I've noticed that even though 'cuid' is feminine it doesn't seem to lenite a word following it eg. 'a chuid gruaige'. Is this always tthe case and if so does anyone know why?

Because a noun following "cuid" is usually a partitive genitive which is not lenited.
So there is no lenition following feminine nouns like "roinnt" or "cuid":

roinnt bainne = some milk ("a sharing of milk")
a cuid gruaige = her hair ("her part of hair")

Lars

(Message edited by lars on August 03, 2007)

Thanks for the responses.

The Daltaí page which Antóin directed me to brings another difficulty I have with lenition to mind - lenition after 'idir'.
According to that page, if I understand correctly, (a) when 'idir' corresponds to 'both' the two words, before and after 'agus', are lenited (idir bhuachaillí agus agus chailíní); (b) when it corresponds to 'between' lenition does not follow (idir breith agus baisteadh).

The situation is clearly not as simple as that though (more's the pity).
In O'Dónaill 'idir'='between' seems to lenite until one reaches the following examples: 'idir Baile Átha Cliath agus Corcaigh' & 'idir pingin agus punt'. Does the fact that in these cases 'idir' refers to two words separated by 'agus' have anything to do with it?
Further down I found these: 'idir shúgradh is dáiríre' and 'idir gháire is ghol'. What's going on?
For 'idir'='both' the example 'idir fhir agus mhná' is given.

One thing I've frequently seen is the word before 'agus' lenited but not the one after e.g. from Dineen 'idir mhuir agus grian'.

Basically I'm completely confused. Is it another dialect issue? Perhaps someone could shed some light on this.

No response at all?
Surely others have had this problem.

I've just moved to Switzerland and my dictionaries haven't caught up with me yet, so if you could list some more of the examples from Ó Dónaill it would be helpful.

quote:

Does the fact that in these cases 'idir' refers to two words separated by 'agus' have anything to do with it?

Sorry, I don't understand what you're getting at here. In all the examples above, "idir" has two objects, separated by "agus" or by "is" (="agus").


"Idir shúgradh is dáiríre" doesn't mean somewhere midway between joking and serious - it means both joking and serious at the same time. Ditto for "idir gháire is ghol." So lenition makes sense. No real idea why "dáiríre" isn't lenited too, but here are a couple guesses:
(1) Overzealous application of "DeNTaLS." (Idir shúgradh is d(h)áiríre atá mé!)
(2) When a preposition - any preposition - has a compound object, initial mutations do tend to be dropped from the second noun.
e.g. "le sean agus óg" (rather than "hóg")
I imagine that stock phrases like those you've mentioned would have a stronger chance of escaping this fate - certainly "idir bhuachaillí is cailíní" sounds a whole lot less weird (to me anyway) than "idir fhir agus mná".

I'm almost sure it's because dáiríre is after "s". It's just as in Scottish Gaelic: "tha thu" but "is tu", "ghlac thu" but "a ghlacas tu", etc. In Gaelic languages, people don't like to pronounce dh and th after s.

quote:

if you could list some more of the examples from Ó Dónaill it would be helpful.

As you can see, the meaning here is definitely 'between', lenition follows, and 'agus' is not part of the sentence:

"idir thithe, idir pháirceanna, between houses, fields.
Ag taisteal idir thíortha, travelling between countries.
teacht, cur, idir dhaoine, to come, interfere, between people."