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OnuvanjaParticipant
I’ve often also seen it spelt as ‘smaoitigh’ (imperative) and ‘smaoitiú’ (verbal noun), though these forms aren’t mentioned in O’Dónaill.
OnuvanjaParticipantDéarfainn féin gur “ag oscailt fuinneoga móra” an leagan ceart, mar ní chuirtear rialacha ginidigh i bhfeidhm agus an t-ainmfhocal eigínnte cáilithe ag aidiacht nó ag cáilitheoir eile (m.sh. “ag tógáil tí”, ach “ag tógáil teach mór”).
OnuvanjaParticipantThis is a very complex topic where there’s a lot of variation, even within a single dialect… Unless I’m mistaken, ‘deirimid’ is the only form used in Munster and also preferred in Standard Irish. Connacht (and I think also Ulster) would have ‘deir muid’. So, I don’t really agree with teanglann’s definition of first choice here. As for the past tense ending ‘-dar’, this is sometimes also found in Connacht Irish, though you would normally hear ‘dúirt siad’. I can’t say if this is also true for Ulster.
OnuvanjaParticipantExcellent idea! It would be very interesting to hear a native speaker’s point of view. Out of curiosity, I ran a Google search on ‘an ionad pobail’ and ‘an lucht féachana’ in the genitive case (both masculine nouns) and the results are really split down the middle, you get both ‘an ionaid phobail’ and ‘an ionaid pobail’, as well as ‘an luchta fhéachana’ and ‘an luchta féachana’, including based on texts published by government bodies.
OnuvanjaParticipantLooks like we’ve discovered a new ‘grey area’ in Irish grammar. 🙂 I suppose if there’s no rule for this particular situation, we shall have to look at actual usage. I tried to conduct a cursory search of Irish legislation on achtanna.ie, but didn’t come up with much. Google provides plenty of examples, but as Lughaidh said, most of them are machine-translated adverts and stuff like that… I wonder if Labhrás or someone else can help us out with this one?
OnuvanjaParticipantThere are two subjunctive tenses in Irish: present subjunctive and past subjunctive. The present subjunctive forms provided by teanglann.ie are correct, the other ones make no sense at all. 🙂 In fact, the past subjunctive forms are the same as those for past conditional (except that the verb remains unlenited, e.g. ‘molainn’ vs ‘mholainn’), so that’s maybe why teanglann.ie doesn’t include them? In general, the subjunctive tenses aren’t used very frequently, especially in spoken Irish.
OnuvanjaParticipantYes, that’s the problem. There are loads of rules on “ainmfhocal éiginnte” (indefinite noun) in GGBC and Caighdéan Oifigiúil (Athbhreathnaithe), but nothing on the definite noun + attribute in the genitive case. “Méid seomra suí” (size of A livingroom) or “fionnadh mac tíre” (skin of A wolf) is easy enough, but what happens in “méid an tseomra s(h)uí” and “fionnadh an mhac/mhic t(h)íre”. I have to say I’m a bit at a loss…
OnuvanjaParticipantIn these cases the 1st word would be in the genitive and the 2nd one wouldn’t change, except the lenition of its initial if the context triggers it.
I think one would say “méid an tseomra shuí”, “fionnadh an mhic thíre”…Are you quite sure about this, Lughaidh? Granted, if a definite noun was followed by an adjective (e.g. an seomra dorcha), the adjective would be lenited in the genitive (doras an tseomra dhorcha). But would the same happen if it was a noun? I can’t find any rule specifying that and if you do a Google search, you’ll get things like “ceird an mhúinteoira bunscoile” and “doras an tseomra folctha” (rather than “bhunscoile” or “fholctha”) or “craiceann na bó bainne”, which isn’t very conclusive …
OnuvanjaParticipantI’ve just listened to the Donegal pronunciation of a few words ending in slender “r” given on http://www.focloir.ie, and in some cases you can clearly hear the “r” (bádóir, deartháir), though curiously it sounds like a broad “r” rather than a slender one, while in others the “r” seems to be missing or very indistinct (athair, máthair). I wonder if that’s just due to normal variation within the dialect or the influence of Standard Irish …
OnuvanjaParticipantI’m not at all a specialist of Donegal Irish, but yes, there’s a tendency to pronounce slender “r” as “y” between vowels (maybe also at the end of the word?). For example, the lead singer of Clannad, Máire Ní Bhraonáin, uses the name “Moya” for her solo career, as it reflects the dialect pronunciation of her first name “Máire”. I’m sure other members will be able to tell you more.
OnuvanjaParticipantYes, sorry, seems like I got confused myself by such a wide variety of options … 🙂 Anyway, both options 3 and 4 mentioned are technically correct and accepted in the Caighdeán Oifigiúil 2017, though option 4 (‘simplified system’) is discouraged by many, and I personally also find it ‘gránna’, though of always, views might differ. The system based on twenties, which Labhrás has kindly updated, could be designated as option 5.
OnuvanjaParticipantGabhaigí mo leithscéal, tugaim faoi deara anois gur as Béarla a scríobh mé…
OnuvanjaParticipantFair enough, but that’s only true if you come from a reference system which distinguishes between ‘hand’ and ‘arm’ (or ‘main’ and ‘bras’, to take French as an example). Speakers of Irish or Russian wouldn’t regard ‘lámh’ or ‘ruka’ to be ambiguous, because according to the way they see the world, the upper limb is a whole, rather than made up of two separate parts … 🙂 If need be, they could always specify which part of ‘lámh’ they meant, e.g. ‘méar’, ‘bos’, ‘uilinn’, ‘uachtar na láimhe’ etc.
OnuvanjaParticipantI think it’s fair to say that counting rules are quite complicated in Irish. First of all, there are separate systems for counting numbers, nouns, measure words and persons. Secondly, you can either count by tens of twenties or use what is called the ‘simplified system’. So, if you took the noun ‘bliain’, which is a measure word and as such has a special plural form ‘bliana’ only used for counting above 3, you could either say ‘seacht mbliana is tríocha’ (system based on tens), ‘seacht mbliana déag is fiche’ (system based on twenties, ’17 years and 20′) or ‘tríocha a seacht bliain’ (simplified system). While the latter is clearly the easiest one to master, it’s frowned upon in many grammar books and really does seem to ignore how the language works. So, I would recommend you to go with either the system based on tens or the one based on twenties (respectively No 3 and 4 on your list). The latter is more complicated, but perhaps still quite common among native Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht. As for ‘pounds’ and ‘pence’, ‘pound’ behaves like an ordinary noun, remaining in singular, but ‘pence’ takes a special plural form ‘pingine’, so you would get ‘seacht bpunt is tríocha’ and ‘seacht bpingine is tríocha’. Don’t hesitate to rely on Nualeargais.ie for further information, it’s a very useful resource.
OnuvanjaParticipantTá an leagan cainte a fuair tú sa bhfoclóir ceart, níl aon dabht faoi sin. Ach más maith leat, tá roinnt leaganacha dúchasacha ann chomh maith a bhféadfá úsáid a bhain astu, m.sh. “bhí siad mór le chéile” nó “bhí siad i ngrá le chéile”.
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