by the passive; as, buaileaḋ iad, they were beaten. Here iad is quite passive to the action; for it suffers the action which is performed by some unknown agent.”
Again at page 99, he says:—
“But there is another form of the verb which always governs an objective case; and although it must be translated into the passive voice in English, still it is a deponent, and not a passive, form in Irish; as, buailtear mé, etc. The grammarians who maintain that this form of the verb takes a nominative case clearly show that they did not speak the language; for no Irish-speaking person would say buailtear sé, sí, siad. It is equally ridiculous to say that é, í, iad, are nominatives in Irish, although they be found so in Scotch Gaelic.”
Further on, at page 143, he states again that “deponent verbs govern an objective case.”
Thus we plainly see that O’Donovan and Molloy bear out the fact that the noun or pronoun after the Autonomous form of the verb is in the accusative case, though the former says it is more convenient to assume that it is in the nominative case!
