1. Family: Indo-European
  2. Genus: Celtic

Irish

WALS coordinates: 53° N, 8° W

spoken in Ireland

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Gaelic,
  • Irish
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Irish Gaelic
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Fixed Stress Locations Initial
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Long vowel
    Rhythm Types Undetermined
    Morphology
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Equal prefixing and suffixing
    Reduplication No productive reduplication
    Case Syncretism Core and non-core
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Mixed morphological plural
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural No associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite word distinct from demonstrative
    Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Three-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related to remote demonstratives
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
    Number of Cases 2 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes Mixed morphological case
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Identity
    Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes No possessive affixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Adjectives without Nouns Marked by preceding word
    Action Nominal Constructions Mixed
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect Tense and aspect
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb VSO
    Order of Subject and Verb VS
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Mixed
    Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No zero realization
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
    Passive Constructions Present
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Neither
    Negative Morphemes Negative particle
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Both
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession Locational
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
    Comparative Constructions Particle
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Pronoun-retention
    Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
    'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
    Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced
    Lexicon
    Hand and Arm Different
    Finger and Hand Different
    Numeral Bases Hybrid vigesimal-decimal
    Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te
    Other
    Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings