Irish grammar
The morphology of Irish is in some respects typical of an Indo-European language. Nouns are declined for number and case, and verbs for person and number. Nouns are classified by masculine or feminine gender. Other aspects of Irish morphology, while typical for an Insular Celtic language, are not typical for Indo-European, such as the presence of inflected prepositions and the initial consonant mutations. Irish syntax is also rather different from that of most Indo-European languages, due to its use of the verb–subject–object word order. Syntax. Word order in Irish is of the form  VSO (verb–subject–object) so that, for example, "He hit me" is [hit-past tense] [he] [me]. One distinctive aspect of Irish is the distinction between , the copula (known in Irish as ), and . describes identity or quality in a permanence sense, while temporary aspects are described by . This is similar to the difference between the verbs and in Spanish and Portuguese (see Romance copula), although this is not an exact match; and are cognate respectively with the Spanish and . Examples are: Nouns. Irish is an inflected language, having four cases: (nominative and accusative), (vocative), (genitive) and (prepositional). The prepositional case  is called the dative by convention. Irish nouns are masculine or feminine. To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, and being masculine and feminine. While the neuter has mostly disappeared from vocabulary, the neuter gender is seen in various place names in Ireland. Articles. The Irish definite article has two forms: and . may cause lenition, eclipsis, or neither. may cause eclipsis, but the only instance of lenition with is with the genitive singular of the word meaning "first". is used in the common case singular for all nouns, and lenites feminine nouns. In the  genitive singular, with lenition is used with masculine nouns, with feminine nouns. In the dative singular, may cause lenition or eclipsis depending on the preposition preceding it and on regional norms (in Ulster usage, lenition is standard with all prepositions, while in other regions eclipsis is used with many). is the only plural form of the article; it causes eclipsis in the genitive for both genders, and no mutation in other cases. Names of countries usually take the definite article in the nominative: "France," "Brazil," "Japan." Exceptions to this include "Ireland," "Scotland" and "England." There is no indefinite article in  Irish; the word appears by itself, for example: - "I have a pen", - "There's a dog in the room". When two definite noun phrases appear as part of a genitive construction (equivalent to "the X of the Y" in English), only the noun phrase in the genitive takes the article. Compare or to English "the residence of the President, the flight of the Earls." Adjectives. Irish adjectives always follow the noun. The adjective is influenced by the case, number and gender of the noun preceding it. Adjectives in Irish have two morphological degrees of comparison: the positive (), e.g. "the boy  is friendly", and the comparative (), e.g. "the girl is nicer than the boy". A superlative () sense is rendered by the comparative in a relative clause, e.g. "Seán is the nicest child of the three". Adverbs. Irish adverbs are used to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. An adverb can be created from an adjective by adding "go" before it, e.g. "go mall", "go tapaigh", "go maith", etc. If the adjective begins with a vowel, "h" is added before it, e.g. "go hálainn", "go híseal", "go háirithe", etc. Adverbs can often be created from nouns by putting a preposition before them , e.g. "ar bith", "de ghnáth", "faoi dheireadh", etc. Other categories of adverbs include the following: Adverbs that describe relation to time, e.g. "uaireanta", "anois", "cheana", etc. Adverbs that describe relation to place, e.g. "ann", "abhaile", "amuigh", etc. Adverbs used in questions, e.g. "cathain?", "conas?", "cá?", etc. Adverbs used for negation, e.g. "ní", "nach", "nár", etc. Other adverbs, e.g. "áfach, chomh maith", "ach oiread", etc. Verbs. There are two conjugations and 11 irregular verbs. Tenses or moods are formed by inflecting the stem, and in the past and habitual past tenses and the conditional mood also by leniting any initial consonant . The inflected tense and mood forms are: present indicative, present habitual indicative (differs from present only in the verb "to be"), future, past indicative, past habitual indicative, conditional, imperative, present subjunctive, and past subjunctive. Verbs also have a verbal noun and past participle, and progressive constructions similar to those using the English present participle may be formed from the verbal noun and an appropriate tense of . Examples of tense conjugations: (all third person forms without subject pronoun): In addition to the passive voice, there is the impersonal form of the verb, termed the or "autonomous verb", which serves a similar  function (the most literal translation is "You/One/They...[e.g. say, are, do]”). Verbs can be conjugated either synthetically (with the personal pronoun included in the verb inflection) or analytically (with the verb inflected for tense only and a separate subject). However, the official standard generally prescribes the analytic form in most person-tense combinations, and the synthetic in only some cases, such as the first person plural. The analytic forms are also generally preferred in the western and northern dialects, except in answer to what would in English be "yes/no" questions, while Munster Irish prefers the synthetic forms . For example, the following are the standard form, synthetic form and analytical form of the past tense of "to run": Pronouns. Personal pronouns. Personal pronouns in Irish do not inflect for case, but there are three different sets of pronouns used: conjunctive forms, disjunctive forms, and emphatic forms (which may be used either conjunctively or disjunctively) Conjunctive forms. The normal word order in Irish is verb–subject–object (VSO). The forms of the subject pronoun directly following the verb are called "conjunctive." The form in the 1st person plural has only recently been approved for use in the official standard , but is very common in western and northern dialects. The standard and southern dialects have no subject pronoun in the 1st person plural, using the synthetic verb ending (alternatively ) instead. Irish has no T–V distinction, i.e. it does not differentiate between formal and familiar forms of second person pronouns. The difference between and is purely one of number. There is no equivalent to the English "it". Either or are used depending on whether the thing the speaker is referring to is a masculine noun or a feminine noun. The exception is the pronoun , used in impersonal copula phrases, particularly  in the phrases (> ) ""yes"", ""so"", ""that is so"", (the opposite of ), ""is that not so?"", (Kerry ) ""Is that so?"", ""it's a man"", and so on. Disjunctive forms. If a pronoun is not the subject or if a subject pronoun does not follow the verb (as in a verbless clause, or as the subject of the copula, where the pronoun stands at the end of the sentence), the so-called "disjunctive" forms are used: In Munster dialects the form is either (a) archaic (replaced by ) or (b) is only found after words ending in a vowel. Intensive forms. Irish  also has intensive pronouns, used to give the pronouns a bit more weight or emphasis. The word ( or ) "-self" can follow a pronoun, either to add emphasis or to form a reflexive pronoun. Prepositional pronouns. As the object of a preposition, a pronoun is fused with the preposition; one speaks here of "inflected" prepositions, or, as they are more commonly termed, prepositional pronouns. Possessive pronouns. The possessive determiners cause different initial consonant mutations. Notes These forms (especially and ) can also blend with certain prepositions: The object of a verbal noun is in the genitive case: Similarly, if the object of  the verbal noun is a pronoun, then it is a possessive pronoun: More examples: Interrogative pronouns. Interrogative pronouns introduce a question, e.g. the words "who, what, which". The Irish equivalents are: Examples: Numbers. There are three kinds of cardinal numbers in Irish: disjunctive numbers, nonhuman conjunctive numbers, and human conjunctive numbers. Disjunctive numbers. Disjunctive numbers are used for example in arithmetic, in telling time, in telephone numbers and after nouns in forms like "bus 13" or "room 2". Conjunctive numbers. Nonhuman conjunctive numbers. Nonhuman conjunctive numbers are used to count nouns that do not refer to human beings, e.g. "horse  One" as a pronoun is rendered with (lit. "head") when it concerns things and animals, e.g.: Human conjunctive numbers. Human conjunctive numbers are used to count nouns that refer to human beings, e.g. páiste 'child' "One" as a pronoun is rendered with (lit. "person") with people. The other "personal" numbers can also be used pronominally, e.g.: Higher numbers are done as with the nonhuman conjunctive numbers: , , etc. Phonology. A notable feature of Irish phonology is that consonants (except ) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarized, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender