ernaid

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *ɸarnati, from Proto-Indo-European *perh₃-. Cognate with Ancient Greek ἔπορον (époron, “give, grant”), Sanskrit पृणाति (pṛṇā́ti, “grant, bestow”), Latin parō (“prepare”).

Several proposals have been made attempting to derive the perfect ro·ír from a reduplicated preterite *ɸeɸore. Many sound laws proposed to transform *ɸeɸore to ·ír run into a major counterexample in nïad (“of a nephew”, gen. sg. < *neɸotos, featuring the same *eɸo sequence). Nikolaev (2010) more convincingly reconstructs *ɸīrat (3sg.), derived from a Narten-ablaut imperfect.^[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [ˈer͈n͈ɨðʲ]

Verb

ernaid (verbal noun rath)

to bestow, to grant

For quotations using this term, see Citations:ernaid.

Inflection

Simple, class B IV present, suffixless preterite, a future, a subjunctive

		1st sg.	2nd sg.	3rd sg.	Passive sg.	Passive pl.
Present indicative	Abs.
	Conj.
	Rel.

Imperfect indicative				·ernad

Preterite	Abs.
	Conj.
	Rel.

Perfect	Deut.			ro·ír; ronn·ír (with infixed pronoun n-)		ro·ratha
Perfect	Prot.

Future	Abs.			ebarthi (with suffixed pronoun -i)	ebarthir
	Conj.
	Rel.

Conditional

Present subjunctive	Abs.
	Conj.		·ere (attested as ro·ere, a ro-form)	·ǽra (attested as ra·ǽra, a ro-form with infixed pronoun a-)	·erthar (attested as ro·erthar, a ro-form)
	Rel.

Past subjunctive			·ertha		·erthe (attested as ro·erthe, a ro-form)

Imperative

Verbal noun		rath
Past participle
Verbal of necessity

Mutation

Mutation of *ernaid*
radical	lenition	nasalization
ernaid (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-ernaid

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

^ Nikolaev, Alexander (2010). "Old Irish ro-ír and other í-preterites." Paper presented at the 30th Harvard Celtic Colloquium on 8 October 2010.

Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “ernaid”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940) D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, →ISBN, page 463; reprinted 2017
Pedersen, Holger (1913) Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen [Comparative Grammar of the Celtic Languages] (in German), volume II, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, →ISBN, page 513

[1] Nikolaev, Alexander (2010). "Old Irish ro-ír and other í-preterites." Paper presented at the 30th Harvard Celtic Colloquium on 8 October 2010.

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