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Unit 19 - Expressing capability

"Can you lift this?"

The word urrainn is a very useful one meaning ability and it is used most commonly in a construction with the assertive verb is and the preposition do, which means “t��” or “f�ǰ�”. Here are some examples of how it works (note how we can add “n” to the end of the preposition do to indicate the definite article – “the woman”):

the woman can do thati.e. is capable of doing that

can the cat do that?

the boy can’t do that

can’t the dog do that?

Note that in some dialects do is dha. Here are the same sentences as above but using dha (again, note that "n" is added to the end of the preposition to indicate the definite article):

the woman can do that (ie is capable of doing that)

can the cat do that?

the boy can’t do that

can’t the dog do that?

Now notice how we deal with a question:

who can do this?

In this example you will see the “i” of is being combined with the article “a” to make as urrainn rather than is urrainn. You will not notice this difference in speech, only in writing.

And here is what happens if there is no noun, simply a pronoun, ie we want to say “he can’t do that” or “they can’t do that”. For this, we need to know the prepositional pronouns associated with the preposition do. Here they are:

to/for me

to/for you (singular/informal)

to/for him

to/for her

to/for us

to/for you (plural/formal)

to/for them

Transcript 1

In the conversation that follows, you will see how these prepositional pronouns are used with urrainn.

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