'Chaidh' passive in relative clauses

[faoileag]

One for Ak, I suspect.

Is this right? Asking for a friend:


Bha a’ mhòr-chiud den phìosan a chaidh a dhèanamh an sin ..... (which were made there...)

i.e there is no agreement of 'a dhèanamh', as if the relative pronoun 'a' was a noun.

OR

should there be agreement - a chaidh an dèanamh - as if the relative pronoun triggered a pronominal construction = agreement?

[GunChleoc]

a chaidh - this a takes the relative form in the future tense and the independent form in all other tenses. That's all you need to know about it.

a dhèanamh - regarding lenition, this a behaves in the same way as cas mu seach,

's urrainn dhomh seo a dhèanamh - chaidh a dhèanamh
's urrainn dhomh seo ithe - chaidh ithe (somebody ate).

If course, you can use ponouns as well - chaidh an ithe (they got eaten), but I guess you wouldn't do that in a relative clause, because the same job is already done by the relative pronoun/main phrase - Seo na daoine a chaidh ithe.

[faoileag]

The first two points were clear - the issue I was asking about was the use of the 'chaidh' construction in the relative clause, and whether that by any chance (e.g. in formal usage) triggered the use of pronoun agreement as a kind of echo/confirmation. Gaelic is quite fond of echoing.

I also "guess it doesn't...", as far as both my logic and my 'feel' tell me, and that was my advice if no contrary evidence was found, but since I was asked about it, and can't find any examples/rulings on this very specific use in my usual grammar sources, and it's for something important, I thought I'd ask here.

[Seonaidh]

Dè mu dheidhinn na Beurla? Dè tha ceart:-

"Most of the pieces THAT were made there"

"Most of the pieces THOSE were made there"

Mar sin, 's dòcha gu bheil diofar ann eadar:-

"They were made there" - "Chaidh an dèanamh an sin"

agus

"The pieces that were made there" - "Na piosan a chaidh a dhèanamh an sin"

oir chan eil (mar as àbhaist, co-dhiù) "iad" ann mar chuspair sa chiad eisempleir, ach tha "a" ann mar chuspair san ath thè.

[faoileag]

Tha mi ag aontachadh, a Sheonaidh - sin an 'logic' air an robh mi a-mach gu h-àrd.

Saoilidh mi nach robh mi ach a' lorg dearbhadh a-mhàin!

[Thrissel]

But "The pieces THAT were made there" isn't "Na pìosan a chaidh A dhèanamh an sin", it's "Na pìosan A chaidh a dhèanamh an sin". Personally, I would think correct should be either "Bha a' mhòr-chuid (den phìosan) a chaidh a dèanamh..." or Bha a' mhòr-chuid (den phìosan a chaidh an dèanamh)...", but probably I overanalyse as usual .

[faoileag]

Thrissel: fyi - the original context (in English) was something like - The majority (of the pieces which were made there) were of a high quality.

[Thrissel]

Oops, I always forget that with "majority" you can use either "is/was" or "are/were" in English. (You can't in Czech, it's a singular noun and that's that, even if it describes a plural concept. Same like "team", "government" &c.)

[GunChleoc]

That's an interesting question, whether a pronoun can agree with a' mhòrchuid only or with either a' mhòrchuid or na pìosan

[Níall Beag]

Oops, I always forget that with "majority" you can use either "is/was" or "are/were" in English. (You can't in Czech, it's a singular noun and that's that, even if it describes a plural concept. Same like "team", "government" &c.)

Actually, "the majority" cannot be singular if it's used as a quantifier. Consider "a lot of people"... "a lot" is singular, but it isn't considered the "head noun" in the phrase, and it's always "a lot of people are...". "The majority of" is a quantifier, and verbs agree with the following noun.

"The majority" as a standalone noun is different, with the singular and plural versions having slightly different meanings.

(But this is of little relevance to the Gaelic, obviously!)

[Níall Beag]

That's an interesting question, whether a pronoun can agree with a' mhòrchuid only or with either a' mhòrchuid or na pìosan

Well if we're looking for whether a class of "quantifiers" exists in Gaelic, surely then we'd have to look at moran, beagan and iomadh. All nouns technically. Is "moran daoine" singular or plural? "iomadh" is singular, isn't it?

[GunChleoc]

mòran and beagan are nouns and act just like any normal noun before other nouns, e.g. you need the genitive case.

iomadh and uile are also nouns, but act as proper quantifiers before other nouns, not necessarily followed by the genitive case. The following noun is in the singular

tha móran còmhraidh a' ruith air an duine ud -> còmhraidh = genitive singular
bha móran liorcan aig an dreasa -> liorcan = plural, you don't see the genitive in writing

tha iomadh tionndadh air an inneal seo -> tionndadh = common case singular
'S iomadh rud a chunnaic mi, 's iomadh rud a rinn mi... -> rud = common case singular

[Thrissel]

@ Nìall Beag: So if I Google "but the majority of them is" and get half a million hits, does it mean that all of those are by erring non-native speakers, or that in "the majority of them" the qualifier is the pronoun?

[Níall Beag]

@ Nìall Beag: So if I Google "but the majority of them is" and get half a million hits, does it mean that all of those are by erring non-native speakers, or that in "the majority of them" the qualifier is the pronoun?

Half a million?!? Well, I won't be able to check them all individually, but let's look at the first page.
Leaving aside the grammar question pages, the first I get is a gaming page. The original question is posed with "are" by a guy who's English is indistinguishable from native. It is later repeated as "are" by someone whose grammar is distinctly non-native (eg Buddhist pantheon is one of the pantheon that go more against Cristianity and neither have so many similiar legends (like Hindu and Cristian). -- "one of the" plus singular: mistake. "Neither" as opposite of "also": mistake. Incorrect use of "like" as comparison.)

Second hit is an Italian academic journal collection, and the rest of the clause gives it away as non-native: available in both paper form and in the electronic version. Several problems: "in the electronic version" should be "in digital format" ("version" implies differences in content, whereas "format" implies difference only in medium and presentation; "the" is too specific as we're talking about the articles in general, not specific articles; electronic vs digital isn't strictly wrong, but it still feels quite non-native)

The third hit (again excluding the grammar discussions) is more telling.

I think indifference towards the majority of them is important

Here it is the indifference that is important, not the majority.

I would suspect that the majority of hits are either non-native or merely a fragment of a larger and more complex clause.

I can't say for sure whether the wikipedia article was native-written or non-native-written, and grammar's always messed up there anyway (too many cooks spoil the broth).

On page two I see one forum post that might be a native using it that way, several non-natives and even more sequences where the "is" follows "the majority of them" but refers to something else in the sentence.


The British National Corpus has only one hit for "the majority of them is", and that isn't the pattern you're looking for: "that's the attitude of the majority of them, isn't it?" whereas there's 10 hits for "the majority of them are", and they're all the structure we're looking for.


Of course, I wouldn't rule out that some of the Google hits are genuinely that structure, and written by native speakers, but if so, I would put it down to "hypercorrectness" -- they're trying to follow the rules of grammar, and therefore inadvertently breaking rules they don't know exist.

(The existence of the class of "quantifiers" isn't widely taught, and even a lot of people who talk about quantifiers stick to just the single-word ones. This was the basis of one of the corpus tasks I had to do for English grammar at uni, although we focussed on "a lot of", and sure enough, the pattern is real.)

[Seonaidh]

So, you thought Gaelic was difficult? Try English!

"The team is taking a break", or "The team are taking a break"?
"The majority of the team is taking a break", or "The majority of the team are taking a break"?
"The majority of the people are in favour of the idea": how silly is "The majority of the people is in favour of the idea"?
"The majority of the water is still in the houses": how silly is "The majority of the water are still in the houses"?
"The majority of three is enough to ensure election": how silly is "The majority of three are enough to ensure election"?

'S dòcha gum bi mi a' cumail ris a' Ghàidhlig...