a pheann
a peann
a bpeann

Look at this for example:

A book fell off the table. Who's book fell off the table? Her book.

Thit leabhar den bhord. Cé leis an leabhar a thit? A leabhar.

What do you do in a situation like that. I pressume Gaeilge has a solution. I was thinking that you would emphasize "her", eg. "mé -> mise" "é -> eisean", but I'm not sure how to emphasize "my, yours, his, hers". I can only guess that it might be like this:

Cé leis an leabhar a thit? An leabhar dí.

Anyone know?

thanks,

-Phil

Phil
There is a small problem with your example
The second & third sentence are
"Who's book fell off the table? Her book "

Even in English, this is wrong, the answer to whose book should be hers, not her book.

So it would be
Cé leis an leabhar a thit? Léi siúd.

If you'd written
"Which book fell off the table? Her book"

then it would be
"Cén leabhar a thit? A leabhar siúd"

Siúd gives you the emphasis in both cases.

Sorry, I've missed the point of your question, haven't I?
You want a way of emphasising the difference between her book (a leabhar) and his book (a leabhar).
I can't think of one offhand. Wouldn't the context make it clear? i.e. if it was ambigiuous, wouldn't you say "Leabhar Mháire?"

"Léi siúd" gets you off the hook, of course

Thinking about it again
I believe you could say a leabhar sise to emphasise her book.

This is not a form I'd use much, and I think it is commoner in Ulster Irish than in other dialects.

What I was thinking is the following:

a pheann

his pen

a peann

her pen

-

an peann de

his pen

an peann dí

her pen

Here you know exactly whether or not it's "his" or "her"

-Phil

But that is wrong.
I don't think in grammar terms, so I can't tell you exactly why
btw. there is no fada on di.

"a pheann" tells you it's his, "a peann" tell you it's hers because peann is not lenited. (seimhithe)

I don't know the best way for leabhar, but I checked de Bhaldraithe, and "a leabhar sise" would be correct.

"a leabhar sise" it is.

dom duit dó di

díom díot de DÍ

-Phil

Check again Phil: from http://www.csis.ul.ie/focloir/default.htm

de
Foirmeacha
de [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa fhirinscneach uatha ]
di [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa bhaininscneach uatha ]
díbh [réamhfhocal, an dara pearsa iolra]
dínn [réamhfhocal, an chéad phearsa iolra]
díobh [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa iolra]
díom [réamhfhocal, an chéad phearsa uatha]
díot [réamhfhocal, an dara pearsa uatha]

do
Foirmeacha
daoibh [réamhfhocal, an dara pearsa iolra]
di [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa bhaininscneach uatha ]
do [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa fhirinscneach uatha ]
dóibh [réamhfhocal, an tríú pearsa iolra]
dom [réamhfhocal, an chéad phearsa uatha]
dúinn [réamhfhocal, an chéad phearsa iolra]
duit [réamhfhocal, an dara pearsa uatha]

btw:
were you translating "a leabhar di" to be
"her book of her"?

di (as in the female singular of de) does not mean "of her", it means "from her", or "off her".

The dictionary gives "of" as a meaning of "de", but it is "of" as in extraction, not of as in possesion, which is covered by the genitive in Irish.

I'm not very good at expressing grammatical concepts, because I hardly ever think about them, but I hope this explanation slightly helps.

Yeah, I was thinking of "de" as implying ownership.

-Phil

This is probably a stupid question but, earlier in the thread both of you had written "Who's" which is actually a contraction of "Who is" as opposed to "whose". Although I knew what you meant, I presume in Irish the word for the English contraction of "who's" is different from the possessive "whose"?

Le meas
- Marilyn

Who's that man?

Cé hé an fear sin?

-

Whose book is that?

Cé leis an leabhar sin?

That's the man whose hand was broken.

Sin an fear gur briseadh a lámh.

-

Writing "who's" instead of "whose" is such a common error in english that I wouldn't even call it an error. They make the same sound, and we can distinguish easily between the two, so nobody puts much thought into their spelling. Irregular spellings are one of the most stupid aspects of the English language. Plumber receipt psychology rhino what pneumonia.

-Phil

Thank you Phil. I agree that there is an ever-growing number of common errors in the English language so, I don't mean to be picky when I pick up on things like "who's" vs. "whose". It's just that, as I'm so new to the Irish language learning experience I am trying to make sure I understand the differences. One of the TOP errors I see all the time is someone using "your" when they mean "you're". I saw one in an english language newspaper the other day that made me laugh. The article was about a heated discussion that had been taking place and then it said "when the article in question was found to be totally non-funtioning, it was a "mute" (my quotation marks) point." I found this quite amusing.

Le meas

- Marilyn

I'm gonna honestly admit my ignorance and ask what's wrong with "mute". I know there's another word that's spelt and pronounced the same as it. I believe it's "moot". I haven't a clue what it means though 'cause it's never used in Ireland.

-Phil

Mute means dumb, or unable to speak.

Moot comes from the Old English mot which means a meeting or an assembly. It is related to the comtemporary word, meet. In current parlance it has come to be used as an adjective to refer to a thought or idea which is open to debate and not likely to be agreed upon.

The guilt or innocence of O.J. Simpsom remains moot despite his acquital.

By the way, the words mute and moot are not pronounced the same. Moot rhymes with boot.

Nope, the most annoying error in English is people messing up "its" and "it's". It drives me insane. Thankfully, this sort of thing doesn't seem to happen very often in Irish.

There's very few irregular spellings in Gaeilge. They're normal and common in English though.

-Phil