Hello everyone/Dia daoibh

Im an Irish person trying to revive his interest in Irish so bare with me le do thoil!

Id be very grateful to get some information on how to determine what form of an ending do I use for a plural> For example, Gaelscoil becomes Gaelscoileanna? why does it not become Gaelscoilí?

When Im making a plural how do I know if its aí/í, anna/eanna etc? I think I understand the i,e= í/eanna and the a,o,u= aí/anna, but if anyone wants to enlighten me more on this Id appreciate it alot.

le meas,
Anthony

There are no clear cut rules, only some tendencies. If a word ends with a short vowel the ending most probably will be "í", like bosca - boscaí. But this as far as you can get. For other words you need to know the gender of a word, its declension and it still might be of no help. So the best thing is just to memorise that "an scoil" makes "na scoileanna"

I think it is fairly simple -you look at a declension table and via pattern recognition you have a good idea. You then learn word that do not follow the pattern - a mix of knoweldge and pattern recognition.

Below is my attempt based on this approach:


• Focal an Lae #075: cluas
• Focal an Lae #076: tóin
• Focal an Lae #077: síol
• Focal an Lae #078: talamh
• Focal an Lae #079: lán
• Focal an Lae #080: duine
• Focal an Lae #081: ceist
• Focal an Lae #082: dán
• Focal an Lae #083: mí
• Focal an Lae #084: aon
• Focal an Lae #085: taoiseach
• Focal an Lae #086: tánaiste
• Focal an Lae #087: creid
• Focal an Lae #088: iasc
• Focal an Lae #089: súil
• Focal an Lae #090: bóthar
• Focal an Lae #091: ball
• Focal an Lae #092: earrach
• Focal an Lae #093: loch
• Focal an Lae #094: cac
• Focal an Lae #095: leor
• Focal an Lae #096: snaidhm
• Focal an Lae #097: úll
• Focal an Lae #098: tanaí
• Focal an Lae #099: nocht,


Cluasa
? (tempted to say ‘tón’ as I’ve never heard arses!)
Síola
Talaimh
Lána
Daoine
Ceisteanna
Dána
Míthe
Aona
Taoisí
Tánaistí
Creide
Éisc
Súile
Bóthair
Balla/baill
Earraigh
Locha
Caic
Leora/Leoir
Snaidhmeanna
Úill
Tanaíaithe
nochta

quote:

you look at a declension table

Yes, but first you have to know word's declension. There is almost no way to say declension beforehand. That was my point. And even with declensions there are too many exceptions like endings -anna and -acha which spread far beyond original 5th declension.

quote:

? (tempted to say ‘tón’ as I’ve never heard arses!)

It is "tóinte" - 3rd declension but irregular plural

quote:

talaimh

This is irregular noun, so plural is "tailte"

quote:

duine - daoine

so, looking at which pattern did you do this plural? or you just happen to know it by heart? :)))

quote:

lán

This is adjective "full". Don't understand what kind of plural you make

quote:

ceist - ceisteanna

This is second declension. How is anyone supposed to know it is not "ceiste"?

quote:

bóthair

This should be "bóithre"
etc.

I don't see your quick-n-simple method giving good result so far

Here's an old post:

http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/12465/12148.html


Scroll down until you find a post my "Fear_na_mbróg".

Ulster variants:


Daoine -> daoiní
Ceisteanna -> ceastracha
Míthe -> míonnaí
Bóthair -> bóithre
Úill -> úlla, úllaí

Actually, tóin > tóineanna.
Unusual.

Talamh > tailte (also given as taltaí by Ó Siadhail.)
Possibly infixing of t and droping of final e in some nouns with a medial l,n.
Or, T infixed before final ending and the final /ə/ dropped. ??? This one seems to follow pronunciation rather than final spelling.

Yep, :-)) I'd say you have to just know this one.

lán > láin First declension.
A large group of masc. nouns whose gen. sing. is similar in form. Many ending with r,n,l,s.

ceist > ceisteanna
It seems that the ending (e)anna is added to rarer single syllable words. Another example is áit > áiteanna

bóthar > bóithre (Ó Siadhail gives bóithrí.)
This is very interesting. Ó Siadhail also gives leabhar > leabhartha
Purely for argument, it seems that at least some nouns that are spelled as two syllable words, but prononunced as single ending with r fix th where none is present and end with í (in pronunciation)
Bóthar has th already in the middle, so doesn't add. Ok, this must be rediculous.

"This is adjective "full". Don't understand what kind of plural you make"

Indeed not, but it about content free generation of outputs from the applicaiton of a few rules. What you got above was my attempt to give you what a machine mite do.

As for ceist and bothár and talamh, you have to learn such off by heart.

Talamh and Úll for example have diferent patterns in different dialects