Bibliography

Esther
Le Mair
s. xx–xxi

6 publications between 2011 and 2017 indexed
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Theses

Le Mair, Esther, “Secondary verbs in Old Irish: a comparative-historical study of patterns of verbal derivation in the Old Irish glosses”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, NUI Galway, 2011.  
abstract:
This thesis concerns the word formation of secondary verbs in Old Irish. Although extensive work has been done on primary verbs, the secondary adjectives and the nouns in Old Irish, and the formation of causatives and iteratives and that of the verbal nouns in Welsh, the secondary verbs in Old Irish have been almost entirely ignored (with the exception of the deverbal verbs in -igidir), while they provide fascinating insights into the process of word formation in Celtic and Early Irish. Their importance lies especially, but not exclusively, in the obvious productivity of this morphology in Old Irish and in the visible development of the morphology from Proto-Indo-European through Old Irish. The formation of secondary verbs in any language and indeed in any stage of that language shows the creativity of the users of that language and the secondary verbs in Old Irish show the creativity of the speakers of Old Irish and its antecedents. The thesis consists of five chapters and two appendices. The first chapter contains the preliminaries, the theoretical, material and methodological basis of the thesis. The second chapter is an introduction into the Old Irish verbal system and its origins to set the stage for the remaining chapters. The third chapter is the analysis, morphological, semantic and statistical, drawn from the corpus. The fourth chapter is the conclusion. The fifth chapter contains all the secondary verbs found in the Würzburg and Milan glosses with cognates, discussion and notes. The first appendix contains those primary verbs that have taken on weak flexion and the second all the other primary verbs, for comparative purposes.
abstract:
This thesis concerns the word formation of secondary verbs in Old Irish. Although extensive work has been done on primary verbs, the secondary adjectives and the nouns in Old Irish, and the formation of causatives and iteratives and that of the verbal nouns in Welsh, the secondary verbs in Old Irish have been almost entirely ignored (with the exception of the deverbal verbs in -igidir), while they provide fascinating insights into the process of word formation in Celtic and Early Irish. Their importance lies especially, but not exclusively, in the obvious productivity of this morphology in Old Irish and in the visible development of the morphology from Proto-Indo-European through Old Irish. The formation of secondary verbs in any language and indeed in any stage of that language shows the creativity of the users of that language and the secondary verbs in Old Irish show the creativity of the speakers of Old Irish and its antecedents. The thesis consists of five chapters and two appendices. The first chapter contains the preliminaries, the theoretical, material and methodological basis of the thesis. The second chapter is an introduction into the Old Irish verbal system and its origins to set the stage for the remaining chapters. The third chapter is the analysis, morphological, semantic and statistical, drawn from the corpus. The fourth chapter is the conclusion. The fifth chapter contains all the secondary verbs found in the Würzburg and Milan glosses with cognates, discussion and notes. The first appendix contains those primary verbs that have taken on weak flexion and the second all the other primary verbs, for comparative purposes.


Contributions to journals

Le Mair, Esther, Cynthia A. Johnson, Michael Frotcher, Thórhallur Eythórsson, and Jóhanna Barðdal, “Position as a behavioral property of subjects: the case of Old Irish”, Indogermanische Forschungen 122 (2017): 111–142.  
abstract:
A subject analysis of oblique subject-like arguments remains controversial even across modern languages where the available data are not finite: while such arguments are considered syntactic subjects in Icelandic, they have more often been analyzed as objects in Lithuanian, for example. This issue has been left relatively neglected for the ancient Indo-European languages outside of Sanskrit (Hock 1990), Gothic (Barðdal & Eythórsson 2012), and Ancient Greek (Danesi 2015). In this article, we address the status of oblique subject-like arguments in Old Irish, whose strict word-order enables us to compare the position (relative to the verb and other arguments) of nominative subject arguments of the canonical type to oblique subject-like arguments. We first establish a baseline for neutral word-order of nominative subjects and accusative objects and then compare their distribution to that of oblique subject-like arguments under two conditions: i) on a subject analysis and ii) on an object analysis. The word-order distribution differs significantly across the two contexts when the oblique arguments are analyzed as syntactic objects, but not when they are analyzed as syntactic subjects. These findings add to the growing evidence that oblique subject-like arguments should be analyzed as syntactic subjects, although their coding properties are non-canonical.
(source: Publisher)
abstract:
A subject analysis of oblique subject-like arguments remains controversial even across modern languages where the available data are not finite: while such arguments are considered syntactic subjects in Icelandic, they have more often been analyzed as objects in Lithuanian, for example. This issue has been left relatively neglected for the ancient Indo-European languages outside of Sanskrit (Hock 1990), Gothic (Barðdal & Eythórsson 2012), and Ancient Greek (Danesi 2015). In this article, we address the status of oblique subject-like arguments in Old Irish, whose strict word-order enables us to compare the position (relative to the verb and other arguments) of nominative subject arguments of the canonical type to oblique subject-like arguments. We first establish a baseline for neutral word-order of nominative subjects and accusative objects and then compare their distribution to that of oblique subject-like arguments under two conditions: i) on a subject analysis and ii) on an object analysis. The word-order distribution differs significantly across the two contexts when the oblique arguments are analyzed as syntactic objects, but not when they are analyzed as syntactic subjects. These findings add to the growing evidence that oblique subject-like arguments should be analyzed as syntactic subjects, although their coding properties are non-canonical.
(source: Publisher)
Le Mair, Esther, “Why a single burst or multiple scatterings can make all the difference: the patterns underlying the formation of AI and AII verbs”, Studia Celtica Fennica 10 (2013): 65–80.  
abstract:
Old Irish has three categories at its disposal for the formation of secondary verbs: the ā-verbs, the ī-verbs and the -igidir verbs. In this article, I discuss the possible origins of these formations before moving on to a discussion of the underlying motivation for ā-verbs and ī-verbs to be formed in one verb class rather than another. Secondary verbs contain denominatives, deadjectivals and deverbal verbs. There are no deadjectival ī-verbs and no deverbal ā-verbs or igidir-verbs. The formation of a denominative as an –ā- or an ī-verb appears to be motivated by its semantic causativity and iterativity and its transitivity. The -igidir category, on the other hand, is so productive that it appears to have virtually no restrictions in Old Irish and has been left aside in the discussion.
– PDFs: <link>
abstract:
Old Irish has three categories at its disposal for the formation of secondary verbs: the ā-verbs, the ī-verbs and the -igidir verbs. In this article, I discuss the possible origins of these formations before moving on to a discussion of the underlying motivation for ā-verbs and ī-verbs to be formed in one verb class rather than another. Secondary verbs contain denominatives, deadjectivals and deverbal verbs. There are no deadjectival ī-verbs and no deverbal ā-verbs or igidir-verbs. The formation of a denominative as an –ā- or an ī-verb appears to be motivated by its semantic causativity and iterativity and its transitivity. The -igidir category, on the other hand, is so productive that it appears to have virtually no restrictions in Old Irish and has been left aside in the discussion.
Esther Le Mair, “Het verschil tussen plunderen en met de grond gelijk maken: afgeleide werkwoorden in het Oudiers”, in: Kelten: Mededelingen van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 59 (2013): 5.
Tristram, Hildegard L. C., “Uimir a sé: het getal zes”, Kelten: Mededelingen van de Stichting A. G. van Hamel voor Keltische Studies 50 — thema ‘Getallen’ (May, 2011): 7–9.

Contributions to edited collections or authored works

Le Mair, Esther, “A trusted outsider: Leborcham in the Ulster Cycle”, in: Gregory Toner, and Séamus Mac Mathúna (eds), Ulidia 3: proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Ulster Cycle of Tales, University of Ulster, Coleraine 22–25 June, 2009. In memoriam Patrick Leo Henry, Berlin: curach bhán, 2013. 37–47.