Irish

Indo-European family · Celtic branch · Eurasia

Irish puts its words in verb-subject-object order (VSO), one of only 95 with that basic order among the 1,376 languages WALS codes for this feature.

On Position of Case Affixes, WALS codes Irish as “Mixed morphological case strategies with none primary”, a value held by 9 of the 1,031 languages coded, Gaelic (Scots) and Swahili among them.

Of the 39 Indo-European languages profiled here, Irish departs most often from the family’s usual values.

On Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology, 45 of 52 other Indo-European languages coded have the value “Predominantly suffixing”; Irish has “Approximately equal amounts of suffixing and prefixing”.

The order Irish uses in 8 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Irish with Welsh or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Irish, rarest first.

Expression of Pronominal SubjectsMore than one of the above types with none dominant32 of 711
Coding of Nominal PluralityMorphological plural with no method primary60 of 1,066
Nonperiphrastic Causative ConstructionsNo morphological type or compound type23 of 310
Third Person Pronouns and DemonstrativesRelated to remote demonstratives18 of 225
Action Nominal ConstructionsMixed: Several patterns in the same language14 of 168
Number of Cases2 case categories23 of 261

Inside the Indo-European family

Irish matches the most frequent Indo-European value on 50 of the 92 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (54%).

Where Irish breaks with a clear majority of its relatives
Feature	Irish	Most relatives
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode no politeness distinction	Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction (5 of 5, Celtic branch)

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Irish; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Welsh Indo-European38 of 54
Hebrew (Modern) Afro-Asiatic56 of 91
Breton Indo-European26 of 40
English Indo-European54 of 92
Greek (Modern) Indo-European51 of 89

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Irish for 92 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 82 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Irish shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Rhythm Types	Undetermined: no clear foot type	37 of 323
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	Long vowel: long vowels are heavy for stress	65 of 500
Fixed Stress Locations	Initial: stress is on the first syllable	92 of 502
The Velar Nasal	No velar nasal	235 of 469
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244

Word structure 3

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	22 of 198
Reduplication	No productive reduplication	55 of 368
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is syncretic	60 of 198

Nouns and pronouns 17

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
The Associative Plural	Associative plural absent	37 of 236
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	Gender distinctions in 3rd person singular only	61 of 378
Indefinite Articles	No indefinite article but definite article	98 of 534
Ordinal Numerals	First, second, three-th	61 of 321
Person Marking on Adpositions	Person marking for pronouns only	83 of 378
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Identity	76 of 322
Indefinite Pronouns	Generic-noun-based indefinites	85 of 326
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	No possessive affixes	260 of 902
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Symmetrical case-marking	79 of 261
Definite Articles	Definite word distinct from demonstrative	216 of 620
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Three-way contrast	88 of 234
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always obligatory	133 of 291
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 2

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Adjectives without Nouns	Marked by preceding word	18 of 124
Noun Phrase Conjunction	AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical	131 of 234

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 13

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	Suppletion in both tense and aspect	24 of 193
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Combination of tense-aspect strategies with none primary	146 of 1,131
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	29 of 193
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for both possibility and necessity	36 of 207
Epistemic Possibility	Verbal constructions	65 of 240
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one	133 of 375
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + special negative	182 of 496
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
Coding of Evidentiality	No grammatical evidentials	181 of 418
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	292 of 548
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 12

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject follows verb (VS)	194 of 1,496
Position of Polar Question Particles	Question particle at beginning of sentence	129 of 884
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial	264 of 902
Order of Genitive and Noun	Noun-genitive (NGen)	468 of 1,249
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb	Verb-object-oblique (VOX)	210 of 500
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Prepositions	511 of 1,184
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word follows noun (NDem)	562 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective follows noun (NAdj)	879 of 1,367
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824

Simple clauses 18

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Comparative Constructions	Particle Comparative	22 of 167
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of only the A argument	73 of 378
Predicative Possession	Locational Possessive	48 of 240
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In other grammatical categories: Subtype A/Cat	82 of 297
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding	132 of 386
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Nominative - accusative (standard)	61 of 172
Negative Morphemes	Negative particle	502 of 1,157
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation: Type SymAsy	130 of 297
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	No zero realization of third person S forms	181 of 380
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Neutral	98 of 190
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is impossible	211 of 386
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Purposive type but no sequential type	68 of 118
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Nominal and Locational Predication	Different	269 of 386
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Purpose Clauses	Balanced/deranked	30 of 170
Relativization on Obliques	Pronoun-Retention Strategy	20 of 112
Reason Clauses	Balanced/deranked	37 of 169
'When' Clauses	Balanced/deranked	39 of 174
Relativization on Subjects	Gap	125 of 166
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced	114 of 143

Vocabulary 4

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Numeral Bases	Hybrid vigesimal-decimal	22 of 196
Tea	Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te	84 of 230
Hand and Arm	Different	389 of 617
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593

Other 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks	Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings	71 of 143