Manx grammar
The grammar of the Manx language has much in common with related Indo-European languages, such as nouns that display gender, number and case and verbs that take endings or employ auxiliaries to show tense, person or number. Other morphological features are typical of Insular Celtic languages but atypical of other Indo-European languages. These include initial consonant mutation, inflected prepositions and verb–subject–object word order.
Nouns
Gender
Manx nouns fall into one of two genders, masculine or feminine. As with Old Irish, there is evidence for the existence of a third neuter gender in Classical Manx, but neuter nouns are thought to have been gradually converted to masculine.Masculine is considered the "default" or "unmarked" gender. Nouns ending in a "broad" consonant are usually masculine, as are those ending in the suffixes: -agh, -an, -ane, -ee, -er, -erey, -ey, -oo, -oon, -oor, -ys. Nouns ending in a "slender" consonant are usually feminine, as are those ending in the suffixes: -ag, -age, -aght, -eig, -id, -oge. Verbnouns are also usually feminine, especially those ending in -ail or -eil.
Number
Nouns show singular and plural number in Manx. Plurals can be formed from the singular by adding an ending, most often -yn. Other endings include -aghyn, -ee, or a consonant followed by -yn. Sometimes a plural ending replaces a singular ending, as in the case of -agh becoming -ee or -eeyn or of -ee or -ey becoming -aghyn. Some mostly monosyllabic nouns pluralise by means of internal vowel change, such as mac "son" to mec, kayt "cat" to kiyt and dooiney "man" to deiney. Manx also has a handful of irregularly formed plurals, including ben "woman" to mraane, keyrey "sheep" to kirree and slieau "mountain" to sleityn.Case
Nominative
The base form of a noun is in the nominative case.Vocative
A nominative noun is lenited to become vocative,. This also extends to proper nouns. Moirrey, the Manx equivalent of the English name Mary, would be lenited to Voirrey, but this practice is less common for foreign names. This form is commonly used in greetings.Genitive
Some mostly feminine nouns possess a distinct genitive form, usually ending in -ey, e.g. bleeaney "of a year", coshey "of a foot". Historical genitive singulars often survive in compounds and fixed expressions although no longer productive, such as thie-ollee "cowhouse" using the old genitive of ollagh "cattle" or mullagh y ching "the crown", literally "the top of the head", employing lenited king "of a head". Keyrragh "of sheep" is the only distinct genitive plural, the nominative plural being kirree.Dative
The dative case is encountered only in set expressions such as ry-chosh "on foot", where chosh is the lenited dative cosh "foot".Articles
In common with the other Insular Celtic languages except Breton, Manx has a definite article but no indefinite article. The definite article takes the form yn before masculine nominative and genitive and feminine nominative nouns. This yn is often reduced to y before consonants or to 'n after grammatical words ending in a vowel. Plural nouns and feminine genitive nouns take the article ny, another archaic form of which is found in some place names as nyn.Adjectives
Number
Certain adjectives may be made plural by the addition of -ey to the singular form. In earlier versions of the language, these were used attributively, but are rarely employed in modern Manx.Degree of comparison
Adjectives ending in -agh form their comparative/superlative form by replacing this with -ee, e.g. atçhimagh "terrible" becomes atçhimee, resulting in ny s'atçhimee "more terrible" and s'atçhimee "most terrible". As in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, the comparative-superlative is commonly marked by the copula verb s in the present and by in the past. The superlative is often shown by the word nys, from Middle Irish ní as "thing that is". A number of adjectives form their comparative/superlative irregularly.| Positive | English | Comparative/Superlative |
| aalin | beautiful | aaley |
| aashag | easy | assey |
| aeg | young | aa |
| ard | high | yrjey |
| beg | small | loo |
| bog | soft, moist | buiggey |
| bwaagh | pretty | bwaaie |
| çheh | hot | çhoe |
| çhionn | tight, fast | çhenney |
| çhiu | thick | çhee |
| faggys | near | niessey |
| foddey | far, long | odjey |
| garroo | rough | girroo |
| gial | bright, white | gilley |
| giare | short | girrey |
| lajer | strong | troshey |
| leah | soon | leaie |
| lheann | wide | lea |
| liauyr | long, tall | lhiurey |
| mie | good | share |
| moal | slow | melley |
| mooar | large, big | moo |
| olk | bad, evil | messey |
| reagh | merry, lively | reaie |
| roauyr | fat, broad | riurey |
| shenn | old | shinney |
| thanney | thin | theinney |
| trome | heavy | thrimmey |
| ymmodee | many | lee |
The comparative/superlative can also be formed using smoo "more" with the positive form, e.g. s'thrimmey = smoo trome.
Verbs
Regular verbs
Manx verbs generally form their finite forms by means of periphrasis: inflected forms of the auxiliary verbs ve "to be" or jannoo "to do" are combined with the verbal noun of the main verb. Only the future, conditional, preterite and imperative can be formed directly by inflecting the main verb, but even in these tenses, the periphrastic formation is more common in Late Spoken Manx. An example using the forms of tilgey "throwing" is as follows.| Tense | Periphrastic form | Inflected form | Gloss |
| Present | ta mee tilgey | – | "I throw" |
| Imperfect | va mee tilgey | – | "I was throwing" |
| Perfect | ta mee er jilgey | – | "I have thrown" |
| Pluperfect | va mee er jilgey | – | "I had thrown" |
| Preterite | ren mee tilgey | hilg mee | "I threw" |
| Future | neeym tilgey | tilgym | "I will throw" |
| Conditional | yinnin tilgey | hilgin | "I would throw" |
| Imperative | jean tilgey | tilg | "throw!" |
| Past participle | – | tilgit | "thrown" |
The future and conditional tenses make a distinction between "independent" and "dependent" forms. Independent forms are used when the verb is not preceded by any particle; dependent forms are used when a particle does precede the verb. For example, "you will lose" is caillee oo with the independent form caillee, while "you will not lose" is cha gaill oo with the dependent form caill. Similarly "they went" is hie ad with the independent form hie, while "they did not go" is cha jagh ad with the dependent form jagh.This contrast is inherited from Old Irish, which shows such pairs as beirid vs. ní beir, and is found in Scottish Gaelic as well, e.g. gabhaidh vs. cha ghabh. In Modern Irish, the distinction is found only in irregular verbs vs. ní fhaca.
The fully inflected forms of the regular verb tilgey "throwing" are as follows. In addition to the forms below, a past participle may be formed using -it: tilgit "thrown".
| Tense | Independent | Dependent | Relative |
| Preterite | hilg | ||
| Future | tilgym, tilgmayd, tilgee | dilgym, dilgmayd, dilgee | tilgys |
| Conditional | tilgin, tilgagh | dilgin, dilgagh | |
| Imperative | tilg |
There are a few peculiarities when a verb begins with a vowel, i.e. the addition of d' in the preterite and n' in the future and conditional dependent. Below is the conjugation of aase "to grow".
| Tense | Independent | Dependent | Relative |
| Preterite | d'aase | ||
| Future | aasym, aasmayd, aasee | n'aasym, n'aasmayd, n'aasee | aasys |
| Conditional | aasin, aasagh | n'aasin, n'aasagh | |
| Imperative | aase |
These peculiarities extend to verbs beginning with f, e.g. faagail "to leave".
| Tense | Independent | Dependent | Relative |
| Preterite | d'aag | ||
| Future | faagym, faagmayd, faagee | vaagym, vaagmayd, vaagee, n'aagym, n'aagmayd, n'aagee | aagys |
| Conditional | aagin, aagagh | vaagin, vaagagh, n'aagin, n'aagagh | |
| Imperative | faag |
Irregular verbs
A number of verbs are irregular in their inflection.The most common and most irregular verb in Manx is ve "to be", often used as an auxiliary verb. In addition to the usual inflected tenses, ve also has a present tense. The full conjugation of ve "to be" is as follows. Generally, the personal pronoun is used, but the emphatic pronoun is also acceptable. For instance, row oo "were you?" is grammatically correct, but it is likely to be misheard in speech as row "was". As such, row uss is often used instead.
| Form | Independent | Dependent | Relative |
| Present | ta | vel, nel | – |
| Preterite | va | row | – |
| Future | bee'm, beemayd, bee | vees | |
| Conditional | veign, veagh | beign, beagh | – |
| Imperative | bee | – |
Adverbs
Manx adverbs can be formed from adjectives by means of the word dy, e.g. mie "good" to dy mie "well", gennal "cheerful" to dy gennal "cheerfully". This dy is not used when preceded by such words as ro "too" and feer "very" or followed by dy liooar "enough", e.g. feer vie "very good, very well", gennal dy liooar "cheerful enough". The prepositional phrase for "home" is formed with dy "to" and the noun balley "place, town, homestead" to give dy valley, while the noun thie "house, home" can be used unchanged as an adverb to convey the same meaning.Adverbs of location and motion
In common with its Goidelic sister languages, Manx has a number of adverbs corresponding to English "up" and "down", the meaning of which depend upon such things as motion or lack thereof and starting point in relation to the speaker.| Stationary | Motion towards speaker | Motion away from speaker | |
| above | heose | neose | seose |
| below | heese | neese | sheese |
Examples of practical usage are Ta dooinney heese y traid "There's a man down the street" and Ta mee goll sheese y traid "I'm going down the street", Jean drappal neese "Climb up " and Jean drappal seose "Climb up ".
Likewise, Manx possesses various other single words that distinguish between stationary location and direction or movement towards or away from the speaker, e.g. shiar "to the east, eastwards" and niar "from the east", sthie "in, inside" and stiagh "in, inside", wass "this side, here", noon "from this side, to the other side" and noal "over to this side, over to the other side".
Pronouns
Personal
Technically, Manx has a T-V distinction where the second person singular pronoun oo is used to show familiarity while the second person plural shiu is used as a respectful singular as well as with plural referents. Because of the solidarity of the small speech community, however, Manx speakers would automatically use oo when addressing another individual Manx speaker.In common with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, in addition to its regular personal pronouns, Manx has also a series used for emphasis. Under certain phonological circumstances, these can be used as unemphatic pronouns, e.g. "you were not" is cha row uss as cha row oo sounds too similar to cha row "was not".
Reflexive pronouns are formed with the addition of -hene, which can also indicate emphasis, e.g. mee-hene "myself", oo-hene "yourself".
Interrogative
Manx interrogative pronouns include quoi "who?", cre "what?" and c'red "what?".Indefinite
The Manx equivalent of English "-ever" or "any-" is erbee, e.g. quoi erbee "whoever, anyone". Ennagh is used like English "some-", e.g. peiagh ennagh "someone".Determiners
Possessive
A gender distinction is made in the third person singular by means of lenition following masculine e "his, its" and lack of lenition after feminine e "her, its".An alternative to using the possessive pronouns is to precede a noun with the definite article and follow it with the inflected form of ec "at" to show the person, e.g. yn thie aym "my house" instead of my hie "my house". This is especially useful in the plural, where all persons share one possessive pronoun, e.g. yn thie oc "their house", as opposed to nyn dhie "our/your/their house".
Possessive determiners are used to indicate the object of a verbnoun, e.e. T'eh dy my akin "He sees me". E is dropped after the particle dy, although the mutation or lack thereof remains, and dy combines with nyn to give dyn, e.g. T'eh dy akin "He sees him", T'eh dy fakin "He sees her", T'eh dyn vakin "He sees us/you/them".
Prepositions
Like the other Insular Celtic languages, Manx has so-called inflected prepositions, contractions of a preposition with a pronominal direct object, as the following common prepositions show. Note the sometimes identical form of the uninflected preposition and its third person singular masculine inflected form.In addition to the above "simple" prepositions, Manx has a number of prepositional phrases based on a noun; being based on nouns, the possessive personal pronouns are used to refer to what would in English be pronominal prepositional objects. This also happens in English phrases such as "for my sake".
Alternative conjugation patterns are sometimes found with these more complex prepositions using inflected prepositions, e.g. mychione aym for my-my-chione "concerning me", son ain "for our sake" instead of er-nyn-son "for our/your/their sake".