GRAMMATICALIZATION AND THE ETYMOLOGY OF OLD IRISH OCUS ‘AND’
GRAMMATICALIZATION AND THE ETYMOLOGY OF OLD IRISH OCUS ‘AND’

Summary/Abstract: This paper integrates a philological investigation of Old Irish coordination with cross-linguisticaccounts of the phenomenon in order to offer an etymology Old Irish ocus ‘and’. It is suggestedthat Pre-Irish employed ocus in a comitative coordination strategy (i.e. ‘A with B’). This started outas a nominal and adjectival coordinator. Late in the prehistory of Irish, this coordinatorgrammaticalized as the all-purpose ocus ‘and’ (i.e. ‘A and B’) that is found in Old Irish texts.

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