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In:Diachronic and Typological Perspectives on Anticausativization
Edited by Guglielmo Inglese, Giulia Mazzola and Eugenio Goria
[Typological Studies in Language 138] 2026
► pp. 374–417

Chapter 12
Noncausal events and anticausative marking in Modern Irish

Synchronic and diachronic aspects

 | Kiel University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The present study gives a first overview of noncausal events and their marking in Modern Irish. Irish has two primary means of marking noncausal events: the first involves P-preserving labile verbs such as iompaigh ‘turn over (intr/tr)’. As a large percentage of these verbs end in -(a)igh, which goes back to a productive suffix in Old Irish, I trace the development of these forms in Old Irish, following Griffith (2010, 2013). The second means of marking noncausality is through impersonal verbal morphology, found with a handful of common predicates. I argue that impersonal marking allows for a reanalysis of it as an anticausative marker when the verb involves a final change-of-state.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1A brief typological overview of Modern Irish
  • 2.Noncausal events and the anticausative
  • 3.The expression of noncausal events in Irish, I: Ambitransitives
    • 3.1Ambitransitives and anticausatives
    • 3.2A diachronic account of verbs in -(a)igh
      • 3.2.1Brief overview of the Old Irish verb system
      • 3.2.2The further development of igidir-verbs in Old Irish
  • 4.The expression of noncausal events in Irish, II: From impersonal to anticausative
    • 4.1The impersonal in Modern Irish
    • 4.2The impersonal as an anticausative marker
    • 4.3A theoretical account
  • 5.Beyond anticausativity
    • 5.1The impersonal passive and “overt suppressed arguments”
    • 5.2The impersonal with labile verbs
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
References (53)
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