424 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
by the definite rule. Or again, xvi. 29, 'now speakest thou 
clearljs and speakest no parable'; here there could absolutely be 
no sense of habitualness (' thou art not speaking at the present 
moment'), but it is ni uu nevertheless, and correctly, 
by the rule ; the consuetudinal force would actually make it 
mean ' thou art not in the habit of speaking parables ! ' 
And to come nearer to our time, what is the construction 
found in the version of the Pentateuch by the Archbishop of 
Tuam, 1859? He gives Gen. xlii. 38 iiia beAn/j^nn cubAij^'oe 
•66, * if any mischief befall him ' ; quite correctl}^, of course, but 
it has no consuetudinal force. Again, Gen. xxxii. 29 cpeAvX) 
|-AC A yiAi-^AUi^eAiin cu ni'^irim, 'why dost thou ask my name,' 
with equally little reason of consuetudinal force. Again, Ixii, 13 
CA Au misc If oige a b|?ocA.i]A tsy^. n-AUA|\, 7 ni rhAi|ie-Min Ati 
niAC eile, where the ca would seem to need the consuetudinal 
more than the niAi|ieAnn, if any such meaning underlay the 
ending. Again, Ixiii. 4 mk cm\\eb^x\x\ cii]^a tinn e, ' if thou 
send him with us ' : where is there even room for the meaning 
alleged ? 
And, finally, let any Irish-speaking native ask himself 
whether he ever omits to use this enclitic ending -Ann after ni, 
riAc, 50, An, &c. ; does he not alivays say :— 
ni c-f\eit)eArin ye, he does not believe. 
All ^ciAci-oeAnn fe, does he believe? 
50 5C|\eToeAiiii fe, (I think) that he believes. 
I have no doubt that this is really even now the universal 
practice among those who speak Irish from their childhood ; 
and were there even no further evidence than this modern 
extant use, it would be of itself sufficient to show that the end- 
ing -Aim is simply a necessity oi position, and has precisely the 
same relation to the normal ending -1*6 of 3rd sg. pres., that 
ptut has to ACA. 
In fact, conintiigeAnn ine, for ' I dwell' is exactly on a par 
with sentences like the following : — 
CAbAi]\ me All leAbAjA, for I give the book, 
fuii me A'm feA-p, „ / am a man. 
