A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF COPULAR CLAUSES IN THE SPOKEN IRISH OF CO. DONEGAL
Abstract
This paper is intended in part to add to the discussion of the copula given in the standard grammar of Modern Irish, namely Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí (GGBC) [`The Christian Brothers' Grammar of Irish'] in the sense that the paper places particular importance on narrative context for the examples we will be discussing, whereas the instances of the copula cited in GGBC (pp. 207–227) are mostly context-free.
The text-type in question here is the folk-tale, illustrated by a recent recording of the Co. Donegal folk-tale Banríon an Uaigneas ‘The Queen of Loneliness’. As with any clause, copular clauses are perhaps best analysed within their immediate environment as well as from the standpoint of narrative texture. We will suggest that this approach provides an important aid to understanding (a) the meaning of these clauses, and (b) their role in creating a flow of discourse in a text.
The paper begins with a short review of the ways in which the copula and copular clauses have been characterised ‘traditionally’. We then move on to a description of approaches to subject and predicate and more contemporary theme and rheme, as viewed in information-structure analysis. We then analyse examples of copular clauses which appear in the story Banríon an Uaigneas.
