A note on "ag" with autonomous verbs

For more than ten years I have been known as a monomaniac criticizing non-native writers of Irish for using the preposition "ag" together with the autonomous verb. So let's have another look at this story.

To start with, what is an autonomous verb? It is the impersonal form of the Irish verb. Regular verbs have such autonomous forms as:

dúntar, osclaítear (present tense)
dúnfar, osclófar (future tense)
dúnadh, hosclaíodh (past tense)*
dhúntaí**, d'osclaítí (habitual past)
dhúnfaí, d'osclófaí (conditional mood)

*this addition of h- to a vowel in the past tense form is dialectal (Ulster, Connacht) but so common that I prefer to use it whenever I have full creative control of my text. Note that the past tense autonomous form of regular verbs resists lenition in standard Irish and in most dialects, even after the -r particles: ar dúnadh, nár dúnadh, gur dúnadh, níor dúnadh. In Munster dialects, where the -r particles are being ousted by the -r-less particles, such forms as an ndúnadh, go ndúnadh will be seen. On the other hand, in the Ring of Waterford you will see and hear dhúnadh, but that is a strictly local thing.

**dúntaí, without lenition, would probably be used in some Munster dialect

These forms for irregular verbs are (in the standard language):

ABAIR

deirtear
déarfar
dúradh
deirtí
déarfaí

BEIR

beirtear
béarfar
rugadh (beireadh does find widespread use in the sense "was seized, people seized" even in near-Caighdeán usage)
bheirtí
bhéarfaí

BÍ

táthar, níltear, go bhfuiltear, nach bhfuiltear
bítear
beifear
bhíothas, ní rabhthas, go rabhthas, nach rabhthas
bhítí
bheifí

CLUIN, CLOIS

cluintear, cloistear
cluinfear, cloisfear
chualathas
chluintí, chloistí
chluinfí, chloisfí

DÉAN

déantar
déanfar
rinneadh, ní dhearnadh, go ndearnadh, nach ndearnadh
dhéantaí
dhéanfaí

FAIGH

faightear
gheofar (ní bhfaighfear, an bhfaighfear, go bhfaighfear, nach bhfaighfear)
fuarthas (ní bhfuarthas, an bhfuarthas, go bhfuarthas, nach bhfuarthas)
d'fhaightí
gheofaí (ní bhfaighfí, an bhfaighfí, go bhfaighfí, nach bhfaighfí)

FEIC

feictear
feicfear
chonacthas, ní fhacthas, go bhfacthas, nach bhfacthas
d'fheictí
d'fheicfí

ITH

itear
íosfar
hitheadh
d'ití
d'íosfaí

TABHAIR

tugtar
tabharfar
tugadh
thugtaí
thabharfaí

TAR

tagtar
tiocfar
thángthas
thagtaí
thiocfaí

TÉIGH

téitear
rachfar
chuathas, ní dheachthas, go ndeachthas, nach ndeachthas
théití
rachfaí

It is common to call the autonomous form "passive". This is however a misunderstanding, albeit an understandable one. Autonomous forms do often correspond to English passive forms. Thus, 'the doors were closed/opened' is in Irish quite naturally dúnadh/hosclaíodh na doirse. 

However, strictly linguistically speaking, it is not passive. A passive form or a passive construction puts the patient, i.e. the "victim", of an action into the position of the grammatical subject. The Irish autonomous form does not, though, put the "victim" into the position of the grammatical subject. In Irish, there is no particular grammatical object case (accusative) anymore, but there is a formal, grammatical way to distinguish object from subject in pronouns, at least in third person pronouns. I.e., Irish distinguishes "he" from "him" and "they" from them. Look at these examples:

Dhún Seán na doirse - Dhún Seán iad. "Seán closed the doors. - Seán closed them."

Dúnadh na doirse - Dúnadh iad. "The doors were closed. - They were closed."

As you see, the Irish version uses the "them" form in the second example too. The "they" form would be "siad", but it would be wrong in all dialects and varieties of Irish to use it. In fact, to use "iad" instead of "siad" is more correct (it does occur at least in some peripheral dialects in Ulster), not the other way round. 

Irish does have passive constructions, and those constructions do use ag. These are the progressive passive construction:

tá an doras á oscailt ag Seán 'the door is being opened by Seán'
tá an doras á dhúnadh ag Seán 'the door is being closed by Seán'

and the stative passive (or Zustandspassiv, as it is called in German):

tá an doras oscailte ag Seán 'the door is (has been) opened by Seán (so that it is open now)'
tá an doras dúnta ag Seán 'the door is (has been) closed by Seán (so that it isn't open now)'

Thus, there are two passives, one of them focusing on the progressive, ongoing action, and one focusing on the result. True enough there is no passive construction in Irish that quite conveys the sense of the English past tense passive "the door was opened/closed by Seán", which includes both the idea of the action and its result.


But then, how should we say 'the doors were closed/opened by Seán'? Many learners nowadays would suggest *dúnadh/hosclaíodh na doirse ag Seán. Myself though, I would never use that kind of construction. It has some currency in native literature, but the fact is, that one of the dead giveaways of 'school Irish' as opposed to native well-polished literary Irish is the widespread and habitual use of ag in this way, i.e. to mark the agent of an autonomous verb. In a book written by a native writer, you typically find no instances of this usage, or only one or two. I have been able to spot one single example of it in Séamus Ó Grianna's books, and the one I found was obviously due to English influence, as the book had been written towards the end of his life, with him living in Dublin for decades.

The only book written by a native in which I have seen this usage to be as common as in books by non-natives is Fan Inti by Domhnall Mac Síthigh. This might be due to the fact that this usage of ag (according to the chapter on Munster Irish in Stair na Gaeilge, at the very least) does have some currency in formal language in Munster, at least in verse. On the other hand, when I spoke about this feature with Pádraig Ó Cíobháin back in 1999, he agreed with me that it is basically an Anglicism - and he himself is a native speaker and a writer from Munster and should know his dialect and its tradition.

So, the conclusion remains that using ag as an agent preposition with the autonomous form is untypical of idiomatic native Irish and should be avoided. 

Instead, we should focus on the kind of emphasis expressed in English by using the passive with an agent-preposition construction. We say 'the doors were closed by Seán' so as to emphasize that they were not closed, say, by Máirtín. In Irish, this is expressed by so-called fronting: ba é Seán a dhún na doirse - or if it was about opening them: ba é Seán a d'oscail na doirse. 

The reason why this does not occur to those who use the ag agent to express this kind of particular emphasis is, that in English the 'by' agent is put after the verb, while the fronted subject in Irish is put before the verb. 

People tend to drift into using "ag" with the autonomous verb because they construct long and elaborate sentences in their heads in English and then start translating them into Irish. There is no other remedy against this than reading as much native literature and folklore you can. There is a reason why it is so readily available. I learnt most of my Irish reading it.

However, there is one instance where I can issue an instruction how to avoid the "ag" agent: when its use is triggered by the ambiguousness of a relative clause.