The Scottish Celtic review

The Laws of Auslaut in Tnsk. 309time. AccoRling to the phonetic l;uv, only ttas agrees organicallywith the Irish form-system. Have we, then, in tiasu andsimilarly constructed forms, relics of a prehistoric stage of thelanguage preserved within the historic period ? If so, it is astrange fact that the forms with vocalic auslaut occur more frequentlyin Middle Irish sources, and that they appear partly as alater formation, which are connected with Modern Irish forms,whilst, on the other hand, the short forms are gradually becomingextinct, a fact which clearly shows that they are the more ancientformation.To understand aright these double forms, two distinct tendenciesof the Irish language must be taken into account; (1) thetendency in the older time to carry out in the indicative and subjunctivepresent, the future, and the s-preterite, the distinctionbetween the conjunct and absolute flexions, and (2) the tendencywhich is increasing as we come nearer to Modern Irish to removethe original distinction between the three conjugations. Thelatter tendency has brought about this lesult, that in ModernIrish there really exist only the 2ud and 3rd conjugations ofthe Old Irish. The verbs of the Old Irish 1st conjugation havebeen divided—those with a broad vowel, like tiagaim, havingattached themselves to the 2nd conjugation, whilst those with aslender vowel, like ceilira, have followed the 3rd conjugation.An approximating of the ]st conjugation to both the other conjugations,but, likewise, the opposite tendency, may be observedeven in Old Irish. The analogy of the 1st conjugation has prevailedin the 2nd singular imperative. We remarked above (p.194) that this form has been unduly shortened in the 3rd conjugation.The same remark applies to the 2nd conjugation : the2nd sing, imperative of the denominative nertaim (I strengthen),from nert (strength), is nert; and, in the same way, the ModernIrish 2nd sing, imperative of violaim (I praise), K.-Slav. moliti(to entreat), is raol, although, starting from the original nertaj-a,•molaj-a, we should expect to find a vowel in the auslaut. Ofstill more importance for our purpose is what may be seen in theconjunct 1st pers. singular. Here we have, in the 2nd conjugation,from irredcldram (predico), the conjunct form rnoni predache.g.,and the absolute form predcha (Z. 440). Of these two formsonly pn-edcha, which, as to its «-auslaut, can be traced back to anoriginal aj-a, is an organic fonn. Predach, on the other hand.