To Be or not To Be: A Study of the Copula and the Substantive Verb in Old Irish

Abstract

Old Irish has two different verbs, the copula and the substantive verb, that correspond to what would be translated in most Germanic languages as ‘to be’. In some cases, these verbs appear to be able to overlap in use. These cases do not correspond to the known regular use of the substantive verb and the copula, and, so far, no answer for them has been put forward. This thesis attempts to find an origin for the use of the substantive verb for the copula and vice versa, by collecting and analysing the irregular examples of overlap.

To answer this question, the Old Irish glosses and a select few Old Irish texts, which are dated to the Old Irish period, were analysed for cases of overlap between the substantive verb and the copula. The results show a small number of occurrences of overlap between the substantive verb and the copula. These results are discussed in-depth, taking into account the full context of the relevant glosses. Possible features responsible for the irregular use of the substantive verb for the copula and vice versa are the translation of Latin 'esse', a stylistic choice, an archaism, or influence by register. It is argued that two registers exist in the Old Irish glosses, namely an educated, high register, established in the centres of learning in Ireland in the 6th century, a colloquial register of the authors of the glosses, and the tension between the two.

In all instances of the occurrence of overlap, the substantive verb uses the word order expected for the substantive verb (SUBST + SUBJ + PRED), and the copula uses the expected word order for the copula (COP + PRED + SUBJ). The common denominator of the compiled examples was their underlying word order, which was regular for both the examples of the use of the substantive for the copula and vice versa. It is argued that this distinction was originally used in the educated register to distinguish the copula and the substantive verb. Under pressure of the colloquial register of the authors of the glosses, other distinctions between the substantive and the copula were already used in the Old Irish glosses, resulting in only a small amount of examples of overlap that are still present in the material studied in this thesis. For this reason, the study concludes that the overlap between the substantive verb and the copula is due to an earlier reliance on word order rather than word class.