The n of the article (as also the eclipse n of a,[1] ‘their’, erʹ, ‘our’, mər, ‘your’, dα, ‘if’) before a vocalic initial or aspirated f is treated as if it belonged to the following word and is therefore N before a substantive or verb beginning in O.Ir. with a, o, u, e.g. ə NɔləN, ‘the wool’; ə Nαsəl, ‘their donkey’ or ‘from the donkey’; ɛgʹ ə Nærʹə, ‘at the wake’ (faire); erʹ ə N⅄꞉nαχ, ‘at the fair’; sə Nõ꞉wər, ‘in the autumn’; mə hαχt Nαnəm də hu꞉lʹ, ʃe꞉ du꞉rtʹ ə kαt lʹeʃ ə Nʹiəsk = mo sheacht n‑anam do shúil, sé dubhairt an cat leis an iasc. Compare the spellings Mac a nathar, cuid a nfir censured by Donlevy (quoted by O’Donovan, Grammar p. lxxvi) and the proper names Naul, Navan < an Áill, an Emain. The conjunction an uair, ‘when’, is similarly Nerʹ. Parallel to these cases are the adverbs əNuəs, əNαL, əNo̤N, əNɔ꞉ri꞉rʹ, < anúas, an-all, inonn, i n‑airthiur. We might expect N in əniʃ, ‘now’, but I have only heard əniʃ < *ind fhoiss. əNo̤χt is regular < O.Ir. innocht. The preposition dochum was reduced to chum, chun, ’un and from those cases where the final n regularly became N as in the case of the article, the form əN was generalised, e.g. gɔl ə NαfrʹiNʹ, ‘going to mass’. Craig’s statements about this preposition are incomplete (Grammar² p. 210). Before masculines with consonantal initial and all feminines the full form əNə < ’un an is perhaps as frequent as the contracted Nα, Nə. The n after prepositions before the possessive pronoun a ‘his, her, their’, is also N, lʹɛ Nαhærʹ, ‘with his father.’ According to Pedersen (p. 123) le n‑a éan is pronounced on Aran lʹe꞉ Nʹe꞉n. In Donegal this would be lʹɛ Nɛən. We have already seen that the word for ‘one’ may be reduced from ɛən to ən, n which before a vocalic initial becomes N, e.g. ə Nɔkəl əwα̃꞉n, ‘a single word’.
§ 236. Medially and finally N represents O.Ir. nn, nd, e.g. αNũw, ‘seldom’, M.Ir. andam; bo̤N, ‘sole’, M.Ir. bond; bʹαNuw, ‘to bless’, cp. O.Ir. bendacht; bwinʹəN, ‘female’, Meyer boinend; fo̤N, ‘desire’, M.Ir. fonn; fʹïN, ‘fair’, O.Ir. find; gαN, ‘scarce’, O.Ir. gann, gand; grα꞉Nə, ‘ugly, repulsive’, M.Ir. gránna, gránde; gʹlʹαN, ‘valley’, M.Ir. glenn, glend; ko̤Nỹ꞉(ʃtʹə), ‘tame’, M.Ir. cendaid (§ 416); k⅄꞉r̥əN, ‘rowan-tree’, Meyer cáerthann; kʹαNy꞉m, ‘I buy’, M.Ir. cennaigim; kʹïN, ‘head’, O.Ir. cenn; Lo̤skəN, ‘toad’, M.Ir. loscann; LʹαNæNʹ ʃi꞉, ‘fairy lover’, M.Ir. lennán; LʹɛəN, ‘learning’, O.Ir. legend; mʹαNαn, ‘kid’, Di. meannán; mʹïNə, ‘oaths’, M.Ir. mind; po̤NəN, ‘sheaf’, M.Ir. punnann; tʹαNəm, ‘I tighten’, O.Ir. tend.
It may be noted that the enclitic ending of the present indicative is ‑əN with J. H. I have listened repeatedly and
- ↑ Sic; α or ə
