The Scottish Celtic review

—The, Laws of Auslaut in Irish. 313pers. berid {= Indogcrm. hharati). As is well known, Sanskritand Greek have in the type -bharum a special form of the 1stpers. sing, with secondary personal termination, as, e.g., in theimperf. a-bharam, Gr. e^epoi'. This type bharam has been givenup in Irish, so far as our observation has gone, its place in thepreterite having been assumed by the type blturd. As bharas,bharat, have forced their way from the preterite into the presentindicative, so the original primary bhard could just as well be thepattern of the 1st pers. sing, of the preterite formations, as, e.g.,for Old Irish ro charus (like biur characterised as the 1st pers.singular). But this is the only form which had already at a veryearly period secured for itself a place in Old Irish. And, on thisoccasion, I might refer to the flexion of the old Irish s-preteriteas furnishing important support to my view, according to whichthe double forms -bir, -beir, -berat, and beri, berid, berit representoriginally the old distinction between forms with secondaryand forms with primary personal terminations. The former appearedoriginally in the augmented tense formations (dbharas,dbharat).After the augment had been discontinued, they wereused in Irish when the verbal form, whether the preterite or thepresent, was joined to a particle (preposition, conjunction, ornegative) ; as, e.g., as-beir, (dicit), no beir (fert), ni beir (non fert).Cf Beitr. zur. Vergl. Spr. viii. 451.Whilst the I'eduplicated future and the 6-future follow thepresent in the distinction between conjunct and absolute flexions,the conjugation of the s-preterite, according to Stokes (Beitr. zur.Vergl. Spr. vii. 37) is as follows :Conjunct form.Absolute form.Sing. 1. ro charus [carsii].2. ro charts [carsi].3. ro char carats.Plur. 1. ro charsaiii [carsimme].2. ro charsid [cart^tai].3. ro charsat carsaf, carsit.The forms within brackets have not hitherto been authenticatedas Old Irish forms, but the}' are found in Middle Irish. They areall ' forms which are constructed after the analog}- of the absolute' For " saramtliche " read " sammtlich."