Having re-read this post and edited it a bit I can say a) it is difficult to read. I try to aid the reader in any way that I can when writing, but I seem to have a recalcitrant hand today. If it is too opaque, just say so and I will start from scratch and resubmit it, as it does not seem amenable to editing, such as it is; b) this is strictly for the grammarians anseo. I’m not a linguist, nor the above profession, so if it is twisted, my apologies, but have a go nonetheless.
The little vignette between here and the letter including various URLs are just resources forwarded as a sharing for anyone who may make use of them on the board not in the bad spirit of foistering my angle onto anyone but more in a sense of barter in respect to the time taken to read and answer the question on behalf of those who might; however whoever can navigate below probably has internalise the information anyway, but learner may find something in it. I don’t know if the URLs will be clickable from inside the Daltaí box, they may need to be hand shovelled if they are dead. Oh and Daltaí removed the italic formatting in place when the message was typed in Word, but thats that. 'Enjoy'...

For those who can cognate German and desire detailed (well almost schematic like!) information on Gaeilge http://www.braesicke.de/index.htm or its mirror in English http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/gramadac.htm you can find on the net, it seems, no more detailed synopsis of the langue than the German guy who put down this guide. Bualadh bos to you! It sticks it up to those bollocks books you see in shops which want to charge you trailers for a few pages. It’s a good three to four hundred pages when printed out single sided. http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~green/gaeilge/gaeilge.htm even includes some PDFs of pertinent points culled from the main braesicke work; unfortunately most of the English versions have dropped off the server, but the German ones are intact.
One more thing, http://www.acmhainn.ie/nuathearmai.htm gives technical terms in Irish, which I seen the other day packaged in a CD for 30 Euro. Of course, a decent return should be made by the institute who coins these terms, but they are on the net too should anyone desire to take a peek at them.

Main letter:
I hope someone can shed light on a confusing area of attributive quality. Despite grammars not really alluding to it, I suspect the possibility of such an entity as the Genitive Dual, a potential when desiring to say the equivalent of ‘two of the wooden house’ when using the Dual signal dhá, followed by a noun.
A wooden house is teach adhmaid (‘wooden house’) or with the definite article, an teach adhmaid (‘the house wooden’ or ‘the wooden house’).
But…the second word, ‘adhmaid’ been in the Genitive is equivalent to an adjectival noun as I understand it; thus it modifies the semantics of the initial word qualitatively, in this example ‘house’. With the Genitive in tow the house now has the further defined quality of been ‘wooden’.
In the Dual format, the Dative Singular is used (in place of an historical autonomous Dative Dual form?) which in Declensions 1, 3, and 4 is the same as the Nominative Singular, so one will get an dá theach (‘the two [of the] house’) or dhá theach (‘two house’ meaning ‘two houses’). But for ‘wooden house’ it is not clear how to proceed. According to one web grammar:

if it exists, a noun after two is in the dual form (= dative singular form) e.g. dhá bhróig =two shoes…otherwise, the nominative singular form of the noun always comes after two e.g.: dhá bhád = two boats…
http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/zahl4.htm (at bottom of page)

It could just be dha theach adhmad or dhá theach h-adhmad or dhá theach h-adhmada, the last assuming a purely adjectival form for ‘wooden’ which given the constraints of the attributive Genitive Case, I consider to be unlikely.

One other level of complexity is in the statement:

In the genitive-dual, the genitive-plural form can also be used (where the genitive following a number is rather atypical).
http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/zahl4.htm (ibid: same page)

What sort of context? Spare a few examples?

So to make clear: I need to know if après the Dual dhá signal when one is using two nouns in succession and one wants to express a quality does one use the form ‘dhá + Dative + Genitive’ (Dual + House + Wood(en)) or ‘dhá + Dative + Nominative or even to treat the Genitive as an adjective along the lines of ‘dá bhád mhóra’ ‘two big boats’?

Oh, just before I leave, if such a thing as the Vocative Dual were to be existent how would the form render? ‘A dhá fhear’ and ‘a dhá mhac’, for example (‘two men’ / ‘two sons’ when calling to a party of two directly. Or for a native speaker would the feeling be more that one was shouting in a context of “two men!, two men!, they went that way!” as in a film where thieves are escaping into the crowd/jungle/mall and someone is shouting to security/army/guards to run after them while somewhat simultaneously addressing those running away.


Thanks for any help!

Jax

A very quick response, having not read your entire post.

I understand that Old Irish had a "double" form as well as singular and plural. Some relics of that have remained in modern Irish.

Oh two men -> A bheirt fhear

Thank you Aonghus. You’re right, ‘a bheirt fhear’ is appropriate when counting people.

Having learned that I can now comprehend more clearly and ask a more direct question about the previous post.

In English, an adjective signals a quality. “The red car” in speech contains the adjective ‘red’, which tells you something about the noun, ‘car’. In Irish, one can also use an adjective, or one can use after the first noun a second noun that carries extra qualitative information as ‘red’ did for ‘car’. The first noun would be in the Nominative (it ‘nominates’ the object or item one is talking about, bringing it to centre stage), the second noun is in the Genitive which is a type of noun that adds meaning to the first noun. Therefore, if in Irish one had ‘carr’ for car, one could say ‘wooden car’ by placing the word for wood, adhmad, after carr, [carr + adhmad] but with a slight sound change to ‘carr adhmaid’.

When I learned that the number 2 (dhá) is special and requires one to put the noun in the Dative Singular after dhá, so that two cars is ‘dhá charr’ not ‘dó charranna’, it beged the question that if one has a Genitive form ‘carr adhmaid’ and wants to say there is two of them, is it ‘dhá charr adhmad’ or ‘dhá charr adhmaid’? In essence does one throw away the Genitive form when using 2?

I’ve spend some time over the last few days reading archive material before submitting this to the board, in case it cropped up, and in that two names, those of Aonghus and Jonas keep cropping up in relation, particularly in relation to detailed grammatical and linguistic information. I can get most answers myself, but this is quite opaque, and if I may be so bold as to directly ask both characters to have a go at the above, I’d be obliged.

Thanks,

Jax

*Tá an bheirt bheaga ina gcónaí ins an dá theach mhóra adhmaid sin, agus an mhuintir mhóra in dhá theach eile.
__________

And now, off on a tangent, here's a point covered in sections 487 (v) and 490 (v) of "The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo":

<< Eclipsis of Nouns

...following the numerals seacht, ocht, naoi, deich.
...following the numerals trí, ceithre, cúig, sé, in the gen. pl.

ba:d hr´i: §o:l bád thrí seol, p´i:s@ he: b´i:N´@ píosa shé bpeingne, pa:§d´@ he: m´i: g@ yasu:r páiste shé mí de ghasúr, sdo:r haxd ml´i@n g@ v´i@ stór sheacht mbliadhan de bhiadh.

Thanks Peadar,
as per the example it does seem one continues to use the genitive in its original form and function: 'dá theach mhóra adhmaid'. I can make a gainful connexion with 'an dá bhád mhóra', 'the two big boats'. It is so much more clear now. As for the 'tangent' it remind one that a seguesation occurs in the counting -learn the other numbers!

After I seen your answer I went to check my books...I was in the School of Celtic Studies, Burlington Road the other week and was avel to pick up a few of those linguitic survays book, like your Erris one. In Connaught I got Tourmakeady and Cois Fhairraige, but alas not Erris. I'll have a gawk at what I do ahve tho for analogous examples. Thanx 4 rooting it out!

For anyone interested, I did prepare some tables to make myself more clear. Even if now somewhat superceded, I'll put them in anyway. They can be read below this message. Originally in colour, and with different fonts (fancy!), and most importantly in a spatial relationship that made sense, the renderance of Daltaí has played havoc with the formatting leading to large gaps between tables. In fact, within the archive, a question on the permeability of settings ('Possible to change Forum defaults?', Wednesday, October 13, 2004) included one post on modulation of contraints, such as size, font and colour, but such optionage is apparently withdrawn now, or at least I failed to emulate the correct HTML.

To the forum: I do recall in the archival post mentioned, a note to ask if the concensus would consider having a 'naive blabbering' section, where initiates and novices could, like kids in a sand box, play with expression in Gaelic without it been too serious, allowing them to get a feel for interaction and posting while still not been abel for the Gaeilge only aspecture of the boards. I don't know, is it asking for trouble? (such as picking up bad linguitic habits, or more comically, the standard been so low nobody could communicate with each other, perhaps something akin to monkeys banging keyboards with their knuckles and manically sending the non conscious results over the ether to one another...)I ask as there was no develope on the idea at the time. Perhaps it is not suitable to peoples tastes here, but who knows?

Confused at below? The tables' referents are contained in my previous posts above.

Jax

Noun	Adjective	Result
car	red	'red car'

Nominative	Genitive	Result
carr, adhmad	adhmaid	'carr adhmaid'

 

Signal	Noun	Result
dá	bád	'dhá bhád'

 

Dual	Dative	Genitive	Result
dá	bád	adhmaid	dhá bhád adhmaid?
			dhá bhád adhmad?

Word	Phonetics	Phrase	Phonetics
carr	ka:r	an carr	@n ka:r
adhmad	aim@d	an t-adhmad	@n taim@d
adhmaid	aim@d'	carr adhmaid	ka:r aim@d'
dá	da:	an dá bhád	@n da: va:d or @n da: v'a:d
dhá	x^a:	dhá bhád	x^a: va:d or x^a: v'a:d
bád	ba:d	dhá bhád adhmad	x^a: va:d aim@d or x^a: v'a:d aim@d
bhád	va:d nó v'a:d	dá bhád adhmaid	da: va:d aim@d' or da: v'a:d aim@d'

@ = schwa (non descript vowel); x^ = voiced guttural, broad dh (analogy on x in loch ~ lake but with circumflex to signal difference); k = hard 'c' found in Irish orthography; a: = á. The IPA system uses a colon for a fada, so for consistency it is used; v = broad bh, perhaps like a 'w' pronounced with both lips; v' = slender bh, like a 'v' with lips spread; d' = slender d; d = broad d.

Jax, since you directly asked for a response.

I speak Irish, but I have had no formal training in the grammar since I left school about twenty years ago..

I happen to know about dual being a special case, but I rely on instinct for correctness, and make mistakes when I think too hard.

I suspect the genetive singular would be used, but I'm not sure.

Is fiú é seo a léigheamh go cúramach:

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/cruinneas/consoin.htm

quote:

Is fiú é seo a léigheamh go cúramach:

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/cruinneas/consoin.htm

Maith an leathanach, a Pheadair.

Ceapaim go n-aistreoidh mé go Béarla é sula léim in iomlán é, is deacair liom é a leanúint.