Disjunctive Pronouns

[johfal]

In Micheal O Siadhail’s Learning Irish he uses a term disjunctive pronouns which are used in the use of the copula. I am a little confused as to what disjunctive pronouns are. Can anyone help?

Go raibh mile maith agaibh

[Lughaidh]

I’m not sure but these may be the pronouns mise, tuse, seisean etc? Maybe the answer is in his book ‘Modern Irish’ — I’m too lazy to go and look right now 😀

[Labhrás]

conjunctive: sé, sí, siad

disjunctive: é, í, iad

[Lughaidh]

Thanks, I didn’t remember 🙂 These are strange names, not obvious at all!

[Ní Thuigim]

I’m not really up to speed on Irish, but I know they are often used as object pronouns. Like I think to say “I don’t understand him,” you would say “Ní thuigim é.”

[Lughaidh]

That’s right, but using the term “object pronoun” would be restrictive because é, í, iad can be used as subjects of the copula, and they are also used after certain prepositions (gan é, mar é, seachas é…) so they aren’t only object pronouns.

[Aislingeach]

Thanks, I didn’t remember 🙂 These are strange names, not obvious at all!

They are indeed strange names. If I hadn’t just been looking at the personal pronoun chart at http://www.nualeargais.ie/gnag/gram.htm yesterday, which has a footnote on this very term, I wouldn’t have known what he was talking about. I like the way the chart is laid out and labeled.

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