Identification copula clauses linking substantives of different gender in Early and Classical Irish

abstract:

This paper investigates identification copula clauses linking substantives of different gender, e.gg., as in OIr. Críst didiu, is sí in chathir ‘Christ, then, is the city’ and CIr. An leabhar, is í an eagna ‘The book is wisdom’; the copula identification clause with pronominal subject, e.gg., MIr. Iss é mo lennán é ‘He is my beloved’ and CIr. Is é an seanadh hé ‘It is the old tradition’; and the Classical Irish type with substantives of different gender and subject pronoun, e.g., Mo theanga, is é m’arm-sa í ‘My tongue is my weapon’. It argues that the pronoun following the copula in such phrases is a mere shoe-horn to the following defined substantive, that the iss é mo lennán é type should not be classified under the rubric ‘repetition of the pronoun’, as is often done, and seeks to explain why the construction Mo theanga, is é m’armsa í, with different gender in the substantives, is more likely to be encountered in Classical verse than the type with just one gender.