Old Irish cuire, its congeners, and the ending of the 2nd sg. middle imperative

Abstract

The 2nd sg. imperative of fo-ceird, -cuirethar ‘puts, throws’ has two forms in Old Irish: the expected cuirthe and an apparently irregular form cuire. The form cuire has attracted very little attention, and (as we shall see) its traditional explanation does not stand up to scrutiny. From manuscripts datable to the Old Irish period we find variation between the expected cuirthe and irregular cuire: thus while at Ml. 56c5 iecta (sic) is glossed cuirthe, in the glosses on Bede tolle is glossed cuire huait at BCr 32c11 as well as in the parallel BV(i) 4b1.70. The agreement of these two manuscripts indicates that the form cuire stood in the archetype of the Bede glosses, which may have been roughly contemporaneous with Ml. The form cuire is common in later manuscripts, for example at LU 4784 (cure) and 10821 (quoted below), and persists through typically Middle Irish writings, for example at SR 1561 (cuiri, Breatnach 1994, 298).