Hi,

I’m presently at lesson 11 in Learning Irish and once again Mícheál Ó Siadhail has lost me with his cryptic grammatical explanations (or his lack thereof)!!!!!!

My problem arises with this whole buisness in lesson 11 about the use of numbers with nouns. I start getting confused when he begins by talking about certain nouns (most of them denoting a measurement) that take a plural or a special plural form after numbers higher than two. To name a few he gives: trí huaire, trí seachtainí, trí pingine, trí bliana, trí galúin… etc.

What I understand from his explanations is that these special nouns aren’t subject to lenition or eclipsis normally caused by a preceeding number (numbers from one to six lenite the following noun and from seven to ten cause eclipsis). He also informs us at the bottom of the page that chúig lenites “a few plural forms” and elaborates greatly on the topic by giving us these two little examples: chúig bhliana, chúig phingine. Hmmm…, well that’s pretty vague! What other “few plural forms” may chúig lenite? Just a few maybe? That doesn’t answer much. Which nouns exactly? Is this dialectal and if so, what is the rule here in most dialects and in paricular Connacht?

Moreover, Ó Siadhail looses me completely when in the exercises he writes “deich mbliana”, “deich bpingine” and “seacht n-uaire”. I thought these weren’t suppose to cause eclipsis when used with the socalled measurement nouns. Also, his grammatical explanations in the lesson don’t suggest in any way a prefixation of “n” in this case (at least not with these exceptional nouns).

So what are the exact or general rules regarding this in Connacht Irish? In which case does eclipsis apply with these special nouns? When do I prefix an “n” to them? I have the impression a lot of this is a dialectal issue. Anyways, this is all getting very confusing to me!!!

Please help, I just want to get it right!
Thanx!!

Slán!

Ok, I will tell you a big secret: it is not a fault of Ó Siadhail - but of caighdeán creators.

The situation pre-caighdeán was following:

after aon... amháin - you use singular + séimhiú, naturally
after dhá you use dual + séimhiú (equal to dative of singular)
after trí, cheithre, cúig, sé - you use plural and NO mutation
after seacht, ocht, naoi, deich - plural + urú.

Thus the rule is really simple:
1 - singular
2 - dual
3-10 plural.

1-2 - séimhiú, 7-10 - urú, 3-6 - nothing

Now, Caigheán decided to do everything "simpler", so they advise to use SINGULAR (?!) after 3-10, with 3-6 causing séimhiú and 7-10 - urú.

Those "exceptional" forms Ó Siadhail is talking about - are not really any exceptional. They just normal pre-caighdeán forms that even caighdeán could not manage to replace.

So let's take "bliain".

aon bhliain amháin
dhá bhliain
trí bliana
cheithre bliana
cúig bliana
sé bliana
seacht mbliana
ocht mbliana
naoi mbliana
deich mbliana

The only specific thing about measurements - those retained the old plural forms. It means that the tendency of Modern Irish to append several plural ending one on top of other is resisted. Thus "léine" (shirt) had plural "léinte", but currently you will hear "léinteacha" (léinte+acha) more often. "ceist" - "ceisteanna" becomes "ceisteannaí" (ceisteanna+í) in CF and so on. "Uair" used to have plural "uaire", but currently normally is "uaireanta" (uaire+anta), "bliain" - "bliana" has become "blianta" and so on. So what the author is saying that when used with numbers those "short" plural forms spring back.

So you have:

aon uair amháin
dhá uair
trí huaire
cheithre huaire
cúig uaire
sé huaire
seacht n-uaire
ocht n-uaire
naoi n-uaire
deich n-uaire

Note - that 3-6 neither lenite, nor eclipse, but they append "h" to words that start with a vowel if they end with vowel themselves (so: 3,4,6).

So what is the strategy? I suppose it is easier to dump CO system altogether and go back to traditional one. In that case all those "exceptions" are completely regular again.


p.s. Séimhiú (or even urú) can still be found after "c(h)úig" but it is completely irregular. The same speaker may use séimhiú/urú and nothing literally in the same sentence. Just ignore it. Example from Teanga Bheo: Gaelainn Chléire - "bhíos chúig bliana d'aois" and "chúig mbliana déag a bhíos". So you see no big deal. I suggest to follow the pattern of 3,4 and 6 - .i. no mutation and plural.

And the purpose of making it more complex was...?

When I tried to regularise the CO version, all sorts of horrors were raised. From the vaults:

Cardinal numerals with noun -seacht gcat déag mbeaga mbána


I also notice a regularisation of 1 and 2 in dialects for ordinality: an t-aonú agus an dóú


The system you outlined seems very good and should have been kept

quote:

And the purpose of making it more complex was...?

The purpose was to make it "simpler", but unfortunately in their dumbing down process they always arrive with something very complicated. Just think about leniting of "s" after "sa" depending on gender (!) (95% of speakers lenite regardless of gender), or genitive plural endings of adjectives depending on declension type of the noun.

Róman
remember the google PDFs that were in vogue here a few months ago? To me, they did not seem very different from the Caighdeán, even some of them from nearly 200 years ago. It looked like after decades of drawing a state salary, they finally had to come up with something, and rifled the library instead

What kind of Google pdf? You mean 19th century's grammars?

Yep

Then, I must disagree! Ní fíor dhuit, a Bheirn!

There are essential differences between those old grammars and caighdeán

1) treatment of dative. Dative singular is preserved in all of them - CO ignores it
2) synthetic endings, especially in the past tense, which have been thrown away by caighdeán
3) many small details of mutation - e.g. séimhiú of adjectives after a noun in dative, like in "sa bhaile mhór", s-mutation etc
4) concordance of numbers with nouns
5) some irregular verb forms, like "bheirim" which was replaced by "tugaim", or "chím" with "feicim"
6) strange "rationalizations" of spelling, e.g. why to write "léim" (not "léighim"), but "scríobham" if internal "bh" is as silent "gh" etc

Well I suppose. Must have been the shock that it was not *that* different than to today. Given the dangers to irish nowadays, I thought the rot would have set in earlier

quote:

I thought the rot would have set in earlier

The language evolves all the time. I see no point to try to come back to Keating's Irish. Go bhfios dom, he was using idioms already obsolete by his time for sake of making it sound "posh". I am reasonably comfortable with the Irish as it existed at the turn on 20th century, no sentiments for Old Irish from my side. If we can have Irish like described in TYI by Dillon - I am all for it.

Agreed, so long as we have proper stuff, (i.e. 40+ consonants, both voicelessness in and lenition of l, n, r, all native idiom, case-system) I would be happy

An múinteoir a bhí agam ní dhéanann sí na "ceithre L-annaí" agus mar sin níor fhoghlaim mise iad a dhéanamh ach oiread. Bhuel a deireann tú, nach bhféadfá tabhairt faoi anois? D'fhéadfadh muise. Mura mbeadh clocha níos mó ar mo pháidrín agam. Dá mb'in an rud is mó dá raibh idir mé agus flúirse na dea-Ghaeilge.

Mar an gcéanna an tuiseal tabharthach. An chéad uair ar tháinig mé ar "mnaoi" i seanamhrán chuir mé ar a súile sise é - agus níor thuig sí é ach oiread liomsa. Bhí orainn beirt a dhul i muinín fhoclóir Uí Dhónaill. Táim in ann iad a thuiscint anois (ó léigh mé an tOileánach - rinne sé sin an-mhaitheas dom) ach ní bhíonn siad i mo chuid cainte féin ná ní bheidh feasta.

All these bring-back-the-dative campaigns are nice but they're the least of my worries. If you're learning from books that teach the dative, or from a teacher who lenites her N's, fine. Learn it, imitate it, be happy with it. If not... well, for someone like me there are much, much greater obstacles to fluency. Imprecision of vocabulary (in certain fields), hesitancy in speech, and difficulty remembering to put adjectives into the genitive - I've got enough already standing between me and modern-day fluent Irish.

Ar eagla na míthuisceana, is maith a bhfuil a fhios agam go maireann na foirmeacha tabharthacha iolra beo sa Mumhain. Níl mé á shéanadh sin. Nuair a bhínn ag labhairt le Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill d'úsáideadh sise iad gach ré nóiméid. Tuigim go maith go bhfuil siad beo. Ach ní mheasaim go bhfuil siad rí-tábhachtach don teanga mar theanga, ná don fhoghlaimeoir nach dtagann orthu ina chuid leabhar féin nó nach gcloiseann óna mhúinteoirí féin iad. Is leor iad a thuiscint dar liom.

I once heard it said that Americans dont get irony...

"An chéad uair ar tháinig mé ar "mnaoi" i seanamhrán chuir mé ar a súile sise é - agus níor thuig sí é ach oiread liomsa"

A teacher that never heard of the dative. I love how such things have to have polar opposites. Listen, structurally, only certain words can even dream of having a dative form, so to bring it back, would mean coll vs coill etc and no one is saying that. The people who do call for all datives dont understand that it could not happen.

"a teacher who lenites her N's, fine. Learn it, imitate it,"

What English speaker would pick up such distinctions? What teacher would be teaching it? Not ones who dont know the grammar history of the language. I'm interested in language pragmatics and that is the next MA I'm going to do, not phonetics, and that is what I'd look for in a teacher, some one who knows how the language is used in normal social contexts. I'm going to the Blue Stax in July for the residental course, and if the teacher is shite, I'll spend the time with auld lads instead!

quote:

ní dhéanann sí na "ceithre L-annaí"

An bhfuil duine éigin ann a dheineann iad go léir ceart go leor i n-aon chor? There is much hype about it and little substance. As I understand Ulster has 3 of them, Connacht 3 (older people) to 2 (youngsters), and Munster 2. So if someone makes 2 - no big deal. However if someone makes only 1 - then it is a fundamental breach as "capall" becomes indistinguishable from "capaill" and so on.

quote:

chuir mé ar a súile sise é - agus níor thuig sí é ach oiread liomsa

Very hard to believe. Was she a native speaker? "mnaoi" is very well known to all natives even if the don't use it - just because it can be found in every fifth seanfhocal. The same goes for "buaibh".

Diabhail a fhios agam. Insint an fhírinne, níor thuig mé gurb ann dá leithéid nó go ndeachaigh mé ag léamh "Stair na Gaeilge." D'éist mé níos mionchúramaí lena cuid cainte ina dhiaidh sin agus ní dhéanann sí ach dhá cheann de L-annaí.

'Sea, cainteoir dúchais atá inti. Tá sí sna déaga is fiche b'fhéidir. Thuig muid araon ón gcomhthéacs gur dhóichí é ná a mhalairt gur chiallaigh sé "bean", ach ina dhiaidh sin ní raibh muid cinnte de - ní raibh ach buaille faoi thuairim ann - agus dá mb'fhíor dúinn ní raibh a fhios againn beo ar seanfhoirm é, nó foirm chanúnach (amhrán Ultach a bhí i gceist) nó céard é.

Cén seanfhocail iad sin? Ní ritheann liom ach cupla ceann... b'fhéidir gurb é "bean" atá i bhformhór acu i gConnachta agus "mnaoi" sna leaganacha ó dheas?

Scríobh Bearn:
A teacher that never heard of the dative. I love how such things have to have polar opposites.
Ní hé sin a dúirt mé! Is mór idir a fhios a bheith agat go bhfuil (nó go raibh) tuiseal eicínt ann, agus focal neamhrialta sa tuiseal sin a aithint.

Thank you very much everyone, and especially Róman for making Ó Siadhail clearer! Your explanations seem to make a lot of sense.

quote:

I suppose it is easier to dump CO system altogether and go back to traditional one. In that case all those "exceptions" are completely regular again.

Yes, I agree and that's what I'll do. Anyways the CO system in this case does not seem to reflect what is actually spoken in most dialects.

Thank you again!

Slán