Hello again,

Cold anyone tell me whether Irish has a dative case like Scottish Gaelic (the dative case being mainly found in Gàidhlig after most prepositions, 'a nose' being 'srón' (feminine) , but 'on the nose' being 'air an t-sróin', with the end of the word modified by the dative case.

(This does not apply with masculine nouns. These are only lenited (when the consonant permits it) after prepositions followed by the dative (but I think many prepositions also bring about lenition in Gaeilge).

Could anyone provide me with some help with regard to this?

Many thanks in advance once again.

An Tuiseal Tabharthach

See http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/gram.htm

Noun -> Cases -> Dative.

(Message edited by aonghus on February 04, 2005)

In practicality, Irish doesn't have a Dative case... well I suppose you could say it does, just that it's a carbon copy of the nominative. There are the odd few words though that have a unique dative:

an teach (the house)
sa tigh (in the house)

But even still, I think some dialects have abandoned these unique ones -- I've seen and heard the following loads of times: sa teach

Most of these unique/weird ones are body parts:

an lámh
sa láimh

an chos
sa chois

And you've got everyday words aswell:

an tsubh (the jam)
sa tsuibh (in the jam)

though I think you'll see:

sa tsubh

about the place.

--

Let's have a vote: Which would you say?

A) sa teach

B) sa tigh

The dative is used everywhere in Ireland in some cases: bróg, lámh, cos, (there are two others i don’t remember now), Eire (>Eirinn)... and many others who are only used in some phrases.

In some dialects (actually, Ulster dialect of the older people, and Munster dialect), the dative is fairly common, but the dative case exists almost only for feminine nouns of the 2nd declension. That is to say, feminine nouns ending on a broad consonant, in the dative they get that consonant slender.

The dative case is normal in Scottish Gaelic grammar, while it’s almost an exception or a dialectal feature in Irish (except for cos, bróg, Eire etc).

I say "sa teach", but when i say "at Peter’s house" I say "toigh Pheadair".

In Munster i think they say "tigh" (pronounced tig) all the time and not only in the dative, and they don’t use teach. But Munster speakers have to confirm that, i’ve read it in "An Teanga Bheo, Corca Dhuibhne".

I'll be happy to confirm it - we never use "teach" in Munster Irish; house = tigh. As has been pointed out already, the dative case does exist but in the spoken language it has become very rare indeed. While I know that the dative forms for many nouns in theory, I can't recall ever hearing even such common ones (in literature) as "mnaoi" in normal speech. The dative is mostly confined to set phrases.

So there is theoretically a dative case, but formally it has been reduced to the same as the nominative, except for a handful of words... and this in some dialects more than in others. Very interesting. (What about the "standard", official dialect of Irish taught in schools and universities?)
In the past few years I have heard some complaints by Gàidhlig speakers that some such processes were currently in operation in their own language. I guess that is the ineluctability of language change and analogy at work and not necessarily language decay...

Should everyone agree that the plural of 'fear bocht' (a poor man) is 'fir bochta'?

If so, what would be the singular of 'daoine bochta'?

The plural of:

fear bocht

is:

fir bhochta

The h is there 'cause "fear" has been slenderized. Everywhere else though, there's no h for the plural. Examples:

mná bochta
fir bhochta
buachaillí bochta
cailíní bochta
báid bhochta
caisleáin bhochta
madraí bochta
cait bhochta

--

Plural: daoine bochta
Singular: duine bocht

Here's the cases:

duine (masculine)

Singular nominative: duine
Plural nominative: daoine
Singular genetive: duine
Plural genetive: daoine

bocht

Singular nominative: bocht
Plural nominative: bochta
Singular genetive (referring to a masculine noun): boicht
Singular genetive (referring to a feminine noun): boichte
Plural genetive (strong): bochta
Plural genetive (weak): bocht
Comparison: boichte