Restrictions on the Use of the Historical Present in Irish: The Evidence of the Grammatical and Syntactical Tracts

Abstract:This article is not so much concerned with how the historical present is used in Classical Modern Irish (and to a lesser extent also in Early Irish) as with how it is not used. The historical present is introduced here with examples from Early and Classical Modern Irish before the Bardic terminology used to discuss it is explained. Attention is drawn to information in the Bardic grammatical tracts concerning general restrictions on the use of the historical present and to references to specific verbs which may not be used in the historical present. It is shown that the historical present does not occur in negative and relative clauses and that it is usually avoided after conjunctions, and it is argued that atelic verbs cannot (normally) be used in the historical present.