This is probably the arena where most of the confusion with clásail choibhneasta starts to set in. Remember how the “tá” form of the verb “to be” changes drastically (to “bhfuil”) for the question form? You’ve probably seen this if you’ve done day one of almost any Irish language course. Here’s an example, just for a refresher:
Tá an lá go breá. An bhfuil an lá go breá? Tá, tá an lá go breá.
Not the world’s most exciting set of sentences but another good workhorse example (The day is fine. Is the day fine? Yes, the day is fine).
For the indirect relative clause, we’re going to use the “bhfuil” form, as long as our base verb is “tá” (one of the present tenses of the verb “to be”). Eventually we’ll expand all this to include such goodies as “raibh,” “bhfaighidh,” and “n-íosfadh,” but for now, let’s just contrast “tá” with “bhfuil” in relative clauses.
The indirect relatives clauses are used to express concepts such as “whose,” “to whom,” “by whom,” “for whom,” etc. In other words, indirect relative clauses are used when the subject of the second clause isn’t the same as the subject of the first clause but is related indirectly to that first subject. This blog will probably only have room to show examples of “whose” and we’ll save “to whom,” etc., for blag eile. Somehow this is all reminding me of Michaleen Oge’s speech in The Quiet Man about the party of the first part and the party of the second part, but, The Quiet Man, sin ábhar do bhlag eile.
Remember the last blog’s examples:
Sin é an fear atá tinn. That is the man who is ill.
The man you’re pointing out (by saying “sin é”) is also the subject of the second clause (he’s the one who is ill).
Now contrast:
Sin é an fear a bhfuil a mhac tinn. That is the man whose son is ill.
Switch the verb to the “bhfuil” form, add a second subject (the son), and, hey, presto! — you’ve got an indirect relative clause!
We’ll save the past and future tenses for yet another blog but for now will simply show a few more examples of this in the present, to emphasize one more point about the indirects. The verb introducing the second clause for these types of sentences gets eclipsed (gets the “urú”). Since we always see “bhfuil” already eclipsed in modern Irish spelling, the fact that it’s eclipsed here isn’t particularly noticeable. So let’s look at a couple of regular verbs (briseann, tógann) whose eclipsis will be obvious:
Briseann an mac an fhuinneog. Sin é an fear a mbriseann a mhac an fhuinneog.
(The son breaks the window. That is the man whose son breaks the window).
Eclipsis: the initial “b” of “briseann” changes to the “mb” of “mbriseann” [MRISH-un]
And backtracking just a bit, if the man himself breaks the window, we’d be back to the direct relative clause (with lenition/séimhiú): Sin é a fear a bhriseann an fhuinneog (That’s the man who breaks the window). Of course, we hope it isn’t a habit with him, but that’s beyond our control!
And one more set, and that’s it for today:
Tógann an mac an t-airgead. Sin é an slíbhín a dtógann a mhac an t-airgead.
The son takes the money. That is the sly person whose son takes the money.
Eclipsis: tógann becomes “dtógann” [DOH-gun]
Now if it was the sleeveen himself taking the money, the sentence would be:
Sin é an slíbhín a thógann an t-airgead. But the previous example focused on “mac an tslíbhín,” whose behavior we might have predicted from the proverbial wisdom, in its various forms: “An cleas a bhíonn ag an deaid, bíonn sé ag an mac” or “Toradh an chrainn fána bhun,” both more or less saying, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Is deas iad na seanfhocail mar nimhíoc ar an ngramadach!
Nótaí: díreach [DJEER-ukh] direct; neamh- [nyow] un-, non-, in-, etc.; neamhdhíreach [NYOW-YEER-ukh] indirect; Michaleen Oge in full-fledged Irish would be “Micilín Óg,” but the movie anglicizes the spelling; nimhíoc [niv-eek], antidote, lit. “poison-cure”
