Unit 19 - Expressing capability

An urrainn dhut seo a thogail? "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 “to” or “for”. 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”):

is urrainn don bhoireannach sin a dhèanamh

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

an urrainn don chat sin a dhèanamh?

can the cat do that?

chan urrainn don bhalach sin a dhèanamh

the boy can’t do that

nach urrainn don chù sin a dhèanamh?

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):

is urrainn dhan bhoireannach sin a dhèanamh

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

an urrainn dhan chat sin a dhèanamh?

can the cat do that?

chan urrainn dhan bhalach sin a dhèanamh

the boy can’t do that

nach urrainn dhan chù sin a dhèanamh?

can’t the dog do that?

Now notice how we deal with a question:

Cò as urrainn seo a dhèanamh?

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:

dhomh

to/for me

dhut

to/for you (singular/informal)

dha

to/for him

dhi

to/for her

dhuinn

to/for us

dhuibh

to/for you (plural/formal)

dhaibh

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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