I think this sentence means "Who did you give it to?"

Could you please provide a literal word-for-word translation of this sentence. I'm struggling to understand the function of some of the words in it.

Here's my attempt, which might explain my confusion:

Cé - Whom
dó - to him
ar - that
thug - gave
tú you
é - it.

Why is "to him" needed, for example?

I'm not good at explaining grammar, so others can explain this better.
But I think if you look at "cé dó" (the two words together) as "whom" it will be clearer to you. And ofcourse word order is just different in Irish so it's better not to keep comparing it to English.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Thanks for the reply "Bríd"!

Is it also possible to say:

Cé dóibh ar thug tú é?

to specify that you are referring to more than one: "To which people did you give it to?"

Here's another sentence:

Cé leis ar imigh tú?

Which means "Whom are you travelling with?"

So the preposition is "with". What preposition is associated with "dó" in the first sentence?

Literally:

Who to him which you gave it.

Going back to older forms of Irish, you would have had:

An cé is dó ar thug tú é?

Who is he which it's to him that you gave it?

The most confusing object is probably ar, the past form of the indirect relative.

The indirect relative is necessary because the "him" being referred to appears indirectly via "dó" rather than directly via "sé" or "é".

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Cé dóibh ar thug tú é? = yes, that's correct for more than one person.

"Cé leis ar imigh tú? " = Imigh/Imeacht - means to "go" "to leave a place" not specifically to travel.
If you want to say "Who did you go with?" I'd say "Cé leis a ndeachaigh tú?".

"Who are you travelling with?" = "Cé leis a bhfuil tú ag taisteal?"
"Who were you travelling with? = "Cé leis a raibh tú ag taisteal?"

Sorry if I made it sound more complicated.


I'll leave the preposition question to somebody else.

Crossed with Lon Dubh

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

Bríd, how would you yourself say:

The table that the fork lay on

(I'm just checking something about Conamara vs. Munster grammar)

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Same here with Bríd on the grammar side. :P

But yes, Cé dóibh ar thug tú é? means "To whom did you give it" in the sense that it was given to multiple people, or as you said "To which people did you give it to?".

Cé leis ar imigh tú? means "With whom did you go" or in the vernacular "Who did you go with?". I think in the standard "tú" is accepted but all I know (including me) would say "thú" in speech, and this is also correct grammatically.

I THINK this is a Munster thing, but I would actually repeat the leis at the end of the sentence, but I could be wrong. Cé leis ar imigh thú leis? is what I would say.

An bord a raibh an forc air.

Do you say? - An bord air a raibh an forc.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

In most cases I do lenite "tú". But in that particular case I wouldn't. Maybe it's a Conamara thing. There is probably a complicated grammar reason for it, or maybe simply because it's at the end of a sentence.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
___________________________________________________________

I think it's because "tú" is the subject of the sentence, not the object of the verb. I usually see "tú" lenited when it's the object.

Redwolf