I will try this again as this site keep rejecting this post for some reason...

Can someone here please tell me what the declensions are for the following irregular nouns "bean agus lá?"

I have the Oxford Irish Dictionary, the Collin's Gem Irish Dictionary, An Foclóir Beag, and The Irish Dictionary Online here to aid me, however, none of them give the delensions for these words?

They all give the same information, they give the genders and then say that they are irregular...but that's it.

For all the other irregular nouns that I am coming across they at give the declensions for...but not these two words. Is there a reason for this?

I use these words all the time, but I have never bothered to learn their histories...

If they don't already have one...which declensions would you put them in?

http://www.csis.ul.ie/focloir/

Sin é An Foclóir Beag. Plug 'em in there, et voilà!

Dennis,

No...I know their breakdowns.

What I do not know is what group they belong to???

Maybe I should rephrase my question...are they first, second, third, fourth, or fifth declension nouns???

A Ghavin,

There is a small group of words (approx. 10) that do not belong to neither declension. They are simply labelled irregular. Curiously enough either Collins Gem or Oxford dictionary (I don't remember) classifies all 5th declension words irregular - this is not correct.

Real irregular nouns - lá, bó, bean, siúr,cú, Dia.

Bhuel, is io-tamhan é an focal "lá" go stairiúil, agus is â-tamhan an focal eile, "bean". An cúnamh ar bith é sin?

Perhaps that's the Oxford Pocket Dictionary...the regular Oxford Dictionary just lables them irregular. "nm(irr.) and nf(irr.)"

However, in order to lable them irregular...shouldn't they differ from something that is regular?

For instance, "mac" is an irregular 1st declension noun because it was placed in this declension but differs from the regular declining patterns of this declension.

I can see and understand that "bean" and "lá" have irregular declining patterns. What I am not seeing and understanding, is how can these everday words not be placed in a group from which they are differing?

Given the basic definitions for the the declensions, I could see "lá" being a 1st declension noun and "bean" being a 2nd declension noun. But they are not put into these groups???

The only reason I can think of would be the history of these words? Maybe pre-spelling reform, maybe the usage of these words changing over time, maybe the borrowing of words from another language...

Something along this lines...???

Also, don't quote me on this...but for some reason I am thinking I read somewhere that the 5th declension has become a catch all for irregularities???

Let me ask this then...

Would I be wrong if I said that based on comparison of similar words already classed..."bean" is a second declension noun and "lá" is a fourth declension noun?

regular second declension nouns similar to bean:

fead - whistle
leac - flagstone
nead - nest

regular fourth declension nouns similar to lá:

bá - flooding
gá - need, necessity
pá - earnings, pay, wages
sá - stab, thrust

If these words are of similar design and they are part of a set declension...what makes "bean" and "lá" so different?

I undederstand they are irregular, however, couldn't they be placed in these groupings?

I know what most of you are thinking...why bother, after all...in the long run it doesn't really make a difference, but it is an oddity that I think could be fixed or at least addressed.

What is it with people and this spelling reform business. Spelling reform only changed the written form, not the langauge itself!

Maybe Dennis knows more about this, but mac and fear are not 'irregular for the M1', but rather, the declension sytem is not high enough in resolution to show are declensions, so just throws a lot of them into 5.

In "Old Irish Paradigms" we see the genitive of fear was fir (like today). Looking at the other examples, if one can reliably go on the written form that is, most genitives of that pattern require a medial vowel change to i, or a palatising of a consonant due to resonance with an i, presumably.

Mac mic muc
fear fir fiur

crann crainn crunn

The varience is that in short CVC monosyllables only the i is left in writing the genitive, but in longer words the written form leaves you with another vowel (like crann/crainn), but the pattern overall the same: Consonant or cluster of consonant, 'broad vowel' Consonant, and then the genitve requires the medial vowel be i, and the end consonant(s) change to slender leaving the inital one as it was.

I hate to do this, but anyway this is a clear demonstration:

krawn (direct case) krin (genitive)

"What I am not seeing and understanding, is how can these everday words not be placed in a group from which they are differing? "

Because their pattern altered in time once, and natives have copied it since. Since they are so often used, presumably, there was never felt any reason to reanalyse them.

Anyway: lá lae ló; bean, mrá, mraoi

These words you meantioned are different as a declension is like where you have bí that refracts into different forms, or a noun that does the same for case. A declension is realy only a pattern and all nouns that inflect the same are part of say, pattern X. All other nouns that inflect like X, are part of set X. You keep counting patterns till you get all noun 'shapes' accounted for.

An irregular noun is, in a way, a declension of its own; regular ones have many compadres.

The genitive is used as the baseline for decelensions in Irish as it is the most flexional case, so has the most patterns, so makes a good area to start on. Lá is odd, as it can have a dative form, but no seperate gen pl form, it just flexs in all the singulars. Normally, the dative goes, then the gen pl, then gen sing as the cases degrade (in the case of Irish as far as I can see), but here the singular forms stayed.

From the book, dia was not to straightforward even years ago

The spelling reform removed written aspects of the language that were once spoken and now are not...

Here is an example I found on the website:

http://www.aimsigh.com/eolas.html

An t-árd-cheannas ar na Fórsaíbh Cosanta is le dligheadh a riaghlóchar an modh ar a n-oibreochar é.

An t-ardcheannas ar na Fórsaí Cosanta is le dlí a rialófar an modh ar a n-oibreofar é.

While these sentences themselves mean very little, they do show pre-standard vs. standard spelling...and more importantly how the words were changed to reflect their modern pronunciations.

I am not talking about words like "mac" and "fear" because even though I consider them irregular, they are put into a declension.

I am talking about words like "bean" and "lá." Which are considered isolates for lack of a better word. They were not put into a group, when they clearly resemble words that were. How can they be claimed to be irregular when they are not being compared to anything? In reality, they are acting in a regular manner for their nouns.

I would be perfectly happy if we created a group of irregular nouns and said "here is the 6th declension, it consists of just a handful of nouns that do not fit into any of the patterns previously mentioned and have to be learned with each noun."

But this was never done?

Gavin,

You seem to fail to understand that declensions as such are based not on similar sound of words but on endings in oblique cases.

Therefore bean is no match for nead, because genitive tells them apart - nead - nide, bean - mná.

1 declension - masculine nouns, genitive is formed by slenderizing of the final consonant. This slender consonant sometimes influences preceding vowel. That's whence you have examples like mac - mic. Actually in some words it is genitive that has the original sound. Take this example - "iasc". In old Irish it used to be "ésc" or smth similar. Genitive was regular - "éisc". later long "é" has suffered change of "é" to "ia/éa" before a broad sound. That's why you have apparently irregular pattern in "iasc" - "éisc". The same goes for short "e" which became "ea" before broad consonants. So "fer" - "fir" became "fear" - "fir".

Notwithstanding this digression it is obvious that "lá" - "lae" doesn't belong here.

2. declension - feminine nouns (+3 masculine im, teach, sliabh - that used to be neuter) that form genitive by slenderising and appending -e.

fuinneog - fuinneoige
cearc - circe

bean - mná - is not from this group even if you understand that the current forms developped from "ben - b(e)ná" - there is no slenderizing and no -e appended involved.

3. this declension has both masculine in feminine nouns ending in slender consonant that is broadened in genitive and -a is added.

múinteoir - múinteora
abairt - abarta
canúint - canúna

"bean" might be from this group originally, but I am not sure.

4. words ending in vowel + words in -ín, that have genitive = nominative

This is clearly not the case of lá and bean

5. declension - consonant stems, or what is left thereof.

Regarding your argument that those are common words - you are very wrong on this account. It is rather typical that common words remain irregular - just because they are so frequent, and people learn from the childhood on how to say those correctly.

Irregular words in Lithuanian are "sister", "daughter", "woman" - doesn't this list remind anything?

Since an Foclóir Beag does not give a declension for bean and lá, and does for other nouns, I suspect they do not belong to any declension.

I said that "bean" and "lá" were common words...not the others.

Also, I wasn't implying that they should be regular because they are commonly used...I was implying that it is unusual that such commonly used words haven't been given closer scrutiny and classified one way or another.

I know the declensions how to decline the words that fall in them...however your average person doesn't.

Maybe not at first, but eventually a person is going to start learning about the differences in the cases and how the nouns are declined...and I for one learn by patterns.

I have learned that 1st declensions do this, and 2nd declensions do that...and by remembering their patterns I can decline any noun as long as I know which group it belongs to...so it is confusing to me when I come across words that aren't given a declension because I have no pattern follow.

I know I am not the only person who does this...I find myself spending more time trying to find words to model off of than learning the patterns.

All one has to go off of is "bean nf(irr)" in a dictionary...

Is fíor duit, to the degree that all one has to go on, but I tell you it is always the same -I tell you that is it is not exotic that you can only understand what you know already!

Even if Irish had been the subject of years of intensive study, you and me would still have to learn it, and it would still be hard if we be pig headed