ABSTRACT
One last set of suffixes, found across all dialects, is used for the various tenses of what is traditionally known as the autonomous verb or briathar saor. This is an impersonal form, used when the subject of a verb is unknown or unimportant, or when the speaker simply does not wish to specify who performed or experienced the event expressed by the verb. For most irregular verb forms, the regular first-conjugation impersonal endings are added to the appropriate tensed stem for each verb. The slender vowels of the personal forms fuair, chonaic, and thainig become broad in the impersonal forms. The second-syllable vowel of the personal form of thainig has also been omitted. In many cases, the impersonal forms of transitive verbs are translated into English as passives. A number of impersonal structures are commonly used with idiomatic meanings not readily deducible from their literal translations.
