DASG Blog

LEACAN BLOG 1: Gaelic Compounds and Hyphenation (1)

This is the first blog associated with the LEACAN project, funded by Bòrd na Gàidhlig. LEACAN is concerned with developments in the corpus of Scottish Gaelic and how these developments are coordinated and agreed. It is an inter-university project involving the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig / UHI, originally under the auspices of the now dissolved Soillse research network for Gaelic language and culture. The purpose of our blogs is to share some of our research findings and to gather comments and feedback on trends, developments and recommendations arising from the work. Our first blog is concerned with certain types of compounds and the related question of hyphenation in such compounds.

Left-branching compounds
Gaelic compound words are either left-branching or right-branching, depending on the position of the modifier with respect to the head or generic element, which is written in bold in the following examples. The (bold) head or generic element is modified in its meaning by the word or element that occurs to its left or right:

• left-branching: mòrchuis ‘pomp’, coileanadh ‘completing’; ro-ràdh ‘foreword’, ath-leasaich ‘reform’
• right-branching: tìr-mòr ‘mainland’, taigh-seinnse ‘pub’, bean-ghlùine ‘midwife’.

Left-branching compounds are usually hyphenated in Scottish Gaelic, unless their two parts have merged to such an extent that the whole expression is perceived and pronounced as a single lexeme (word) with the head element significantly reduced or shortened. In that case, they are spelt as single words.

• bana-phrìonnsa ‘princess’, meanbh-chuileag ‘midge’, uile-chumhachdach ‘almighty’
• mòrchuis ‘pomp’, coileanadh ‘completing’, aindeoin ‘reluctance’, soisgeul ‘gospel’ (< so ‘good’ + sgeul).

It is not always clear, however, whether the second part of a compound is ‘reduced enough’ for the compound to be spelt as a single word, cf. mòrchuis ‘pomp’ vs. àrd-sgoil ‘high school’.

Additionally, when the head element is not completely unstressed, it can be unclear whether an expression is a syntactic phrase, comprised of two separate words, or a compound, which acts as a single lexeme. This makes it difficult to decide whether such expressions should be hyphenated or not.

Left-branching compounds are easily identified in most cases, since modifiers rarely precede the head in syntactic phrases in Gaelic, the exception being numbers and certain preposed adjectives (which also function as adverbs and intensifiers), e.g.

• ceithir casan ‘four legs’
• an ath sheachdain ‘the next week’, droch shìde ‘bad weather’
• fìor charaid ‘a true friend’; fìor ghlan ‘really clean’
• sìor dhol ‘constant going / going constantly’.

It can be argued, however, that preposed adjectives such as grad and sìor below always make a morpho-syntactic compound with the word that they modify, as is obvious from the following examples.

• Ghrad-tharraing e thuige an ròpa. ‘He suddenly pulled the rope towards himself.’
• Bha e ga shìor-mholadh. ‘He was praising him constantly.’

Both grad-tharraing and sìor-mholadh can only be interpreted as compound verbs. The adverb grad precedes the verb tarraing (and finite verbs are clause-initial in Gaelic!) and it is lenited to mark the past tense. The words sìor ‘constant(ly)’ and moladh ‘praising’ act as a single verbal noun, which is lenited by the preceding pronominal object ga lit. ‘at-his’.

Similarly, droch-nàdar has to be interpreted as a compound noun since nouns can be modified by the intensifier fìor but not glè which modifies only adjectives, e.g. glè mhath ‘very good/well’:

• fìor dhroch-nàdar ‘really bad temper’ (lit. ‘real bad temper’)
• *glè dhroch-nàdar ‘very bad temper’ (where * indicates an unacceptable formation)

When two syntactic phrases contain an identical element and occur in a coordinate structure (e.g. with agus ‘and’), the repeating element can normally be omitted from one of the phrases, e.g. cù dubh agus cat dubh ‘a black dog and black cat’ or cù agus cat dubh ‘a black dog and cat’.

That, however, does not apply to compounds with identical head elements, which means that the expressions below should be interpreted as compound lexemes. We can have:

• seann choin agus (seann) chait ‘old dogs and (old) cats’
• deagh dhaoine agus droch dhaoine ‘good (people) and bad people’

but not:

• *deagh agus droch dhaoine

Based solely on this, from a purely linguistic point of view, it could be argued that all such expressions should be hyphenated to reflect their morpho-syntactic status as compounds.

On the other hand, these combinations are productive: any noun can be preceded by droch ‘bad’ and any verbal noun can be modified by sìor ‘constant(ly)’, as long as the resulting expression makes sense. It might, therefore, be better to hyphenate only semantic compounds, i.e. expressions that have a specific meaning that does not necessarily follow from its constituent parts, e.g. an droch-shùil ‘the evil eye’ as opposed to an droch shùil ‘the bad eye’.

As has already been mentioned, many left-branching compounds are pronounced as single words: they have initial stress and the originally stressed vowel of the head element is reduced. These are often spelt as single words even though the original form of both parts is usually maintained.

• coilean ‘fulfil’ < co(mh)+lìon ‘co-+fill’; barrad ‘top layer of peat’ < bàrr+fhàd ‘top+single peat’
• asbhuain ‘stubble’, athbhliadhna ‘next year’ rather than *asbhain, *aifleann, which would correspond to the actual pronunciation more faithfully, although the etymology of the compound would be obfuscated. (Note that Gaelic Orthographic Conventions (GOC) has ath-bhliadhna. If the hyphen were to be dropped and the caol ri caol spelling rule were to be followed, this would then be spelt as aithbhliadhna.)

In many cases, the originally stressed vowel of the head element maintains its original quality even though it is unstressed or stressed very weakly. If originally long, this vowel may have been shortened. Hyphenation is not regular in such examples, e.g.

• mòrchuis ‘pomp’
• leth-chrùn ‘half-crown’
• àrd-sgoil ‘high school’.

Such compounds are more commonly written as single words if their first element is a prefix, e.g. aineol ‘stranger (unknown person)’, eucoir ‘crime’, soisgeul ‘gospel’.

 
* * * * *

Based on the above brief description, the following guidelines might be recommended from a purely scientific or linguistic points of view:

1. Left-branching compounds that have initial stress and whose head element is completely unstressed should be written as single words, e.g. farchluais ‘eavesdropping’, lethcheud ‘fifty’. (Note that GOC has farchluais but leth-cheud.)

2. Other left-branching compounds should be hyphenated, e.g. cìs-mhaor ‘tax-collector’, leth-làn ‘half-full’.

3. A left-branching expression whose modifier is a preposed adjective should be treated as a ‘true’ compound and written accordingly.

• if its head element is unstressed (and possibly reduced), e.g. an drochfhear ‘the Devil’, fìorghlan ‘pure’.
• if its meaning is different from the meanings of its constituent parts, e.g. an droch-shùil ‘the evil eye’.

4. Other left-branching expressions whose modifier is a preposed adjective should be written as two separate words, e.g. deagh charaid ‘a good friend’, fìor ghlan ‘really clean’.

An alternative, more radical solution would be to write all these expressions as single words, following the practices adopted in Irish.

We would be very interested to receive comments, feedback and suggestions about hyphenation in Gaelic. We are keen to understand if there is appetite for change and regularisation and clearer guidance on the use of hyphens in Gaelic. Would the strictly linguistically based recommendations outlined here be acceptable? If not, why not?

Please email us with your feedback and comments at mail@dasg.ac.uk.

We will soon post a second blog on right-branching compounds.
 
Dr David Mandić
Professor Rob Ó Maolalaigh
Oilthigh Ghlaschu / University of Glasgow