Irish conjugation

There are two conjugation classes of regular verbs, as illustrated below. Forms in italics are not part of the standard language. The suffixes shown change to agree with the word ending in a velarised ("broad") consonant or palatalised ("slender") consonant. The examples below verbs ending with "broad" consonants above and "slender" consonants below.

Note that in the "historical" tenses (the imperfect, preterite, and conditional), a consonant-initial stem undergoes lenition (and dialectally is preceded by "do"), while a vowel-initial stem is prefixed by d’. A stem beginning with f plus vowel takes both, e.g., fan "wait", d'fhan sé "he waited". The preterite impersonal, e.g., fanadh "one waited", neither undergoes lenition nor receives d’. The -f- in future and conditional stems is pronounced /h/; except in the conditional 2nd person singular and the impersonal, where it remains /f/.

There are eleven irregular verbs in Standard Irish; individual dialects have a few more. Most of them are characterized by suppletion, that is, different roots are used to form different tenses. Analytic forms are indicated by the symbol +. The preterites of many irregular verbs take the nonpreterite forms of preverbal particles, e.g., an (interrogative particle) and ní (negative particle), instead of ar (pret. interrogative particle) and níor (pret. negative particle). Some verbs have different independent and dependent forms in certain tenses; the independent forms are used when no particle precedes the verb, and also after má "if" (open conditional) and the direct relative particle a, while the dependent forms are used after all other particles.

Irish uses a number of preverbal particles to modify the meaning of a sentence. In a positive statement, no particle is used and the verb comes first (except in Munster Irish where "Do" is placed before verbs in the past, habitual past and conditional, leniting the verb that follows). This is still seen in the Standard Language in said tenses, prefixed to verbs beginning with vowels, e.g., D'ól mé (D'ólas in Munster Irish) meaning "I drank":

• Tuigeann Seán Gaeilge. "Seán understands Irish."
• Thuig Seán Gaeilge. "Seán understood Irish."
• Thuigfeadh Seán Gaeilge. "Seán would understand Irish."

The subjunctive covers the idea of wishing something and so appears in some famous Irish proverbs and blessings. It is considered an old-fashioned tense for daily speech (except in set phrases) but still appears often in print.

The subjunctive is normally formed from "Go" (which triggers eclipsis) plus the subjunctive form of the verb, plus the subject, plus the thing being wished for. For instance, the subjunctive form of "teigh" (go) is "té":

• Go dté tú slán. -- May you be well.

(lit: may you go well)

Again, the subjunctive of "tabhair" (give) is "tuga":

• Go dtuga Dia ciall duit. -- May God give you sense.

In the third example, the wish is also a curse, like this one from Tory Island in Donegal:

• Go ndéana an Diabhal toirneach de d'anam in Ifreann. -- May the Devil make thunder of your soul in Hell.

The subjunctive is generally formed by taking the present indicative tense of the verb and adding on the appropriate subjunctive ending depending on broad or slender, and first or second conjugation. For example, the present tense first person singular of bog (to move) is bog mé and its subjunctive in the same person is boga mé:

1st Conjugation:

2nd Conjugation:

E.g., "go mbeannaí Dia thú"—May God bless you.

There is also some irregularity in certain verbs in the subjunctive. The verb bí (to be) is the most irregular verb in Irish (as in most Indo-European languages):

The Irish phrase for "thank you"—go raibh maith agat—uses the subjunctive of "bí" and literally means "may there be good at-you".

Some verbs do not follow the conjugation of the subjunctive exactly as above. The irregularities apply to verbs whose stem ends already in a stressed vowel, and the rules of Irish orthography and pronunciation mean that it cannot take another:

• Although, feoigh does not have a fáda (accent), the 'o' in this position is stressed (pronounced as though it is ó) and so the subjunctive is irregular.

It is important to note that when the subjunctive is used in English, it may not be used in Irish, and another tense might be used instead:

• If I were (past subjunctive) you, I would study for the exam tomorrow. -- Dá mba (past/conditional of the copula) mise tusa, dhéanfainn (conditional) staidéar ar don scrúdú amárach.
• I wish *(that) you were (past sub.) here. -- Is mian liom go raibh (present sub.) tú anseo.
• It is important that he choose (present sub.) the right way—Tá sé tábhachtach go roghnaíonn (present indicative) sé ar an mbealach ceart.
• **When you're older (present ind.), you'll understand—Nuair a bheidh (future ind.) tú níos sine, beidh tú a thuiscint.
• *Note that in English, the relative pronoun that can be omitted, but in Irish, the corresponding go must be retained.
• **Note that in English, the present tense is often used to refer to a future state, but in Irish, there is less freedom with tenses (time is more strictly bound to the appropriate tense, present for present, past for past, future for future). In this particular example, you will be older, and it is then that you will understand.

For a list of words relating to Finished, see the Irish verbs category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.