Fa has been improperly confounded with fuidh or fo. That fa signifies _upon_, is manifest from such phrases as fa 'n bhord, _upon the board_, said of a dead body stretched upon a board; leigeader fa làr, _dropped on the ground_, Carswell: fa 'n adhbhar ud, _on that account_, equivalent to air an adhbhar ud, see Psal. cvi. 42, and xlv. 2, metr. version.
The reason for admitting iar _after_, has been already given in treating of the Compound Tenses of Verbs in Chap. V.
The manner of combining these prepositions with nouns will be shown in treating of Syntax. The manner of combining them with the personal pronouns must be explained in this place, because in that connection they appear in a form somewhat different from their radical form. A Proper Preposition is joined to a Personal Pronoun by incorporating both into one word, commonly with some change on the Preposition, or on the Pronoun, or on both.
The following are the Prepositions which admit of this kind of combination, incorporated with the several Personal Pronouns: { 118}
{ m. aige, Aig, } agam, agad, { _at him;_ Ag; } _at_. _at me_, _at thee_. { f. aice, { _at her_.
{ m. air. { f. oirre. Air; orm, ort, { uirre. { orra.
{ dhomh, } { m. dha. Do; { dhom, } dhuit, { f. dh'i.
{ m. fodha. Fo, Fuidh; fodham, fodhad, { f. fuidhpe.
{ m. h-uige. Gu; h-ugam, h-ugad, { f. h-uice.
{ m. uaith. O, Ua; uam, uait, { f. uaipe.
{ m. ris. Re, Ri; rium, riut, { f. rithe.
{ m. roimhe. Roimh; romham, romhad, { f. roimpe.
{ m. troimhe. Troimh; tromham, tromhad, { f. troimpe.
{ 119} Plural. _1st Pers._ _2d Pers._ _3d Pers._
Aig, } againn, agaibh, aca, Ag; } _at_. _at us_. _at you_. _at them_.
In most of these compound terms, the fragments of the Pronouns which enter into their composition, especially those of the first and second Persons, are very conspicuous[82]. These fragments take after them occasionally the emphatic syllables _sa_, _san_, _ne_, in the same manner as the Personal Pronouns themselves do; as, agamsa _at ME_, aigesan _at HIM_, uainne _from US_.
The two prepositions _de_ and _do_ have long been confounded together, both being written _do_. It can hardly be supposed that the composite words dhiom, dhiot, &c. would have been distinguished from dhomh, dhuit, &c., by orthography, pronunciation, and signification, if the Prepositions, as well as the Pronouns, which enter into the composition of these words, had been originally the same. In dhiom, &c., the initial Consonant is always followed by a small vowel. In dhomh, &c., with one exception, it is followed by a broad vowel. Hence it is presumable that the Preposition which is the root of dhiom, &c., must have had a small vowel after _d_, whereas the root of dhomh, &c., has a broad vowel after d. _De_ is a preposition preserved in Latin (a language which has many marks of affinity with the Gaelic), in the same sense which must have belonged to the root of dhiom, &c., in Gaelic. The preposition in question itself occurs in Irish, in the name given to a Colony which is supposed to have settled in Ireland, A.M. 2540, called Tuath de Danann. (See Lh. "Arch. Brit." tit. x. _voc._ Tuath; also Miss Brooke's "Reliques of Irish Poetry," p. 102.) These facts afford more than a presumption that the true root of the Composite dhiom, &c., is _de_, and that it signifies _of_. It has therefore appeared proper to separate it from _do_, and to assign to each its appropriate meaning[83].