Page:Graimear na Gaedhilge.djvu/335

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The Autonomous form of the verb has a passive voice of its own formed by the addition of the verbal adjective (or past participle) of the verb to the Autonomous forms of the verb to be; e.g., Táṫar buailte, etc.

This form of the Irish verb has a full conjugation through all the moods and tenses, active and passive voices; but has only one form for each tense. All verbs in Irish, with the single exception of the assertive verb is, have this form of conjugation. Is can have no Autonomous form, because it has no meaning by itself. It is as meaningless as the sign of equality (=) until the terms are placed one on each side of it.

To sum up then, the Irish Autonomous form is not passive, for—

(1) All verbs (except is), transitive and intransitive, even the verb , have this form of conjugation.

(2) This form has a complete passive voice of its own.

(3) The disjunctive forms of the personal pronouns are always used with it; e.g., buailtear é.

(4) Very frequently when a personal pronoun is the object of the Autonomous form of the verb, it is placed last in the sentence or clause to which it belongs, thus giving a very close analogy with the construction of the active verb, already explained in par. 535. Níor ċian dam … gur seolaḋ isteaċ san gcoill seo méIt was not long until I was driven into this wood. Do leiġeasaḋ ó n‑a gcréaċtaiḃ iad. They were healed of their wounds.

(5) Lastly, and the strongest point of all, in the