Note 100 — Chapter I

The Personal and Possessive Pronouns follow the Number of their Antecedents, i.e. of the Nouns which they represent. Those of the 3d Pers. Sing. follow also the Gender of their antecedent; as, sheas a'bhean aig a chosaibh, agus thoisich i air am fliuchadh leis a deuraibh, agus thiormaich i iad le gruaig a cinn, the woman stood at his feet, and she began to wet them with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, Luke vii. 38. They follow, however, not the Gender of the Antecedent, but the sex of the creature signified by the Antecedent, in those words in which Sex and Gender disagree, as, an gobhlan-gaoithe mar an ceudn' do sholair nead dh'i fein the swallow too hath provided a nest for herself, Psal. lxxxiv. 3. Gobhlan-gaoithe a swallow, is a mas. Noun, as appears by the mas. Article: but as it is the dam that is spoken of, the reference is made by the Personal Pronoun of the fem. gender. Ta gliocas air a fireanachadh leis a cloinn Wisdom is justified by her children, Matt. xi. 19. Gliocas is a mas. noun; but as Wisdom is here personified as a female, the regimen of the Possessive Pronoun is adapted to that idea[100]. See also Prov. ix. 1-3. In this sentence Och nach b' i mhaduinn e, Deut. xxviii. 67, the former pronoun i is correctly put in the fem. gender, as referring to the fem. noun maduinn; while the latter pron. e is put in the mas. gend. because referring to no expressed antecedent.