General comment

“Modern Irish” is a cover-term for several Celtic dialects belonging to the Goidelic branch– including the standardised variety Caighdeán Oifigiúil (“Official Standard”)–, spoken nowadays as inherited languages in the non-continuous Gaeltacht areas of Ireland, and as learned varieties throughout the Island.

Modern Irish varieties have nominative-accusative alignment and preserve two cases. Nominal case-marking, however, opposes an all-purpose unmarked case, used for A/S/P and and after prepositions, to an adnominal genitive case also used for arguments of non-finite forms. Pronominal arguments, on the other hand, partially preserve a distinction between nominative (A/S with active forms) and accusative (P, and S with passive and copular forms) and residual verbal indexing of A/S (see relevant sections below). Therefore, the label “nominative” has been used in the coding frames for A/S subjects of active forms, although this sort of marginal case-marking always combines with word-order coding.

The coding frames given here include all arguments or adjuncts of the pre-defined role frame, plus a few additional ones that were found regularly in the sources. The database includes as coded alternations passive and various non-finite constructions, plus a plethora of uncoded alternations (such as, e.g., reflexive, oblipatient, reciprocal). Each alternation is included for a verb meaning if it is attested for that counterpart verb in one of the two major corpora (see below Source of the data).

Characterization of flagging resources

The major resources for argument/adjunct identification are word order and prepositions. Although case-marking applies regularly to all noun phrases, the two case-forms are an adverbal/adpositional form (that follows verbs and prepositions) and an adnominal, genitive form that follows nominal heads. Therefore, case-marking is not the main device to flag A/S/P arguments with finite forms.

Only a few case-marked pronominal forms distinguish A/S vs. P, namely 2SG tú vs. thú, 3SG masculine sé vs. é, feminine sí vs. í, 3PL siad vs. iad. On the other hand, depending on dialect, first persons better preserve A/S indexes with active verbal forms, which usually alternate with independent subject pronouns after non-personal forms, e.g. táim and tá mé ‘I am’, chuireas and chuir mé ‘I put (PST)’ (but not *táim mé or chuireas mé with both person index and independent subject pronoun). Unmarked word order is VSOX and A/S arguments regularly follow the verb and precede P and prepositional arguments.

The genitive case is used to flag either P or, more rarely, A/S with non-finite forms. Given widespread homophony of forms in some inflectional classes, case-distinctions are more easily overt with definite noun phrases, due to the different initial consonant mutations triggered by the definite article, e.g. tithe ‘houses’ (unmarked or genitive case), but na tithe ‘the houses’ (unmarked case) vs. na dtithe with initial /d/ ‘of the houses’ (genitive case). Note that while nominal genitives always follow their syntactic head, pronominal genitives (possessives) are proclitic to their nominal heads, on which they trigger initial consonant mutations. Since this is a general paradigmatic rule and exceptionless, the two strategies have been considered the same for the sake of coding frames.

Prepositions trigger initial consonant mutations on a following indefinite noun, while a following definite article may fuse with the preposition but is not affected by the same mutation as nouns, and triggers its own mutation on the following noun depending on case, e.g. do dhaoine with initial /ɣ/ ‘to people’, do na daoine with initial /d/ ‘to the people’. Most prepositions are followed by the unmarked case, but a few prepositions which have nominal origin require the genitive case, e.g. chun ‘towards’. The prepositions most frequently used to flag arguments are: the superessive and malefactive preposition ar ‘on’, which is also used for experiencers with some predicates; the instrumental, comitative and adessive preposition le ‘with, by’; the locative and allative preposition i ‘in, into’; the datival preposition do ‘to’ (regularly used for recipients but sometimes also to flag A/S in non-finite constructions). Less frequent ones are: the ablative prepositions as and ó; the locative and agentive preposition ag ‘by’, which also flags some experiencers; the locative (and temporal) preposition roimh ‘before’ which may flag stimuli; and the subessive preposition faoi ‘under, about’. Note that pronominal complements of prepositions are obligatorily expressed as indexes as in Old Irish; only a few prepositions have lost pronominal inflection (see below Characterization of indexing resources).

Ditransitives usually adhere to the indirective alignment.

Reflexive and reciprocal constructions resort to the addition of independent lexical means, namely féin added to a pronominal direct or prepositional object for reflexives and (a) chéile, on its own or preceded by a preposition, for reciprocals.

Characterization of indexing resources

While Old Irish was radically pro-drop (no pronominal argument could be overt except as an index), Modern Irish requires A/S independent subject pronouns, and in some dialects, including the standard variety, even expletives (for example see RAIN, but also examples 46, 398). This holds with the exception of a few relic 1st, 2nd and 3rd plural person-inflected forms, as mentioned above (see e.g. example 143). No trace of object indexing is on the other hand preserved in Modern Irish varieties. Pronominal objects and the pronominal S arguments of passive and copular forms tend to be displaced in clause-final position (VSXO, VXS).

Relativized A/S/P arguments, whose syntactic function in the relative clause is coded through a distinct relative particle and a specific initial mutation on the verb, are considered the same as non-relativized ones.

Passive forms, termed autonomous forms in grammars, qualify as desubjectives, since pronominal S arguments surface as object forms, i.e. they are coded the same as P. With transitive and intransitive verbs, passive forms may behave as impersonals, i.e. the A or S argument is suppressed, interpreted as non-referential indefinite, and only prepositional arguments are overt.

Prepositions inflect for person, i.e., pronominal dependents of prepositions are obligatorily fused with them (head-marking), e.g. to Conall = do Chonall, to him = dó or dhó, to me = dom or dhom, to you (sg.) = duit or dhuit. Cross-reference of nominal objects of prepositions is generally prohibited, although a few prepositions adopt the 3SG masculine inflected form before definite noun phrases, e.g. le duine ‘with a person’, leis an duine ‘with the person’, cf. leis ‘with him’.

Characterization of ordering resources

Word order is the main device that keeps A/S and P apart, through VSO order, in particular with nominals, since there is no nominative/accusative case distinction. As mentioned above, pronominal objects and the pronominal S arguments of passive and copular forms, whether they have different case-forms for A/S and P or not, tend to be displaced in clause-final position (VSXO, VXS).

Arguments may be fronted for pragmatic reasons, mostly in left dislocations (with resumption through a pronominal form) or clefting, which, broadly speaking, are topicalising and focusing constructions respectively.

Different word orders occur with non-finite verbal forms; they may be grouped into two main constructions (VS/O vs. S/O do V):

non-finite verbal forms (verbal nouns) are followed by a genitive argument (which is generally the P argument with transitive verbs); the S or A argument, if it is not in the genitive case, is either controlled or follows both the verb and the genitive noun, flagged with the preposition do or ag: i.e., he was bringing a treasure = he was at bringing (of) treasure; it is good that he brings a treasure = (it) is good bringing (of) treasure by him.
non-finite verbal forms (verbal nouns) are governed by the preposition do and preceded by one of the two direct arguments, usually P, which appears in the case-form required by the matrix verb (raising): e.g. he set out to bring a treasure = he set out (a) treasure to bring; it is good that he brings a treasure = (it) is good (a) treasure to bring by (lit. to) him.

Strictly speaking, only in the second construction is word order the crucial element for argument identification. The two main non finite-constructions have been labelled as follows: the first one as verbal noun/infinitive and the second one as verbal noun with preposed argument/infinitive 2.

As note above, while nominal genitives always follow their syntactic head, pronominal genitives (possessives) are proclitic to their nominal heads, on which they trigger initial consonant mutations.

Source of the data and generalizations/background of the contributor(s)

Data were collected in 2025 for the 80 core meanings in ValPaL, plus a few additional ones that correspond to the Old Irish added meanings. Counterparts were selected generally among the ones suggested in the New Irish-English dictionary, relying on the Corpas Náisiúnta na Gaeilge (CNG: Bhreathnach, Ú., Měchura, M., Ó Cleircín, G., Ó Meachair, M., Ó Raghallaigh, B., Scannell, K. & Uí Dhonnchadha, E., Corpas Náisiúnta na Gaeilge – National Corpus of Irish. Dublin City University, 2024) and on the dialect repository Taisce Chanúintí na Gaeilge (Palandri, A., Bhreathnach, Ú., Měchura, M., Ó Cleircín, G. & Ó Raghallaigh, B., Taisce Chanúintí na Gaeilge - Repository of Irish Dialects. Dublin City University, 2025), which have both been sources for the examples. The Corpas Náisiúnta na Gaeilge is a broadly lemmatised collection of both written and spoken texts (reported in standard spelling), which span the period 2000-2024. It is a balanced corpus of 100 million words, with written sources however largely prevailing. The repository Taisce Chanúintí na Gaeilge is on the other hand an audio archive, a collection of spoken texts recorded between the 1940s and 1990s in various Irish-speaking areas, originally broadcast on Raidió Éireann and Raidió na Gaeltachta, converted into audio files with accompanying adapted spelling.

Examples in the database are therefore generally taken from contemporary written sources if from CNG, from contemporary spoken sources if from CNG, TG4 (Irish Television Channel) or if otherwise specified in the comments, and from 20th century spoken sources if from Taisce Chanúintí na Gaeilge. An attempt has been made to identify basic frames relying on mutual agreement of both corpora.

A single example from the Connemara dialect is taken from Caint Chonamara, a collection of everyday conversations recorded in the Connemara Gaeltacht in 1964, as quoted in the Briathra/Verbs section of the dictionary Pota Focal (Wigger, A., Valency dictionary of Irish Verbs).

The main contributor, Elisa Roma, is associate professor of General and Celtic Linguistics at the University of Pavia. Andrea Palandri, Comhalta Taighde/ Research Fellow at Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, Ollscoil Chathair Bhaile Átha Cliath (Dublin City University), has given fundamental input to employ the repository of Irish dialects, and has suggested counterpart choices, examples and emendations.

Language Irish