Prepositioness datives in Old and Middle Irish: the instrumental, accompaniment/inclusive and appositional dative

THE SHOCK OF THE OLD: TRANSLATING EARLY IRISH POETRY INTO MODERN IRISH KAARINA HOLLO twentieth-century readers of English without a knowledge of Old Irish (ca. 600–900 a.d.) or Middle Irish (ca. 900–1200 a.d.) were given reasonably good access to early medieval Irish poetry through the medium of the translation anthology. Through the efforts of Kuno Meyer, Robin Flower, Gerard Murphy, Frank O’Connor, and others, a good amount of early Irish verse written between the seventh and twelfth centuries was made available to English-language audiences.1 But what of translation of this poetry into Modern Irish? Who undertook this task, for what reasons, and to what effect? From the very beginnings of the Gaelic Literary Revival, there had been calls for the translation of medieval Irish literature into Modern Irish. The ordinary reader of Modern Irish would not be able to make much sense of an early medieval Irish story or poem. Thus, at the time, in order to access a substantial portion of the medieval literary tradition, a Modern Irish speaker would generally turn to English translations provided in more or less scholarly editions or to the more literary reworkings provided, again in English, by the likes of Lady Gregory (1902, 1904) and Standish O’Grady (1878–80, 1894). Learning the earlier forms of the language was a daunting task, not one that the average reader of Irish with an interest in the earlier literature could be expected to undertake. This meant that the Irish reader’s experience of older Irish texts was essentially mediated by English. In 1900 the perceived need for translations directly from the ancestral language into Modern Irish was formally acknowledged by the OireachTRANSLATING EARLY IRISH POETRY INTO MODERN IRISH 54 1 See, for example, Meyer 1911; Flower 1926; Murphy 1956; Greene and O’Connor 1967. For a thorough discussion of the ideological and political dimensions of translation from Old and Middle Irish into English, see Tymoczko 1999. I wish to thank the joint editors of this volume for their thoughtful and constructive comments on several drafts of this paper. tas2 in the institution of a prize for “the best modernized version of a tale or episode from Old or Middle Irish” (O’Leary 1994:233). Philip O’Leary has identified three main rationales for such modernization: (1) an awareness of the linguistic, historical, and cultural value of the early literature; (2) ideological grounds; and (3) a view of medieval Irish literature as providing a model for modern writing in Irish (1994:268–70). It is hard to disentangle the three, and separating them risks reductionism: for example, there is certainly an ideological element to the belief that medieval Irish literature is intrinsically valuable and that it can provide a model for contemporary authors. Speaking of the period 1922–39, O’Leary writes that what Gaelic activists wanted was for native scholars to use their learning to enrich contemporary Irish reality by restoring to the nation an authentic and accessible sense of its own past. In practical terms one of the central features of this project would be the immediate provision of competent Modern Irish versions, translations, of the full range of earlier Irish literature. (1998:201) The translation efforts undertaken on this front were almost exclusively from the prose tradition. Until the mid-twentieth century, verse seems to have been more or less ignored. The great early Irish prose narratives such as Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge, modern “Cooley”) were seen as constitutive of and more essential to Irish national identity than were the religious, personal, and love poems from the same period. Therefore earlier translation efforts were centered on the prose, but by mid-century, with Irish political independence a reality, it was possible to turn to works that could not be so easily pressed into the mold of a heroic national ethos, such as lyric verse.3 We will focus here on the translations done by two men, both of them significant figures in the mid-twentieth-century Irish literary world. Tomás Ó Floinn published two collections of Modern Irish translations from Old and Middle Irish: Athbheo (Alive Again or...

This article is primarily concerned with lexicographic resources, i.e. glossaries, word-lists, dictionaries, and lexica of various shapes and form, for Early Irish. Early Irish comprises of several distinct stages of the Irish language: Primitive Irish (c. 4th–6th centuries A.D.), almost solely attested in Ogam inscriptions, Early or Archaic Old Irish (c. 7th century), Old Irish (c. 8th–9th centuries), and Middle Irish (c. 10th–12thcenturies), the latter three transmitted through manuscripts. A large grey area exists between lexicographic resources in the strict sense and monographs that treat subsec-tions of the Early Irish lexicon under particular phonological, morphological, or other grammatical perspectives. However, examples of the latter, unless they contain sub-stantial lexicon-like portions, will not be considered here.

This paper examines subject-verb agreement in Early-Irish sentences with coordinate subjects. We claim that Early Irish (Old and Middle Irish) is a ‘variable agreement’ language, which exhibits both singular and plural agreement with coordinate subjects. The type of agreement depends on adjacency between subject and verb and the valency of the verb. In particular, unaccusative and passive verbs exhibit both singular and plural agreement more frequently than transitive verbs. We argue that this is due to the availability of a default third person singular null locative expletive item, which controls singular agreement. Moreover, unaccusative and passive verbs also allow locative inversion with other PPs, leading to the same singular agreement. Furthermore, we suggest that, in contrast to Modern Irish, which lacks such an expletive, Early Irish could license its presence in intransitive/passive sentences because that stage of the language exhibited EPP-effects

In discussing the presence or absence of aspiration after the dative plural in Old Irish, Holger Pedersen concludes that no aspiration is present.' As for the three exceptions that are found in the Milan Glosses, he would attribute them to incorrect scribal transmission.2 At the same time, he points out that in Middle Irish aspiration does take place after the dative plural of all genders.3 In support of his statement, he cites four examples from the Book of Leinster and likewise calls attention to several instances in the modern Scotch-Gaelic translation of the Bible.4 On the basis of the somewhat scanty evidence that is available, Pedersen's general conclusion that no aspiration exists in Old Irish after the dative plural would seem to be warranted. Whether, however, the three aspirated forms in the Milan Glosses are necessarily scribal errors is open to question. At all events, in the Book of Armagh, which like the Milan Glosses also stems from the Old Irish period, one finds dunaib chethrairib.6 Faulty aspiration, therefore, is not restricted to the Milan Glosses. That it should occur in another source is significant since any deviations from the norm in the Milan Glosses usually are suspect, owing to the fact that in general the Milan Glosses are carelessly transscribed. Equally significant, though hitherto its significance has not been fully realized, is the extent to which aspiration takes place after the dative plural in Middle Irish. As Pedersen confines himself to citing only four occurrences, all of them from the Book of Leinster, I subjoin a list of instances from other Early Irish sources, a list which, incidentally, could be much augmented if a systematic collection of forms were undertaken:

Lemmatisation, which is one of the most important stages of text preprocessing, consists in grouping the inflected forms of a word together so they can be analysed as a single item. This task is often considered solved for most modern languages irregardless of their morphological type, but the situation is dramatically different for ancient languages. Rich inflectional system and high level of orthographic variation common to these languages together with lack of resources make lemmatising historical data a challenging task. It becomes more and more important as manuscripts are being extensively digitized now, but still remains poorly covered in literature. In this work, I compare a rule-based and a neural network based approach to lemmatisation in case of Early Irish (Old and Middle Irish are often described together as “Early Irish”) data.

The extant Book of Fenagh, written in 1516, contains not only a verse and prose 'Life' of St Caillin of Fenagh but some additional poems from the lost 'Old Book of St Caillin' which are more relevant to the politics of Tir Conaill during the eleventh to the early-thirteenth centuries than to St Caillin and the church of Fenagh. This article argues that these poems may have originated with the churches of Kilmacrenan, Drumleene and Derry and that they belong to an earlier period than the prophecies concerning the mid-thirteenth-century ? Domhnaill chieftains found in the verse material directly associated with St Caillin in the same manuscript. The poems to be discussed are listed in an appendix at the end of this article. Their metrical form is loose, so that they could be seen as pre-dating the emergence of the strict metrical forms of dan direach or simply as writ ten in the less-demanding mode of oglachas favoured by non-professional versifiers. Their linguistic date is, I understand, vague?approximately late Middle or Early Classical Irish, with perhaps some scribal modernisations introduced in the course of transmission, but their contents are concerned with political and territorial claims of the kings of Tir Conaill and the ? Domnaill chiefs of Cenel Luigdech in the north of Tir Conaill, relevant to the period from the eleventh to the early-thirteenth centuries. Seven of them are inserted rather incongruously at the end of the Book of Fenagh (RIA MS 23 P 26), which is otherwise a prose and verse anthology devoted to the life, miracles, prophecies and financial claims of St Caillin of Fenagh, in the present county Leitrim. This manuscript, which now goes by the name of the Book of Fenagh, was compiled by Muirghius mac Ph?idin Ui Mhaoil Chonaire in 1516 AD, according to two informative colophons in the scribe's own hand.1 ? Maoil Chonaire tells us his work had been com missioned by Tadhg ? Rodaighe (al. '? Rodach?in'), the comharba 'coarb', or lay abbot, of the church of Fenagh. At that time ? Rodaighe already possessed an ancient book (now lost) which is referred to on a number of I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), whose award of a Senior Research Fellowship in 2007-8 has afforded me the opportunity to write up a number of projects, including the present paper. 1 am also most grateful to Mr Thomas G. Cannon for reading a first draft of this paper and making a number of helpful suggestions, in particular drawing my attention to the 1981 article on this topic by Seamus Boyle, cited below. 1 W.M. Hennessy and Denis Kelly (eds), The Book of Fenagh (Dublin, 1875, repr. Irish Manuscript Commission, with supplementary volume of commentary by R.A.S. Macalister, 2 vols, Dublin, 1939; hereafter cited as Bk Fen. and Bk Fen. supp.), 310-11,414-15. DOI: 10.3318/ERIU.2008.58.37 Eriu lviii (2008) 37-53 ? Royal Irish Academy This content downloaded from 157.55.39.185 on Thu, 26 May 2016 04:59:35 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

This article examines the various accentual environments in which clusters of nasal plus voiced stop were assimilated to an unlenited nasal, focusing principally on nd > nn. It is argued that the chronological differentiation offered in GOI between (a) Early Old Irish nd > nn in proclitics and (b) Classical Old Irish nd > nn in stressed words is not sufficient. Instead, the accentual status of each syllable surrounding the cluster needs to be considered separately, and the chronological sequence needs to be enlarged to three stages: (a) Early Old Irish nd > nn between two pretonic syllables, (b) Classical Old Irish nd > nn between a stressed and a post-tonic or between two post-tonic syllables, and (c) Middle Irish nd > nn between a pretonic and a stressed syllable, occurring specifically in the article form ind and nasalised nd-. Some apparent exceptions to (c), suggesting pre-Middle Irish assimilation in this environment, are redefined as properly belonging to environment (a), and the appendix presents a complete sample, with statistical analysis, of relevant spellings (mainly of the article) from four texts of different dates of composition as preserved in the late Middle Irish manuscript Lebor na hUidre.

On The Line-Break In Early Irish Verse, And Some Remarks On The Syntax Of The Genitive In Old And Middle Irish

What are DATIVE SUBJECTS? This paper argues that this term hasbeen applied to two distinct constructions. In one, the surface subjectis in the dative case. In the other, a dative-marked nominal that behaveslike a subject in certain respects is not, we claim, a surface subject. Dative nominals of the second type have been analyzed in Relational Grammar as initial subject and final indirect object in the Inversion construction; for this reason we call them i- nominals. Neither adopting nor rejecting the initial-subject analysis of I-nominals, here we argue only that they are not surface subjects. To argue that I-NOMINALS are not surface subjects is not so traightforward,however. Where I-nominals fail to behave like surface subjects, it has beenwidely assumed that the subject behaviors in question are restricted to nominative subjects. This has made it possible to maintain that I-nominals are surface subjects despite their nonsubject behaviors, which are attributed to their dative case. To argue against this it is necessary to find a language where I-nominals' failure to behave likesubjects cannot be attributed to their dative case. Here we argue that Russian is such a language. We show that Russian hasa true dative-subject construction in which surface subjects are in the dative case. They behave like subjects in every respect. Russian also has I-nominals in the dative case which behave like subjects in only two respects; in other respects they fail to behave like subjects. This failure cannot be attributed to their dative case because true dative subjects, also in the dative case, behave like subjects in every respect. We conclude that dative subjects and I-nominals instantiate distinct constructions which must be recognized as such in syntactictypology and syntactic theory. The consequences of this result extend beyond Russian to the analysis of other languages. Where dative-marked nominals behave like subjects in certain respects, it is necessary to determine whether they are I-nominals or dative subjects, based on language-internal evidence. They cannot simply be assumed to be dative subjects, as has often been done. It takes more to be a dative subject than has generally been recognized: it takes language-internal evidence that the nominals in question are not I-nominals.

Previous researches indicated that the performance of automatic prosodic boundary labeling benefited from syntactic phrase information for Mandarin. However, the influence of other syntactic features such as dependency has not been studied in-depth yet, especially on large scale corpus. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of rich syntactic features for Mandarin phrase boundary prediction. Both syntactic phrase and dependency features are considered in our methods. The experimental results show that rich syntactic features improve the performance of prosodic boundary prediction effectively. Index Terms: prosodic boundary, syntactic feature, syntactic phrase structure, dependency.

When we understand language, we recognize words and combine them into sentences. In this article, we explore the hypothesis that listeners use probabilistic information about words to build syntactic structure. Recent work has shown that lexical probability and syntactic structure both modulate the delta-band (<4 Hz) neural signal. Here, we investigated whether the neural encoding of syntactic structure changes as a function of the distributional properties of a word. To this end, we analyzed MEG data of 24 native speakers of Dutch who listened to three fairytales with a total duration of 49 min. Using temporal response functions and a cumulative model-comparison approach, we evaluated the contributions of syntactic and distributional features to the variance in the delta-band neural signal. This revealed that lexical surprisal values (a distributional feature), as well as bottom-up node counts (a syntactic feature) positively contributed to the model of the delta-band neural signal. Subsequently, we compared responses to the syntactic feature between words with high- and low-surprisal values. This revealed a delay in the response to the syntactic feature as a consequence of the surprisal value of the word: high-surprisal values were associated with a delayed response to the syntactic feature by 150-190 ms. The delay was not affected by word duration, and did not have a lexical origin. These findings suggest that the brain uses probabilistic information to infer syntactic structure, and highlight an importance for the role of time in this process.

Based on exhaustive diachronic corpus data, this paper determines the relative chronology in which the size nouns heap(s) and lot(s) have developed quantifier uses within NP of NP-syntagms, as in heaps / a lot of people. Using a constructional approach, it is claimed that size nouns occur in three distinct constructions or form–meaning pairings identified on the basis of systematic syntactic, semantico-pragmatic and collocational features. I argue that in order to establish which size noun was first to develop a quantifier use, we have to analyse diachronic data sets in terms of three constructions, viz. lexical head, partitive and quantifier constructions. In doing so, I will argue against the claim that heap developed its quantifier use first, around 1300, while lot developed one only around 1800. I will show that heap and lot(s) appear in an early partitive construction, c1300 and c1200, respectively, in which they are head nouns and have a collective sense. The quantifier construction in which heap(s) and lot(s) have modifier status and assess quantity similar to canonical quantifier many/much appears around the same time for both, viz. c1780.

I show that German right dislocation subsumes two distinct constructions, which I label right dislocation proper and afterthought. These differ in a number of prosodic, syntactic and semantic characteristics and also have different discoursefunctional properties. Right dislocation marks a discourse referent as especially salient on the current stage of the discourse. This requires the fulfilment of certain anaphoric constraints on the following discourse. Afterthought is a local reference clarification strategy and has no impact on the global discourse structure.

I show that German right dislocation subsumes two distinct constructions, which I label right dislocation proper and afterthought . These differ in a number of prosodic, syntactic and semantic characteristics and also have different discoursefunctional properties. Right dislocation marks a discourse referent as especially salient on the current stage of the discourse. This requires the fulfilment of certain anaphoric constraints on the following discourse. Afterthought is a local reference clarification strategy and has no impact on the global discourse structure.

The Early Middle Irish Adam and Eve story in the tenth- or eleventh-century biblical poem Saltair na Rann includes an exchange between the devil and the snake in paradise. The devil seeks to persuade the snake to corporeal cohabitation in order to further his desire to bring about the fall of Eve and Adam. Lucifer's argument to the snake stresses the snake's hierarchical superiority to Adam, an idea that, as Brian Murdoch points out in his commentary on the poem, 'is a simple reprise of Lucifer's' earlier argument against subservience to God.1 But Lucifer's encouragement of the snake is capped by the singular plea, 'denamm cotach is carddess' ('let us make a bargain and treaty') (lines 1150).2 To this, the pragmatic serpent responds, 'Cia luag nom tha, fiad each thur / ... ar failti duit im churp chain, / cen nach locht dom chomaittreib?' ('What reward have I, before every host ... for welcoming you into my fair body, to live together with me without any fault?') (lines 1165-8). The reply: fame. The devil cunningly promises that his union with the snake will 'be continuously mentioned' in ages to come ('bid do gres ar n-anmnigud', line 1176).3 The devil offers an assurance partly based on form. The language he uses, in referring to making a treaty or a proper arrangement, or an alliance - however one translates 'cotach' - elevates the discussion to a formal level, as he offers the snake a verbal contract: if you will do this for me, I will assure you of this result, or, you give me that, and I will give you this.4 The legalistic language of the encounter marks a convention in perception of the Fall, one visible in another early medieval Insular poem on the Fall, the perhaps tenth-century Old English Genesis B, and in legal texts themselves.5The Fall has a long history of reference in law, the Irish aspects of which Damian Bracken explores in his study of 'The Fall and the law in early Ireland'. Bracken demonstrates that 'clerics with an interest in the explanations of the opening of Genesis were involved in writing the laws of early Ireland' and that lawyers subsequently maintained a 'very practical use of the theology of the Fall', using it as a prime example:The Fall and its consequences are the basis for discussion of matters like free will and perhaps that most Christian of ideals - the attempt to go beyond law and its technicalities to a psychological consideration of motive and intent. The early lawyers use the theology of the Fall in just this context: whether the accused was incited to commit the crime, whether he committed the crime with malice aforethought, whether he was fully aware of all circumstances before entering into an agreement.6Texts concerning the rules of contracts demonstrate especially well this practical applicability in a central area of the law. Fergus Kelly in his study of early Irish law asserts that 'The commonest legal act in early Irish society was no doubt the verbal contract or cor bel (lit. putting of lips) often referred to simply as cor. This term covers all commercial undertakings, as well as agreements to marry, to foster, to engage in co-operative farming, to enter clientship,' and so on.7 One collection of early Irish texts on contracts, what Neil McLeod identifies as 'perhaps the central text on the subject', is Di Astud Chor, On the securing of Contracts', which McLeod dates to the eighth century, at least in the compilation as it now exists.8 Perhaps the best known and the largest of surviving Old Irish legal texts is, however, the Senchas Mar, or 'Great Tradition', which has a substantial introduction that has also been dated to 'probably' the eighth century, though at least part of it pre-dates Di Astud Chor? Both Di Astud Chor and the introduction to the Senchas Mar utilize references to Lucifer's and to Adam and Eve's fall to confirm a legal point, while both poetic treatments of the Fall, the Early Middle Irish Saltair na Rann and the Old English Genesis B, employ contractual language similar to that in the law texts. …