Fòram na Gàidhlig

I was pondering the "Có ás a bheil thu" (Barra, Uist) vs "Có ás a tha thu" (most places) thing, and then I started thinking about relative clauses after prepositions in general.

And I was thinking "it's air an robh, isn't it? or is it air a bha?"

Well, googlefight.com says:
air an robh 3,560, air a bha 219
as an robh 260, as a bha 159

Going back to pure Google, "as a bheil" pops up less than "as a tha", but for several pages I can only see "co as a tha" for "as a tha" (and things that aren't really "as a tha").

So is it the case then that relative clauses after prepositions take the dependent verb form, and that "có ás a tha thu" is just an exception (where "có ás" has been reanalysed to be equivalent in class to "carson" and "dé")?

I think that's what I've been doing up to now, but I've never given it much thought... (Pretty certain I originally learnt it through "ann" -- "anns an robh" etc....)

I don't know how correct this is, but my 1971 TYG states categorically:

After prepositions, the relative pronoun "a" takes the form "an" ("am" before b, f, m, p) with the dependent form of the verb.

However, the "an" bit and all the following examples suggest they only considered past tense...

The dependent / independent distinction should be independent of tense. The one place where you have tense in the picture is that the special relative form only exists in the future and gets replaced by the independent form in the other tenses - ciamar a bhios vs. ciamar a tha/bha/bhiodh.

As so often, clearly explained and illustrated here:

http://taic.me.uk/pdf/Lesson21.PDF

Scroll down a bit to 'The Relative Prepositional Pronoun'.


Niall is probably right in his analysis of the reason for the anomaly with 'Cò às a tha'.

Anomaly? Chan eil mi cinnteach, ach chan eil mi a' creidsinn gur e "anomaly" a th' ann an seo.

1: Siud am baile às a bheil i. "Yon's the town from which she is"
2: Cò às a tha i? "What from is she?"

Tha diofar ann, nach eil?

Deagh phuing.

Seonaidh wrote:Anomaly? Chan eil mi cinnteach, ach chan eil mi a' creidsinn gur e "anomaly" a th' ann an seo.

1: Siud am baile às a bheil i. "Yon's the town from which she is"
2: Cò às a tha i? "What from is she?"

Tha diofar ann, nach eil?

Well no, because "Có" is really "which" -- "which [town] from is she?"

'S dòcha nach e 'anomaly' dìreach am facal ceart.

Tha ceistean le roimhearan eile le 'Cò' ag obrachadh mar sin cuideachd:

Cò aig a tha fios?

Cò ris a tha e coltach?

Cò còmhla ris a bhios thu a' tighinn?

Ach:
Chan eil an duine aig a bheil fios a-staigh.
'S e athair agus a sheanar ris a bheil e coltach.
'S Seumas còmhla ris am bi mi a' tighinn.

Excellent, thanks all.

Interesting that co + prep has been reanalysed this way, but càite and even cà takes the dependent....

Now, anyone big on dialectisation? Do the deasaich and the barraich use the dependent form in other có + prep combinations, or just "có ás a bheil thu?"?