Verbal nouns, verbs and nouns

It is traditional for grammars to make a distinction between finite and non-finite parts of the verb. The former are marked for number, person, tense, mood, voice (active, passive, etc.), and aspect (progressive, stative, etc.). The latter, which are often termed infinitives, participles, verbal adjectives, etc., are not usually marked in this way. Participles can display more nominal characteristics, such as number, gender, case, declension, agreement with nouns, and they often appear to behave like adjectives. Celtic languages have neither infinitives nor present participles. ¹ Moreover, it is clear that speakers of Insular Celtic languages saw no link between their verbal nouns and Latin infinitives; it is striking that the verbs 'to read' and 'to write', which are borrowed from Latin legere and scrībere respectively, use a form derived from the Latin gerund as the verbal noun, i.e. Ir léinn, scríbend, W llên, ysgrifennu < Lat legendum, scrībendum respectively. But, even if Celtic languages did not have infinitives, that is not to say there is a gaping hole in traditional grammars of Celtic when the finite verb has been discussed. The traditional slot in the grammar is filled by two categories, the verbal noun and the verbal adjective. ²