Ann an/anns an

[Nancy Stenson]

On Nov 2, 2007, at 10:27 AM, Caoimhin O Donnaile wrote:

> Jim, Andrew,
>
>> Don't have references here, but as I recall "ann an" is a  
>> reduplicated
>> form: <ann> is the 3rd sg. masc. inflected form, substituting for the
>> simple preposition, and <an> is the doubled simple preposition  
>> (<i> in
>> Irish, <in> before a vowel) with the sandhi <n> glued back onto its
>> historical base, as is normal in Scottish Gaelic.  The preposition
>> <do>, "to," behaves similarly:  before an object beginning with a
>> vowel it's doubled, e.g., in "Thàinig mi a dh'Alba" (I came to
>> Scotland), where both <a> and <dh'> are reduced forms of <do>.
>>
>> Hope I remember this correctly
>
> That's what I have read too - Can't remember where.
>
> As well as "a dh'", you often get the full form "do dh'" (Google
> comes up with it on 80,000 pages!), which makes it even more obvious
> that it is a sort of reduplication.
>
> Part of the cause may be epenthetic phonological phenomena.
> As a comparison, you often see written things like
> "do na mhullach", or "bho na mhullach" which look horribly
> grammatically wrong, but are actually "don mhullach", "bhon mhullach"
> with an attempt to write out the svarabhakti which is heard in speech.
>
> Usually in speech you wouldn't hear the full "ann an".  You would
> often just hear something like "N@" and maybe a bit of eclipsis on
> the following word.
>
> Rob Ó Maolalaigh at Glasgow University would be your man I think
> to give a fuller historical explanation.
>
> Caoimhín