The Middle Irish Preterit Passive Plural in the Annals of Ulster

Abstract

The Annals of Ulster' consist of a series of chronologically consecutive entries from A.D. 431 to A.D. 1588 in which the events that seemed significant to the annalists are recorded for each year. Apart from their importance as a historical document, these Annals have a distinct linguistic value; for, as has been shown,2 the entries commence to be contemporary towards the end of the 7th century.' They therefore depict with reasonable faithfulness the various modifications to which the Irish language has been subjected in the course of time. Unfortunately, however, the earliest entries of the Annals of Ulster are largely in Latin; and even after the Old Irish period, that is, subsequent to A.D. 950, Latin still continues to be employed, though to an ever decreasing extent in the later entries. Furthermore, the finite verbal forms in Irish that the Annals of Ulster record are limited in number owing to the fact that Irish itself tends to use verbal nouns in ordinary narration. Notwithstanding these limitations, there nevertheless is preserved sufficient evidence to afford a chronological survey of the changes that the verbal system has undergone, particularly in Middle and Early Modern Irish. That is a fact of primary importance, since up to the present very little has been done to establish any linguistic tests whereby the date of a particular Irish text may be more precisely determined on the basis of its language.4 One of these linguistic tests for which the Annals of Ulster would seem to provide decisive evidence concerns the various terminations of the preterit passive plural. In Old Irish the conjunct ending was -th(e)a,6 an ending which survives in the Annals of Ulster until A.D. 1207,6 that is, some 250 years after the end of the Old Irish period. In Middle Irish, however, beside -th(e)a two other endings are found: -it with the particle ro before the verbal stem,' a distinctive Middle Irish formation8 which is recorded in the Annals of Ulster from A.D. 1014 to