the verbal noun:

bu/span> toil leam bruidhinn ri Seumas
COND.copula pleasant with.me speaking against James
I would like to speak to James

But because the translation of this is I would like to speak to James, this is suddenly labelled an infinitive.

In a word

Practically speaking, this means:

  1. don't go hunting for references to the infinitive in Gaelic. You're wasting your time. There is nothing approaching this kind of basic verb form in Gaelic. That's just the way it is.
  2. the dictionary form of a Gaelic verb is the imperative (order form).
  3. after a verb of motion (most commonly a' dol) the a is a reduced form of the preposition "to(wards)"
  4. in inverted phrases (such as bu toigh leam leabhar a leughadh), what you get is the relative particle a plus a verbal noun. Which is often translated into English with an infinitive but that doesn't make Gaelic have one of those.

So the whole hunt for a Gaelic infinitive is fuelled mainly

  • by learners hoping for a quick fix
  • by various people looking at the English sentence and thinking "English has an infinitive here, so Gaelic must have one too"


Now, what's inversion?

Beagan gràmair