The many functions of a

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

It would seem that, certainly from a learner's point of view, every languages has a small annoying word which has just too many possible functions. In Albanian (yes, I did Albanian for a while, I've always like Albania though I haven't been yet) this happens to be të, which can be any of the following:

• a short form of a second person pronoun in the dative or accusative
• a short form of a third person pronoun in the dative or accusative - meaning that the short form "for him" and "for you" are identical...
• a particle which forms the conjunctive
• a particle which forms the future conditional
• a particle which forms the jussive (i.e. it helps form a kind of imperative)
• a particle needed for some infinitive constructions
• the definite article before a noun

Once you get into it, it's not quite as bad but can still be a head-scratcher.

Of course Gaelic has one too - a. This covers an even wider range of options that Albanian të, so here's a list which hopefully will help you make a bit more sense of it.

The vocative particle

This a* [ə] is placed in front of a noun when directly addressing someone. It lenites and forces the noun into the vocative case (if the noun has one). English doesn't really have something like it, oh is the closest equivalent but in Gaelic it doesn't sound as corny when you use the vocative, it's just, well, normal.

Before a vowel or fh-, the a disappears.

Seumas [ʃeːməs] »	a Sheumais! [ə heːmɪʃ]
James »	(oh) James!
fir [firʲ] »	fheara! [ɛrə]
men »	(oh) men!
Mórag [moːrag] »	a Mhórag! [ə voːrag]
Morag »	(oh) Morag!

The leniting article

Technically this is not just a but a' [ə] with an apostrophe but I've included it nonetheless. The leniting article takes the form a' and ... well, lenites the following word. It appears before feminine nouns in the nominative singular and masculine AND feminine nouns in the prepositional case in the singular (before b c g m p)

a' bhròg	the show
air a' bhalach	on the boy

The participle-forming particle

Also technically a' [ə] with an apostrophe but I've included it because as the leniting article, in spoken Gaelic it also comes out as [ə]. This isn't Borge's spoken punctuations you know :)

It is the reduced form of ag and appears before anything that is not a vowel and not r, i.e. b c d f g l m n p s t, for example:

tha mi a' bualadh	I am hitting
tha mi a' lagachadh	I am weakening

The masculine possessive pronoun

No apostrophe this time just a [ə]. Lenites everything.

a bhalla	his wall
a mhàthair	his mother
a nathair [N » n]	his snake

The feminine possessive pronoun

This is the reduced form of a h- (which you get before vowels). The only other difference to the masculine possessive is that this one doesn't lenite, it's also pronounced [ə]:

a balla	her wall
a màthair	her mother
a nathair [N » N]	her snake

The first part of various adverbs

Which is sadly relevant because of some GOC nonense.