I'm reviewing Ceacht a hocht (page 10) in Progress In Irish, and I'm confused by something. It's the use of the various forms of "tá" in questions.

IRISH = ENGLISH
----- --------
Tá... = ...is/are...
An bhfuil...? = Is/Are...?
Bhí... = ...was/were...
An raibh...? = Was...?

OK, that part's easy. But then the question words confuse everything. "Cad/Cathain" seem to use the "tá/bhí" versions ("atá/a bhí") but "Cá" seems to use the "bhfuil/raibh" versions.

Are these just things that need to be memorized, or is there some underlying logic here? Go raibh maith agat.

Cad = What Cathain= when Cá = where
Irish Grammar Book (ISBN :1-902420-47-7) at www.cic.ie
will be of great help to you cost €15 in Ireland

Mickrua,

An leabhar seo?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1902420497/qid=1128188018/sr=1-6/r ef=sr_1_6/104-9879484-1137531?v=glance&s=books

Ní raibh mé ábalta faigh é ar http://www.irishbook.com

P.S.--I know what the words mean, I'm just trying to figure out why you use different versions of the verb "to be" with each question word.

A Dhearg, Dia dhuit.

Yes, it's mostly about remembering them by rote, but it's actually very easy:

cé, cad, céard, cathain, conas - use the independent form (i.e. tá, chuaigh, rinne, etc.)

cá - use the dependent form (i.e. [bh]fuil, [n]deachaigh, [n]dearna, etc.)

Cá behaves with the verbs like the interrogatives "an" and "nach" do. The negative statement particle "ní" is similar, but causes lenition instead of eclipsis.

In short, "cá" is the odd man out; most question particles require an independent form (and a relative particle).

The grammar book that Mickrua recommended is good, and is available through the U.S. chain bookstore "Borders" (probably also via Barnes & Noble). Its strength is in the number/quality of the examples cited. The Christian Brothers' "New Irish Grammar" is a slightly more comprehensive book in regards to overall grammar, but gives fewer examples and the examples aren't translated. If you plan to stay with the Irish, buy both. ;-)

If you aren't in a class and need answers to the Progress in Irish lessons, have a look here:
http://www.gaeilge.org/PII-ak.html

Le meas,
Cionaodh

>The Christian Brothers' "New Irish Grammar" is a >slightly more comprehensive book

Not slightly, it is very much more comprehensive than the other English-language Irish grammars.

>Are these just things that need to be memorized, or is >there some underlying logic here? Go raibh maith agat.

Things to learn, there's no logic there ;-)

Note that Cathain is only used in Munster Irish. In Connemara, people say Cén uair, and in Donegal, Cá huair or Cad é 'n t-am.

Scríobh Lughaidh:
>>Not slightly, it is very much more
>>comprehensive than the other English-language
>>Irish grammars.

I would have agreed with you at this time last year, a Lughaidh, but the new English translation of "Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge" (known as "The Irish Grammar Book" in its English incarnation) by Nollaig MacCongáil, which was released earlier this year, is about 90% as comprehensive as NIG, but with many more examples of usage. A bit of a trade-off, and why for serious students I recommend both it AND New Irish Grammar.

Le meas,
Cionaodh

Scríobh Lughaidh:

>>Note that Cathain is only used in Munster Irish.
>>In Connemara, people say Cén uair, and in Donegal,
>>Cá huair or Cad é 'n t-am.

I'm surprised you didn't tag "conas" as a Munsterism. ;-)

I don't believe I've ever heard "cad é an t-am" for "when?", but rather as a way to ask the time. Rather more like "Cén t-am é?" than "cathain".

Le meas,
Cionaodh

About Conas, i've only talked about those that mean "when".

Cad é 'n t-am does exist in Donegal, I've heard it and you'll find it in the Linguistic Atlas an Survey of the Irish Dialects.

quote:

I'm surprised you didn't tag "conas" as a Munsterism. ;-)

Sea, is an-tábhachtach an rud é na caoirigh a scarúint ó na gabhair! C'est Charles de Gaulle qui a dit « Le futur est au métissage.» Mais PAS chez les dialectomanes. *wink, wink agus smiley face*

Dialectologue serait le mot juste. C'est un peu comme si je te traitais de vieilirlandomane. Je ne juge pas les dialectes. Si les gens d'Ulster se mettaient à dire "conas", je ne dirais pas que ca n'est pas bien, je me contenterais d'observer. Or j'observe que pour le moment, en Ulster et en Connaught on ne dit pas conas.

Scríobh Dennis:
>> Sea, is an-tábhachtach an rud é na caoirigh
>>a scarúint ó na gabhair!

Mais qui disent "conas": les moutons ou les chèvres?

;-)

quote:

C'est un peu comme si je te traitais de vieilirlandomane.

Et je ne le contesterais point! C'est vraiment une manie pour moi. Mais comment dire -omane en irlandais?

"The phrase 'How are you?' can be expressed in Scottish Gaelic in at least three different ways: Ciamar a tha thu?, Dè mar a tha thu? and Cionnas a tha thu? I have obtained Dè man a tha thu? from Lewis informants, Cionnas a tha thu? from Sutherland informants and Ciamar a tha thu? from informants in Skye, Badenoch and Strathspey. Wentworth 1996:78 records Ciamar a tha thu? as the form usually used in Wester Ross and this is the form recorded by Ó Murchú 1989:308 in East Perthshire.

"In Irish, Wagner 1958:244 shows that Goidé mar tá tú? is the most commonly used expression in Ulster, while Cé'n chaoi bhfuil tú? and Cionnas tán tú? are the most commonly used expressions in Connaught and Munster respectively. In Manx, according to Kneen 1970:40, Kys t'ou? is the expression normally used.

"In the Gaelic of Islay the expression always used is Dè mar a tha thu? On testing for this throughout the study area, my informants in Coll, Tiree, Mull, Lismore, Taynuilt, Colonsay, Jura, Knapdale, Lochgair, Cowal, Kintyre and Arran all responded with Dè mar a tha thu? My informants in Ardnamurchan, Morvern, Sunart, Ardgour, Ballachulish, North Shian, Dalmally, Luing and Gigha all responded with Ciamar a tha thu?…"

— Seumas Grannd, "The Gaelic of Islay: A Comparative Study"

Wow! Go raibh míle maith aguibh a Mhickrua, a Chionaoidh, a Lughaidh, a Dennis, agus a Pheadair!

As for the French... bhuel, níl labhrím Fraincis. :-(

The Christian Brothers book on grammar I already have. My biggest problem is the grammar terminology. When I took English and Spanish classes in junior high and high school, we used grammar terms like "noun", "verb", "present tense", "pluperfect", "subjunctive", "infinitive", etc. Very few of those latter terms seem to apply to Irish, and Irish brings a whole new set of words like "dative", "vocative", and "declension" which might as well be foreign words!

Learning Irish grammar is no walk in the park--it's more like slogging through the bog. :-)

At the advice of my teachers, I'm putting together my own cheat sheet. One of the things I'm doing is taking a single English sentence and trying to put it in all the different tenses and then translating it, so at least I understand what the different tenses mean.

Getting that Irish Grammar Book sounds like another good idea. Thanks.

The tenses aren’t the same ones and don’t have the same meaning in Irish and in English...

Scríobh Dearg:
>>Learning Irish grammar is no walk in the
>>park--it's more like slogging through the bog.

If you can afford it (it's about 25 euro), try "A Learner's Guide to Irish" by Donna Wong. It was published by Cois Life and is available at Litriocht.com. The author approaches learning Irish from an American's vantage point, and not only explains points of grammar well (with examples), she also shows you how best to use the popular reference materials that are available today.

Dative, Vocative and Declension are mainstream parts of the vocabularly of Indo-European languages. They are not specially created for Irish. If you study Latin, you will meet all those words. I can't remember if Old English had a vocative, but it certainly had declensions, including the dative. It is only because English has lost its declensions (apart from the object forms of personal pronouns) and because most Romance languages (except Romanian) have lost theirs that you haven't come across them. German, Romanian, all the Slavonic languages, Greek, Albanian etc all have declensions.

>I can't remember if Old English had a vocative,

No, it had Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genitive. As in Modern German, Icelandic etc.

A Chionaoidh,

I e-mailed irishbooks.com to see if I could get the Learner's Guide book in the US. It sounds perfect.

A Djwebb2002,

> If you study Latin, you will meet all those words.

I never had the opportunity to learn Latin, so all those words are Greek to me. ;-)

I don't mind learning all this new terminology; I'm just trying to get my head around it.

It's tough working with the Christian Brothers book when they talk about all these terms as if everyone knows what they mean. I suppose if you're using the book in a formal classroom situation, these terms are explained by the teacher.

Since I took years and years of Spanish, and I know a smidgeon of German and Italian, I figured Irish would be more of the same. Not!

OK, now I'm stumbling into Ceacht a Naoi (the future tense).

After rationalizing to myself that, in the past tense, "Cá" uses the same form of the verb as "An", and that the other question particles use the independent form, I felt better.

Now in the future tense, the other question particles use the "Ní" dependent form--or a lenited version of the independent form?

My brain is exploding. ;-)

Wait, it is much more simple than that.

1. Only some irregular verbs have distinct dependent forms. So, for almost all verbs, the form is always the same (for the same tense): only the initial mutation (urú or séimhiú or no change) changes.

Regular: (most verbs)
Ex: glac > glacaim, ní ghlacaim, an nglacaim? má ghlacaim... Same form, only the initial mutation changes (according of the particle: always the same mutation after the same particle).

Irregular (a handful of verbs)
Ex: bí > tá mé, níl [


2. The dependent form never stands alone: there must be a particle before it. The independent form can stand alone.
Ex: chuaigh mé (i went); ní dheachaigh mé (i didn’t go). You can’t have *deachaigh mé without any particle before.



3. The easiest and commonest place you'll see the dependent form of the verb, is after the negation "ní".



4. The particles that are followed by the dependent form of irregular verbs [again, most verbs are regular and have the same form after all particles] are:

an, ní, nach, cá, go, mura, sula, dá, a (indirect relative, followed by urú)

(I hope I’ve given them all).

Scríobh Dearg:

>>After rationalizing to myself that, in the past
>>tense, "Cá" uses the same form of the verb as
>>"An", and that the other question particles use
>>the independent form, I felt better.
>>
>>Now in the future tense, the other question
>>particles use the "Ní" dependent form--or a
>>lenited version of the independent form?
>>
>>My brain is exploding. ;-)

I think we may have confused you talking about dependent & independent forms -- Lughaidh's right, the verb stays the same if it's a regular verb (only leniting or eclipsing where appropriate).

If it'd be a help, e-mail me at and I'll send you a set of instructions I use in class to help students learn the regular verbs -- it's very formulaic and easy to learn. (The eleven irregulars are less easy and must be learnt separately.)

Le meas,
Cionaodh

Go raibh maith agat. I just e-mailed you.

""A Learner's Guide to Irish" by Donna Wong"

Just one thing; while her book is great in its idea, it can be confusing in that the difference between strong and weak nouns is not stated VERY explicitly. also, as regards declensions where one must consider a noun with a broad initial consonant noun, her exmaple is then a vowel iniital noun...

Call me slow, but I think book writers should outline books for learners as if they are brainless and make it very clear and simple as to the elements involved.

However, as a resource for standard irish it is a one stop shop, and no disrespect to it at all.

>the difference between strong and weak nouns is not >stated VERY explicitly.

Strong and weak nouns in Irish? What is that? Regular and irregular ones?? Never heard that term applied to nouns in Irish grammar. Can you explain what is told about that in your book?

>also, as regards declensions where one must consider a >noun with a broad initial consonant noun, her exmaple >is then a vowel iniital noun...

I don't see the link between the initial sound and declension. Irish words are declined at their end, not at their beginning. Maybe you meant "final consonant"? Then it would be more understandable...

"Strong and weak nouns in Irish?"

Sorry, I meant in the plurals.

And yes, I also meant as for the final consonant. I got ICM and FCB nmixed up

I don;t have the book in front of me, but when I do tommorow I will find out the specific item I am referring to as regard the confusing examples

I know, terrible post

Strong plural: the nominative plural and the genitive plural have the same form.

Weak plural: the nominative plural and the genitive plural don’t have the same form.




You need to know that for only one reason: which form will a following adjective take, in the genitive plural ?

-After a strong plural noun, the following adjective will take the nominative plural form.

- after a weak plural noun, the following adjectice will take the genitive plural form.




Ex:
fear (man) > N pl fir; G pl fear. So: weak plural.
beag (small) > N pl beaga; G pl beag.

The small man (N sg) = an fear beag
The small men (N pl) = na fir bheaga
The heads of the small men (G pl) = ceann na bhfear beag (both noun and adjective in their G pl form).



sliabh (mountain), N pl sléibhte; G pl sléibhte (in Standard Irish). So: strong plural.

The small mountain (N sg) = an sliabh beag
The small mountains (N pl) = na sléibhte beaga
the top of the small mountains (G pl) = barr na sléibhte beaga. (sléibhte is in the G pl; beaga is in the N pl).

" I got ICM and FCB nmixed up "

No mixed up as in 'I dont know the difference' but in that as codes they sounded alike.

I am aware that the gen and null pl are usually the same in the 1st declension, and the weak/strong differecne (weak/genitive: alter final consoant originaly due to external 'i' genitive singualr becoming infixed into the noun (causing palitisation of final consonat?), strong: add plural suffix. The confusion arose because of my trying to get out an exmaple where I coudl remember no details.

I am intetrested in the setting together of adjective and noun, as this is an area where I am unclear. What are the rules for the mixing of any two nouns and adjectives? I am under the impression that one must agree in gender, case, and number, but not declension.

>I am aware that the gen and null pl are usually the >same in the 1st declension, and the weak/strong >differecne (weak/genitive: alter final consoant >originaly due to external 'i' genitive singualr >becoming infixed into the noun (causing palitisation of >final consonat?), strong: add plural suffix.

Not true.
fuinneog, Npl fuinneoga(í), Gpl fuinneog. Weak plural, without altering the final consonant.
Donegal: éan, Npl éanacha, Gpl éanach: Weak plural, with plural suffix.

>I am intetrested in the setting together of adjective >and noun, as this is an area where I am unclear. What >are the rules for the mixing of any two nouns and >adjectives? I am under the impression that one must >agree in gender, case, and number, but not declension.

The gender of an adjective can't be seen except:
- because of the séimhiú or not séimhiú in the singular;

- in the genitive singular, the adjective doesn’t have the same form after a feminine and a masculine noun (ceann na mná bige; ceann an fhir bhig).

In other contexts, no difference.


Case: yes

Number: yes

Declension: what do you mean? Can you give an example?

"fuinneog, Npl fuinneoga(í), Gpl fuinneog. Weak plural, without altering the final consonant"#

I said usually, and fuinneog is not a usual noun given its variable form in the different gaeltachts.

"Declension: what do you mean? Can you give an example?"]

I think the issue here is how we both sue english. When I said that one needs not to include the declension of the adjective it was to signal that there is no bind between noun and adjective declension as this would tie up the flexibility of the language. Int he book I have there are three 'delecensions' in Irish adjectives, and one can construe 5 or 6 declensions for nouns. I simply meant that there is no need for agreement between both sets of patterns.

Three groups of declensions for adjectives, five for nouns, yes.

I am still not sure of what you meant. Agreement between both sets of patterns? Can you give Irish examples please?

Dearg --

Regarding Dative, Genitive, etc., I know all these from studying Latin (and, later, Old English). If you need a quick cheat sheet, please use this:

Nominative: Subject
Accusative: Direct Object
Dative: Indirect Object (usually, although depending on the language there could be other uses)
Genitive: Possessive
Vocative: calling someone by name ("John, go to the grocery store")

There are, of course, more cases in other languages, especially in Finnish, but these are the ones you will most likely hear people talk about when discussing a language like Irish. When I was learning Latin, I found it helpful to have a cheat sheet like this until I was comfortable with the terminology.

If you are planning on learning a language that declines, you may find the "English Grammar for Students of..." series helpful (http://www.oliviahill.com/html/ghome.html). I wish they had a book on Irish!


--Nicole
www.gaeilge.org