The Scottish Celtic review

Notes un Gdclic Grammar ami Orthor/raplnj. 7l>is a mndiTii cori-niitioii, which ought to ho tliscoiitiuui'd.3. "Gu'ii," "gu 'lu," (tliat, lit., to tliat, ad quod).Bh of hheil (for hh-fe'd) proves conclusively that 'n of (ju'nin "gu'n dean," "gu'n ith," "gu'n ol," is the relative usedas a conjunction (cf Gr on, Lat. quod, Eng. tliat), and not,as Stewart supposed (cf Grarara. 2nd ed. p. 17G), a mereeuphonic letter. It should, therefore, be written with anapostrophe—not a hyphen—before it, to mark the elision ofthe vowel of the relative.4. In "gu'n," "gu 'ni," gu is a prep., the modern form of the oldprep. CO (to, (id) = *C(>t, cognate with Gr. /coxa. This prep,governs the accusative.In (/u'n, gu'm, therefore, the relativeis really the accusative, although it is now usually construedas the dative, the modern accusative, sing, and plur., being a.5. It may be noticed here that the mod. prep, gu represents twodistinct prepositions in ancient Gaelic, the prep, co (to, ad),referred to in the last note, and the prep, co, con (with),cognate with Lat. con, cum. These prepositions differ in theirgovernment and phonetic influence as well as in their meaningand etymology. Co (to) governs the accusative, but co(with) the dative. The former, having terminated originallyin t (dropped by rule), does not eclipse ; but the latter,having terminated originally in n, eclipses regularly. In"gu bheil,'' it is not the preposition but hh = n of therelative, as noticed above, that eclipses the initial consonantof the verb. These prepositions, having originally a consonantaltermination, do not aspirate the word following.Hence " gu tir" (to laud), " gu fois" (to rest) ; "gumall"(.slowl}^), "gu tosdach" (silently),fi. The eclipses have long disa]i})eared in Scotland from writtenGaelic, except in some fossilised forms, such as hheU, abovereferred to, and ona in the phrases, "gu ma beannaichte,"" gu ma h-amhlaidh ' bhio.s," " gu ma slan a chi mi." In someof the remote Western Islands, they are still partiallyretained in the spoken language. A native of the Islandof Lewis pronounces " mullach nam beann " (the top of themountains) as " mullach na meann," " ar Dia " (our God)as "ar nia," " aireamh nan daoine' (the number of the men)as " aireamh na naoine."(To he continued.)