, [for] in such expressions as these: 'He hath made me [for] a father to Pharaoh, and [for] lord of all his house;' rinn e mi 'n am athair do Pharaoh, agus 'n am thighearn os ceann a thighe uile, Gen. xlv. 8. 'Thou hast taken the wife of Uriah to be [for] thy wife;' ghabh thu bean Uriah gu bi 'n a mnaoi dhuit fein. 2 Sam. xii. 10.
[92] This syllable assumes various forms. Before a broad vowel or consonant an, as, anshocair; before a small vowel or consonant ain, as, aineolach ignorant, aindeoin unwillingness; before a labial am or aim, as, aimbeartach poor; sometimes with the m aspirated, as, aimhleas detriment, ruin, aimh-leathan narrow.
[93] The conjunction ged loses the d when written before an adjective or a personal pronoun; as, ge binn do ghuth, though your voice be sweet; ge h-àrd Jehovah, Psal. cxxxviii. 6.
The translators of the Scriptures appear to have erred in supposing ge to be the entire Conjunction, and that d is the verbal particle do. This has led them to write ge d' or ge do in situations in which do alters the sense from what was intended, or is totally inadmissible. Ge do ghluais mi, Deut. xxix. 19, is given as the translation of though I walk, i.e. though I shall walk, but in reality it signifies though I did walk, for do ghluais is past tense. It ought to be ged ghluais mi. So also ge do ghleidh thu mi, Judg. xiii. 16, though you detain me, ought rather to be ged ghleidh thu mi. Ge do ghlaodhas iad rium, Jer. xi. 11, though they cry to me, is not agreeable to the Gaelic idiom. It ought rather to be ged ghlaodh iad rium, as in Hosea, xi. 7. Ge do dh' fheudainnse muinghin bhi agam, Phil. iii. 4, though I might have confidence. Here the verbal particle is doubled unnecessarily, and surely not according to classical precision. Let it be written ged dh' fheudainnse, and the phrase is correct. Ge do 's eigin domh am bas fhulang, Mark xiv. 31, though I must suffer death: ge do tha aireamh chloinn Israel, &c., Rom. ix. 27, though the number of the children of Israel be, &c. The present tenses is and tha never take the do before them. Ged is eigin, ged tha, is liable to no objection. At other times, when the do appeared indisputably out of place, the d has been dismissed altogether, contrary to usual mode of pronunciation; as, ge nach eil, Acts xvii. 27, 2 Cor. xii. 11, where the common pronunciation requires ged nach eil. So, ge d' nach duin' an t-aodach, &c. ge d' nach biodh ann ach an righ &c. (McIntosh's "Gael Prov." pp. 35, 36), where the d is retained even before nach, because such is the constant way of pronouncing the phrase.
These faulty expressions which, without intending to derogate from the high regard due to such respectable authorities, I have thus freely ventured to point out, seemed to have proceeded from mistaking the constituent letters of the conjunction in question. It would appear that d was originally a radical letter of the word; that through time it came, like many other consonants, to be aspirated; and by degrees became, in some situations, quiescent. In Irish it is written giodh. This manner of writing the word is adopted by the translator of Baxter's "Call." One of its compounds is always written gidheadh. In these, the d is preserved, though in its aspirated state. In Scotland it is still pronounced, in most situations, ged, without aspirating the d at all. These circumstances put together seem to prove the final d is a radical constituent letter of this Conjunction.
I have the satisfaction to say that the very accurate Author of the Gaelic Translation of the Scriptures has, with great candour, acknowledged the justice of the criticism contained in the foregoing note. It is judged expedient to retain it in this edition of the Grammar, lest the authority of that excellent Translation might perpetuate a form of speech which is confessed to be faulty.
[94] To avoid, as far as may be, the too frequent use of a by itself, perhaps it would be better always to write the article full, an or am; and to apply the above rules, about the elision of its letters, only to regulate the pronunciation. Irish books, and our earlier Scottish publications, have the article written almost always full, in situations where, according to the latest mode of Orthography, it is mutilated.
[95] The practice of suppressing the sound of an initial consonant in certain situations, and supplying its place by another of a softer sound, is carried to a much greater extent in the Irish dialect. It is termed eclipsis by the Irish grammarians, and is an evidence of a nice attention to euphonia.
[96] The Dat. case is always preceded by a Preposition, ris a' bhard, do 'n bhard, aig na bardaibh; in declining a Noun with the article, any Proper Preposition may be supplied before the Dative case.
[97] So in English, Grandfather, Highlands, sometimes; in Latin, Respublica, Decemviri; in Italian, Primavera; in French, Bonheur, Malheur, &c. from being an adjective and a noun, came to be considered as a single complex term, or a compound word, and to be written accordingly.