ar son

See also: arson

Irish

Etymology

Disputed; there are two Old Irish nouns son, one meaning ‘sound; word, name’ (a borrowing from Latin sonus), and one meaning ‘prosperity, well-being’ (cognate with sona (“happy”) and sonus (“good fortune”)). The connection with sonus was rejected by the Lexique étymologique de l'irlandais ancien, its authors unconvinced on semantic grounds. The Dictionary of the Irish Language associates the preposition with the first of these, suggesting the original meaning ‘at the sound of, by the word/name of’. Dinneen’s and Ó Dónaill’s dictionaries, on the other hand, associate it with the second, suggesting the original meaning ‘for the well-being of’. Randall Gordon, in his study of Old Irish verbal nouns, associates the phrase with neither word and proposes his own etymology connecting it with Proto-Indo-European *senh₂- (“to reach, attain”), from which imresan (“contention”) is also derived.[1] Cognate with Scottish Gaelic airson in any case.

Pronunciation
  • (Munster) IPA(key): /ɛɾʲˈsˠɔnˠ/
  • (Connacht) IPA(key): /ɛɾʲˈsˠɔnˠ/, /ɛɾʲˈsˠʊnˠ/
  • (Munster) IPA(key): /ɛɾʲˈsˠʌnˠ/

Preposition

ar son (plus genitive or possessive determiner, triggers no mutation)

  1. for, for the sake of (because of)
  2. on behalf of (speaking or acting for)

Inflection
Inflection of ar son
Person Normal Emphatic
1st person sing. ar mo shon ar mo shonsa
2d person sing. ar do shon ar do shonsa
3d sing. masc. ar a shon ar a shonsan
3d sing. fem. ar a son ar a sonsa
1st person pl. ar ár son ar ár son-na
2d person pl. ar bhur son ar bhur sonsa
3d person pl. ar a son ar a sonsan

References
  1. Gordon, Randall Clark (2012) Derivational Morphology of the Early Irish Verbal Noun, Los Angeles: University of California, page 480

Further reading
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