hello there,
I just have a couple of pretty basic questions for you I guess.

So, if you have a sentence:
D’imigh isteach an fathach Muinille i dteach Finn.

In this sentence – d’imigh denotes the past tens of “go”, but can someone please explain what the apostrophe is for. What does it abbreviate?
I looked for some other examples where d’ is used, but couldn’t make much sense of it. for instance - d'oíche = by night.(I presume it is an abbreviation of “de”?)

And then the noun dteach is in what case here (Dative?)And how about when the verb expresses state, and not activity? Does the case of the noun change in that case as well?

What would the sentence "Muinille was in Fionn's house?" - be in Irish?

thanks a mil.
Humble Beginner B.

If you see "d'" anywhere other than on an actual verb, then it's a contraction of either:

do - 2nd person singular personal pronoun
do - the preposition
de - the preposition

If you see it on a verb, it's just to do with the mutations in the language. Here's a checklist for putting a verb in the past tense in Irish:

1) Does it begin with an vowel? If so, stick a "D'" before it. That's all.
2) Does it begin with an F? If so, stick a "D'" and a H on it. That's all.
3) Everywhere else, just stick a H on it if possible. That's all.

(...that's without going into the irregular ones like "Fuair mé").

Some examples:
Dhún sé an doras.
Bhris sé an fhuinneog.
D'fhág sé an teach
D'oscail sé an bosca.
D'fhan sé sa leaba.
Rith sé abhaile.
Léim sé thar an mbord.

The "D'" that goes on vowels (and vowel sounds) is said to come from an earlier form of Irish where the past tense was always prefixed with "Do", e.g. Do dhún sé an doras.

quote:

D’imigh isteach an fathach Muinille i dteach Finn.

Wrong verb. "imigh" means to "go away, to obscond", it's more forceful shall we say than a regular going. The verb you want is "téigh" perhaps. You had your word order wrong also.

Chuaigh an fathach, Muinille, isteach i dteach Fhinn.
(assuming Munille and Finn are the people's names)

After 95% of prepositions, the noun adopts the dative case. There's no change for the dative case for 99% of nouns.

Do is an old past and habituality marker for verbs. If the next sound was a consonant, one would expect softening, so 'cur' (put) would be do chuireas, for example. It is now mostly now used, but is everywhere shown where the original root was vowel initial -do oscail -->d'oscail.

d'oíche probably is de, as thay preposition is used with expressions of time

The dative is not possible for masiculine nouns anymore as the dative for actually replaced the nominative form. Traditionally, after a simple prepostion, one inflexed the noun into the dative (cat/i gcut, cos/i gcois). What occured in gaeilic history is that a prepositional inflection got superimposed on this. It is a voicing rule, called 'eclipsis'. For teach, this renders it dteach as the indo-european case has been lost, but the gaelic mutation stays. The d is only the voicing of the t, looked at sound wise.

If you mean does Irish have a difference between stasis and motion for noun, the answer is not any more. Once, ar an mbord and ar an bhord
"
According to O'Nolan, the use of eclipsis after a preposition and article is a sign of the accusative use in the sense of motion (e.g.: ar an mbord = on to the table, as opposed to lenition (ar an bhord) as a sign of the dative of location (= on the table). This differentiation has been lost, now depending on the dialect one either just lenites or just eclipses."


There is a location movement difference " Earlier, there was a difference between dative and accusative after prepositions (location vs. direction)
comp. the adverb, stemming from a contraction isteach = inside (lit.: "into the house") and istigh = inside (lit.: "in the house")."

This means going outide -amach. Been outside -amuigh. Going upward suas, been up there -thuas.


I dont knwo what you mean about case change to agree with verb. Better ask someone else, but I dont think what yuo want exists


"Muinille was in Fionn's house?" Bhí Muinille i dteach Fhinn. House of Fionn =teach +Fionn in genitive. I dont actually know the gen of Fionn as it is an old fashioned name, but it would be Finn. The initial f would be softened to zero, so teach Fhinn. The prepostion would trigger eclipsis, so i dteach, thus i dteach Fhinn.

Any errors will be corrected by others

forceful shall we say than a regular going.
I thought you did not use "shall'
sound rather posh LOL

Yeah my written internet English is posher than my spoken English. Also my spoken English can become posh if I want to deceive people (The Gardaí for instance).

Hey everyone,
all you mentioned here was really helpful> thank you.

I'm working on the research concerning the relation of spatial and temporal prepositions. (basing it on a hypothesis that in a way time serves as a metaphor for space)

I was indeed, trying to determine whether in Irish there is still a Subject-Object distinction in nouns that would denote the existence/ absence of movement.

In German there is a clear indication of this, and to some extent in my language as well (Croatian). Apparently, in the proto Indo-European this distinction stretched to the extent that there were two different roots for verbs, depending on whether a verb was progressive (present-rooted tenses) or non-progressive (praterite).

So, if I've got this correctly (just checking) - Irish doesn't make a distinction between direction and location in cases anymore. This distinction in the past was explicit in use of lenition and eclipsis. Nowadays, however, the use of these is rather arbitrary, and/or it depends on a dialect variation.

about the confusing example with the giant Muinille and Fionn, I actually copied it from a book by Nigel Duffield called "Particled and Projections in Irish Syntax". And perhaps I copied it wrong, but it meant something like:

The giant Muinille went into the Finn's house.
So I assume this translation (underneath) by Fear_na_mbróg would be correct then...

Chuaigh an fathach, Muinille, isteach i dteach Fhinn. (?)

cheers,
B.

"Chuaigh an fathach, Muinille, isteach i dteach Fhinn." /"Chuaigh an fathach, ab ainm Muinille, isteach i dteach Fhinn"

Isteach suggests movement, so in adverbs the stasis /movement contrast is still held. You also have it for the cardinal directions (north, away from the north, at the north, coming from the north). If you want, a description can be generated here.


"Nowadays, however, the use of these is rather arbitrary, and/or it depends on a dialect variation. "

From the point of view of the distinction you want, yes. Irish is like other western european langauges jettosing case, but the celtic mutations live on, and in the prepositional constructions of prep +def art +noun or prep+noun we see a glimpse of a time when there was more flexion


As for your question on the distinction in the verb in older forms of Irish, maybe Lughaidh and Dennis could help, if they read this thread

Go raibh míle math agat, Bearn.

A couple of more questions for those who feel like helping out.

Tá mé i mo chodladh - In this sentence - "mo" and "chodladh" would be in dative? how about mé? (acc?)

Bhí sé tar ón bposta = (It came from the mail). Does this work grammatically?

Is the verb "tar" here in the infinitive form? I get confused when I have to distinguish between verbal nouns and verbs in Irish. Does anyone have a tip on this?


cheers,
B.

Well, it looks like I'll be your host on this, since the board is quiet.

"Tá mé i mo chodladh - In this sentence - "mo" and "chodladh" would be in dative?

mo is part of a set of possessive pronouns (mo, do, a, a, ár, bhúr, a) that are alightly worn down from history. Irish pronouns dont flex a lot nowadays, but do exist in conditions where they are expected to 'cause' flexion.

Once upon a time, there were genitive endings on the possesive pronouns. Over time, these got dropped, but the initial consonatal mutations of Irish stepped in, and now one gets either lention (mo, do, a (his)), nothing (a (hers)) or eclipsis (ár, bhur, á) on the proceeding noun.

Codladh here is in the null case. Verbal nouns can have null or genitive forms. I would not say the dative for a VN can be found today -probably the same as null. Anyway, in the example above, since the conditions were for the genitive, the dative would not be an issue in such a place as after a personal pronoun

"how about mé? (acc?) "

Irish structure by default is VSO, and the only really requred part is the VS, even if you are talking about an impersonal or synthetic arrangemnt. Personal pronouns that fall into either slot can change. Ex:

	VERB	SUBJECT	OBJECT
	chuala	mé	m(h)é
	chuala	tú	t(h)ú
	chuala	sé	(s)é
	chuala	sí	(s)í
	chuala	muid/sinn	(m)uid/(s)inn
	chuala	sibh	(s)ibh
	chuala	siad	(s)iad
impersonal	chualas

Note: (mhé does not exist; chualas is respelt to be more like its sound)

THe object form would be akin to the accusative, but as I said the mutations are not massive, so but direct and 'disjunctive' (object) forms might have to do more jobs than in your inflexional Slavic language.

"Bhí sé tar ón bposta = (It came from the mail). Does this work grammatically? "

No. VSO Thainig (V) sé (S) ón bpost (indirect object/O)./Tháinaig sé leis an bpost.There is no true infinitive in Irish, but a verbal noun is used instead. Tar as it is the root looks like an infinitive, but it is not. It would break the syntax to put the verbal noun in that position anyway. I've cut an pasted a decent explaation below:

"Verbal Nouns

There is no infinitive. Each verb has instead an associated verbal noun, generally based on the same root, which is used to fill the functions of the infinitive, and in many other constructions. Thus with the verbal noun snámh "to swim, swimming, the act of swimming":

Is maith liom snámh [is mah' l'um sna:w]
is good with-me to-swim
"I like to swim"

And similarly:

Tá snámh go maith dhuit [ta: sna:w g@ mah' yit']*
is to-swim PT good for-you
"Swimming is good for you"

*(where y=gamma)

Verbal nouns are used in prepositional phrases in a complicated system of aspectual constructions, for instance:

Tá sé ag snámh [ta: s'e: isna:w]
is he at to-swim
"He is swimming"

Nominal objects of verbal nouns are in the genitive, not accusative:

Tá sé ag ithe aráin [ta: s'e: g'ih'i @ra:n']
is he at to-eat of-bread
"He is eating bread"

But unlike other nouns, they can have objects in absolute usage connected to them by a preposition:

Tá sé chun arán a ithe [ta: s'e: xun' @ra:n ih'i]
is he for bread to to-eat
"He is going to eat bread"

"

http://www.fiosfeasa.com/bearla/language/grammar1.htm

I dont know if it was ever possible to say "tá sé tagtha leis an bpost", 'he is come with the post'. Maybe Shakephere?!

quote:

Tá mé i mo chodladh - In this sentence - "mo" and "chodladh" would be in dative? how about mé? (acc?)

"mo chodladh" would be dative. Mé (subject) is nominative.

quote:

Bhí sé tar ón bposta = (It came from the mail). Does this work grammatically?

No.
Tar = Come! (imperative 2nd person singular)
Tháinig sé = he came.
Bhí sé ag teacht = he was coming (teacht, verbal noun)
Bhí sé tagtha = he had come (tagtha, verbal adjective of tar).
But the last form one wouldn't use very often in Irish.

quote:

Is the verb "tar" here in the infinitive form? I get confused when I have to distinguish between verbal nouns and verbs in Irish. Does anyone have a tip on this?

No. Verbal nouns end in -adh, -ú or they have other endings or they have no ending at all or they have very different forms not resembling their verbs very much. Either you know them or ...
Look in a dictionary: v.i., v.t. = verb, vn. = verbal noun.
Verbs can be found in most dictionaries by the root form (i.e. imperative 2nd person singular) (e.g. tar = come!, bí = be!, bris = break!, cuir = put!, éirigh = rise!, etc).
In a few dictionaries (e.g. Dinneen) there is first person singular present tense instead (e.g. tagaim = I come, táim = I am, brisim I break, cuirim = I put, éirím = I rise)
Most verbal nouns are headwords in dictionaries, too (e.g. teacht = coming/to come, bheith = being/to be, briseadh = breaking/to break, cur = putting/to put, éirí = rising/to rise).

quote:

m(h)é (m)uid (s)inn, (s)ibh

Not only "mhé" does not exist, "uid" (or "mhuid") doesn't, too. "Inn" and "ibh" are obsolete.
But "é, í, iad" are obligatory object forms.

Lars

quote:

Codladh here is in the null case. Verbal nouns can have null or genitive forms. I would not say the dative for a VN can be found today

Codladh is in dative case. There is ample evidence of dative case existance (séimhiú on nouns following vn is one of them). In order to see the different form for dative nouns you have to remember which conditions are there to have a separate noun form in dative

1) the noun must be feminine (teach, cara are just exceptions)
2) the noun has to be slenderizable.

In practical terms it means that all -adh (and by extension -ú, previously -ughadh) vn are of the limit as they are masculine. However there are some feminine vn. among the words ending in -ach. I was confronted with this fact myself when I was looking up the words from Wagner's atlas in the dictionary and couldn't find quite a few of them.

I don't recollect the words themselves, but the sentences with them were "The horse are heighing", "The cows are lowing", "The dogs are barking". All those words were transcribed with [-ig`] in the Atlas, but the headform in the dictionary is "-ach" (feminine), .i. these are plain examples of dative forms, separate from nominative.

quote:

A couple of more questions for those who feel like helping out.

Tá mé i mo chodladh - In this sentence - "mo" and "chodladh" would be in dative? how about mé? (acc?)

Bhí sé tar ón bposta = (It came from the mail). Does this work grammatically?

Is the verb "tar" here in the infinitive form? I get confused when I have to distinguish between verbal nouns and verbs in Irish. Does anyone have a tip on this?

For 99% of nouns in the Irish language, there's (yes, "there's") four forms: Null singular, Null plural, Genitive singular, Genitive plural. The null form is used for everything, the nominative, accusative and dative. However, less than 1% of nouns have a dative case which differs, and these are mostly parts of the body:

Seo mo lámh = This is my hand
Agus tá leabhar i mo láimh = And there's a book in my hand

Some remote dialects supposedly have a unique dative case all over the place but I myself have never seen it in modern usage -- that's not to say it isn't happening.

"Codladh is in dative case"

How can that be? What yeeve done is apply a diachronic analysis and spin it 90 degrees and imply it is synchronic. The fact is if it cannot flex, case-wise, into the dative, then it is not in the dative, even if there are sound theorical and grammatical reasons for treating it as such.

Oh and I know about the unreality of the disjunctive forms -they were for explanation purposes

Oh I see -'mo chodladh' should be analysed differently to 'i mo chodladh', that is, treating 'mo chodladh' as a single phrase directly after the preposition i?

quote:

as a single phrase directly after the preposition i?

Exactly. There are just a non-derived few prepositions that take accusative - gan, idir, few that take genitive - chun, timpeall and the rest is with dative. In that vain - i gcodhladh or ina chodladh is really the same grammatically, possessive pronoun does not change the case of vn.

quote:

Some remote dialects supposedly have a unique dative case all over the place

Your hysterical ways are really not amusing anymore. There is no unique dative case "all over the place" just for a simple fact that only feminine nouns could have it theoretically (so only 30% of nouns), and of those - only the nouns with broad end consonant for an obvious reason. Therefore, it the best case scenario only 10% of nouns have a unique dative form in singular, what clearly is not "all over the place".

Re "remoteness". If by remoteness you understand the distance from the bloated city of 1,5 mln inhabitants which deems itself to be the centre of universe - then ALL native Irish dialects are equally "remote". If they were not remote - the Irish wouldn't have survived there.

Great everyone. Thanks for all the useful suggestions. But I really didn't want to provoke a conflict here ;)


About the sentence: Tháinaig sé leis an bpost.
It came from the mail. (SPATIAL)

- how'd you say It is from/ out of the mail? Would you then use Tá sé...?
Basically, i'm checking to see in what syntactical context you could use ón bpost??

(TEMPORAL)
the preposition ó again - "from, since". How would you use it in a temporal context, like "The paper is from the 16.th ct."
would you use the preposition ó for that as well, or something else?

muchos grazias, B.

Brina,

I understan what are you aiming at. The fact that dative and accusative coalesced in Irish had one very interesting development. In natural Irish it is usual now to add "precising" adverbs to give a hint if it is state or location. The pairs usually employed are "isteach" (originally "into the house") and "istigh" ("in the house") for movement/being inside, and "amach" ("onto the field") and "amuigh" ("in the field") for outside.

So you say:

Cuirim an t-úll isteach sa bhosca. - I put the apple inside into the box.

Tá an t-úll istigh sa bhosca. - The apple is inside in the box.

Glacaim an t-úll amach as an mbosca. - I take the apple outside out of the box.

Tá an t-úll amuigh as an mbosca.- The apple is outside out of the box.

Outside of usage of these adverbs the distinction of movement and position is signalled sometimes by using different prepositions.

Example:

Téighim go dtí an séipéal. - I go to the church.
Táim (istigh) sa tséipéal. - I am in the church.

Theoretically you could use "sa" in the first sentence too, but practically it never happens. "sa" without a helping adverb "isteach" means only position.

Example:

Táim ag dul isteach i dtigh an tábhairne - I am going into the pub.

Táim (istigh) i dtigh an tábhairne - I am (inside) in the pub.

As béal Rómáin

quote:

Your hysterical ways are really not amusing anymore.

Ever since I correctly corrected your incorrect claim that "se, sa, na, etc." do anything other than emphasise a pronoun, you've taken every opportunity to throw in a snide remark against me, mostly innane babblings. If you'd like to have a debate about any of the issues you've raised, then feel free to put your point across.

quote:

There is no unique dative case "all over the place" just for a simple fact that only feminine nouns could have it theoretically (so only 30% of nouns), and of those - only the nouns with broad end consonant for an obvious reason. Therefore, it the best case scenario only 10% of nouns have a unique dative form in singular, what clearly is not "all over the place".

I was referring to your usage of endings like "aibh". While I don't deny that these exist, I can firmly say that I've read numerous pieces of written Irish, some standardised, some dialectal, and never have I seen these endings.

As for feminine nouns which end on a broad consonant, that ironically only leaves parts of the body:

lámh, cos, srón, etc.

And then a few others like subh, grian -- ar an suibh, ar an ngréin

quote:

Re "remoteness". If by remoteness you understand the distance from the bloated city of 1,5 mln inhabitants which deems itself to be the centre of universe - then ALL native Irish dialects are equally "remote". If they were not remote - the Irish wouldn't have survived there.

Actually I meant "remote" in the context of the country of Ireland, the place where I've lived all my life. An example of a remote place of Ireland would be its islands.

As béal Bhrina:

quote:

Tháinaig sé leis an bpost.

Can I ask you to be extra vigilant when spelling in Irish, because one misplaced letter can change the tense of a verb or the case or plurality of an adjective or noun.

quote:

Cuirim an t-úll isteach sa bhosca. - I put the apple inside into the box.

Tá an t-úll istigh sa bhosca. - The apple is inside in the box.

Glacaim an t-úll amach as an mbosca. - I take the apple outside out of the box.

Tá an t-úll amuigh as an mbosca.- The apple is outside out of the box.

No dialect of English combines "inside" or "outside" with "in" or "out".

The usage of "istigh" or "amuigh" in combination with "i" or "as" signifies a more "enclosing" sense of being in or out, as if the object is enclosed or not enclosed. This is quite similar to English's usage of "I'm in the house" Vs. "I'm inside the house".

"amach" and "isteach" are used when there's movement going on, while "amuigh" and "istigh" are used when something is stationary (same case with "suas" Vs "thuas"). Strangely though, you also use the prepositions "i" and "as" with them:

Chuaigh sé isteach sa teach.
Tháinig sé amach as an gcarr.

I wouldn't be overly suprised though if, in fast speech, "isteach" and "amach" were removed from the previous two sentences.

quote:

I was referring to your usage of endings like "aibh". While I don't deny that these exist, I can firmly say that I've read numerous pieces of written Irish, some standardised, some dialectal, and never have I seen these endings

Léigh níos mó! Tá siad coitianta ó dheas.

quote:

that ironically only leaves parts of the body

Fuinneog, spúnóg, baintreach, báisteach etc? Unless you have very interesting body composition.

quote:

While I don't deny that these exist, I can firmly say that I've read numerous pieces of written Irish, some standardised

How unexpected, ain't it? No non-caighdeán forms in caighdeánized texts. Wow! Any more revelations of the type?

quote:

and never have I seen these endings.

Ever tried reading some Munster authors, like Peadar Ó Laoire, for a change?

quote:

Actually I meant "remote" in the context of the country of Ireland

Again - ALL irish dialects are remote, otherwise they would not have survived. I think it is obvious and there is no point to return to that again and again.

quote:

No dialect of English combines "inside" or "outside" with "in" or "out".

I made clumsy translation for the benefit of Brina who obviously does not understand Irish and would be lost in the grammar structure of those sentences.

"Fuinneog, spúnóg, baintreach, báisteach etc? Unless you have very interesting body composition."

Maybe if one was a massivly parallel distributed entity. Good few of them of a Saturday night in Temple Bar...

quote:

Fuinneog, spúnóg, baintreach, báisteach

Woops I forgot about "set" endings. When I was learning Irish in my own mind, I didn't learn about the conventional declensions of nouns, but rather I just learned how to work with "set" endings, and from there I learned how to work with ones that don't have set endings.

So are you saying, that in Munster Irish, all feminine singular nouns become slenderised in the dative case? Therefore would you have the following?:

ar an ngréin
ar an suibh
as an bhfuinneoig
ag caint faoin mbáistí (or would this be "mbáistigh"?)

Is there any website on the net that describes fully how the dative case works in Munster Irish? Or could you give me any tips, Román? How does the whole "-ibh" thing work?

In answer to Fear na mBrog, about this strange thing which consists of "doubling" the impression of movement by saying "isteach sa" , "istigh sa " or "amach as"; That makes me think of another language i.e. Russian where a similar thing occurs. For those who know Russian, you can notice this in verbs , for instance , the verb "to go into" which you would translate by
" vxhodit'v " where the basal verb is xhodit' and where the "into" is translated by the first "v",sticked to the beginning of the verbal root and written (and said) again at the end of the verb.
Just as if there were a need to emphasize what people want to say ...
Funny to think that these two languages , so different by any means, have got certain things in common . A certain "common" way of thinking of their respective people.

null -lámh
dative -láimh
genitive -láimhe

ibh
Ibh can come when you take the null pl and add -ibh ar na lámhaibh

IT works for masculine too, but if you have a weak pl it must be broadened -cait, ag na cataibh

Funny, Lars' website braesicke mirrored on nuleargais is where you'll get some info on this stuff...

quote:

So are you saying, that in Munster Irish, all feminine singular nouns become slenderised in the dative case?

Why only Munster? In Donegal AND Conamara it is the same thing. There is no such dialect that says "i mo bhróg" for example, all dialects use only "bhróig".

quote:

ar an ngréin
ar an suibh
as an bhfuinneoig
ag caint faoin mbáistí

Exactly, just the last one would be - ag caint mar gheall ar an mbáistigh.

quote:

Is there any website on the net that describes fully how the dative case works in Munster Irish?

What do you mean "works"? Usage? You use it after almost all prepositions (except idir, gan, chun and all those two-word ones like "os cionn") - nothing really difficult.

The -ibh ending is also wide spread - you just don't realize it. All those "extra" -í in plural in Conamara - like ceisteannaí, áiteachaí in reality are -ibh in disguise. In Conamara it is the dative case that has pushed out nominative, not vice versa. -ibh is not found in Donegal, but the reason is that even if you wrote it - it would not be pronounced due to Donegal reading rules.

Dative pl is formed from plural genitive by appending -(a)ibh. If the word ends in -e, then this last -e is suppressed, if it ends in -í, then only -bh is added.

Examples:

nom. sg. - gen. pl. - dat. pl
bata - bataí - bataíbh
duine - daoine - daoinibh
fear - fear - fearaibh
úll - úlla - úllaibh
cos - cos - cosaibh
áit - áiteanna - áiteannaibh
máthair - máithreacha - máithreachaibh
doras - doirse - doirsibh
etc.

The preposition ó can be used in temporal expressions:
trí bliana ó shin (3 years ago, lit. three years since then) etc.

There's a problem in understanding what cases are, and what they are used for.
If a group of nouns are used in a special form after certain prepositions, and if such forms are labelled 'dative' (obviously for historical reasons, in this case), then it means that this language has the dative case. In this case láimh in: i mo láimh (in my hand) has to be analysed as dative (of 'lámh', hand), but then 'cloigeann' in: 'i mo chloigeann' (in my head) also has to be analysed as dative (of cloigeann), although it's got the same form as the null (or nominative-accusative) case. The case is a grammatical category and if one noun 'has' it, all nouns have it, even if it's not overtly expressed in all nouns.
Secondly, the dialect of Cois Fhairrge doesn't have a special dative case and the null case is used instead. The forms that were dative once and are now used for the null case aren't dative synchronically. So fuinneoig and fuinneogaí are null, and not dative forms (though they were once). In this dialect, the dative case has been lost. (And the genitive is following it closely, it seems to me...)

The questions from the beginning of this story are:
How about when the verb expresses state, and not activity? Does the case of the noun change in that case as well?
The answer is no.
Verbs (their meaning) doesn't govern the case of the object noun (like they do in, say, Latin, German, Russian or Croatian). Lots of verbs are followed by a preposition: geall do (promise to), fill ar (return to (a place))... it's similar to the situation in English, most of it is expressed by means of prepositions.

If the dialect has the dative case, then 99% prepositions are followed by the dative form, so it can equally be called 'the prepositional case'. I'm not sure if it's ever used on its own.

Daithí

quote:

the dialect of Cois Fhairrge doesn't have a special dative case and the null case is used instead.

I don't agree. You have to consider that CO has been based on CF dialect using the same logic - nominative=dative, but "restoring" the historical nominative. The end result are forms absent from ALL Irish dialects. Consider this:

Munster, Donegal: fuinneog - i m'fhuinneoig
Connacht: fuinneoig - i m'fhuinneoig

It is obvious that notwithstanding different nominatives fuinneog/fuinneoig, ALL dialects use "i m'fhuinneoig". Thus the form offered by CO "i m'fhuinneog" does not, and has never existed in ANY dialect. So if the creators of CO really employed the rule "2 of 3" as they claimed there is no way for them to arrive at something different than fuinneog - i m'fhuinneoig. Thus, I deem CO to be illegitimate as it is essentially CF adaptation, not a compromise of 3 dialects.

I agree. It's utterly stupid to impose a non-existent usage of a form as a standard (and thus a 'correct') one.

If no native speaker would ever say i m'fhuinneog spontaneously I don't understand why they chose this.
CF certainly doesn't have dative as a separate case (because its forms are always equal to the null ones), but then it'd be much better if they chose fuinneoig : i m'fhuinneoig, if they wanted to simplify the grammar. Or even better, to keep the difference: fuinneog : i m'fhuinneoig. The speakers of CF and the like would ignore this (though not always, cf. Fear na mbrog's occasional use of shall!:-) and learners would have to try harder, but what's the problem?! Lots of other languages have a much more complicated morphology, and people still manage to learn them quite well (Russian cases, Italian or Spanish verbs...).

In my language there are seven cases, tonal accent, synthetic past tense forms etc., and this all exists in the standard language. However, no-one uses all of these features, only those ones that exist in one's dialect. So if you use all the 7 cases, you won't use the synthetic past forms, and the opposite, because such a dialect doesn't exist. Of course, you might use all of this when you write in the standard language, and a lot of people actually do this. If someone learns this language, they ignore the rare features, and that's it.

Daithí