The grammar of theManx language has much in common with relatedIndo-European languages, such as nouns that displaygender,number andcase and verbs that take endings or employauxiliaries to showtense,person or number. Other morphological features are typical ofInsular Celtic languages but atypical of other Indo-European languages. These includeinitial consonant mutation,inflected prepositions andverb–subject–object word order.^[1]

Manx nouns fall into one of twogenders, masculine or feminine. As with Old Irish, there is evidence for the existence of a third neuter gender in Classical Manx, but neuter nouns are thought to have been gradually converted to masculine.^[2]

Masculine is considered the "default" or "unmarked" gender.^[3] Nouns ending in a "broad" (non-palatalised) consonant are usually masculine, as are those ending in the suffixes:-agh,-an,-ane,-ee,-er,-erey,-ey,-oo,-oon,-oor,-ys. Nouns ending in a "slender" (palatalised) consonant are usually feminine, as are those ending in the suffixes:-ag,-age,-aght,-eig,-id,-oge.Verbnouns are also usually feminine, especially those ending in-ail or-eil.^[3]

Nouns show singular and pluralnumber in Manx. Plurals can be formed from the singular by adding an ending, most often-yn (lioar "book",lioaryn "books"). Other endings include-aghyn,-ee, or a consonant followed by-yn. Sometimes a plural ending replaces a singular ending, as in the case of-agh becoming-ee or-eeyn or of-ee or-ey becoming-aghyn. Some mostly monosyllabic nouns pluralise by means of internal vowel change, such asmac "son" tomec,kayt "cat" tokiyt anddooiney "man" todeiney. Manx also has a handful of irregularly formed plurals, includingben "woman" tomraane,keyrey "sheep" tokirree andslieau "mountain" tosleityn.^[3]

The base form of a noun is in thenominative case (carrey "friend",caarjyn "friends").

A nominative noun islenited to becomevocative, (charrey "friend!",chaarjyn "friends!"). This also extends to proper nouns.Moirrey, the Manx equivalent of the English name Mary, would be lenited toVoirrey, but this practice is less common for foreign names.^[3] This form is commonly used in greetings (Vax veen "dear Max").

Some mostly feminine nouns possess a distinctgenitive form, usually ending in-ey, e.g.bleeaney "of a year" (nominative:blein),coshey "of a foot" (nominative:cass). Historical genitive singulars often survive incompounds and fixed expressions although no longer productive, such asthie-ollee "cowhouse" using the old genitive ofollagh "cattle" ormullagh y ching "the crown", literally "the top of the head", employing lenitedking "of a head" (nominative:kione).^[4]Keyrragh "of sheep" is the only distinct genitive plural, the nominative plural beingkirree.

Thedative case is encountered only in set expressions such asry-chosh "on foot", wherechosh is the lenited dativecosh "foot" (nominative:cass "foot").^[5][3]

In common with the otherInsular Celtic languages exceptBreton, Manx has adefinite article but no indefinite article. The definite article takes the formyn before masculine nominative and genitive and feminine nominative nouns. Thisyn is often reduced toy before consonants or to'n after grammatical words ending in a vowel. Plural nouns and feminine genitive nouns take the articleny, another archaic form of which is found in some place names asnyn.^[3]

Certain adjectives may be made plural by the addition of-ey to the singular form (ben veg "little woman",mraane veggey "little women"). In earlier versions of the language, these were usedattributively, but are rarely employed in modern Manx.^[3]

Adjectives ending in-agh form theircomparative/superlative form by replacing this with-ee, e.g.atçhimagh "terrible" becomesatçhimee, resulting inny s'atçhimee "more terrible" ands'atçhimee "most terrible". As inIrish andScottish Gaelic, the comparative-superlative is commonly marked by the copula verbs in the present andby in the past. The superlative is often shown by the wordnys, from Middle Irishní as "thing that is" (cf. Modern Irishníos, pastní ba).^[6] A number of adjectives form their comparative/superlative irregularly.

The comparative/superlative can also be formed usingsmoo "more" with the positive form, e.g.s'thrimmey =smoo trome.^[3]

Manx verbs generally form theirfinite forms by means ofperiphrasis: inflected forms of theauxiliary verbsve "to be" orjannoo "to do" are combined with theverbal noun of the main verb. Only thefuture,conditional,preterite andimperative can be formed directly by inflecting the main verb, but even in these tenses, the periphrastic formation is more common in Late Spoken Manx.^[7] An example using the forms oftilgey "throwing" is as follows.

The future and conditional tenses (and in someirregular verbs, the preterite) make a distinction between"independent" and "dependent" forms. Independent forms are used when the verb is not preceded by any particle; dependent forms are used when a particle (e.g.cha "not") does precede the verb. For example, "you will lose" iscaillee oo with the independent formcaillee ("will lose"), while "you will not lose" ischa gaill oo with the dependent formcaill (which has undergoneeclipsis togaill aftercha). Similarly "they went" ishie ad with the independent formhie ("went"), while "they did not go" ischa jagh ad with the dependent formjagh.^[9][10]

The fully inflected forms of the regular verbtilgey "throwing" are as follows. In addition to the forms below, a past participle may be formed using-it:tilgit "thrown".

^1 First person singular, making the use of a following subject pronoun redundant

^2 First person plural, making the use of a following subject pronoun redundant

^3 Used with all other persons, meaning an accompanying subject must be stated, e.g.tilgee eh "he will throw",tilgee ad "they will throw"

There are a few peculiarities when a verb begins with a vowel, i.e. the addition ofd' in the preterite andn' in the future and conditional dependent. Below is the conjugation ofaase "to grow".

^1d' may also be speltj when pronounced/dʲ/[dʒ] i.e. before a slender vowel, e.g. "ate" can be eitherd'ee orjee.

These peculiarities extend to verbs beginning withf, e.g.faagail "to leave".

^1 Again,d' may also be speltj where appropriate.

A number of verbs are irregular in their inflection.

^1 Future relative:clinnys

^2 Future relative:gowee

The most common and most irregular verb in Manx isve "to be", often used as an auxiliary verb. In addition to the usual inflected tenses,ve also has a present tense. The full conjugation ofve "to be" is as follows. Generally, the personal pronoun is used (ta mee "I am"), but the emphatic pronoun is also acceptable. For instance,row oo "were you?" is grammatically correct, but it is likely to be misheard in speech asrow "was". As such,row uss is often used instead.^[11]

Manx adverbs can be formed from adjectives by means of the worddy (fromMiddle Irishgo "with, until"), e.g.mie "good" tody mie "well",gennal "cheerful" tody gennal "cheerfully". Thisdy is not used when preceded by such words asro "too" andfeer "very" or followed bydy liooar "enough", e.g.feer vie "very good, very well",gennal dy liooar "cheerful(ly) enough". The prepositional phrase for "home(wards)" is formed withdy "to" and the nounballey "place, town, homestead" to givedy valley, while the nounthie "house, home" can be used unchanged as an adverb to convey the same meaning.^[3]

In common with itsGoidelic sister languages, Manx has a number of adverbs corresponding to English "up" and "down", the meaning of which depend upon such things as motion or lack thereof and starting point in relation to the speaker.

Examples of practical usage areTa dooinney heese y traid "There's a man down the street" andTa mee goll sheese y traid "I'm going down the street",Jean drappal neese "Climb up (towards me)" andJean drappal seose "Climb up (away from me)".

Likewise, Manx possesses various other single words that distinguish between stationary location and direction or movement towards or away from the speaker, e.g.shiar "to the east, eastwards" andniar "from the east",sthie "in, inside" (location) andstiagh "in, inside" (direction),wass "this side, here",noon "from this side, to the other side" andnoal "over to this side, over to the other side".^[3]

Technically, Manx has aT-V distinction where the second person singular pronounoo is used to show familiarity while the second person pluralshiu is used as a respectful singular as well as with plural referents. Because of the solidarity of the small speech community, however, Manx speakers would automatically useoo when addressing another individual Manx speaker.^[3]

In common with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, in addition to its regular personal pronouns, Manx has also a series used for emphasis. Under certain phonological circumstances, these can be used as unemphatic pronouns, e.g. "you were not" ischa row uss[xaˈrauʊs] ascha row oo[xaˈrauu(ː)] sounds too similar tocha row[xaˈrau] "was not".

Reflexive pronouns are formed with the addition of-hene, which can also indicate emphasis, e.g.mee-hene "myself",oo-hene "yourself".^[3]

Manx interrogative pronouns includequoi "who?",cre "what?" andc'red "what?".^[3]

The Manx equivalent of English "-ever" or "any-" iserbee, e.g.quoi erbee "whoever, anyone".Ennagh is used like English "some-", e.g.peiagh ennagh "someone" (withpeiagh "person").^[3]

A gender distinction is made in the third person singular by means of lenition following masculinee "his, its" and lack of lenition after femininee "her, its".

An alternative to using the possessive pronouns is to precede a noun with the definite article and follow it with the inflected form ofec "at" to show the person, e.g.yn thie aym "my house" (literally "the house at me") instead ofmy hie "my house". This is especially useful in the plural, where all persons share one possessive pronoun, e.g.yn thie oc "their house", as opposed tonyn dhie "our/your/their house".

Possessive determiners are used to indicate the object of averbnoun, e.e.T'eh dy my akin "He sees me".E is dropped after the particledy, although the mutation or lack thereof remains, anddy combines withnyn to givedyn, e.g.T'eh dy akin "He sees him",T'eh dy fakin "He sees her",T'eh dyn vakin "He sees us/you/them".^[3]

Like the otherInsular Celtic languages, Manx has so-calledinflected prepositions, contractions of apreposition with apronominal direct object, as the following common prepositions show. Note the sometimes identical form of the uninflected preposition and its third person singular masculine inflected form.

^1Dys is the usual word today.Gys is literary. This is also the inflection ofhug "to".

^2J'ee "of her" is distinguished from homophonousjee "to her" in spelling by means of an apostrophe.

^3 Sometimes, these forms, apart frommayrt are written with acircumflex over the first vowel, e.g.mârish,mêriu.

^4Rish is equivalent to various different prepositions in English depending on context, e.g.clashtyn rish "listen to",caggey rish "fight against",rish tammylt " for a while".

^5 The spellingr'ee distinguishes it from the homophonic nounree "king".

In addition to the above "simple" prepositions, Manx has a number of prepositional phrases based on a noun; being based on nouns, the possessive personal pronouns are used to refer to what would in English be pronominal prepositional objects. This also happens in English phrases such as "for my sake".^[3]

Alternative conjugation patterns are sometimes found with these more complex prepositions using inflected prepositions, e.g.mychione aym formy-my-chione "concerning me",son ain "for our sake" instead ofer-nyn-son "for our/your/their sake".^[3]

The main coordinatingconjunctions in Manx areas "and",agh "but" andny "or". Subordinating conjunctions includechoud('s) "while",derrey "until",dy "that; so that",er-y-fa "because",ga dy/nagh "although (affirmative/negative)" andtra "when".My "if" introduces conditional clauses as domyr "as if" andmannagh "unless".^[3]

Manx numbers are traditionallyvigesimal, as seen below. Some speakers use a more moderndecimal version of some numbers, in a similar way to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, for example, to simplify the teaching of arithmetic.^[3]

^1Un anddaa are used for counting objects (daa ghooinney "two men").Nane andjees mean "number one" and "number two" in a more abstract, mathematical sense, and are used for phone numbers and arithmetic.

• Manx grammar
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