Irish Proverb 203 - Seanfhocail Ghaeilge 203

I see this occasionally, where "agus" (and) is not spelled out.  It's another place where it doesn't seem to follow a rule, but I could be wrong.  What I did notice in some of my early explorations in Irish is that the usual abbreviation for "agus" was simply 's (apostrophe-s),.  However, the spelling "is" makes the joining together of "mhaith" and "dhona" stronger.  Because they are opposites, though, it would seem that perhaps the 's notation might have been intended?  Again, this may be an idiom I'm just not familiar with, and an explanation would be appreciated.  Has the 's fallen into disuse now?  Or is this simply a case where the stronger bond between the two terms is considered appropriate?  It might also lend understanding to why the copula (an chopaill) is at least sometimes not considered a verb, as it is here used as a conjunction, but with an implied verb attribute.  I don't know that anything like this would be had in English....

Dale D.

Hi Dale, As you say, the "is" here is just a shorter form of "agus". There aren't any definite rules as to when you can use is or when to use agus, as far as I know. In speech, it's generally is. In written Irish, the "is" form is nearly always used in some of the numbers - "trí chéad is a cúig" rather than "trí chéad agus a cúig". You couldn't do without the "and" in this case, because this is an idiom which means both.

idir fhir agus mhná - both men and women

idir Ghaeilge is Bhéarla - both Irish and English

idir mhaith agus olc - both good and bad

idir shean is óg - both old and young

As you can see, the is and agus doesn't make a lot of difference.

The copail was considered by Stenson to be some kind of clitic particle, because it has such limited morphology and can't stand alone, even when it answers a question - An múinteoir é? Is ea.  (unlike verbs - An ndearna tú é? Rinne!)

I don't really know if this is right or not!

Thanks for the explanation, seano; glad to know I'm partially on the right track.

The idea of the copula as a "particle" is an interesting idea, especially as it seems to pertain to Irish, which seems to have a lot of them, as I've seen to date.  The vocative particles seem to be an extension of sorts to lenition for adjusting sounds.  I haven't figured out when to use "atá" vs. "tá", but the prefixed a seems to me like a vocative particle added on, or something that perhaps once was a vocative particle and became added on in practice.  Maybe?

Again, thanks for the explanation.

Dale D.

That's right, there are a lot of particles. One of the things that learners find so confusing is the number of different words with the same form. For example, an fear seo, an-obair, an múinteoir é?, an bhfuil punt agat. In all of these cases, the an is really a different word: the definite article, an intensifier, the question form of the copula, and a particle used to form questions with verbs. There are also lots of "a"s. For example, the vocative particle, possessive adjective, relative particle. This is the relative particle, so it's used to form constructions like "the man I saw in the shop" (an fear a chonaic mé sa siopa).

Using is / 's for agus is representative of speech pattern, rather than an additional word for "and". We see this in Scottish Gaelic where the particle ag before a verbal noun (gerund) is written a' as it sounds - also in Irish. Tá mé ag cur (Irish) = Tha mi a' cur (Scottish)

BTW, the "shorthand" for agus looks like a 7 - kind of like & in English.